books i read in 2012.

sadly i did not reach my goal of reading 100 books in 2012. i was on track in june but the second half of the year just didn't happen. any hoot, as of right now i have read 77 books this year. i am currently reading junot diaz's latest book so it might be 78, if i finished by midnight. but technically it should be like 87 books considering how long tolstoy's novels are!

here is what i learned from this year of reading:

-i was born in the wrong era. i should have been an ex-pat in paris with the lost generation (yes this is also the plot for woody allen's "midnight in paris").

-if you aren't reading a work in its original language, research about the translation! and most of the big publishers often use outdated translation. (ie the barnes and noble classics, the prices for the classics are good but you are kinda of getting what you paid for.)

-ray bradbury is a poet and not a sci-fi writer and his books are filled with great gems about life.

-don't forget children's classics. when i read "the borrower" i listed out all the childern's books rebecca makkai alluded to in the novel, so i could read them now. i am disappointed i didn't read them but i'm getting caught up. and i have to add, i should have read "the hobbit" when i was younger. why did i wait so long?

-reading the books that were assigned in high school would have my helped SAT verbal. because those vocab words everyone thinks that no one ever uses, are actually being used.

-ereaders are overhyped. i won one this year and sadly have only read 2 books on it. i need a physical book, my eyes scan too quickly on a screen. oddly enough i buy ebooks just in case the future world is more reliant on ereaders.

-i have a book addiction. i love roaming $1 bookstores and goodwills for books and can not resist a bargain. seriously the amount of books i have purchased this year is prolly equivalent to how many i have read, luckily for me they were only a dollar! lol

books of 2012
1. "dream school" blake nelson
2. "the sun also rises" ernest hemingway
3. "for whom the bell toll" ernest hemingway*
4. "save me the waltz" zelda fitzgerald
5. "tender is the night" f. scott fitzgerald*
6. "the beautiful and the damned" f. scott fitzgerald
7. "the family fang" kevin wilson*
8. "a farewell to arms" ernest hemingway
9. "the old man and the sea" ernest
hemingway
10. "three lives" gertrude stein
11. "the autobiography of alice b. toklas" gertrude stein
12. "ten thousand saints" eleanor henderson
13. "the borrower" rebecca makkai*
14. "the search for delicious" natalie babbitt*
15. "friends like us" lauren fox
16. "the day of the locust" nathanael west
17. "miss lonelyhearts" nathanael west
18. "madame bovary" gustave flaubert
19. "bossypants" tina fey
20. "james and the giant peach" rolad dahl
21. "love with tear us apart" sarah rainone
22. "guns, germs, and steel" jared diamond*
23. "the bfg" rolad dahl
24. "is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)" mindy kaling*
25. "the lover's dictionary" david levithan*
26. "tuck everlasting" natalie babbitt
27. "leaving the atocha station" ben lerner
28. "to kill a mockingbird" harper lee**
29. "the fault in our stars" john green*
30. "everything is illuminated" jonathan safran foer**
31. "dash & lily's book of dares" rachel cohn & david levithan
32. "charlotte's web" e.b. white
33. "steve jobs" walter isaacson
34. "an object of beauty" steve martin
35. "stuart little" e.b. white
36. "from the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler" e.l. konigsburg
37. "franny and zooey" j.d. salinger
38. "we the animals" justin torres*
39. "extremely loud & incredibly close" jonathan safran foer
40. "paul's boutique" dan leroy (331/3 series)
41. "defiance" nechama tec
42. "eeeee eee eeee" tao lin
43. "no one belongs here more than you" miranda july*
44. "wonder" r.j. palacio
45. "raise high the roof beams, carpenters and seymour-an introduction" j.d. salinger
46. "fahrenheit 451" ray bradbury
47. "dandelion wine" ray bradbury*
48. "richard yates" tao lin
49. "pride and prejudice" jane austen
50. "pride and prejudice and zombies" jane austen and seth grahame-smith
51. "lord of the flies" william golding
52. "romeo and juliet" william shakespeare
53. "their eyes were watching god" zora neale hurston
54. "the martian chronicles" ray bradbury
55. "the emperor's children" claire messud
56. "you don't love me yet" jonathan lethem
57. "howl and other poems" allen ginsberg
58. "anna karenina" leo tolstoy
59. "most talkative: stories from the front lines" andy cohen
60. "to the lighthouse" virginia woolf
61. "the magicians" lev grossman
62. "eat pray love" elizabeth gilbert
63. "paris, i love you but you're bringing me down" rosecrans baldwin
64. "nw" zadie smith
65. "mr. penumbra's 24 hour bookstore" robin sloan*
66. "the witches" roald dahl
67. "something wicked this way come" ray bradbury
68. "the house on mango street" sandra cisneros**
69. "caramelo" sandra cisneros
70. "you lost me there" rosecrans baldwin
71. "have you seen marie?" sandra cisneros
72. "war and peace" leo tolstoy
73. "the secret book of frida kahlo" f.h. haghenbeck
74. "two from galilee" marjorie holmes
75. "the perks of being a wallflower" stephen chbosky**
76. "a christmas carol" by charles dickens
77. "the hobbit" j. r r tolkien*

