Aug 03 2007

25-29/50 Book Challenge Catch up

I know it seems like I psychotically read like 5 books in a week and then nothing for long chunks but, actually, I am always steadily reading at least 2 books at once. The basic problem is that I forget to upload them to the blog so that when I do finally remember, I have way too many to upload all at once. I am sorry to do this, but I am totally going to combine all of these into one entry.

25/50 Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

Wooo half way! This was a re-read so I am not going to say much about it other than I love this book, its one of the best in the series if not the best.

26/50 The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

There were seriously several people that I consider reasonably sane that told me I "had" to read this because it was amazing. First of all, this book is the most redundant thing that I have ever read. It could have been 1/3 longer if they had just stopped saying things over and over again in different ways. They would say each thing again but slightly different. Each thing would be said, more than once, but not the same. Something would be said and then said again, but in another way. You get the idea.

Also, I can tell you "the secret" right now. Ready? Have a positive attitude. Yup. That is pretty much it. The rest of the book is padded out with insane things like attracting bird feathers with your mind and how tragedies like Katrina are brought upon the victims by themselves by not having a positive attitude.

In all honesty, it’s a short book and a real conversation piece because just about everyone has heard of it so its worth a read, even if its only to see how bat-shit some people are and to have something to talk about at parties. The DVD is also hilarious. Make it a drinking game and drink each time they say "secret." Once you read it, there are some brilliant parodies out there.

27/50 Bored of the Rings by the Harvard Lampoon

I actually went to read this book many years ago when I first read Lord of the Rings when I was in elementary school. My parents were obsessed with the book and had read everything to do with it. My mother wouldn’t let me read it because she said it was too dirty. I forgot all about it until I saw it randomly on Amazon and decided to read it even thought I imagined it would be pretty dated. First of all, not that dirty at all, I was surprised. There is one dirty part and its actually the "preview scene" before the book begins and actually never appears in the book itself. Lots of drug use though.

Secondly, though slightly dated, some of it was just silly but some parts were laugh-out loud funny and others were, I would dare to say, hilarious. I should add that one of the authors of this book is the same fine gentleman who writes as Miss Piggy in such classics as Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life (Henry Beard) so the humor is right up my alley.

I read this by the pool and each time I laughed out loud my sleeping husband jumped like a foot. Definitely a good quick little beach read and most libraries have it since its from the 60s and was reprinted in the 80s.

28/50 Zorro by Isabel Allende

The extent of my knowledge about Zorro is the Antonio Banderas movie so I have to add that I was very very confused and had to read up on Zorro on the wiki before this abated. (Did you know that Zorro is totally the basis for Batman?)

In the movie, Antonio’s character is named Alejandro and Anthony Hopkins is Diego de la Vega. Then in the crappy second movie, Antonio is Alejandro de la Vega and his son is Diego de la Vega. I was with that. He named his son after Hopkins.

But in the book, Alejandro de la Vega is the father of Zorro, who is named Diego. Apparently, in the first movie, Antonio B has a different last name and its just coincidence that his name is the same as the original Zorro’s dad and then he takes Diego de la Vegas name for the second movie for reason’s known only to whoever wrote that horrible film.

I was very hung up on this.

That said, once I was no longer confused, this book was really great. It managed to be a page turner without much actually happening and it was fun to see Zorro become Zorro. It’s not going to change your world, but it was a fun light read.

That and if you need more from a book then jumping from horse to horse, pirates, swinging from chandeliers and putting out candles with a whip, I honestly cannot help you.

29/50 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I cannot really talk about how I feel about this book without giving away plot so this is all I am going to say. Very disappointed.

And now, on to vacation where I am confident I will read a few more to add to this list.

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