Random Hearts. The movie was wonderful (two hours of looking at Harrison Ford…who’s complaining?), but the book…well, I can’t say the book was better or worse, just that it seemed to be an entirely different story (yeah, DNF).

I think I’ve read Vurt (something to do with feathers and addiction)…I know I’ve read Garp, although I have no idea why…and I LOVE The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Everybody make sure you’ve got your towel and remember the answer to everything is forty-two.

I got a mystery novel, Death By Coffee, out of the library. About two chapters in, we have Dead Lawyer and the police are investigating. Our “heroine” sees Dead Lawyer’s brother go into DL’s office and trots over to question him–WITH NO PLAN IN MIND WHATSOEVER! Does not even say “I’m sorry for your loss” and I don’t think she even introduced herself. Her whole belief that she can solve this murder (which hasn’t even been determined to be murder at this point) is her daddy writes murder mysteries, so apparently she’s Jessica Fletcher once removed! Don’t know who did it, don’t care who did it–took it back to the library and left it there. It’s happy there, I suppose…

I can remember two book gifts from a cousin when I was a kid. One year, she gave me a set of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books (the only two books not included were Farmer Boy and The First Four Years). I’d never heard of the books or the author (this was long before the TV show–I’m old enough to remember Michael Landon on Bonanza), but they were pretty good–still have them, actually. A few years later, she gave me a copy of Gone With The Wind. I’ve never been a fan of romance novels and my taste in historical novels generally runs toward mysteries…not to mention that by the time she gave me that book (in my early teens, I think), I’d already formed the opinion that Scarlett O’Hara was a stuck up spoiled little brat and somebody should have told her to grow up.

Put a nice piece of fabric over it and use it as a table.

It’s always better if you can turn pages and they stay in the book…

Not saying I wouldn’t have taken the opportunity to be Vice-President if it was offered (or at least considered it), but she went out and made a damn fool of herself–she reads ALL the newspapers and magazines that come out every day?–and after the campaign was over, kept saying she wanted to run for President, although one of the first things she did after returning to Alaska was resign as governor (,granted, she’d been away from it for a long time, but if you can’t run one state, should you announce you want to be in charge of all fifty?).

Was one of those books a short little sucker called Anthem? I had to read that in high school and I guess you could say it changed how I looked at the world. I was imaginating triplets joined at the head before I finally figured out everybody was using the royal we (as in Queen Victoria’s classic statement “We are not amused”). Had to work WAY too hard to get that little piece of information and I’ve never read Ayn Rand again. (In fact, when somebody asked me about that book years after graduation, I had to look on the fiction shelves at the library and go through all the Ayn Rand books they had because I’d blocked the damn title out of my brain.)

I’d read that!

I read Brave New World years after I was out of school–not my favorite book, but not as bad as I’d thought it might be.

I don’t know why specifically…I just don’t have any interest in reading either one again.

I’ve read a few of the classics–Sherlock Holmes, Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys…I read Call Of The Wild and The Jungle Book (by choice) in grade school because we had them at home and my attitude then was “Oh, here book…read book”, but I’ve never considered reading them again. Maybe I was looking for the words to I Wanna Be Like You and The Bare Necessities…

I started reading when I was about two, picking words out of books, magazines and newspapers (according to my mother, anyway) and I was reading Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe and I don’t remember what all by second or third grade. If we’d been in class together, we’d have given that poor teacher a heart attack!

My fourth-grade teacher read a chapter from a book to the class every day–as I recall, we heard all of the Narnia books, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator and quite possibly James And The Giant Peach. Wonderful experience (I don’t care how old you are, “tell me a story” is hard-wired in there) and I’ll happily go back and read all of them.

In sixth grade, my teacher assigned A Separate Peace–I was eleven or twelve years old, lived four blocks from school and had no idea what a boarding school was or what happened to the kid who fell out of the tree at the end (I read a newspaper article about the book about five or ten years ago–finally found out he died). In seventh or eighth grade, we had to read Catcher In The Rye. If it helped you in any way, I’m happy, but all I want to this day is to punch Holden Caulfield in the mouth…yes, I know he’s a fictional character. I don’t care, but I know…

The only one I remember from high school was Anthem by Ayn Rand. After going through those fifty or seventy-five pages some six or seven times (and imagining triplets joined at the head), I finally figured out everybody in the damn story was using the royal we (as in Queen Victoria’s famous statement “We are not amused”) and there is NOTHING in this world that will ever make me read her books again.

May we ask what series?

Any book where the title includes “Learning American Sign Language” would never work as an audiobook

Random Hearts

Wonderful movie–Harrison Ford is a cop who only finds out his wife was cheating on him when she and her boyfriend are killed in a plane crash (as I recall, the boyfriend bought the tickets so it’s reported that he and his wife, who’s a politician, were killed–which is a surprise to the politician as well). Ford and the lady meet and become friends, pretty much just trying to help each other get through this and there’s another storyline with Ford and his partner (Dennis Haysbert) trying to figure out who’s trying to kill one or both of them. Very good film, good story. I picked up the book after I saw the movie and I don’t think I even got two chapters into it. Completely different story…would probably be classified as literary fiction (aka “We don’t know what the hell it is”).

Louise Penny–Inspector Gamache series

Glen Cook–The Black Company and The Garrett Files

Jim Butcher–The Dresden Files

Jessica Fletcher–Murder, She Wrote (the original “co-author” was Donald Bain and I think now it’s Terrie Farley)

A Separate Peace–6th grade

I don’t remember why my teacher assigned this book and I’m not really sure I care anymore. I had no concept of a boarding school at that age–my grade school was only four blocks from my house. I didn’t understand why all these boys weren’t calling the house parents Mom and Dad (I thought it was just a big family) and it wasn’t until I saw a newspaper article a few years ago that I realized the kid who falls out of a tree (?) at the end of the book actually died…I thought he just disappeared.