Books, +More
Hi 👋🏼, hope you've been good.
I had a nice month -- working,gardening, cooking, reading, drawing, playing with numbers, spending time with family, seeing friends more, organizing (and reorganizing) things, volunteering, deep-thinking. Even went swimming for a grand total of one time.
Here are some of the books +more that have kept me occupied for the past month:
Lone Survivor, Marcus Luttrell
The book is an eyewitness account by Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor of Operation Red Wing in Afghanist*n, which killed three US Navy SEALs and, later, the entire rescue team. It took me a lot of pages before I could tolerate the book, mainly because I was thinking, "Right... a book by a proud SEAL..." And it feels like the tone does somewhat carry throughout the book.
Luttrell also has some funny comments about the liberals. Go read them. But the part where he describes how his best friends died was also a difficult read. He survived the battle and was later found by the local villagers, who gave him protection under the tribal code 'lokhay', where strangers or visitors must be protected and provided with shelter if needed. The movie would be sooper interesting.
Taking Chance, HBO
I read Lone Survivor at about the same time I watched this movie.
It's based on the experience of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, played by Kevin Bacon, escorting the body of a Marine Chance Phelps back to his hometown from the Iraq War and the escorting ritual of the US military. Each step was carried out with respect and care, and what was expected to be a long, quiet journey had touched many people's hearts along the way instead. This is a must-watch, along with other movies that show the destruction left by the US.
I hope we'll have more war movies and books of our own as good as Bukit Kepong and this book that I read many years ago titled Korban Keretapi Maut.
Band of Brothers, HBO
I'm currently watching the series on HBO, Sundays 10AM / Mondays 4AM.
Eclipse
I watched Eclipse with Jones the second week it was showing, and now I need to buy the DVD as we missed the full five minutes of the tent scene because we were busy holding our laugh -- two hands covering mouth, head between knees, snorting and all. I apologize to the twenty people around our seats, especially the two next to us who joined the club. I'm not going to judge people who makestupid noise during movies anymore. Everyone has their own flaws.
Edward is very -- and unevenly -- white in Eclipse, though he doesn’t look as depressed as he did in New Moon. “God... he has sideburns now!” Jones pointed out. Did they fire the person who did the hair, makeup and wardrobe in the first Twilight?
Flirting With Forty, HBO
I blogged that I was looking for the movie some time ago. It was on HBO last week. I watched it three times that week.
Actually, I could watch it five times if I wanted to, but I thought that was a bit much. Who watches the same movie five times a week?
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
I was at my sister's place when I read this. I read out loud to my nieces the part where the author lists the laws under the Talib*n rule. They were especially shocked to hear that women would be beaten if they laughed in public.
My 12-year-old niece Nila is currently hooked on reading this book.
(Is it ok to let a 12-year-old read it? When she reached the part where Nana died, she was very sad and had to stop for a few minutes. Nana was Mariam's mother; she hanged herself to death from a tree when she thought her daughter had left her.)
Theodore Boone, John Grisham
Theo the main character is 13, and this book is really meant for young readers, unlike The Client, for example, where Mark Sway is 8 but the book itself is written for adults. I still read it, of course.
The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff
I dropped everything to finish reading the 600 pages in two days.
The story is mainly told from Jordan Scott's* and Ann Eliza Young's** points of view, each telling their stories in different chapters. In the beginning, I thought it was part fiction (Jordan Scott’s story) and part excerpts from Young's actual autobiography. Then I realized even Young's chapters were too funny to be real. The 'Wikipedia' entries on Chauncey Webb and the Haun's Mill massacre were particularly hilarious. (The massacre was sadly a real-life tragedy, but what's written in the book is fictional.)
(Young did write an autobiography recounting her time as a plural wife, though, apparently available online now.)
*whose mother was a plural wife herself and accused of murdering her husband. He was excommunicated six years earlier by his community -- the Firsts -- the group that broke away from the Mormon Church after the church denounced polygamy in 1890.
**the apostate wife of LDS prophet Brigham Young. Chauncey Webb is Ann Eliza’s father.
This is a very fun read.
