Lucy Knisley and the Awesome HP Summaries

My bud Alexis linked me Lucy Knisley's works the other day and I am (im)patiently waiting until she finishes up posters for the last three Harry Potter books so I can buy them all together and save monies.  They're hilarious, adorable, and accurate.  You can see one through four here, and purchase them here.

 (Note: That kitty next to Hermione when she first shows up is not Crookshanks.  Would I really link you something Harry-related if it weren't accurate?  Come on.)

Ben Kweller & Pete Yorn

On Friday my Canadian Marisa and I bussed over to the Pabst theater to see two boys that I have wanted to see in concert ever since I was fourteen--Ben Kweller and Pete Yorn.  Poor Ben was incredibly sick, but he still came up on stage in his parka and played six songs or so, all which sounded great.  He was flanked by two barf buckets, and I kind of wish he'd used them.  It would have been enough to make me buy the recording afterward. 

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Seeing Pete was like a dream come true for me. I've been a fan of his music ever since his first album, musicforthemorningafter came out in 2001.  Along with the two albums that followed to make up his little musical "triology", I listened to Pete all while reading the kick ass Abarat series by Clive Barker, and during the concert the vivid images from those books kept flashing through my mind.  He played (almost) all of my old favorites.  It was an ah-mazing night.  Even the part where I fell in a snowbank while trying to brush the snow off my car.

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Reads: The Amulet of Samarkand

Rating: 4.89 out of 5

This is another book I think very highly of, and I never hesitate to recommend it to anyone (unless they're a soulless type without a sense of humor or love of fantasy). The cover on the left is the kind of cover style featured on the trilogy that I own. I also own a hardcover with the cover version the right (which I greatly prefer, so pretty and subtle!) but I believe they stopped making nice covers with the other two in the series... unless I've just been internet-disabled and can't find them. Not that the one on the left isn't nice. It's very.... nice. It's fine! Oh god, new topic.

These books are funny, clever, with a good plot and likable but different characters and a setting that is unlike anything else I've run across. There are tons of little historical references that Stroud ties in with the magical context (which I love) and a great deal of footnotes because one of the main narrators has the ability to think on more than one level of consciousness at one time.

Reads: The Time Traveler's Wife

Before I give this book its stellar grade I'd like to give a shout out of praise to my boyfriend Benjamin for dealing with me every time I was reading and began sobbing in public on the bus, and in my studio at eight in the morning, and also for taking me (somewhat) seriously when I instructed him to never ever get his feet amputated. He rocks.

Rating: 4.88 out of 5
Obviously, I loved this book. Along with Carol Goodman's The Lake of Dead Languages and Clive Barker's Abarat, it will gladly be listed off whenever people ask what some of my favorite books were. I think a lot of my love for it had to do with where I am right now in my life as a 21 year-old girl in the midst of a long distance relationship. I could relate perfectly to the main character Clare while she waited for Henry to appear again, counting down the days until the next day on the list he'd given her. (Speaking of which, less than a month until I see Benj again!) There was plenty of sprinklings of sex, ups and downs, and a cover photograph that is ingenius. Good book. I haven't seen the movie yet, so shut yo trap.

Reads: Another Sedaris and Movie Books

4.56 out of 5
My favorite bit was, no surprise, the bit involving David's sister Amy asking him how to say 'blow job' in Japanese. This cover is also, in my opinion, the best that's ever graced the covers of his books. (On a side note, the other day I wore silver sequined pumps and a '60s floral dress and determined that Amy Sedaris is my favorite celebrity. By far.)

3.32 out of 5
I desperately hate when this happens because I am such a lover of reading, but I honestly think the movie was better than the book in this case. However, I would recommend this to anyone who ever wondered what people mean when they say their mind was racing, as if time were going excruciatingly slow and their brain was on speed- Kaysen explains it very well in one chapter, and I used to have it happen to me all the time before I was awarded medication.

3.89 out of 5
It's a short book, so it was a quick reread in preparation for me seeing the newest film adaptation with Will Smith (where apparently the vampires aren't vampires...). Matheson's stories are always chilling and thought-inducing, and this one is no exception. Another good cover illustration, btw. They blurred it out on this edition, but on the version I own it's very clear (very tiny, but very clear) and it's full of rotten decaying goodness.

Reads: Two Sedaris' and a Meyer

Rating: 2.998 out of 5
I read Naked prior to reading Barrel Fever, and was definitely confused for a moment when I realized that the stories were not all true little ditties from David's life. I found the back portion of essays to be much more enjoyable, as they were both true and not as wacky (I mean, still wacky, but a better kind of wacky).

Rating: 4.002 out of 5
As the vast majority of these stories from the lovely David Sedaris came from a time when hitchhiking was not an uncommon occurrence, it spoke straight to my love of the '70s. I only wish I had been one of his sisters so I could have turned out even half as kooky as Amy. (On a side note, to anyone who wants to research the book Naked online, be sure to add "Sedaris" after the word "Naked" before you click to search on Google Images. I could have linked you to a lovely array of porn, but I was trying to keep this post somewhat kosher.)

Rating: 4.79 out of 5
I definitely preferred this one to the first in the series- sure, it had the same number of horrible cheesy adjectives, but there was a hell of a lot more Jacob Black goodness. And the way the heartbreak was described was amazingly accurate. My problem now is getting a hold of the third and fourth books as the reserve lists at the library are incredibly long and I refuse to buy two in hard cover when I already own two in paperback.

Reads: Horsies and Shiny Things

Rating:
3.89 out of 5

For a historical book it was fairly interesting, especially considering This Girl doesn't like horses. Hillenbrand's writing style was favorable and it reminded me of my own, with short, epic, cutting, last statement lines a'la "It was the last time they'd see each other." The epilogue was properly depressing, as all good historical epilogues should be.

Rating:
4.83 out of 5

Yeah, yeah, I KNOW. I read Twilight and I fell in love, okay? The key is to read it without the critical mind so many of us sarcastic teenagers are known for (crap, I'm not a teenager anymore). Once I let go and let myself get comfortable it was impossible not to sigh woefully as the last chapter approached. I was even able to ignore each time the word "musical" was used as an adjective.

Current Read: Seabiscuit

After finishing Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, I was in the mood for another true story, and Seabiscuit was on my shelf. I knew it had to be pretty good- they made it into a feature film, dammit- but for a girl who dislikes horses I didn't think it would actually be as interesting as it is turning out to be. About half done as of the moment.

Also, Seabiscuit is a brilliant name for a cat. Preferably a long-haired grey one.