I wuv reading.

Sorry for my embarrassingly sporadic posting, and this one isn't going to be much better, since I am leaving for San Diego for a week and I have a lot of packing and stuff to do. But hopefully, between the summer reading and AP History work I have to do out there, I will glean some inspiration.
So this post is pretty much about some books I am planning to read in the near future. Pshh, talk about lame. Thank you for reading this if you still are. (Sometimes, if you can't tell, I have confidence issues. :P)

1) The Perks Of Being A Wallflower


The grade above mine is really strange in that they all get obsessed about several things and pass it around the grade. For example, Fight Club, both the film and the book. And all of them seem to think that THEY are the one who started the phenomenom. It's quite fun to watch, actually. One of these obsessions is The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, which is, in and of itself, already a cult classic. It's the kind of book that causes people to write to the author and tell he/she that the book kept he/she from killing themselves. Whoa. (Though I read somewhere that someone wrote the same thing to the author of the Twilig ht books and I couldn't help thinking that there's nothing philosophical or deep in those books that could honestly keep someone from killing themselves. Oh, even better: I once hear that HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL kept someone from killing themselves. Yes. HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. How many people are secreting wanting to kill themselves but are just waiting for that classical magnum opus [cough] to keep them from doing so?) But anyway, what I've heard from this book is that it is written in the form of letters from a teenage boy named Charlie to an anonymous reader, and it's all about angst and adolescence and things like that. I think I'm going to love it.

2) Everything Is Illuminated


I bought this book at the incredible Strand bookstore when I went to New York over New Years, and it's been lying on my bookshelf every since. It's weird, I know, but I've just been waiting for the right time to read it. It's written very oddly, so I can't be distracted by any shiny objects while attempting it. It's about...I'm probably going to get this horribly wrong, but I'm pretty sure it is about a guy with the same name as the author who goes on a search throughout Eastern Europe to find the woman who helped his grandfather, somehow, in the Holocaust.
Here's hoping I have a better idea of what the story is about after actually reading it.

3) My Sister's Keeper


I can't help it, but I really like Jodi Picoult's writing. Well, actually, I've only read Nineteen Minutes but that was so absorbing and wrenching that I'm sure her other stuff is also well written. My sister and several of my friends have read this book and lurrrv it, so I figured I might give it a try. Basic story: This girl was conceived as a donor for her sister, and her whole life has revolved around surgeries and such to help her sister, and then I think she decides to sue her family or something light-hearted like that.

4)Eclipse


Yes, yes, I've read the first two Twilight books, and I must say... I just don't... GET it. The most recent Entertainment Weekly cover article was on the books, and it dared compare them to Harry Potter. I got pissed at that. Harry Potter was a series like none seen before, gorgeously crafted with astounding detail, and they were so many people's childhood. They transported us to another world, one of Quidditch and potions, a Ministry of Magic and owl post. All sorts of people loved those books; male and female, rich and poor, young and old. However, the Twilight books appeal mostly to one audience: obsessive teenage and pre-teen girls who think that Edward Cullen is the perfect boyfriend or whatever, even though his speech consists of two variations: 1) Bella, I love you, I would die for you. and 2) Bella, don't be stupid, I'm going to laugh at you now and then two seconds later tell you how much I love you. Bumper stickers on facebook ar e like, "Romeo who? I'm waiting for my Edward Cullen." And I'm thinking.... actually, they're both two men that I would NOT want as mates. Romeo is whiney, melodramatic, and rash. And Edward is just possessive and creepy, no matter how hot he may be. However, I still read the books because they're easy, and fun to read.

Reading is one of my favorite things to do, and it has been since I was three. When I was younger, I would take a book in the car EVERYWHERE, even if the ride was only going to be ten minutes long. When people told me that they couldn't read without getting carsick, I remember feeling incredibly sad for them. What did they DO in the car?? Stare out the window? How unfortunate. :P And I know a lot of random things, from trivia to history facts to lots and lots of geography, and when people ask me how I know, I almost always answer... "I read a lot." And it's true.


In a non-book-related subject, I watched Wes Anderson's Rushmore on Sunday and again this afternoon. It was so freaking awesome my mind is still buzzing. I'll write more about that when I get back and more about..... BILLY JOEL, who I saw in concert last week. Gagagaga. I love old people music.

And just because I have random pictures sitting on my computer, here's one of Audrey Hepburn in that Gap commercial from two years ago.



And this, which I found as a bumper sticker on Facebook and it pretty much made my day.



What books are YOU reading this summer?
I'll write more once I'm back from sunny San Diego! Oy. That sounds like some cheesy weatherman thing. "And it's sunny in San Diego today folks!" Cue cheesy grin.

peace!
a.