CHINA HERE I COME!!!!

Going to China tomorrow!!! SO EXCITED!! Can't think straight!!! AHHHHH!!!!

Anyway, since this IS a blog about books, I will speak briefly about a book I just finished called Looking for Alaska by John Green. Very good, very well written, makes the reader think, oh and it's a young adult novel. But it is about something that I think readers of all ages can relate to: life, death, loss, suffering, and how we move on. It is also laugh out loud hilarious at some parts. I highly recommend it to you all, especially as a good summer read.

I will do my best to post updates on this blog while I'm in China, maybe not about books, since I will be in school there, but about everything amazing that is happening while I'm gone.

Happy reading!!

Sweet Summertime

Summer...beaches, swimming, blockbusters, sailing, BBQs, shots, novels, travel.

School is out, finished the finals, papers, quizzes, all of it. And I am very happy. Elated and relaxed. I have two weeks until China and I am counting down the days. It's pretty much all I think about and I just keep getting more and more excited. I've been watching documentaries about China and reading my guidebook nonstop. I can't wait for this adventure!

Not much on the schedule for now, work, reading, cleaning, preparing. Still working on the last books I posted about, thanks to finals...more to come as this lovely summer unfolds...

The Rape of Europa

I watched a documentary the other day, The Rape of Europa, which I know is not a book, but it is based on a book of the same name.

It's about the theft, destruction, and in many cases, eventual return and restoration, of the great works of art and architecture in Europe by the Nazis during WWII. The film follows the book in that it is chronological starting in the decades before WWII, when the rising Nazi party began to use their power to acquire great works of art as well as destroy the works of art Hitler deemed "degenerate." Then the film goes through different parts of Europe, chronicling the destruction and theft, mostly by the Nazis, in countries such as Poland, Austria, Russia, France, Germany, and Italy. While the main villains are the Nazis, Allied forces do cause destruction, especially in the bombing of Italy. The film also focuses on the heroic efforts of museum worker, art dealers, etc, who worked very hard to hide many of the precious works, as well as the efforts of the Monuments Men to restore and return many of the art and architecture.

I found this film so incredibly powerful. I am an art history major; art is my love and my passion and I cannot imagine the world without the great masterpieces of Europe, and that almost happened. There is one particular part of the film the was especially heartbreaking, and that is the portion focusing on Poland. The Nazis, Hitler mainly, hated Poland and considered them degenerate, so they set about invading and destroying their entire culture, including bombing the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The castle is a huge part of Polish history and cultural identity, and Hitler knew this and he destroyed the palace, completely blowing it up. The castle that stands there today is entirely a reconstruction. I actually cried while watching this portion, to think that someone tried to wipe out an entire culture and its art makes me so sad and angry.

Art is what makes us human and separates us from animals, gives us culture and identity, and to think that the world came so close to losing so much of its precious art... is absolutely terrifying.

Literary ADD

Since I've finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I have had literary ADD. I also had an extremely intense paper to write, so I've been distracted needless to say.

The quarter is winding down, 2 weeks of class left until finals. Until then, I have to stay focused on school so I can just get done with it all. 

I did start three new books though, because of the literary ADD and not being able to choose what I want to read. So currently I'm reading Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, Saturday by Ian McEwan, and am working my way through The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. I've had an uncorrected reader's copy of Labyrinth for about 5 years, from when I worked at Book Passage, and I am just now reading, but so far it's pretty intriguing. I always love a good historical epic. Ian McEwan is one of my favorite authors, and Saturday has been on my list for quite some time. 80 pages in and loving every minute of his elegant prose. As for William Blake, he is probably my favorite poet, but I've never read his complete works. I love his words and an enjoying with elegant, Romantic poetry.

That's all for now folks! Happy reading!

 

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Wow...been awhile. School chaos.

Like I said last time, I got sidetracked from How Soccer Explains the World by The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. OH. MY. GOD. It was amazing. I could not stop reading it; literally took me 4 days to finish between work and school. I even turned down watching Avatar in HD to read.

I have not read a book that kept me so enthralled for so long. The last one I can remember is Twilight, and that was shit writing, I just liked the vampires.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is NOT shit Stephenie Meyer writing. It's perfect crime novel writing, at least for me. Keeps you hooked, no flowery, existential shit, and witty all at once.

