Anticipation!

For all of you who havn't started reading, allow me to spark your interest...



Please raise your hand if you just got chills! I can tell that this will be one of those movies that you don't want to end and you walk out of the theater with a new outlook on life.

It premieres November 21st and the anticipation is killin' me!

Happy reading,

B.Z.

Chapter 2

Okay, readers! It is time to start our second month of reading and I am so excited to announce this month's book...Life of Pi!

"Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion." --Brad Thomas - Amazon.com Review

I hope y'all are as eager to dive into this book as I am!

Happy reading,

B.Z.

 

 

Let's all go to the movies

Let's all go to the movies...tonight! 

The book is closed.

Picture from www.empireonline.com.

Refreshments are stashed in the purse.

Picture from the endofcinema.blogspot.com

And excitement is reeling!

Won't you join us at the movies tonight?

I can't wait to see the characters come to life 

and the plot play out. 

I'm also always curious to see how the movie will differ from the book or if it will stay the same.

What do you think?

Happy viewing,

Kaley

Half-read

"A half-read book is a half-finished love affair," states Robert Frobisher.

I couldn't agree more.

I'm midway through, and I can't wait to finish this love affair.

Happy reading,
Kaley

The verdict is in.

Cloud Atlas premiered at midnight, and it has received very mixed reviews...

Picture from www.ew.com.

"Hugely ambitious and hugely entertaining, one of the most fun and most provocative films of the year." -MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filospher

Picture from www.heyuguys.co.uk.

"Maybe if you're 20 years old and high in your dorm room with your friends, the platitudes presented here might seem profound. Anyone else in his or her right mind should recognize it for what it is: a bloated, pseudo-intellectual, self-indulgent slog through some notions that are really rather facile." -Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic

Picture from www.slate.com.

"The film is indeed a powerful and engaging piece of filmmaking, once again proving that the Wachowskis (along with Tom Tykwer) are among the most ambitious new-wave filmmakers to emerge out of the late-'90s new wave." -Scott Mendelson, Huffington Post

Picture from blogs.indiewire.com.

"Finally, what sinks Cloud Atlas is not the largeness of its ambitions but the lack of skill it displays in terms of writing, directing and acting. Earthbound when it wants to be soaring, striving for a kind of profundity that is out of its grasp, this is simply not the film everyone hoped it would be." -Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

I'm about halfway through the book. (I told you this is that kind of book club.) I'm hoping to finish it by next week and still looking forward to seeing the movie. We have to form our own opinions, right?

Happy reading,
Kaley

Robert Frobisher, a homosexual?

Not that it matters. I'm just a little confused. Is Robert Frobisher a homosexual? bisexual?

Picture from julianstark-moviesandotherthings.blogspot.com

By now, you should be through with the second part of the book: Letters from Zedelghem. Within it, there are some homosexual undertones.

*SPOILER ALERT* If you haven't managed to turn those pages (or in my case, tap that finger) fast enough. Do not read on!

We know that Frobisher is indulging in a summer fling with a women. He writes, "Summer has taken a sensuous turn: Ayrs's wife and I are lovers." In other words, he's sleeping with the boss' wife.

But later on he goes into town to make a book deal with a man named Jansch who he describes as a "warty old Shylock [that] looks more repulsive every time I clap eyes on him." He's not attracted to the man. But then he goes on to write, "Business over, he sighed, claimed I'd beggared him, smiled that smile, and put his hairy paw on my knee." The first indication of something weird. "Said it was books I'd come to sell." Wasn't interested in his obviously known advances. "He asked why let business preclude pleasure?" Pleasure huh? "Surely a young buck abroad could find a use for a little pocket money?" What the what!? Like a prostitute!? "Left Jansch asleep an hour later and his wallet starved." Clearly he went through with the offer.

Later on, he is complaining about his mistress and writes, "Why is it I never met a boy I couldn't twist round my finger (not only my finger) but the women of Zedelghem seem to best me every time?" Okay, either I have a dirty mind or he is seriously homosexual.

What do you think?

Happy reading,
Kaley

Get excited!

If you haven't started reading the book yet,
 please allow me to intrigue you...

I'm excited!

Happy reading,
Kaley

Haki-haki, pakeha, tapu

The book opens with entries from The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing. The key word here is Pacific. 

He is in the country of New Zealand and uses lots of Maori terms that can be impossible for most people to understand. 

Thank goodness for my Kindle app and my very-well trained index finger. Not to mention, the two and a half years I spent studying South Pacific culture. 

What was that? Oh, you want me to help you out. Well, let me see what I can do...

Ponga-tree ferns or tree fern logs

Haki-haki-smallpox

Maori-a member of the aboriginal people of New Zealand

Pakeha-a white New Zealander, as opposed to a Maori

Moriori-indigenous people of the Chatham Islands (east of the NZ archipelago)

Rekohu-the main island of the Chatham Islands; literally meaning misty skies

Paua-a large edible mollusk

Tapu-sacredness

Tui-a large NZ honeyeater with glossy blackish plumage and two white tufts at the throat

Aotearoa-the Maori name for NZ; literally meaning land of the long white cloud

Don't get discouraged. I'm on page 50, and I can promise you it gets better. 

Happy reading,
Kaley

Chapter 1

I love movies, and I love books. 

But there is one thing that I love more... 

reading a book and then watching the movie.

What better way to celebrate that than 

to create a new kind of book club? 

One for movie lovers too.

You have 17 days. Good luck!

Happy reading,

Kaley & B.Z.