Weekend Update

[mandysee_mandydo]

It was a very nice, relaxed weekend and we got caught up on a bunch of house work, which was especially nice.

The living room is so much more spacious now! We got rid of one of our bookcases and the couch. Where the couch used to be we have a nice, intimate reading nook with the comfy, oversized chair, the lamp and the tall, thin bookcase. I used milk crates to hold up my amplifier (formerly on the bookcase) and to hold my sheet music and theory/technique books. I still have all my books from flute, strings, piano and organ which amused me. Oh! Tangent! Staples is now carrying student model band instruments in store made by Gibson at VERY affordable prices! I may pick up another flute and perhaps a violin so I can practice again. :D

So anyway, back to the weekend... I discovered that as a snacking cheese, I'm not all that fond of Jarlsberg. It's got a gritty texture and tastes kinda like mild swiss on stale bread. Yuck! Cooked in something, though, it loses the grittiness and has a tolerable flavor, so at least I don't feel like I can't finish the wedge.

Ummm, that's about it. Stayed home, did chores, relaxed and enjoyed the nice weather with some outside reading. Oh! I finished Book the Sixth: The Ersatz Elevator. I really like how the story is building more and more upon the previous books and how Olaf's schemes are getting more and more complicated as he tries to outwit the Baudelaire children. What I think I enjoy more about these as opposed to something like Harry Potter (which I still haven't read and I'm not sure I want to read) is that the books don't get HUGE and far more complicated than they need to be. I think some authors forget they're telling a story rather than amassing a collection of fancy words. Then again, I can't really speak about HP because I haven't read them. But in all seriousness, I haven't read something that big since I read a 2,000+ page book on the Korean War in high school for a report, and that was something I was interested in since it had to do with my Pépère.

And now, a thunderstorm. This makes me very happy. What a beautiful start to a Monday morning! Seriously, I like thunderstorms. :D

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." - Oscar Wilde

Comments

[wizardru.livejournal.com]

'Unfortunate Events' and 'Harry Potter' are opposite ends of the scale, but both are rewarding reads. Events provides nice, simple stories that make for a good, quick read. They are engaging and fun and great to read over and over, particularly for younger readers. Snicket draws the reader in and tells him a rollicking tale.

The first Potter book has a lot in common with the Snicket books, in that it's small, fun tale....but it's filled with enjoyable recurring characters and a world full of whimsy and fanciful ideas that is so engaging that readers hate to leave it. And while Snicket can be read at one sitting by the same audience, Potter was really meant to age with the audience. While book 7 isn't adult fiction, per se, it is much more involved and mature than book 1. Characters who were simple 1-dimensional caricatures early on grow into 3-dimensional beings as the viewpoint character, Harry, comes to realize that they have a life and existence beyond his immediate experience. Book 7 spends a lot of time, for example, concerning itself with Harry's sudden realization that the kindly headmaster wizard Dumbledore didn't just spring like Athena from the head of Zeus, but had a long, eventful life. Potter is also dealing with a lot more heady topics, like racism, class divisions, self sacrifice, death and teen angst...all in an approachable way.

[srturtle.livejournal.com]

Yes, those are very good points. I realize I don't know enough about HP to comment and that the two series are quite different. I suppose it's a matter of preference. I just have a hard time with reading hundreds of pages for fun. Also I think it doesn't help that I'm horrible with retaining stories once I put a book down. If I can't read the whole thing within a couple days I find I have to start over, unless it's particularly engaging.