Book List - June 2012

Books I've read in June.

19. Mr. Darcy's Dream by Elizabeth Aston. I'm a sucker for P&P sequels. This one, the story of Georginia Darcy's daughter Phoebe, was rather dull. The title refers to Mr. Dary's ambition to create a large glass house (greenhouse) at Pemberly. There is a misunderstanding between Phoebe and the man she loves. Much focus is on reputations but it all works out in the end.

20. The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan - This a book about four women who attended their 20th college reunion. The title comes from a type of Who's Who that is printed every five years for Harvard alumni. There is a lot of affairs and deaths but it's main focus is that even the lives of graduates of Harvard don't go the way they're planned.


21. The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts. This author's trilogies are great summer reads. Three characters each have their own book to discover love. And there is always a happy ending.


22. The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay. Unfortunately this book had absolutely no plot and as a result was boring. In the 1860s Paris neighborhoods were being distroyed to make room for large bouelvards. One woman, a widow in her 60s, refuses to leave her house and insteads hides in the basement writing leters to her dead husband about what has happened over the last 10 years since he died. The person from People magazine who called the book "mesmerizing" must have also spend hours watching goldfish in a glass bowl.

Heather's Movie Viewing Trivia

(Today’s blog was inspired by questions this week’s Entertainment Weekly asked actress Emma Stone, with my answers.)

The First Movie I Remember Watching
Disney’s Cinderella (1950). Of course, this was a re-release. I remember thinking it took a really long time to drive to the movie theater.

The Movie Character I Wanted to Be
Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) from Sixteen Candles (1984) because (SPOILER ALERT) she gets really, really cute Jake at the end.

The First R-Rated Drama I Ever Saw
My mom took me to see The Breakfast Club (1985). After the movie, Mom (who had gone to an all-girls Catholic high school in the 50s) said that high school wasn’t really like that. I told her that it was.

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw
I never got frightened by most horror movies. To me the blood and guts were kind of boring and overall the movies were so stupid they were funny. The one exception was The Blair Witch Project (1999). That movie TOTALLY freaked me out. Haven’t been camping since.

The Last Movie I Bought
The Dark Knight (2008). I thought Heath Leger was brilliant in this movie and totally deserved his Oscar (even thought it was sadly given posthumously).

The Movie Musical I Know Every Word To
No brainer, Grease (1978).

The Movie I Can’t Turn Off When It Comes on the Television
This is a really hard one. Pretty much any movie based on a Jane Austen novel, or stars John Cusack or Colin Firth, or John Hughes movie from the 80s, or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (As Ferris said, Life move’s pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you can miss it.).

The Movie I’ve Seen More Times Than I Can Count
Again, this is really hard. There are so, so many. But if I had to choose just one I’d probably say Real Genius (1985) with Val Kilmer. It's hokey but I still love it.

My First Movie Star Crush
Christopher Atkins but not in Blue Lagoon (I didn’t see that until years after it came out), in The Pirate Movie (1982). This was a cult favorite with my friends and I in high school. If you’ve never seen it, it’s an extremely cheeky 80s version of the musical, The Pirates of Penzance.

The Last Movie That Made Me Cry
I don’t normally cry at movies. I may shed a tear or two but I cannot honestly remember the last time I did that so I’m going to answer this with the movie I cried the most at, Finding Neverland (2004). I was sobbing at the end of the movie when the credits were rolling. I was still sobbing as we left the theater, as we walked through the parking lot and didn’t finish sobbing until we were driving away. So, so sad.

The Movie I’m Always Telling People to See
Sliding Doors (1998) with Gwyneth Paltrow. For a long time I’ve been tired of Hollywood producing so many re-makes of movies and (mostly bad) television shows and movies based on children’s games. This movie has one of the MOST original stories I’ve ever seen. Serious, its super good with a great ending (LOVED the ending)!

God Save the Queen!

I love everything British. I’ve been lucky enough to have visited England on four occasions and, if I could, I would love to live and work there, so I am excited about all the celebrations surrounding Queen Elizabeth II’s 60th anniversary on the throne. She’s 86 years old and while the last 60 years haven’t been perfect, it is generally acknowledged that she’s done a pretty good job as Queen.