*my favorites this year
**my favorite re-reads/i will love forever

friends please comment any books you suggest i should read in 2013 or your favorite books of 2012!

the hobbit. j.r.r. tolkien. (85)

i am starting to realize that i spent my time reading the series "baby-sitter's club", "goosebumps" and "fear street" as a kid and not enough time reading classic kid novels like "the hobbit". so now i have to make up for lost time. "the hobbit" has been on my list to read ever since i read rebecca makkai's "the borrower", i started a list of the children/young adult books she mentions and "the hobbit" is on that list. and with the movie release, it shot to the top of my reading list. (i wonder how many people are reading thanks to hollywood.)

i regret not reading "the hobbit" as a kid because i really enjoyed it as an adult. it has me excited for the movie and to read the lord of the rings trilogy (which is good because it is on my list of 30 to read before 30). i was surprised by how easy a read it was. for some odd reason i associated fantasy with complex syntax and difficult vocabulary. i think it's because when you hear "nerds" talk about this stuff it's seems like it has it's own secret vocab but really it's just imaginative words from the author. i also loved the style of the storytelling, how the narrator would clue the reader in on things, it was like listening to a grandparent read a story.

since i have never read the lord of the rings trilogy or have seen the movies, i did feel that some things were probably referenced that i missed but figured i would just reread it once i am done with the trilogy. i was shocked with how quickly gollum showed up in the book. and i would totally be eaten alive if i ever played a riddle game with him because some of those riddles were over my head. i also kept on imagining gandalf as dumbledore which is understandable right? they are both wizards and kind of look alike:

i tried not to let the movie trailer, i've seen effect how i viewed the characters. at first i saw bilbo baggins as "sam" from lord of the rings but then he became the actor that plays him in the movie.

i thought baggins was a great character and a true hero. i am glad that he gave in to his took side and went on an adventure. i, like gandalf, was proud of him when he gave up the arkenstone to bard in an attempt to make peace. i was also disappointed and frustrated with thorin for his dwarfish greed. it made sense to help out the lake people especially since bard was the one that killed smaug. (wow look at me with my nerd talk, lol) that treasure was so immense that sharing a little would still be sharing a lot.

also since i hadn't read the trilogy i was all sorts of confused by all the different types of creatures. i confused the trolls and goblins at first. i was also confused about who was good or evil. cos i know liv tyler and orlando bloom were elves but weren't they good? and these elves at first seemed kinda mean. but then again everyone was kind of distrusting of all others at the beginning.

i was also waiting for bilbo to turn crazy with greed because of the ring. didn't this happen to frodo and of course gollum? i guess i will find out more about this in the trilogy. and last but not least, gandalf is all knowing right? like how dumbledore knew everything??? finding the answers to all of these questions has me excited for the trilogy.

lol. my enthusiam for this book has me surprised. looking forward to seeing the movie and starting "the fellowship of the ring". but i mean the dwarves ride ponies, how could it be bad?!?! lol

ps but i just saw on imdb that they turned this into three movies? is that right? wow, i mean there is a lot to cover in the book, but three movies?!?! isn't the first one like super long too?!?!

harold and maude.

