5 Books That I Never Wanted to End

I know I've said this before, but I want to say it again just incase you missed it last time - I'm not really one for the whole meme fetish... but every once and awhile I see one that I just can't pass up.

Indie Reader Houston hosts a weekly meme called "5 Best Books". This week, she asks "what are the 5 best books that you never wanted to end?"

And I totally have to answer that, don't I? I dare you to show me a reader that hasn't ever fallen so hard and invested so much into a book that they haven't wished for it to go on forever!

Here are the 5 books that I never wanted to end:

1. The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne

Ooohhh. This novel hit my Lost-soft spot like no other book ever could. It's got mystery and mayhem, secrets and sneak attacks. A bunch of prisoners and their dog get stranded on an uncharted island in the middle of nowhere when escaping jail in a hot air balloon. While they wait for rescue, they must put their collective brain power together in an effort to survive. So much of the early Lost story line was inspired by this book. I devoured it in 11 days, though as I raced from page to page to uncover the island's secrets, I was also secretly wishing it would last forever....

2. Blindness - Jose Saramago

The book that began my addictive and obsessive love for all things Saramago! Blindness, with it's run-on sentences and multi-paged paragraphs, it's nameless characters and tormented governmental statements, wowed me on the first page. I had never read anything like it before, and it just kept getting better and better. A devastating look at what humankind would be reduced to were we to suffer a seemingly incurable, irreversible plague. While I wanted the characters to stop suffering, I also wanted to remain enveloped in Saramago's words forever...

3. The Divine Farce - Michael Graziano

This book blew me away. Published by Leapfrog Press, this little novel packs a gigantic punch. In it, we are introduced to three naked strangers who find themselves confined in an incredibly small, pitch black concrete tube. Unsure whether they will be there for eternity, but convinced it is some sort of Hell, they surrender themselves to their wretched predicament. Until one day, the concrete wall that holds them in begins to crumble ... An amazing allegory for the human condition. The author toys with our natural curiosity towards heaven and hell and God. A short 125 pages that I wished went on much, much longer...

4. The Book - M. Clifford

This book shows us what the future could look like if the government were to force all it's citizens to purchase and read only ONE book - a digital book that is governed, updated, and edited by the government. A book that is full of lies. An eery peek into an almost-so-real-I-can-picture-it-happening future. Twists and turns and a semi-opened ending left me craving more...

5. Death of an Ordinary Man - Glen Duncan

Glen Duncan puts his twist on the afterlife. Waking to a world of bright whiteness, with the ability to see and hear his loved ones, drawn into objects that hold specific memories for him, we follow a man as he searches for his dead daughter and attempts to figure out how he died. I wish this book would have investigated the "other side" forever, and never solved the mystery of the man's death... I was really wrapped up in what was happening to him - both externally and internally.

And there you have it, guys. A difficult choice, since I've read so many great books that I wished would never end... but there you go.. the best of the best.

What 5 books do you wish never ended???

Review: The French Revolution

Read 3/2/11 - 3/16/11

2.5 Stars - Recommended Lightly to people familiar with genre or author

Pgs:306

Oh my. It is very unlike me to take two full weeks to read a 300 page book cover to cover. Though partially due to the fact that most of my days off this month have been packed to the gills with errands and day trips, it's also due to the novel itself and my lack of motivation to pick it up once it had been put down.

The French Revolution was recommended to me by an author friend, and also pitched to me by author Matt Stewart himself. I initially hemmed and hawed over it, feeling very strongly that the story line did not match my genre/style preference. But I had recently come off a great experience reviewing K. Stephen's The Ghost Trap, which also went against my typical preference yet I had loved it, so I was feeling open and hopeful.

You decide to take the gamble. You win some. You lose some. Right?

It's a family saga, spread across many years, detailing the lives of the grossly overweight ex-pastry chef Esmerelda Van Twinkle, a coupon street hawker named Jasper Winslow, and their twin children Marat and Robespierre.

