King Arthur Movie Tristan

I stumbled upon yet another reading challenge.
The Book to Movie Challenge.

Now, keeping in mind that:
a) I work full time and

b) I am a full time mom

I've decided that I can stay up late to read when the kids are sleeping

and read on my lunch hour at work.
This way I can fit in this new reading challenge....lol. I've always been an avid reader and ever since joining the first reading challenge, I've read a nice variety of books, wonderful books I don't think I would have read if I wasn't inspired by these reading challenges.
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Your challenge is to pick and read at least 3 books that were made into movies. There is a LARGE list here


The deadline to sign up is today, so guess what? I'm going for it!

Here's my list:

1. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen



2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley



3. The Color Purple by Alice Walker


if by some fantastic miracle, I am able to read a few more, here are my picks:


4. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger


5. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman



6. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby


7. Little Women by Luisa May Alcott



I was tempted to add the Harry Potter books to my list, but I've read them all twice already and decided to venture out into some new reading material.

And I have promised myself no more reading challenges until I'm done with the 3 that I'm part of.

'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris

rated: 3 out of 5






I enjoyed this book. It was a soft, easy read. It starts off slow at first, then begins to take off. I have seen the film version and liked it alot, maybe even more than the book. The movie is different from the book in alot of ways.



Vianne Rocher and her 6 year old daughter Anouk
come to the village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.
Vianne opens up a tempting chocolate shop, called 'La Céleste Praline', during Lent no less, and across from the village church. The priest Francis Reynaud begins to preach against Vianne and her chocolate shop and discourages the villagers to enter or befriend Vianne. Vianne is also a bit psychic. She makes friends with a few of the villagers and Gypsies who come to town as well.


I enjoyed how the chocolate is described in the book, I did crave it. Vianne makes all kinds of goodies, and from scratch, the old fashioned way.

'There is a kind of alchemy in the transformation of base chocolate into this wise fool's-gold, a layman's magic that even my mother might have relished. As I work, I clear my mind, breathing deeply. The windows are open, and the through-draft would be cold if it were not for the heat of the stoves, the copper pans, the rising vapor from the couveture. The mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive; the raw and earthy tang of the Americas, the hot and resinous perfume of the rainforest. This is how I travel, as the Aztecs did in their sacred rituals: Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia. ....The food of the Gods, bubbling and frothing in ceremonial goblets. The bitter elixer of life.'

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this book has also been reviewed by: book-a-rama

I was going to take until Monday to come back, bring things back to life with a bit of a bang. However, when it comes to messin' with Opus, my outrage knows no bounds. I was content to let others run this story, but nobody seemed to notice the local angle. First off, the controversy. Many papers, citing Islamo-whackisim did not run this cartoon last Sunday.

(Click on image for full size)

Our local Opus carrying rag, the Tardy Toronto Sun, managed to sneak under the radar but also did not run the cartoon. Instead it ran this one. If you look in the bottom left corner of frame #2, you will see the date 8/26/07. Presumably, Mr. Breathed issued two different cartoons this week, and we Canadians got the second rate one. Too bad, but I can't help but wonder if the Sun would have ran the first one if they had it.

(once again, click on image for full size).

Note: This post has been altered from it's original.

I found this R.I.P. II challenge and decided to join.

This is so up my alley.

'R.I.P. II is a September 1st through October 31st celebration of all tales gothic, eerie, creepy, and dark. Tales that one reads in the dark of night, experiencing delicious shivers of terror and suspense at each creak of the floorboards or each gust of wind.'




I am taking on 'the first peril' which is:

'Read Four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that you choose.'

Here are my horrific choices:

1. Frankenstien, Book I by Dean Koontz

2. City of Night, Frankenstien, Book II by Dean Koontz

3. The Stand by Stephen King

4.
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice






I'm also taking on an additional peril and will be reading:


1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

2. A collection of tales by Edgar Allan Poe

3. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz (I've read the first 2 books in this series and have been wanting to read this latest one)





And I may try to get some H. P. Lovecraft in there as well.


Even if I don't finish by October 31st, I will keep reading until my list is complete.







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And since we're on the topic of all things spooky, I wanted to post my Dean Koontz autographed book here.

I posted this a while ago at my crochet blog before I had a book blog, but I think it's more fitting here:


Last year I sent my fav author Dean Koontz a fan letter
telling him my fav book of his is 'The Taking'.
I also asked him for an autograph and sent him one of my crocheted elephants.
Well, a few weeks later, to my utter amazement, I received mail from him.
He sent me a personally signed hard cover copy of 'The Taking', his newsletter
and a note saying thanks for the letter and the cute elephant!
*faint* need I say more?
I was thrilled! I still have everything he sent, carefully stored and I do take it out now and then to show it off to friends and family who visit.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte



rating: 5 out of 5




(Emily Bronte kicks butt and I'm adding Wuthering Heights to my fav classics)







Being partial to the classics, I enjoyed it and actually got through it quickly. For some reason, I expected this book to be like "Gone With the Wind'...I was so wrong.


Anyway, what is 'Wuthering Heights'? It's a house. With a name like 'wuthering' (which I can't find in the dictionary by the way) I expected this to be a romance novel. Supposedly 'wuthering' is a Yorkshire word that refers to turbulent weather.