"harold and maude" has been on my to watch list for at least 10 years. i first heard about it from my friend leslie, it is her favorite movie. so when bill had charlie watch it in "the perks of being a wallflower", i decided i should finally watch it.

"harold and maude" is a love story but what makes it unique is that harold is in his early twenties and maude is a seventy-nine year old woman. the idea of them together grossed me out but it's only because i think of the sex involved. oddly the priest in the film shared my opinion. though i hope to be in my seventies and still getting my kicks, the idea of being a twentysomething and sleeping with some that old is gross. but i mean people love this film so i needed to get my mind out of the gutter.

due to its status as a cult classic, i wasn't sure what to expect and then seeing the drawing of harold hanging himself on the cover, i was all sorts of confused.

quick endorsement for the criterion collection edition. it comes with a booklet with interviews and the illustrations for it and the disc menu are adorable.

so harold hanging himself is actually how the movie opens. turns out harold is obsessed with suicide. he fakes his own suicides throughout the film. i find most offbeat protagonist quirks attractive however did not find this endearing at all. it was just creepy especially since his mom turned a blind eye to it. it is eventually revealed why he does it and within that context it makes sense so
he becomes less weird. but initially i was like what is wrong with this kid?

and i guess that is why i didn't enjoy this film. i didn't get the appeal of the characters, i wasn't attracted to harold or maude. if a love story is good, you will fall in love with both characters: tom/summer, celeste/jess (though both of these couples do not end up together). think of "sleepless in seattle" you love both hank and ryan's characters so you want them to be together, you root for their love. sadly, this did not happen for me, i did not fall completely in love with harold or maude.

i did think harold was cute, especially in his little 70's outfits, though the suits he wore for dates were horrid. also i dug the sound of voice. i actually found the pranks he played on his dates funny and would not have ran out screaming like the girls did. however the dealbreakers were definitely his mommy issues and his immaturity. at the dinner table he seemed more like a 12 year old than a twentysomething. i often couldn't gage his age which made him unattractive because he seemed like jailbait.

maude was a delightful character. i read the first part of the essay written by film critic, matt zoller seitz in dvd booklet and i got what she was supposed to embody, the counterculture ideals of the sixties but within the older generation versus the youth. i found her interesting with her smell machine, vagina sculpture (that was a vagina he sticks his head in right?), desire to free trees and her lust for life. i also appreciated her philosophies in life, understanding that we are a special individual and not all the same flower or part of a larger group of flowers. however, i hated the fact that she stole cars and her reckless driving. there was nothing cute or spunky about those two things. i mean i'm all for damning the man but you should still have respect for private property. i was disgusted by how she just took cars and this kinda ruined her for me. i mean steal government cars as a form of protest but not your neighbors. also cars can kill people so did not like the reckless driving. i could see how harold would fall for her but she was not my cup of tea.

and let me clairfy, i didn't support their love because of the age gap but rather because i didn't fall in love with them myself. in fact, i was disappointed with myself for being judgey earlier. people should be allowed to be with those that make them happy. it reminded me of the may-december romance in "dandelion wine" and how upset i was that others did not understand it, yet here i was being close-minded. and at the risk of like a lolita (cos that was not the case), i feel like i could have had my own "harold and maude" friendship with my high school english teacher, mr. brice. my senior year we bonded over mullets (i had an "i heart mullet" pin on my backpack and he used to have one, he showed me his id as proof), "a clockwork orange" (i tired to get him to have our class read it), and my civil disobedience (he gave me a pep talk about doing what you believe in, when i called into the office for trying to stage a student protest). he also wore vans. he was totally my maude down to the bohemian-counterculture-free spirit though i prolly wasn't his harold. lol

even with all this, i was not crazy about the film. maybe i need to give it another watch. i know it was a black comedy and i got the humor, but still no sparks. i do understand why bill had charlie watch it. maude does share some very valuable gems about life with harold:

"vice, virtue. it's best not to be too moral. you cheat yourself out of too much life. aim above morality. if you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully."

