Books, books and more books!

That's what I got this Christmas, thanks to my lovely friends and sister. Well, to be specific, I got gift cards to Barnes and Noble which I went out and spent (along with a little of my own money) on tons o' wonderful books.

I got lots of teen fiction (also thanks to Krissie who bought me four awesome books) and The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. I am especially excited about that one because I have been wanting to read Through the Looking Glass again.

So...here's the list.

From Krissie:
Specials by Scott Westerfeld
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Loser by Jerry Spinelli

From my gift cards:
The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (the complete box set, she co-wrote Sorcery and Cecilia and I really liked the cover art so I thought I'd give it a try)
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Just because they were on sale for less than $5:
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems
The Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar by Robert Hartwell Fiske (it was $1.99 and I like reading about grammar misusage)
The Musee D'Orsay (which was 50% off and has beautiful pictures of the works of art from this museum in Paris, which was one of my favorites when we visited in the spring)

Okay, so I think that covers it. Actually I know I bought a couple more I just can't remember them at the moment. All in all, though, I am very pleased with my Christmas presents and tried to buy books that would last a long time and remind me of the people who made the buying of them possible. Hence the box set and the Works of Lewis Carroll. I am excited to start reading!!

Atonement by Ian McEwan

So, I finished this book last night. First and foremost, I LOVED it. It was a good read full of love and war and tragedy and lies. It had a "real" ending. Not the story-book ending I was furvently hoping for while reading the book, but a real life ending making the characters and events seem that much more plausible. For all we know, this is a true story. It isn't, but it could be. McEwan didn't compromise in this area and I like that a lot.

Secondly. I kind of fell in love with Robbie Turner. He's written so well. He makes mistakes - goofy, blind-in-love mistakes that every person has made, but the consequences of those mistakes are far more serious and disastrous than called for. Still, he never loses his faith in or his love for Cecilia. James McAvoy plays Robbie in the film and he said this about the role,

"I do really care about that character. I get angry about what happens to them in the way you would with a true story based on real events, y'know, and I have to remind myself it's made up and it actually didn't happen."

That pretty much sums it up for me. As I read, I knew what would happen (it's not a secret that Robbie Turner is falsely accused of rape) and I dreaded every moment leading up to it and the ease with which it was carried through. Then I was angry reading about the events following. They seemed like real things happening to real people. That's why McEwan is amazing.

Like I said, the romantic in me wanted the book to end differently, but I know it would have ruined the whole thing if it had. So overall, it was fantastic.

updates

I'll probably be messing with the organization of this blog and its layout. now that i have my laptop, i have the time to do so and it has been bugging me.

In book news, I've been reading Atonement and my earlier doubts have been erased. It is amazing so far and I cannot wait to finish it.

So Talk About Expanding Your Horizons...

I just finished reading The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan--the first book in the Wheel of Time series. Not something I thought I'd ever read, let's be honest. But the story is that Mike had just finished a book and needed something else to read, so I gave him The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen, and when I did he thought hey! I'll give you a book to read too! He gave me two, actually, the other one Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I'm sure I'll get around to that one sometime but it's not really on my top list right now. So anyway, The Eye of the World. Surprisingly good. Granted, I did have to learn to ignore a lot of little things that normally annoy the crap out of me, and just keep an open mind about different styles of writing and all that. And there were a couple things that never quite stopped irritating me (like they way they use the word "light," for example, as both an expletive and a prayer). But the book was actually really good, and I like it enough that I'm starting the second one now, The Great Hunt. I'm excited because both Megan and Mike say they remember this one being amazing, and hey, amazing is always good. I told Mike from the beginning that I am making no commitments past the first three, because--well, really. The series is eleven GINORMOUS books long and the writer died without writing the twelfth and final book, so I actually picked quite a lame time to get into the series. I like them, though, so I'm afraid that I'll read the first three and want to keep going. I guess we'll see how that turns out. I may be setting myself up for a looooot of reading and reading with no fulfillment at the end. Meh. What're you gonna do?

In other news, I am finally reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. I was at Borders with Mike and saw a display with some really cool looking books, and this one was one of them. I've been meaning to read Lewis Carroll for a long time now, actually, and these were such a unique series that I figured it was a sign that it was about time for me to get the book and start reading. I already finished Alice in Wonderland in like a day--it's very quick reading, and only 102 pages long--and now I'm starting into the second one. Good times, and also Lewis Carroll was a very interesting man. :)