It started off with a bang - Matt Stewart's description of Esmerelda, her love affair with food that oftentimes ended in orgasmic coma's and a ghastly loss of bodily functions were vile and disgusting, yet surprisingly hilarious. His choice of adjectives for her are unlike any I ever read before : " seven chinned face shaped like a lima bean", "pumpkin shaped hindquarters", and "pachyderm legs". Reading through the first chapter of the book, it was one of the few times that I can recall having experienced a physical reaction to a story. His main character was repulsive, and you could sense Stewart's immense pleasure at creating and poking fun at such a monster. He was enjoying himself. And damn it, his readers would too!

By page 8, this 400 pound, wheelchair bound woman had been wooed and impregnated by the not-quite-entirely-right-in-his-mind Jasper in a community pool, and by page 16 she was unexpectedly giving birth to twins in a gas station restroom.

As wacky and quirky as this all sounds, the break-neck speed at which the events of the novel took place quickly began to confuse and frustrate me. Over the span of 10 or 15 pages, an entire decade seemed to blow right by. Characters moved so rapidly from one situation to the next that sometimes I didn't even realize the setting had changed, the characters had aged, and the situation had been resolved.

I'm all for authors going light on descriptive narration, but if you're going to sacrifice time and place in the name of brevity, then at least develop your characters slowly and noticeably. The Van Winkle family members developed - don't get me wrong. The characters, at the end of the novel, are most certainly not emotionally or physically identical to the way they were when the novel began... but they appeared to change almost immediately, from chapter to chapter, without tangible explanation.

The thing that is most difficult for me, as a reader and reviewer, is the fact that I can see so much potential in this book. If Matt had taken his time, and say... written out an additional 300 detailed pages or so in the middle of the story, he could have had an epic novel on his hand. Or, oppositely, he could have shaved off 20 years from the timeline while keeping the page count the same and focused his plot more specifically and intricately. That would have opened up the possibility of sequels - book one could contain the Esmerelda and Jasper years, up to giving birth and raising the twin babies; book two could contain the "troublesome" years with Marat and Robespierre coming of age and becoming young adults, as Esmerelda struggled to lose weight and raise them on her own; and book three could detail the twins as full fledged adults, bucking the system, and rebuilding their relationships with Esmerelda and Jasper.

That said, I quite enjoyed Stewart's writing style and the way his words worked together, the tongue-in-cheekiness of it all. You can tell he had a good time writing this story.

He even created an iPad / iPhone app that unlocks additional information, deleted scenes, and videos that are supposed to enhance your reading experience. All you have to do to access them is download the free app, and take a photo of any page within the novel. Unfortunately, the app is not available for Android users, so I was not able to experience this for myself. But Matt created this video to show us how it's done:

Click here to read an excerpt of the novel.

Did you know that Matt broadcasted his novel via Twitter before landing a deal with Soft Skull Press?

Libraries, Bookshops, Parades, Oh My!

Today was a great get-out-of-the-house day. I kidnapped my mother and my youngest son and we headed off to Bethlehem, PA for a day of bookish delights.

We began the afternoon by browsing books at the Bethlehem Library Book Sale. This sale is quite large, and runs on the first Thursday and Saturday of very other month. I used to make a killing at this thing - bringing home 20+ books each trip, causing my bookshelves to groan under the weight of the new additions. Though, as the months wear on and my TBR piles grow larger, I find less and less books to grab. Today, sadly, I only rescued three:

The Decameron, The Roaches Have No King, and Bless the Beasts and Children.

Even more sadly, when I arrived home and updated the books on my Goodreads shelves, I discovered that I already own The Decameron. Huh. I guess this is a sign of having too many unread books in the house! Apparently I have so many, I don't even remember which ones I've already purchased! (My Goodreads "owned but not yet read" shelf shows 389 books. Yikes.)

My youngest, however, made a killing - he took home a total of 20 books!