"harold, everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. you just can't let the world judge you too much."

"a lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. they're just backing away from life. reach out. take a chance. get hurt even. but play as well as you can. go team, go! give me an L. give me an I. give me a V. give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."

i think these are important life lessons for everyone. but i guess i watched this too late in life. these thoughts aren't new to me though they are important. i should have watched it my first year of college when leslie first mentioned it. i mean i understand why it is great and it is, and it deserve all the praise it received and more, it just didn't blow my mind.

ps also without giving any spoilers. i did love the ending in terms of maude. she did live life to the fullest!!!

pss oh and damn you at&t for ruining the cat steven's song that harold and maude sing in the movie! and way to go cat steven's on the soundtrack!

psss the night that i watched this totally dreamt that i was dating an old man, not just older but old. lol

ruby sparks.

grandma bea and i do not have fancy cable or satellite that gives you a guide to look for tv shows. instead we have to use a tv guide or channel 2 which scrolls through a listing of shows. though it can be a pain to use channel 2 because you have to wait for the channel you want to come around, it has kept me informed on what is new on dvd. it was in one of these said segments that i learned about "ruby sparks".

"ruby sparks" is the story of a struggling novelist who writes about the girl of his dreams, only for her to come to life. the storyline caught my eye and so did the actors. it's stars paul dano who we all adored in "little miss sunshine". i also saw a movie with him and zooey deschanel called "gigantic", it was cute but not super great. i also just learned thanks to his imdb that he voiced "alexander" in "where the wild things are". but who really caught my eye was chris messina. i first fell in love with me as the sweet adoptive dad with the great syrup/love analogy in "away we go". i am also loving that i get to see him on a regular basis on "the mindy project". he is so flippin' cute! he plays calvin's (dano) older brother.

at first i thought ruby was played by erin from "the office" but it's actually zoe kazan. and after watching this movie, i have a huge girl crush on her! you may remember her as the youngest sister in "it's complicated". anyway i learned on wikipedia she wrote "ruby sparks"!!!! and she and dano have been dating for 5 years now, so cute! and way to go her for writing such a great screenplay!

so as i said before the movie is about a lonely novelist who has a lot of issues (he sees a therapist). he wrote this amazing debut novel (everyone thinks he is a genius, though he hates the word). he even has bookish groupies, aka maeby from "arrested development"(!).

random digression but i could totally see myself as a bookish groupie, but have never thought of who i would sleep with based on book alone. i will do this now. please note this is based on their writing not the picture on the book jacket.

contemporary writers, i would want to sleep with: nick hornby, chuck klosterman, kevin wilson and maybe chuck palaniuk (though he would probably be into some crazy shit though i would be open to try. lol)

olden days: hemingway (we'd get along drunkenly and i would forgive him for his cheating), f. scott fitzgerald (ditto for what i said about hemingway, lol), garcia marquez and bradbury, definitely ray bradbury!

back to the movies. so calvin's therapist has him write about a person willing to meet his dog scottie (who is named after f. scott, i'm not a dog person but would consider someone with a pet name that cute!) and that is when he begins to write about ruby, a girl he has been dreaming about. and then one day she appears and she is real! i don't want to give any spoilers but will say that calvin realizes the power he has over ruby because he did write her. i will add that not everything is perfect for them, even though he created her but his love for her is real which is kinda odd. this also provoked another question for me as i read: "do author's fall in love with their characters?" like did austen love mr. darcy, fitzgerald- daisy, kerouac- sal, or tolstoy-natasha? it would make sense also because they were probably based on people they knew in real life.

oh and if you want to know what happens check it out or look for it on netflix.