A lot of people don’t understand the duties of the monarch or think that there is even a need for a monarchy. While the Queen can technically dissolve the British Parliament and get rid of the Prime Minister (she has reigned through the terms of 12 prime ministers), it will probably never happen. Basically the purpose of the monarchy is the promote unity (and is that a bad thing?). While most of the Queen’s duties (she attends more than 370 events every year) are symbolic, she is the Queen of State in 16 Commonwealth which includes 53 countries. Queen Elizabeth has various official, ceremonial, diplomatic, and representational duties, and she is a patron of 620 charities.

So while she may not have a lot of political power (although she meets with the Prime Minister ever week and serves as a counselor – she has enough life experience) she does have a purpose. And Queen Elizabeth is the longest living monarch and has the second longest reign (after Queen Victoria who reigned 64 years).

Whether you think the monarch should continue or not you have to give Queen Elizabeth some credit. For 60 years she was dedicated her life to her country, probably sometimes over her own family. I don’t think you can say that about any American political leader.

Book List - May 2012

It was a disappointing month, only two books. I ended up reading a book that is taking a long time to finish (I'm not even half way done).

Here is what I read in May:


17. These Girls by Sarah Pekkanhen - This is a story about three women and their friendship. Each have secrets and struggles, but nothing extraordinary. It was an okay read.

18. The Queen's Handmaiden by Jennifer Ashley - This is a fictional story about Queen Elizabeth I from the time her father died and she became queen through the point of view of her seamstress. I've read a lot of historical fiction about Queen Elizabeth and this was an okay but again, nothing extraordinary.

Book List - April 2012

Here is what I read in April:

14. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I don't normally read fantasy (although the cover says this is a novel) but a friend recommended it so I decided to give it a read. The title is very straight forward - this book is about a very unusal circus that is open only at night and the people who run it (and no, they are not vampires as one friend asked). Of course there is an underlying mystery throughout the book so you'll need some patiences but it was enjoyable just the same.

15. Miss Darcy Falls in Love by Sharon Lathan - This is another continuation of Pride & Prejudice but you don't need to know the original story.  I always find it interesting how other authors tell what happen to the characters onces P&P is over and this one tells how Georginia Darcy falls in love.  It was okay and kept to the speech and manors of the time but it did get a little too Harlequin-y for me, especially at the end.

16. The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark - I don't read a lot of mysteries but I've been reading MHC since I was about 12.  She has written over 40 books and I've probably read most of them.  She seems to have a formula that she follows in her writing (all the books are written the same way and are somewhat dated) but I always end up reading whatever she puts out.  Most of her books involve a murder.  The man murdered in this story may have found a letter written by Christ.  This was easy to read and enjoyable.  If you like "who-dunnits" then you would probably enjoy this book.

I feels as if I've been slacking this year.  Only 16 books in the first four months.  There just doesn't seem to be as much time to read as their used to be.  I'm not really sure what has changed.  I don't think I need more hours in the day, I'd rather just spend less time on things that aren't as enjoyable, like work.

Things I've Learned

I was cleaning out my desk and found the following. I don't know who wrote it (I cleaned it up a little bit) but I really like. Hope you do too.

Things I Have Learned

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people are just jerks.

I've learned that it takes years to build up a trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more screwed up than you think.

I've learned that you can keep throwing up long after you think you're finished.

I've learned that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.

I've learned that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to take it's place.

I've leaarned that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down will be the ones who do.

I've learned that we don't have to ditch bad friends, because their dysfunction makes us feel better about ourselves.

I've learned that no matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get arrested and end up in the local paper.

I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away.

How Much Do You Really Know?

Next week, on April 15, will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, pretty much everyone knows the story of the Titanic but quess what? Not everyone knows that the movie is based on a true story!!!

The Huffington Post is reporting that it had tweets from real people who didn't know the sinking of the Titanic was a true story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/titanic-movie-3d-fans-who-dont-know-the-titanic-was-real_n_1401139.html?ref=entertainment#s839880&title=SERGIO_AGUEROS_WIFE

How does that happen? If you read through the tweets you can probably guess that these are young people, some may not have even been alive when the movie Titanic was first released in December 1997 (14 years ago for those who can't do the math). But come on, the sinking was such a huge story in 1912, aren't they teaching it in school? There have been documentaries, museum exhibits, books, etc. how can people not know it wasn't a true story?

