Wendy DeCora.com

I read this book on a recommendation from Lisa. I had read one of the author’s other books Into Thin Air, about a disaster on Mt. Everest, and was intreguied to see how he would handle the subject of violence within the Mormon faith. It was a very compelling book. A lot of history of the Mormon church I already knew, but I was unfamiliar with the whole time at Navoo, IL, despite having been there once to buy fudge and blown glass. Part history lesson, part commentary on religious fanatiscism and those who break off from their original faith to try and be an actual saint-type person, it definitely made me wonder what kind of people are living out in those dusty remote towns of the American West today. The whole issue of polygamy is rather scary when you consider that girls are married off in their early teens to men two or three times their age. How that is not being seriously prosecuted as statutory rape, I cannot understand.

This was at the top of the Time website today:

After you click the link, you see that it is part of a child’s room that had to be abandoned, got my attention, which is what they wanted. But really, it just looked like some kind of image link mistake.

I should probably have some kind of commentary or thoughts on the whole situation in Gaza, but its just such a mess. Its like the whole Northern Ireland thing, which after studying that for a semester when I was abroad, I became convinced there was no logical solution to.

Today is one of those days where, despite getting more than 6.5 hours of sleep, I feel like I’ve been awake for a week. My eyes are heavy and I just want to curl up and sleep under my desk. I have to attend two meetings this afternoon. I’m going to have to resort to caffine by then I suspect.

In other ramblings, I’ve been listening to WWOZ during the day for the past couple of days. I just heard the weather report for NOLA tomorrow: High of 100 with a heat index of 110. The city beneath the city is definitely is ready to welcome Lisa with open, sweaty arms when she arrives there later today.

8 days until Bonerama in St. Louis! How’s your rugalator?

15 days until Hawkeye football season! Can you smell the hype?

44 days until Homecoming! Have you registered for fossil band yet?

The third book in the long-running Amelia Peabody mysteries, The Mummy Case was typical of the mysteries I read: great characters that I enjoy visiting and a plot that I never even start to figure out.

Even though I want to lock up her son, Rames, most of the time, I enjoy the characters, especially the cat, Baset. The stories always make me want to visit Egypt finally, or at least buy some new big books about Egyptology.

This entry is a diversion from my normal reading habits in several ways. First, its an audiobook, and while I am getting into audiobooks for long drives, this is my first narrative story one. Second, its by Stephen King, who with a few rare exceptions, I never read, either because he’s too long-winded with his descriptive narrative style, or because he scares me too much.

As seems to be my problem these days with my local library, this audiobook caught my eye while I was looking for something else. The fact that it was read by the author and is only available as an audiobook intreguied me. As did the complete lack of a story summary. No dustjacket flap entries. No quotes from other authors. Just the title, Blood and Smoke and a small illustration of the author. Good marketing strategy because I soon found myself checking the discs out and popping them in my car cd player on a drive to my mom’s.

What I didn’t realize until the first disc ended was that this was a 4-disc set that included three separate short stories. The string that held the stories together as a collection was, as you may have guessed, blood and smoke. In each story the main character had been a former smoker and the struggle with the addiction is a key descriptive point. As for the blood, well, its Stephen King, you figure it out.

I was entertained and amused by King providing the various voices for the characters over the course of the discs. I am coming to really respect his ability as a writer of short stories. The audio-only format for a horror-type story is kind of chilling in that you can’t really skip a scary paragraph or just turn the page. You’re forced to keep listening… (yes, I know you could skip the cd forward, but that’s effort when driving)… and listening.

Of the three stories, I liked the first one the best overall, the second one was the scariest, and the third one was just ok compared to the other two, it didn’t seem to fit as well with the other two, though the blood and smoke idea was carried well through all three.

A quick summer read by Patterson. I thought this stand-alone entry co-authored with Andrew Gross. Aside: I’ve always wondered exactly what the “with” designation meant. Does James come up with the basic storyline and Andrew writes it? Or vice versa? I wondered more with this one because while the story structure of short quick chapters and rollercoaster-type read that is a Patterson hallmark, the storyline and characterizations were a lot different than his other thriller books. The story is usually either told from the point of view of the person who is the bad guy or from the POV of the character who is being chased/kidnapped/stalked or is hunting the bad guy. In this book, the main guy is in the middle of a bad situation and is trying to unravel a mystery at the same time. It felt more crime drama with humor than just thriller.