also ruby is absolutely adorable, which is in part because zoe is so cute. she was the quirky girl that every boy falls in love with. i have a love/hate relationship with these types of girls in movie (see: sam in "garden state", claire in "elizabethtown", "allison" in "yes man", summer in "(500) days of summer" [yup those last two are zooey deschanel]). because i consider myself a quirky-ish girl yet i can't find a artsy boy that looks cute in cardigans to fall for me! where is my romantic comedy?!?! soundtracked by the shins?!?!? lol. but seriously these types of film fill me false hope. but than again this movie proves you need to be in love with the person and not the idea of the person. so i'll shut up now.

oh and before i forget, love love love loved that this movie was filmed in la. i have a soft spot for movies in which i can spot the filming locations. like where calvin gives a talk is totally the billy wilder theater at the hammer musum and the after party is in the hammer gift shop!

so yes go check out this movie!! also if you like books, you'll like this.

p.s. the book cover for the book that calvin writes at the end is totally cute. if it was a real book, i would have picked it up simply based on the cute cover.

anything goes.

seriously blogger is killing me! just right now it deleted the intro for this post. and now i have to start over! (i just looked and there is an update to fix this so got that taken care of!)

my friends and i recently saw "anything goes" at the ahmanson (we are season ticket holders) and i fell in love with it! rachel york's performance was stellar, the storyline was cute and the dialogue was witty! and of course, since cole porter wrote the music, the music was amazing!!!! i absolute love cole porter and was delightfully surprised because i did not know that "i get a kick out of you" and "de-lovely" were in this musical. i also learned that "friendship" was a cole porter song! i only knew of it because it was a song on this disney sing-a-long video i had as a kid, though they cleaned it up to make it kid-friendly. "friendship" was my favorite number of the night but all the music was so good that we were singing songs as we left the theater (my friend danny said that back in the day if the audience left singing the numbers it was an indication that the show would be successful). danny and i were singing them the next day too, so it was super successful in our eyes. also if you are reading this and are not familiar with cole
porter go google him! i love his songs because they are so well-written and clever. his little ditties are so witty and adorable.

i was so excited about the show that i decided to check out the DVD from the library so i could listen/watch the songs over again. sadly i had my hopes up too high, the movie version was horrible compared to the the stage production. even bing crosby added to its horribleness, my grandma told me she always thought he was wrongly casted and i have to agree with her. though crosby had a voice, they needed a dancer. i love donald o'connor and enjoyed his performance. however, would have liked him in the lead role from the stage than the one played. mitzi gaynor was adorable in her role. i also like jennmarie though i loved her wardrobe more! the polka dot dress she wears during "all through the night" was de-lovely and delightful!

but the actors couldn't save it. i disliked the movie because the book from the musical was not used in the movie. the stage storyline was a lot more entertaining, it had stowaways, public enemies, sex fiends, secret lovers, gamblers and ended with a wedding! the movie verison not as exciting. crosby played a broadway star putting together a new show with an upcoming television star who was also kinda rude (which broke my heart). they both head to europe and they each (without the others' knowledge) sign a girl to play the lead. they both try to convince the other to fire the girl the other signed but end up falling in love with that girl. in the end, they ended up changing their production storyline so that everyone can live happily ever after. basically they change the storyline to what happens them so it's one of those weird musical in a movie thing, though we don't see them reinact their story. but in contrast to the stage production it was boring! not even gabriel blowing his horn could have helped it. (85 actually didn't as its closing number.)

sadly they did not use all of the songs from the stage production. it broke
my heart because there was no "friendship" which as i mentioned before was my favorite. also they didn't use my favorite songs as part of the storyline (meaning they didn't break into songs randomly to express their innermost thoughts) but rather use them
as production numbers within the movie kinda like a show within a show. for example, "i get a kick out of you" was sang to a lover in the play but was a nightclub number for the french singer. and they kinda killed "you're the top" which was a cute ditty between two friends but instead in the movie was a used as a number they were practicing to prove which leading lady was the best. and i think this is what made the difference and resulted in my dislike of the movie. the musical numbers were not the words of lovers but actors playing lovers. "all through the night" and "de-lovely" were sweet because they were sang to their girls versus an audience. by making the songs productions within the movie, it resulted in the songs losing their sincerity. in this case, using the songs like this did not work, anything did not go.