The plot is quite complicated, so I leave it to my fave, Wikipedia to summarize:

Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged investigative journalist who writes for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case against corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström and is sentenced to three months in jail.

Before beginning his sentence, Blomkvist is hired by Henrik Vanger, the aged former CEO of a group of companies owned by a wealthy dynasty. Vanger wants him to solve the disappearance, thirty-seven years ago, of Vanger's great-niece when she was sixteen. Vanger is convinced that the girl was killed by someone in his family. Blomkvist is ultimately helped in his quest by Lisbeth Salander, a young punk who has been victimized or misunderstood by those in authority throughout her whole life, but who is also a brilliant computer hacker. The unlikely couple become a classic detective pair.

It is one of the best crime novels I have ever read. Please read it, and the other two books in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked a Hornets Nest . Lisbeth Salander (the titular girl) is such a bad ass. Not evil, just follows her own rules and is not one to be fucked with. Love her and her crazy, violent tendencies. She makes up for the sometime annoying-ness of the protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist. But this book is a definite summer, really all year round, read. Do it.

The proper name is football

Finished How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer today. Got sidetracked with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, I'll talk about that later. (SO AMAZING)

Soccer was quite interesting, I liked how each section was titled "How soccer explains..." then subdivided into five smaller sections. I like nonfiction writers who organize their work in a way that works with my obsessively organized mind. He also had firsthand experience in the stadiums of many of the clubs; he took a leave of absence from his job at the magazine New Republic and traveled the world and experiencing rabid soccer fandom up close. He went to Brazil, Bosnia, Italy, Iran, England, Scotland, Bulgaria, making one shocking discovery after another. There was the blatant anti-Catholicism in Scotland, the sex segregation in Iran, and the promoted fan violence in Serbia.

What Foer does is use soccer to examine the greater problems of the world through soccer and how many cultures use soccer as their release and as a channel for their frustrations.

I could go into lots of detail, but to be honest, while I found the book interesting while I was reading it, I find that many things, mainly the little details, left my brain after I stopped reading. I'm not saying that I didn't learn anything, because I did. I just couldn't tell you names and dates with any accuracy. At all.

What the book did inspire me to do was to educate myself about some of the issues Foer brings up, such as the Balkan Wars in Europe and power of Silvio Berlusconi. I don't know much and still don't, so I want to learn more and reading this book is what piqued my interest. Any book that actually makes me want to learn more is very okay by me. Isn't that the point of all books?

China Bound

So I found out this week that the summer abroad program I applied for in China has been confirmed and I have been accepted. This means I will be spending a MONTH in China studying art, religion, food, and culture....I cannot put into words how excited I am to go! This will be entirely different than any other place I have ever gone and I am just giddy with pure happiness. I can't wait to take a million photographs, eat delicious food and see everything there is to see....

Not So Possessed

So I started reading Possession by A.S. Byatt a few weeks ago before spring break, and I'm like 200 pages in and I just don't like it. I hate that. It just has not gripped in the way a good book is supposed to. And that makes me sad because I wanted to love this boo SO much...I am usually always game for a period love story, especially one that involves investigation and intrigue. But this just didn't have it for me.


I don't want to be too critical of Byatt, because she IS a very well respected author, and I've never read her before, but I felt she spent WAY too much time describing details that I felt weren't necessary, like every room in Maude's flat. In general, I also felt that her descriptions were dry, and lacking a certain pizazz that I desperately wanted. It also didn't help that she had an extremely long chapter consisting of nothing but letters from the 19th century between the fictional historical figures the two main characters, current day scholars Maude (oh, and I HATE this name!) and Roland, are concerned with. The letters are supposed to illustrate a love affair, but they start off so BORING, and even in the end, the passion and love are still so restrained and repressed. Maybe I'm just too American for this book. I wanted more passion, intrigue, and excitement.

So now I'm switching gears, going to read some nonfiction. I just started How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer...I'm only about 40 pages in, but I'm loving it! More later as I continue to read.

Not much else planned for this weekend; I'm home in Marin with my papa, going to the Asian Art Museum tomorrow, gonna do some homework, laundry and catch up on some Lost, Bones, Chuck, and Modern Family as well. Hope all y'all enjoy your Easters!