I kept hearing this is a 'gothic romance'. It is dark and gothic. It is a love story, but not just that. It's about death and revenge as well.




And with one of the main characters being named 'Heathcliff', I imagined a romantic tall dark and handsome man. Not! Heathcliff is a jerk. A big one. Yes, he is dark and tall. He is supposed to be either a gypsy or spaniard. Nobody knows for sure since he was abandoned and brought to 'Wuthering Heights' as a child.
He is raised with Catherine, who by the way is a bit nutty and very selfish, and they become inseperable. The perfect couple!




Catherine winds up marrying Edgar Linton and Heathcliff leaves for 3 years. When he returns, he runs off with Edgar's sister Isabella and marries her.
Soon enough Isabella realizes how horrible Heathcliff is and she hates him.
Heathcliff admits openly that he doesnt love Isabella and only married her to get revenge on her brother Edgar.



Isabella and Heathcliff have a son. Catherine and Edgar have a daughter.
And a whole lot of events take place...the story was very, very good. I recommend it.


I like the dark aspect to this story. And I found it interesting that Heathcliff is so bad. He is a villain to the very end. It's almost hard to believe he can love anyone, but he does seem to love Catherine his entire life.





favorite quotes:

"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same..."-Catherine



"Two words comprehend my future-death and hell: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have..."-Heathcliff





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next to read will be
Chocolat by Joanne Harris , but in between I am reading something else. I don't know what yet.

I'm a long time fan of the Rhinoceros Party, and have lamented their absence from the landscape before (and here). For those who don't know, The Rhinos roamed the Canadian political landscape from 1963 to 1993. In 1993 Parliament amended the election act to, well basically outlaw The Rhinos.

Well, they're back. On Tuesday, Rhino Leader-shmeader, Brian (Godzilla) Salmi, announced he will run as a Rhino in the Sept. 17 federal byelection in Montreal's Outremont riding. And they're serious, they even have a real website, with links and pictures and things.

Personally, I'm getting in on the ground floor and joining this up and coming force in the political landscape.

Long Live the Rhino, and thank God we are getting some levity back into Canadian politics.

If you were coming in the fall,


I ’d brush the summer by


With half a smile and half a spurn,


As housewives do a fly.





If I could see you in a year,


I ’d wind the months in balls,


And put them each in separate drawers,

Until their time befalls.



If only centuries delayed,

I ’d count them on my hand,

Subtracting till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen’s land.



If certain, when this life was out,

That yours and mine should be,

I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,

And taste eternity.



But now, all ignorant of the length

Of time’s uncertain wing,

It goads me, like the goblin bee,

That will not state its sting.


Emily Dickinson (1830–86)



art by J.Wall

I give it 4 out of 5




The start was kind of slow....but it was interesting enough to keep me reading.
It's about a widow named Lisey, her late husband Scott Landon, was a famous writer, specializing in horror stories.

At the beginning, I thought Lisey was crazy. She is hearing her dead husbands voice and also get a visit from a nutter, who insists she give up her husbands unpublished works, or else Lisey will get hurt. Reminds me a bit of 'Secret Window'
(The main character in that S.K. novel also hears voices inside his head and gets a strange visit from a man named 'Shooter')


Anyways Lisey's 3 sisters also play a part in the story and one of them is mentally unstable.



what annoyed me:

I didn't like the way the story kept dragging on with too many details...I hate when he does that! lol I have a short attention span and it's hard for me to stay focused. I kind of got annoyed at Lisey and Scott's secret language...ie...SOWISA, everything the same, blood bools and pie bald side among others.


I also didn't enjoy reading about Scott's childhood. I know its fiction, but it was so twisted I found it hard to read at times, especially when his brother gets the 'bad gunky'. But this is S.K were talking about, he does write about nasty horrible things, so being grossed out can be expected :P



what I liked:

Scott & Lisey's love story. And I liked the ending, and how she reads "Lisey's Story" because I was wondering what ever happened to Scott's dad.

And the way he leaves her the story for her to find and read on her own. And 'the african'.



I like the idea of BooyaMoon. I also liked the relationship between Lisey and her sister Amanda. I like how Amanda and Scott are also connected by BooyaMoon too.






'She lay there a long time, remembering a hot August day in Nashville and thinking -- not for the first time -- that being single after being double so long was strange shite, indeed. She would have thought two years was enough time for the strangeness to rub off, but it wasn't; time apparently did nothing but blunt grief's sharpest edge so that it hacked rather than sliced. Because everything was not the same. Not outside, not inside, not for her. Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing.'-Liseys Story Stephen King




other bloggers have reviewed this book:

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When they were piecing together The Band, they had to convince Garth Hudson's parents to let him join a rock and roll band. He gave the other members lessons to give an air of respectability to the enterprise and gain his parents OK.

When you think of The Band, it's hard not to think of wild looking Garth Hudson, a whisp of hair falling over his face, long mountain-man beard. The organ in Chest Fever, the Jews harp in Cripple Creek, as much a part of the band's sound as Levon Helm's scratchy vocals or Robbie Robertsons understated guitar playing.

Garth Hudson, from nearby Stratford Ontario, a significant force in what is arguably one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and possibly the greatest Canadian band, turns an unbelievable 70 today.

Happy Birthday Garth Hudson.