From the library, we walked down Church Street, gawking at the old but extremely well kept homes, and turned the corner onto Main Street - home of Moravian Book Shop - The world's oldest continuously running bookstore. Deceivingly small from the sidewalk, Moravian Book Shop has endless nooks and crannies that contain something for everyone. Equal parts bookshop, boutique, cafe and bakery, candle and kitchen shop, Moravian has a quaint olde world feel that you will not find duplicated anywhere else.

I had the pleasure of meeting Christine, book buyer/seller for Moravian, after months of following the shop on Twitter. I love when I have an opportunity to meet the person behind the tweets!

After taking in the beauty of the shop, we headed to the back and gorged ourselves on soup, salad, and sandwiches at their Retro Deli, then hit the streets once again as the Saint Patrick's Day Parade began slowly making it's way down the hill. The 1st Annual parade contained numerous marching bands, gymnastic teams, irish dance students, irish themed floats, and men playing the bagpipes in kilts! The streets were packed with people (and their pets) dressed head to toe in green.

After the parade, we snapped a few photos of the older, abandoned buildings below the bridge. The recent floods left the paths and surrounding fields a muddy mess, which only added to the eerie atmosphere.

The weather held up nicely, and the sun joined us for most of our excursion. It was nice to finally have a break from all the wind, rain, and snow we had been experiencing lately. And it was a lovely way to spend the day with family. I'm especially thrilled to bits that I had the chance to visit two new-to-me independent bookstores, and meet the women between their tweets, in less than a week!

Get up off your couches, world! Spring is here. It's time to take a trip out to your local book sales and independent book stores. There are lovely, lonely books waiting for you there. Go and claim them as your own. go on....

I Caught the Blake Butler Express

Every so often, I feel an irresistible urge to visit NYC. It's like my body is keeping track of how many days have passed since my last trip out there. Some women have a biological clock that tick-tocks within them. I have a big-apple clock. It's tick-tocking down the days that I've been away from the city. I'm certain of it.

The There is No Year marathon reading event, hosted by Harper Perennial and HTML Giant, was the perfect excuse to head out into New York, visit the Word Brooklyn bookstore which I have been following on Twitter for quite awhile now, and meet the incredibly creative Blake Butler.

The ride down was a stressful and nerve wracking experience. I do not like to drive in NYC. I like to pop out of the Lincoln Tunnel and drive right up the Port Authority parking ramp. Sure, parking there bleeds you dry, but you know exactly where your car is and you have complete access to it all day long. You are free to walk throughout the city any which way you like without worrying about being sideswiped or pushed along past your turn because no one will let you merge!

My partner in crime (we shall call her "mommy") decided she should drive us THROUGH the city into Brooklyn for the event. Being a nervous first time city driver, I decided to mapquest the directions to Word while using the GPS to navigate us should we get lost.

For an idea of just how horrible this ride was... allow me to share my now-humorous, then-terrified tweets:

@TNBBCTNBBC

Ack! Gps is taking us one way when my directions tell me to go another. Trust in gps. Trust in gps. Trust in.....

@TNBBC

Made it to the midtown tunnel. Don't know how, but we did. My mom makes me so fucking nervous! And I gotta pee.

@TNBBC

Oh my god! Gps said exit 17w. My directions say exit 13. Holy fucking fuck. I have no clue where you are taking me ms. Gps

Sure, I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was quite the butt-clenching experience. Props to my mom, though, for getting us there in one piece, and in plenty of time to grab a quick bite to eat before things got started. We swung into the bookstore first, so I could personally thank the ladies of Word Brooklyn for the twitter help they offered me before I embarked on my trip.

At the suggestion of Harper Perennial's Marketing Manager, Erica Barmash, we walked up to Manhattan Ave and ate at the extremely cozy Calexico restaurant. You must try their pulled pork burrito. So yummy!

Back at Word, we snuck downstairs just in time to hear Editorial Director Cal Morgan introduce the event and the readers for the night. Some of them were amazing. It was very interesting to see how each reader interpreted Blake's stories. This is Erica, reading a section of There is No Year -->

(For a list of all of the readers, scroll to the end of this post.)

