Currently reading: Savages by Don Winslow

We had for a brief time a civilization that clung to a thin strip of land between the ocean and the desert.

Water was our problem, too much of it on one side, too little on the other, but it didn’t stop us. We built houses, highways, hotels, shopping malls, condo complexes, parking lots, parking structures, schools, and stadiums.

We proclaimed the freedom of the individual, bought and drove millions of cars to prove it, built more roads for the cars to drive on so we could go the everywhere that was nowhere. We watered our lawns, we washed our cars, we gulped plastic bottles of water to stay hydrated in our dehydrated land, we put up water parks.

We built temples to our fantasies—film studios, amusement parks, crystal cathedrals, megachurches—and flocked to them.

We went to the beach, rode the waves, and poured our waste into the water we said we loved.

We reinvented ourselves every day, remade our culture, locked ourselves in gated communities, we ate healthy food, we gave up smoking, we lifted our faces while avoiding the sun, we had our skin peeled, our lines removed, our fat sucked away like our unwanted babies, we defied aging and death.

We made gods of wealth and health.
A religion of narcissism.
In the end, we worshipped only ourselves.
In the end, it wasn’t enough. 

I actually finished this last night, so technically I’m not currently reading it, but meh. Semantics. It took me a while to get used to Winslow’s style of writing. He’s a fan of run-on sentences that sometimes turn into run-on paragraphs. But it keeps the pace fast and interesting. The style is able to take the reader into the characters’ heads, which is essential as it helps us relate to them easily. Essential to me especially, since I have never used drugs or smoked marijuana which is the core of the story.

Currently reading: My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler

I think we can all agree that sleeping around is a great way to meet people. Furthermore, sleeping around with midgets is a great way to meet midgets.

If all the stories on this book are to be believed, I can’t help but wonder how Chelsea Handler’s vagina is still intact. Healthy vagina or not, I have to admit Chelsea’s rude stories are, as she’d say, a hoot.

Currently reading: Eggs, by Jerry Spinelli

Sometimes in the night, when fireflies outside his bedroom window blinked and jiggled like stars on strings, when sleep curled furrily about him, sometimes then he thought he could feel his mother getting closer.

After reading the Millenium trilogy, I wanted to read something lighter and who better to lift my spirits up than Jerry Spinelli? :)

Currently reading: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

“That dragon tattoo…Why did you get it?”
“You didn’t see it before?”
He smiled all of a sudden.
“I mean, I’ve glanced at it, but when you were uncovered I was pretty busy stopping the bleeding and extracting bullets and so on.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Out of curiosity, nothing more.”
Salander thought for a while. Then she looked at him.
“I got it for reasons that I don’t want to discuss.”
“Forget I asked.”
“Do you want to see it?”
He looked surprised. “Sure. Why not?”
She turned her back and pulled the hospital gown off her shoulder. She sat so that the light from the window fell on her back. He looked at her dragon. It was beautiful and professionally done, a work of art.
After a while she turned her head.
“Satisfied?”
“It’s beautiful. But it must have hurt like hell.”
“Yes,” she said. “It hurt.” 

I’m not even halfway through this book and it’s already shocked me more than twice. It’s definitely unpredictable, and I love it when a book keeps me guessing. 

Currently reading: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Salander had first seen Mimmi when she performed in a show at the Gay Pride Festival a couple of years before and then ran into her in a beer tent later that night. Mimmi had been dressed in an odd lemon yellow plastic dress that revealed more than it concealed. Salander saw nothing erotic about the outfit, but she had been drunk enough to suddenly want to pick up a girl dressed like a lemon. To Salander’s great surprise the citrus fruit had taken one look at her, laughed out loud, kissed her without embarrassment, and said You’re the one I want. They had gone back to Salander’s place and had sex all night long.

Salander is studying Mathematics in this book. Why must you make things so difficult for me, Lisbeth?!? Otherwise, it’s all very interesting.

Currently reading: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Salander was dressed for the day in a black T-shirt with a picture on it of E.T. with fangs, and the words I AM ALSO AN ALIEN. She had on a black skirt that was frayed at the hem, a worn-out black, mid-length leather jacket, rivet belt, heavy Doc Marten boots, and horizontally striped, green-and-red knee socks. She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind. In other words, she was exceptionally decked out.

It’s taking me longer to get through this book than I would’ve expected. It’s not that I’m not interested enough, it’s just that I have so many shows and movies to watch, I haven’t had the time to really read that much. Yes, I lead a very busy life, thank you! 

Currently reading: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves. When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vacuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called “Landslide.” When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing.
And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

I love that part. Started reading this in Fontana when I went away for 3 days with my family. Didn’t really plan on paying much attention to it, but I’m now almost half-way through.

In other news, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY! :)

Currently reading: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Except…surely everyone who liked nineteenth-century fiction had read Vanity Fair? And was a book entitled Hangover Square an appropriate gift for a recovering alcoholic? And then there was the sex in Fingersmith … Would he think that was some kind of come-on? And wasn’t the sex mostly of the lesbian variety? Would he think she was trying to warn him that she wasn’t interested in him in that way? When in fact the whole idea was that she was trying to indicate the opposite? Plus, he’d had a heart attack, so maybe no book containing sex of any variety was tactful. Oh, shit. She looked out of the window of the bus, saw a chain bookstore and got off at the next stop.

I’ve only just realized that all 3 books that I’ve posted about here are based in England. I guess I like English writers.

(Although, between Juliet, Naked and Never Let Me Go, I did read The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I went through them pretty fast, so I wasn’t able to post about them here. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed reading them a lot and would recommend it to most of my friends.)

Currently reading: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

We’d got a video player in the billiards room a couple of years earlier, and by that spring had built up quite a good collection of movies. A lot of them had sex in them, but most scenes would end just as the sex was starting up, or else you’d only see their faces and their backs. And when there was a useful scene, it was difficult to see it more than fleeting because there were usually twenty others in the room watching with you. We’d evolved this system where we called for particular favourite scenes to be played again—like, for instance, the moment the American jumps over the barbed wire on his bike in The Great Escape. There’d be a chant of: “Rewind! Rewind!” until someone got the remote and we’d see the portion again, sometimes three, four times. But I could hardly, by myself, start shouting for rewinds just to see sex scenes again.

I’m about three quarters done with this book and I have nothing but praise for it. It’s the kind of book that I can’t put down. And when I have to, I find myself thinking about it and anticipating what will happen next. It’s nice to find a book that keeps you off the computer for a change.

I can’t wait to watch the movie, especially since I like the actors playing the main characters. I have to prepare myself for a Keira that I would not like though. Still, I’m sure she’d be great.