This is really sad. It's like that segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno called Jaywalking where people can't answer basic questions everyone should know the answer to: Who was the first president of the United States? Who did the U.S. fight in the American Revoluation? What color is the White House? What country is the Panama Canel located in? I often wonder how many Americans would be about to pass a citizenship test.

See how many of these actual U.S. citizenship test questions you get correct (click on the question to see the answers):

1. What are the colors of our flag?
2. How many stars are there in our flag?
3. What color are the stars on our flag?
4. What do the stars on the flag mean?
5. How many stripes are there in the flag?
6. What color are the stripes?
7. What do the stripes on the flag mean?
8. How many states are there in the Union?
9. What is the 4th of July?
10. What is the date of Independence Day?
11. Independence from whom?
12. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?
13. Who was the first President of the United States?
14. Who is the President of the United States today?
15. Who is the vice-president of the United States today?
16. Who elects the President of the United States?
17. Who becomes President of the United States if the President should die?
18. For how long do we elect the President?
19. What is the Constitution?
20. Can the Constitution be changed?
21. What do we call a change to the Constitution?
22. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution?
23. How many branches are there in our government?
24. What are the three branches of our government?
25. What is the legislative branch of our government?
26. Who makes the laws in the United States?
27. What is the Congress?
28. What are the duties of Congress?
29. Who elects the Congress?
30. How many senators are there in Congress?
31. Can you name the two senators from your state?
32. For how long do we elect each senator?
33. How many representatives are there in Congress?
34. For how long do we elect the representatives?
35. What is the executive branch of our government?
36. What is the judiciary branch of our government?
37. What are the duties of the Supreme Court?
38. What is the supreme court law of the United States?
39. What is the Bill of Rights?
40. What is the capital of your state?
41. Who is the current governor of your state?
42. Who becomes President of the United States if the President and the vice-president should die?
43. Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
44. Can you name thirteen original states?
45. Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death."?
46. Which countries were our enemies during World War II?
47. What are the 49th and 50th states of the Union?
48. How many terms can the President serve?
49. Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?
50. Who is the head of your local government?
51. According to the Constitution, a person must meet certain requirements in order to be eligible to become President. Name one of these requirements.
52. Why are there 100 Senators in the Senate?
53. Who selects the Supreme Court justice?
54. How many Supreme Court justice are there?
55. Why did the Pilgrims come to America?
56. What is the head executive of a state government called?
57. What is the head executive of a city government called?
58. What holiday was celebrated for the first time by the Americans colonists?
59. Who was the main writer of the Declaration of Independence?
60. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
61. What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence?
62. What is the national anthem of the United States?
63. Who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner?
64. Where does freedom of speech come from?
65. What is a minimum voting age in the United States?
66. Who signs bills into law?
67. What is the highest court in the United States?
68. Who was the President during the Civil War?
69. What did the Emancipation Declaration do?
70. What special group advises the President?
71. Which President is called the "Father of our country"?
72. What Immigration and Naturalization Service form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen?
73. Who helped the Pilgrims in America?
74. What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America?
75. What are the 13 original states of the U.S. called?
76. Name 3 rights of freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
77. Who has the power to declare the war?
78. What kind of government does the United States have?
79. Which President freed the slaves?
80. In what year was the Constitution written?
81. What are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called?
82. Name one purpose of the United Nations?
83. Where does Congress meet?
84. Whose rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
85. What is the introduction to the Constitution called?
86. Name one benefit of being citizen of the United States.
87. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens?
88. What is the United States Capitol?
89. What is the White House?
90. Where is the White House located?
91. What is the name of the President's official home?
92. Name the right guaranteed by the first amendment.
93. Who is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military?
94. Which President was the first Commander in Chief of the U.S. military?
95. In what month do we vote for the President?
96. In what month is the new President inaugurated?
97. How many times may a Senator be re-elected?
98. How many times may a Congressman be re-elected?
99. What are the 2 major political parties in the U.S. today?
100. How many states are there in the United States today?