Now I'm looking for books or movies from the Germans' point of view in the 1940s.
Screen grab and book covers: HBO, Riverhead Books, Random House
I had a nice month -- working,
Here are some of the books +more that have kept me occupied for the past month:
Lone Survivor, Marcus Luttrell
The book is an eyewitness account by Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor of Operation Red Wing in Afghanist*n, which killed three US Navy SEALs and, later, the entire rescue team. It took me a lot of pages before I could tolerate the book, mainly because I was thinking, "Right... a book by a proud SEAL..." And it feels like the tone does somewhat carry throughout the book.
Luttrell also has some funny comments about the liberals. Go read them. But the part where he describes how his best friends died was also a difficult read. He survived the battle and was later found by the local villagers, who gave him protection under the tribal code 'lokhay', where strangers or visitors must be protected and provided with shelter if needed. The movie would be sooper interesting.
Taking Chance, HBO
I read Lone Survivor at about the same time I watched this movie.
It's based on the experience of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, played by Kevin Bacon, escorting the body of a Marine Chance Phelps back to his hometown from the Iraq War and the escorting ritual of the US military. Each step was carried out with respect and care, and what was expected to be a long, quiet journey had touched many people's hearts along the way instead. This is a must-watch, along with other movies that show the destruction left by the US.
I hope we'll have more war movies and books of our own as good as Bukit Kepong and this book that I read many years ago titled Korban Keretapi Maut.
Band of Brothers, HBO
I'm currently watching the series on HBO, Sundays 10AM / Mondays 4AM.
Eclipse
I watched Eclipse with Jones the second week it was showing, and now I need to buy the DVD as we missed the full five minutes of the tent scene because we were busy holding our laugh -- two hands covering mouth, head between knees, snorting and all. I apologize to the twenty people around our seats, especially the two next to us who joined the club. I'm not going to judge people who make
Edward is very -- and unevenly -- white in Eclipse, though he doesn’t look as depressed as he did in New Moon. “God... he has sideburns now!” Jones pointed out. Did they fire the person who did the hair, makeup and wardrobe in the first Twilight?
Flirting With Forty, HBO
I blogged that I was looking for the movie some time ago. It was on HBO last week. I watched it three times that week.
Actually, I could watch it five times if I wanted to, but I thought that was a bit much. Who watches the same movie five times a week?
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
I was at my sister's place when I read this. I read out loud to my nieces the part where the author lists the laws under the Talib*n rule. They were especially shocked to hear that women would be beaten if they laughed in public.
My 12-year-old niece Nila is currently hooked on reading this book.
(Is it ok to let a 12-year-old read it? When she reached the part where Nana died, she was very sad and had to stop for a few minutes. Nana was Mariam's mother; she hanged herself to death from a tree when she thought her daughter had left her.)
Theodore Boone, John Grisham
Theo the main character is 13, and this book is really meant for young readers, unlike The Client, for example, where Mark Sway is 8 but the book itself is written for adults. I still read it, of course.
The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff
I dropped everything to finish reading the 600 pages in two days.
The story is mainly told from Jordan Scott's* and Ann Eliza Young's** points of view, each telling their stories in different chapters. In the beginning, I thought it was part fiction (Jordan Scott’s story) and part excerpts from Young's actual autobiography. Then I realized even Young's chapters were too funny to be real. The 'Wikipedia' entries on Chauncey Webb and the Haun's Mill massacre were particularly hilarious. (The massacre was sadly a real-life tragedy, but what's written in the book is fictional.)
(Young did write an autobiography recounting her time as a plural wife, though, apparently available online now.)
*whose mother was a plural wife herself and accused of murdering her husband. He was excommunicated six years earlier by his community -- the Firsts -- the group that broke away from the Mormon Church after the church denounced polygamy in 1890.
**the apostate wife of LDS prophet Brigham Young. Chauncey Webb is Ann Eliza’s father.
This is a very fun read.
Now I'm looking for books or movies from the Germans' point of view in the 1940s.
Screen grab and book covers: HBO, Riverhead Books, Random House
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