Regardless, it was a good summer read.

After an amazingly productive morning at work, I received an instant message from Jeff:

fyi… I’m leaving now for free sushi.

After I told him he was mean and he responded with muahahahahahaha, I was prompted to not let the muhaha’s get me down. I dialed up D and after she was aroused from her late morning nap, we made plans to meet up at Three Samaurai for lunch. As luck would have it Katharine (Diane’s sister-in-law) was down from Minneapolis, so she joined us and we all enjoyed our lunches of sushi and chicken teriyaki. mmmMMMMmm. How I love the snake roll. No, its not made with actual snake.

After work, D and I are meeting at the mall to peruse the new fall offerings from Ann Taylor Loft. Later on this evening, I have tentative dinner/cinema plans with Doogie. He’s back from Spain (maybe he’ll start up-dating his blog again) and now properly residing in Iowa City.

Not sure what we’ll see. I wanted to see The Island but now its only playing at the Old Crapitol III. Maybe The Skeleton Key to get me in the mood for Lisa’s trip next week. *chuckle* I must admit one of the tv commerical lines about The Skeleton Key being a thriller in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby, The Sixth Sense, and The Others definitely got my attention, since I love all those, especially Rosemary’s Baby, a granddaddy of the thriller genre that doesn’t get mentioned that much since its at least forty years old.

School will be starting soon and people are returning to town. Even though none of my friends are in college anymore, enough are involved with education and students, that things shift come late August. Living in a college town doesn’t hurt. Last night I saw Adrienne’s cute new house off Benton Street. Ever my social friend, she’s throwing a party next Wednesday to celebrate her new address.

Can’t wait for J&S to be back for a visit (and hopefully longer…) soon too!

I was in the middle of this book by Dan Brown, when it was interupted by The Half-Blood Prince. Thankfully, Digital Fortress was a light thriller so I could put it down, but spun a good enough story that it was very easy to return to. The plot of this book is about the NSA and codebreaking. It follows the pattern Brown seems to set in his books, starting with a mysterious death that then must be explained or dealt with over the course of the book. Authored in 1998, the author has done a good job of writing a techno-thriller that isn’t too mired in the techo-jargon of that moment in time. While I don’t know very much about the networking side of the internet or the building of supercomputers, I do know computers and technology in general quite well. Often times if a story using the internet or computers is even a few years old, it really shows how quickly dated techno things can be. After nearly 7 years, other than a passing comment about cable modems being not very common or that Netscape was the browser obvious browser of choice, there was nothing that made me thing the story was happening at anytime other than the present in which I was reading it. A fast and fun read.

I finished the latest Harry Potter nearly one week to the minute after I procured it from my Barnes & Noble at midnight on the release day. Because I am one who is really aware and focused on not being spoiled to things before I read or view them, I’m going to put the rest of my thoughts in the extended entry…
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I had never read the Ronald Dahl classic as a child, I had only seen the original classic film version, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which I have always loved for its quirky and disturbing songs and visuals. When I was in Interpretation of Lit. in college I wrote a paper comparing and contrasting the Gene Wilder film with a 19th century poem about these fairies that steal children into the woods with promises of sweets. I should find that.

As usual, I digress, back to the book. I had not read it and with the new Johnny Depp/Tim Burton version of the story to hit theaters soon, I decided now was the time. (I finished it before the film came out, but I still haven’t seen the new movie.) I have heard that the new movie is truer to the original Dahl story, that its not a musical (there are only a few long and creepy songs that the Oopah-Loompahs sing in the book), and there are actually plot points from the Wilder movie that aren’t in the book. Which I thought was interesting as usually they have to drop plotlines in the film adaptation, not the other way around. The one that stood out the most for me was that in the 1971 film, Charlie and his grandfather have their fun with the Fizzy Lifting Drinks and get busted by Wonka and reprimanded, but in the end Charlie is still rewarded with the factory. However, in the book, the Fizzy Lifting Drinks are only mentioned in passing in one of the rooms with all the other experimental candies and Charlie never drinks them or does anything else to break any of the rules. In the end, he is the blameless and innocent child who is rewarded without a second thought from Wonka.

I need to see the new movie, but as the time since its release passes, I realize I think I’m much less interested than I was at first, no matter how much I like Johnny Depp, because I am really attached to the original movie, even if it is more of a departure from the author’s vision.

But I gotta see those squirrels…