Too Long Gone

Geez...It's been two weeks since my last update. I'm getting lazy! This will not do.

Finals happened, I felt very good about them and I know I aced two of my classes....the two I'm the most concerned about STILL have not posted their grades. Frustrating.

Went to San Diego to visit my girls Sasha and Kyle. Had way too much fun! Went shopping, went to the beach, went to the bars...everything I can't really do while I'm in school. And it was awesome. Want to go back right now.

This past weekend I wen to see my mom and we went to Paso Robles to go to Hearst Castle and wine tasting. Again, too much fun. We went to like 7 or 8 wineries and...well ya know, go a little liquored up. And I came home with, like, 7 bottles of wine. Very successful if you ask me.

So new quarter, new classes, new books. More later, as right now I'm exhausted and want to finish enjoying my glass of Paso Robles wine and relax....

Procrastination

So I won't have any new updates of books or anything related to books for a few days...it's finals week. Ugh. I only have two exams: history and French, but I have this huge paper for medieval art history to write that's due Friday by 5pm. I don't wanna write it. Mainly because I don't particularly like medieval art history. All the art is basically the same: same subject matter (religious decoration for churches mostly), same reasoning behind the subject matter. There isn't as much to say about it, unlike modern or postmodern art, which I can talk for HOURS about. Love it. LOVE IT. Medieval...not so much. So I'm going to sequester myself in my room for the next three days, only emerging for food and to use the bathroom, to write this goddamn paper. I'm gonna write the sh-t out of, too. Watch.

Just for kicks: Since today is all about the edumacation, go read one of these fabulous history books. Do it.

1. Sex with Kings- Eleanor Herman
2. Sex with the Queen- Eleanor Herman
3. Brunelleschi's Dome- Ross King
4. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling- Ross King
5. Queen of Fashion- Caroline Weber
6. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol- Andy Warhol

Books into Movies

So...books into movies. Sometimes it turns out really great, like Gone With the Wind or the Harry Potter films. Other times it's horrible, like when Hollywood took my absolute favorite book The Time Traveler's Wife and made into a movie. A bad movie. Not cool people. I just think that if you're going to make a book into a movie, you should stay true to the material, and if what works in the book won't work on film, then don't make the movie! Okay. Rant done now.

It's favorite books time

So I'm currently reading Possession by A.S. Byatt, and it's totally awesome, but I am no where near finishing it. So I decided to do a post about a few of my favorite books. Today it will be novels.

1. The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffinegger
2. White Oleander- Janet Fitch
3. The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
4. Wonder When You'll Miss Me- Amanda Davis
5. Water for Elephants- Sarah Gruen
6. Stardust- Neil Gaiman
7. Case Histories- Kate Atkinson
8. The Vampire Lestat- Anne Rice
9. Atonement- Ian McEwan
10. The Reader- Bernard Schlink

These are my top 10 favorite novels. There are many more that I have read and loved, but these are the ones that will always be on my bookshelf.

I'm going to do more top 10 lists, history books, current nonfiction, biographies, poetry, etc. Hope you love it!

Gods do exist, we just need to believe in them

So I finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Oh. My. God. Such an epic book. Have you read Neil Gaiman before? Because everyone should. He is such an amazing storyteller and it is so easy to get lost in his books.

So here's the basic summary of the novel. I didn't write this I borrowed it from Wikipedia because I am never good at explaining plots in a coherent and articulate way:

"The central concept is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them. Immigrants to the United States brought dwarves, elves, leprechauns, and other spirits and gods with them, but their power is diminished as people's beliefs wane. New gods have arisen, reflecting America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, and illegal drugs, among others."

I'm not going to go into detail, cause that would spoil it and a part of this blog is to encourage people to actually read books.

Gaiman has a way of making his characters so real and vivid, especially the gods, seeing as all of them have to survive in a human world where people don't believe in them anymore. His new "American gods", the ones about technology and media, are also especially terrifying: they can control our televisions, even at one point talking to the main character, Shadow, through the image of Lucy Ricardo on his hotel room television.

Because all of the gods feel so real in the book, I started thinking that they might actually exist in our world. I mean it's entirely possible right? Gods from foreign lands were brought here and worshipped until people stopped believing one day, first because they were forced into other religions, such as Christianity, and then in favor of our new "gods": technology, science, media, celebrity, etc. We do worship these things; I know I can't live without my precious iPhone and my celebrity obsession.

So if these new gods exist, that would make it entirely possible for the old ones to be walking among us, right?

Numero Une

So I decided to start a blog. I'm not usually into blogs, because I prefer to keep my thoughts private, but I finally decided to write one about something I love: books. I LOVE BOOKS. Reading is by far my favorite pastime. I have found since being a university student, I don't read everything I want to in favor of just getting my homework done. So now I have a blog to motivate me to read. I read the books, I write about them. Simple as that.