though i love the songs, the storyliruined too weak especially in contrast to what i saw on the stage. so skip the movie but if you get a chance to see the stage production, go see it!

the family that reads together, stays together

today is my grandpa jimmy's birthday and while looking for photos of him to post on facebook came across this newspaper clipping in my grandma's binders. it's from the delano record and was printed on tuesday, august 13, 1968.

the description of the photo reads:

avid readers- these youngsters were among the top award winners in the summer reading club at delano branch library. shown are, from left, zack squires, who gave a talk on rock hunting at the awards programs; walter youngest "pirate" in the club; the salim youngsters, bobby, john, annette, and tracy, who represented the most members from one family; and librarian mrs. jane randolph. delano record photo.

the four kids on the right are my uncle bobby, uncle john, my mom, and auntie
tracey! plus the library they are pictured in is the very same library that i use today and used as a kid! this clipping reminded me how amazing grandma bea is, she took two generation of kids to participate in the library's summer reading programs. it's great to know that before my grandma bea took my sister and i to the library every summer, she took my uncles, aunts, and mom. i know these visits made me a lifelong reader and of the previous generation, my uncle john and auntie kathy are the most avid readers. i am trying to continue this tradition with my little brother, i signed him up this summer for the reading program. and hopefully one day i will have my future kids participate as well.

a christmas memory. truman capote. (84)

i read "a chrismas memory" before, it was one of the short stories with "breakfast at tiffany's", however when i saw it among the holiday books, i had to check it out. i am glad i did it, is a great story to read for the holidays.

"a christmas memory" is about the last christmas a young boy and his older cousin share together. it is explained that a lifetime separates them, he is seven and she is sixty-something. regardless of age, they are best friends and have a wonderful time together. they have a handful of christmas traditions which they do together: making fruitcakes (they send them out to random people including the president), chop down a tree, decorate their tree and of course, make and exchange gifts. and what makes this story so sweet is their selflessness and love for one another. they do not have much but they make the most of what they have and end up creating a wonderful christmas together.

there are so many great parts in "a christmas memory". the "museum" they created with a three legged biddy chicken so they could raise money for ingredients for the fruitcakes. or how they killed flies in the house for pennies and then were remorseful when counting their money due to thoughts of the dead flies. the cousin's superstitons, they counted $13 for fruitcake money but threw a penny away because 13 is unlucky (she stays in bed on the thirteenth). how they had to buy bootleg whiskey from mr. haha, an indian. mr. haha asked them who was drinking but when they explained it was for fruitcakes, he sold it to them, then gave them back their money and asked for a cake as payment instead. and of course, i loved when they got drunk off of the leftover whiskey (though they sadly got in trouble for it, he is seven!). and because of their poverty, how they made their own ornaments out of paper, they even saved up hershey-bar tin foil to make angels!!! so cute and sweet.

but the best part was at the end. they secretly made kites for each other for christmas and go out to fly them. and while they are flying kites, the cousin made this observation:

"i've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the lord. and i imagined that when he came it would be like looking at the baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. and it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. but i'll wager it never happens. i'll wager at the very end a body realizes the lord has already show himself. the things as they are"--her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass an queenie pawing earth over her bone--"just what they've always seen, was seeing him. as for me, i could leave the world with today in my eyes."

i think the cousin's observation is something that we need to remember not only on christmas but every day. we take for granted all the beauty in the world. people are always looking for some large sign from god or whatever higher being they believe in. however, in order to see god, we need to appreciate the small things in life. for those who are religious, god is love and so anywhere there is genuine love, there is god. and it's even more important to remember today that it isn't about the gifts but about the time you spend with your love ones. i love presents but it's the memories and thought behind the gift that will last forever not the material gift.

in the end, the boy moved away to military school and the cousin eventually passes away. it's sad but they will always have their christmas memory so their love is not lost.

last but not least, this book was donated to the library in memory of dianna sedor, so decided to honor her: