Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen
Genre: Historical Romance? (I’m really not good at this genre thing if it doesn’t tell me…)
I want to: Read it; maybe own it.
This is not a book I would normally pick up. Circus? Great Depression? No thanks. But then I found out that this was a NaNoWriMo novel that piqued my interest – a NaNo novel that was not only published but made into a movie? I need to read it!
Summary from Goodreads:
Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski’s ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell. …
Interviews? For a ‘favourite things’ post? Yes, I mean it. I actually kind of like job interviews (exception: interviews with people I know). I mean, c’mon, it’s the only time you’re encouraged to brag!
Strangely journalistic type interviews freak me out. Go fig.
Carmina Burana
David Parlett, translator
Genre: Poetry
I want to: Own this book
O Fortuna, made famous by Carl Orff is one of the many pieces featured in this collection. I’m interested in reading them all.
Summary from Amazon.ca:
This is a selection from the 13th century collection of secular Latin poems. Some are serious (eg “Crusade” poems) but the majority are light, including many love poems. A number of items from the Carmina are well known as text for Carl Orff’s ‘Scenic Cantata’.
Okay, so they can be a bit smelly, but they’re so cute with their hair sticking up all over the place!
Though I suppose if the to-do ‘pile’ is empty, then there’s no pile… but you get the idea. :)
The kind that go on and on and transfix you, draw you in, pound in your chest. The kind that mark the downhill part of the concert because nothing can possibly top it.
dotmatrixproject on flickr
Strangely, forcing myself to stop doing something I like has made its way onto my list. How does this warrant being on a ‘favourite things’ list, you ask? Obviously the being forced to stop doing something fun part, especially I’m I’m doing my own forcing, isn’t so great. But knowing I was thoroughly enjoying what ever it was I was doing moments before – stitching or reading or whatever… that’s the good part :D
The sense of accomplishment if I actually succeed isn’t too bad, either!
And I’ll get to go back to it… eventually… absence makes the heart grow fonder, right??
…like, window-rattling-can-feel-the-vibrations-in-my-bones loud, bassy, thumping music. Fast, hard. Trance, Classical.
A Song of Ice and Fire series
By George R. R. Martin
Genre: Fantasy
I want to: Own this series; the final books won’t be released for a while yet, though.
I will admit that I first heard about this series because of the series that will soon (not soon enough!) be coming to HBO, but only half way through the first book it’s one of my favourite books, if not my definite favourite. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this book and the series!
Summary from Amazon.ca:
In a world where the approaching winter will last four decades, kings and queens, knights and renegades struggle for control of a throne. Some fight with sword and mace, others with magic and poison. Beyond the Wall to the north, meanwhile, the Others are preparing their army of the dead to march south as the warmth of summer drains from the land.
One of my favourite things… is when a song brings back a good or, at least, fun memory.
Like tonight, I was listening to one of my playlists to get me in the mood to write and Thunderstruck by AC/DC starting playing. I was suddenly back in Edmonton c.1990 in the back of a taxi van with a bunch of my fellow Pathfinders. We were in the city for our annual weekend getaway. We’d go shopping at West Edmonton Mall, take in the Laser Light Show at the Planetarium and more. This particular weekend we seemed to have the same cabbie every time we called for one. I even remember his name: Sam. Thunderstruck was all over the radio at that time, or perhaps he just had the song on repeat, but every time it came on he’d turn the stereo up to full blast (much to our leaders’ annoyance) and he and all us girls would belt it out at the tops of our lungs.
Other times it will be an entire band or record – Like anything from Motley Crue’s first few albums. I immediately feel all the emotions I felt that winter when I played my Theatre of Pain tape non-stop on my Walkman everyday on my walk to school… sad, cold, home, fun, excitement all at once. It gives me shivers.
Fun times. :) What’s your favourite song-related memory?