Blake Butler took the stage last. Commanding and passionate, he wowed the crowd with his reading. I have watched his live webcasts before, but they do not do him justice. His stage presence is amazing.

After the three hour event came to a close, everyone crowded Blake to congratulate him. I waited patiently, chit-chatting with Erica and eventually got to turn "fan-girl" on him, asking if he would mind signing the review copy of Scorch Atlas he had mailed me a few months earlier. A quick photo later, with rushed thanks and goodbyes, my mother and I hopped into the car for the 2 hour + drive home, having thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the city.

It never fails to weave it's spell on me. The people, the places, the overall atmosphere. If it wasn't so large and intimidating, I could actually believe that I belong there. NYC, I was in you. And I will be back... sooner this time, rather than later.

Thanks to Erica and Blake for putting on such a fantastic event, and I hope the final two nights were as wonderful as the one I was able to attend. Happy on-sale date this April, and here's to hoping that This is THE Year!

A list of the readers at Word Brooklyn: Wednesday, March 9th -

Giancarlo Ditrapano
Erica Barmash
Kendra Malone
Sasha Fletcher
Melissa Broder
Heather Davidson
Claire Donato
Mark Doten
Jeff Johnson
Jonny Diamond
Emma Straub
Blake Butler

How a Book is Made

How a book was made back in 1947!

Thanks to @CalMorgan for tweeting this, and BrainPickings.com for posting it.

Holy Crap!

Imagine walking down a busy NYC street. You mosey on up to the corner, waiting for a shot to dart across the intersection, and your eye catches a flash of white paper taped to a light post. In large font, you see "7 Holy Crap" typed on an 8x11 sheet of paper. Would you walk over to read the rest?

An unnamed author has been posting pages of his novel all over NYC this week, attempting to captivate an audience by sending them on a wild goose chase to locate each page...

I gotta hand it to the guy, that's damn creative!

There are quite a few articles out and about covering it, and I hope the author steps into the spotlight soon to claim his 15 minutes of fame.. I would be interested in interviewing him!

What do you think? Is this a new form of marketing? Would you embark on this "Novel Hunt" just to see what happens next?

(thanks to Danie of Booktacular for posting this over at TNBBC)

TNBBC's Backwards Birthday Bash!!

Put on your party hats and turn the music up!

Yours Truly is celebrating her birthday today!!

While I generally hate making a fuss over "officially" turning one year older (wouldn't it be great if after a certain age, you could celebrate your birthday by turning one year younger??), I thought it would be cool to GIVE a present away, instead of being the one to RECEIVE one! So......

TNBBC is going to give away a

Backwards Birthday Book Pack

to one lucky winner!

Included in the pack are:

* Caribou Island by David Vann (Hardcover)

*The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard (Hardcover)

*When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops by George Carlin (paperback)

*Spike Light book light

In order to enter for your chance to win the Backwards Birthday Book Pack:

1 - You must be a resident of the US (sorry guys, my wallet can't handle an overseas shipment this large!)

2 - You must post a comment here sharing a horror-birthday story

The contest will remain open until Saturday March 5th and I will chose the winner with the best birthday horror story! Thanks for celebrating with me! I hate to party on my own!

(Thanks to Harper Collins for making Caribou Island and The Fates Will Find Their Way available)

(The book light and all books are brand new, excellent condition)

Review: The Ghost Trap

Read 2/23/11 - 3/1/11

4 Stars - Strongly Recommended

Pgs:326

Every now and again, I find myself gravitating towards a book that I am not entirely certain I will be able to connect with. Something that is just a wee bit outside my typical reading-comfort level. Something I feel I would be taking a risk on. I enjoy stretching my thought-muscles and trying something new on for size, and this last novel certainly did just that.

I am quickly becoming a fan of Leapfrog Press as they impress me yet again - this time with their 2009 release The Ghost Trap. A good deal of patience was required to read K. Stephens story about a man torn between the trap wars of his small town lobstering community and the struggle to provide care for his head-injured fiance.

Now, I am sure most of you are scratching your heads right now, wondering why - based on that brief description - I would consider this book a "risk". You must remember who you are dealing with here. I tend to read books that fall left of center... sometimes VERY left of center... so a straight up literary novel such as this, with it's evident book club appeal, would normally tend to fall outside of my reading preferences. However, in this case, it won me over and proved me wrong!

Stephens has a slow, methodical purpose to her storytelling. She chooses to make the reader wait as she reveals things at the absolute last possible moment. At times, it feels like we are walking around in the fog, much like her very own characters are, discovering things only at the very same moment they do.

For someone who is used to being instantly gratified every step of the way, this took a little time to adjust to. But I quickly learned to enjoy the way Stephens withheld, and then teased out, information. It forced me, as a reader, to think ahead ... to problem solve for myself, and I was surprised to find that, in the end, I had correctly guessed how the story would end.

The Ghost Trap is good for the body - it works on both your head and your heart. It's a sad and gripping tale that is draped in heartache and headaches, fears and frustrations, revenge and retribution, acceptance and, in the end, accountability. It's about holding grudges, making mistakes, and moving on. And it's the result of an author who writes what she knows - placing it all into a setting she understands.

A book that broke the mold for me, and has me thankful that I didn't pass it by.

Great book club potential!

Tell Me A Story - Sean Ferrell

Welcome to TNBBC's 2nd edition of Tell Me A Story.

Tell Me a Story is a monthly series that will feature previously unpublished short stories from debut and Indie authors. The request was simple: Stories can be any format, any genre, and any length. And many amazing writers signed up for the challenge.

This month's short story comes to us from Sean Ferrell. His novel, Numb, is one that I admit I haven't read yet (mainly because I heard him read from it at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival and it gave me the willies, so I have to slowly work myself up to it)! He is one of the most active and hilarious authors on Twitter, and was super kind to accept this little blogger's request for a previously unpublished piece of fiction.

Behold.... The Phone Book through the eyes of Sean...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Making the Phone Book Relevant Again

Abbot, Mark 23 West Main Street, 2A 374-9982 Currently eating an entire column of Oreo cookies for lunch.

Baker, Wendy 17 Morgan Avenue 342-4582 On the phone with her mother, defending the fact that her boyfriend hasn't yet proposed; considering the fact that she doesn't want to get married.

Chesterfield, Elizabeth M. 117 Seventh Avenue 982-5348 Having an affair with her employer; faking a pregnancy.

Clayborn, Eric Michael 888 Russian Hill 559-2110 On the phone with his priest, with whom he is uncontrollably in love, trying to convince himself that he is not gay.

Green, Lucille 15 Oxford Place 347-9121 Recovering from breast augmentation surgery; hoping the pain is worth it.

Harbor, Martin 2378 Winding Way Lane 586-9864 Spending the afternoon in a coffee shop reading yesterday's newspaper, sarcastically reprimanding anyone who tries to join him in conversation or even eye contact; desperately lonely.

Lee, George 25 Port View Road 545-8573 Working on edits of a novel he is alternately convinced is terrible or the greatest long-form work ever written; wrong on both counts.

Manchester, Adele R. 1 Shady Acres Terraces, Room 55 Unlisted Worrying about her daughter whom she is convinced is married to a no-good, two-timing son-of-a-bitch; convinced her grandchildren are being raised by an illegal immigrant; wondering what she did to make both her son and daughter so completely cut her out of their lives.

Manchester, Robert Address Unknown, Number Disconnected Planning on unexpectedly dropping by his sister's place; hoping to steal some prescription medication from the master bath; planning on swiping his mother's social security check from her mailbox at the home.

Manson, Terry & Winston 90 Oak Street 887-2931 Wondering how it got to this point (her); wondering why it's taken her so long to recognize how bad things are (him).

Olivetti, Anthony 101 West Side Avenue 874-0274 Holding an engagement ring, wondering if he's really ready.

Peterson, Charles & Gwendolyn 2357 Winding Way Lane 565-0902 Terrified he's gotten his secretary pregnant (him); spending her days in a prescription medication haze (her); being raised by the nanny (the children).

Peterson, Henry 1 Shady Acres Terraces, Room 13 374-0148 Blissfully, blessedly drunk.

Waters, James P. 18 Oxford Place Unlisted Stalking a neighbor, a woman he finds perfect in every conceivable way, even without make-up, even when she takes out the trash, even when all she's doing is staring out her window with a cup of coffee and the morning paper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sean encourages everyone to post comments below

by creating your own phone book commentary!

I want to thank Sean for participating in TNBBC's Tell Me a Story. If you like what you've read, please support Sean by checking out his website and book. Help spread the word by sharing this post through your blog, tumblr page, twitter and facebook accounts. Every link counts! And be sure to check back with us next month for the next installment....

"The Ghost Trap" Group Read Giveaway

TNBBC is proud to partner with K.Stephens and Leapfrog Press to bring you

The Ghost Trap Group Read Giveaway!!

Here's the Goodreads description:

The haunting story of a young lobsterman, Jamie Eugley, who is struggling with the grinding responsibilities of a head-injured fiancée and mounting trap wars. Written with sensitivity and rich description, this is a piercingly accurate depiction of life in a small Maine lobstering community.

I see great group read potential with this novel and we are in luck because author K. Stephens has agreed to make herself available for an online month long author/reader discussion over at TNBBC Goodreads for the month of April. In order to make the group read and discussion possible.....

Leapfrog has generously made 10 copies available for giveaway!

5 International and 5 US copies

In order to snag a copy, you must:

1 - Post a comment here stating your interest in the novel, whether you are international or a US resident, and leave me a way to contact you. If your comment is missing any of this information, it will be considered ineligible.

2- Agree to participate in a group read book discussion that will run during the month of April over at TNBBC on Goodreads. K. Stephens has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her.

By commenting, you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you at the first of the month).

It's first come, first serve so the first 5 international commenters, and the first 5 US commenters will secure a copy for themselves for the group read.

The contest ends when the last copy of each set of 5 has been claimed.

So don't hesitate!

However, if you are not a winner, no worries. You can purchase a copy of the novel or simply join in on the discussion to ask K. Stephens questions about the writing and publishing process... All are welcome!

Move Over Oscar...

Tonight, my Twitter feed is overflowing with everyone ooohing and aaahing over what's hot and what's not on the red carpet.

**yawn**

You know what I would like to see? A red carpet event for authors and publishers that is just as highly publicized as the Oscar's or the Grammy's. I would love to see America ooohing and aaahing over what Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood were wearing, and who they were reading...

Which authors would you geek out over? What authors or publishers do you think deserve an award? What would the categories be? Which titles would win?

These Are The Days That Dreams Are Made Of!

So if you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my comment on the awesome Email week I've been having. It would appear I am quickly making the transition from a "requester" to an "accepter". And it is a truly humbling experience!

When new authors and publishers reach out to me, I love hearing how they became exposed to my blog and my mission to support independent authors and publishers. It baffles me how swiftly word of mouth moves within the publishing industry and it's an incredibly overwhelming feeling because - to me - that means I am doing something right!

When I first created the TNBBC group on Goodreads, I was not prepared for the path I was setting myself on. I was not aware of the opportunities that group would present to me: the relationships I would soon begin to develop, the platform I was unconsciously building, the potential I had to connect readers with authors, and the sense of responsibility I would soon begin to experience - I had a voice, and it could be powerful!

This is my thank you note to all of the authors who took a chance on me when I reached out to them for review copies of their novels. And to all of the publishers who answered my email queries and supported me by making their authors available for interviews and online group discussions. And I especially want to thank those authors and publishers who were kind enough to tell other publishers and authors about me and my mission to support and celebrate the Indies, because without you, I would not be in the position I currently find myself in!

This, too, is a thank you note to my followers, old and new, and those special authors, publishers, and bloggers I have the pleasure of calling "my friends"!

And how can I forget to thank the technology that makes all of this possible! Email, Twitter, Blogger, Goodreads, Facebook, Tumblr, and the multitude of other social media forums that I have yet to discover and abuse for my bookish delights.

This truly is the stuff that dreams are made of!

My Top Ten "From Book to Movie" Adaptations

You guys know me. I very rarely participate in meme's. But this week's topic from The Broke and the Bookish caught my eye, coming so closely behind my "Sunset Limited" post, that I decided to indulge in a little Top Ten Tuesday myself!

So here they are in no particular order:

My Top Ten Book to Movie Adaptations

1: A Scanner Darkly - The book was a 4 star read for me. Philip K. Dick's writing was heavily influenced and impacted by his drug abuse. Some of his novels are way out there, but this one was an amazing read. I was very impressed with the movie adaptation, which contained live action animation. It definitely surpassed my expectations and may have even surpassed the book, in my opinion!

2: High Fidelity - I saw this movie YEARS before reading the book. And I loved the movie, so I was afraid the book wouldn't be able to hold up against John Cusak and Jack Black on the big screen. But I had nothing to fear. Nick Hornby is a creative, humorous writer and I was thrilled to see that the movie followed the book nearly word for word. Thumbs up on both here. I call a tie.

3: Sunset Limited - You can read all about my love of this movie and my dislike of McCarthy's play here.

4: Bringing Out the Dead - Another movie that I watched years before I read (or knew it was based on) the book. Nicholas Cage embraced the lead character and breathed such life into him. As with High Fidelity, the movie is a near perfect adaptation of the book. Tied again.

5: I Am Legend - This one probably breaks the rules of the meme. The movie adaptation is almost nothing like the book itself, but it is a great interpretation. It's an awesome stand-alone film. I was terribly worried about the casting though. I mean, Will Smith? But hello... it's WILL fucking SMITH! He rocked the movie sideways.

6: Princess Bride - Man, half of the books I am mentioning here I didn't even know were books at the time I saw the movies. The Princess Bride is another. I adore this movie, I've watched it countless times, and its held up so well over the years! The book was good, but couldn't touch the movie. Not with a ten foot pole.

7: The Green Mile - This book was released serially, and I religiously ran out and purchased each part because it was so well told and I needed to know what happened next. Stephen King shows his range as a writer with this one! When the movie released I couldn't wait to see it. Tom Hanks is such a great actor and he fit his role so well. The movie may actually have exceeded the books... may have... the jury is out on this one.

8: Beowulf - We had to read this epic poem in school (not sure what grade) but I remember not being able to understand or decipher much. It was recommended reading, we all know how that goes... But the live action animated film brought Beowulf down to my level. The action, the actors, the storyline.. it all works so incredibly well. And it's sad and heartbreaking too. Poor Grendle.

9: Shutter Island - Great book with a great twist. Great movie with an additional twist. Chalk another one up for a movie that follows the book nearly word for word and does it justice.

10: Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury is hailed by some as one of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time. I fell in love with Fahrenheit 451. I could appreciate The Martian Chronicles. But I did not find much to like when I read this book. It was clunky and plodding. The thrill and anxiety and creepiness of the movie just wasn't there.

Honorable mentions go to:

- About a Boy

- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Review: The Divine Farce

Read 2/19/11

5 Stars - Highly Recommended / The Next Best Book

Pgs:125

About a month ago, I stumbled across Leapfrog Press. They are an indie publisher who pride themselves on their eclectic quality fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. And I think I am in love.

I chose to test the waters with The Divine Farce - a short but incredibly moving story about three naked strangers who find themselves confined in an incredibly small, pitch black concrete tube. With no room to sit, they stand on a floor of metal grate while the low ceiling oozes Pear Nectar, their only form of sustenance. Unsure whether they will be there for eternity, but convinced it is some sort of Hell, they surrender themselves to their wretched predicament. Until one day, the concrete wall that holds them in begins to crumble ...

The author, Michael Graziano, weaves a warped and demented tale that also doubles as an allegory for our insatiable need to understand the world in which we live. Constantly probing and questioning, never content with the answers we get or the situations we find ourselves in...

What would you do when everything you knew was about to change? Would you face the unknown or cower from it? Would you be willing to exchange what you know and loathe, what you've grown accustomed to, if given the opportunity to escape it, even if it meant the possibility of entering into something worse?

An amazing story that highlights the best, and worst, of each of us. One that illustrates just how hard it can be to see the brighter side of things when all you really want to do is scream and thrash and give up. But if you persevere, and push forward, and don't give up, that perhaps, you will come to find that there is a light at the end of the tunnel...after all?

Review: The Gospel of Anarchy

Read 2/15/11 - 2/19/11

3 Stars - Recommended to readers familiar with author

Pgs:238

I was really excited to read this review copy from Harper Perennial. I remember enjoying Justin Taylor's short story collection Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever - of reading his stories and experiencing these moments that were more like memories, of being pulled back into my younger-self, surprising me with their familiarity.

So I was not entirely unprepared for those same feelings and memories to be yanked back up towards the surface while reading The Gospel of Anarchy. Justin managed to create a world populated with characters that closely resembled people I had known once-upon-a-time, living a life that was eerily similar to the one they were living.

The novel follows David - a college dropout working a dead end job - as he escapes the choking confines of his humdrum life after running into a former high school friend in the back alleys of Gainesville, Florida.

What began as a little bit of fun and foolishness became a new way of life for David. His old friend Thomas and the residents of Fishgut - a broken down house that serves as half home, half hostel - live a life of lawlessness. They scrounge their food out of dumpsters and contribute money to the "house funds" by stealing products from one store to return them for full price at another or by donating their blood.

They are punks, they are anarchists, and they have created a following with their handmade booklet called the "Good Zine" and by preaching the word of "Parker" - one of the original founders of their punk anarchist movement who mysteriously went missing one night. They sneak into underground concerts, participate in threesomes and group orgies, and seem to have a never ending supply of alcohol and drugs.

Those memories I talked about earlier? Well, The Gospel of Anarchy reminded me of a group of friends I had back in 1994. At the time, I had an uncanny ability to become friends with just about anyone. At one point, I suddenly found myself hanging out in a Florida trailer park with a handful of teenage skinheads and hippies. The trailers were beat up and barely livable, some without electric. Most of the kids had dropped out of school, or were recently graduated with no real life ambition. They seemed to have no income to speak of, and I wasn't really ever sure who actually lived there and who was just hanging out or simply passing through. Lots of drugs were had (though, miraculously I managed to escape that period of my life 100% drug free), lots of things were stolen from god knows where, and lots of rules were broken and rewritten without rhyme or reason.

When we left the trailer park, we hung out in groups, kicking back in the grass under the hot summer sun, the hippies playing folk songs on their guitars with the grass between their toes believing they were talking to God while the skinheads hated everything that moved and swore to buck the system and live a carefree, workfree life taking advantage of "the man". We baked birthday cakes of chocolate and vanilla with sprinkle rainbows and rainbow colored swastikas and enough candles to burn the trailer down. They shaved and dreaded each others hair, preached to one another about spirituality and the evils of politics.

They were the coolest bunch of kids I had known, and they included me in their crazy, unlikely clan. After a few months, though, the scrounging and lounging wore on us - even though most of us had homes of our own and families that we returned to every night. Little by little, the fighting took over and we slowly broke off into splinter groups, which became sad little threesomes, and then singled ourselves apart until the trailer park and the rainbow cakes became our "remember when's".

Justin Taylor's novel brought all those moments back to me in a way that my old photo album never could. And for that, I want to say thank you.