Business Witch

Today, in honor of Halloween and to protest the fact that our Museum is having its board meeting on this most fantastic of holidays, I'm sitting at work in a business suit and a witch hat. I put it on upon arrival this morning and am not taking it off until I have to get into my car again much much later this evening....and then it'll go back on again for a party, but then I'll be party witch instead of business witch. Much more fun.

Book Catch Up:

1. Blindness - I actually took this one to Europe with me this summer and spent a good bit of bus time reading it. Not my most favorite book, but an interesting exploration of humanity and what might potentially happen to it in the face of a debilitating epidemic. I'm not sure that if the world were struck by sudden blindness people would really react the way that they do in the book, I guess I hope that most people have more goodness in them and more bravery. It seems to take an awful lot for some of the characters to react to some of the terrible things happening to them, but I have never been and hope to never be in situations they find themselves in, so I cannot really say what the normal reaction would be. A note on the structure of the book - there are no quotation marks or paragraph brakes to show when people are speaking so its a little hard to follow at points, you just really need to be paying attention. Oh, and despite its very crappy reviews, I actually thought the movie did a pretty good job at capturing the book. I am not sure that it would be appreciated as much by non-readers of the book though.

2. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Okay, so I'd heard from a few people that this book was fabulous so I decided to give it a try. Honestly, I was so put off by the pretentiousness of the title that I wasn't really into reading. If someone is going to call their work this, it better damn well be good. And....it was alright. I had trouble with the narrator - I wanted to feel sympathy for him because of the loss of his parents and his being left to raise his younger brother, and sometimes I did, but sometimes I just really disliked him. Again perhaps its a problem of never having been in similar situations, but I suspect my reactions to it all would have been significantly different. So maybe it was a difficult read because the narrator and I are at different places on the personality spectrum. Definitely some interesting writing techniques where he weaves fiction into the nonfiction (in ways that you can tell its fiction so it works just fine).

3. The Twilight Series - I really enjoyed this series and would recommend to fans of young adult fiction and/or vampires. I felt a connection to a number of the characters throughout the books and was pleased that the series ended with more than what could have been the obvious conclusion - the main character becoming a vampire - there is a lot more there which is nice. I'm not saying that the book doesn't have its obvious moments - you definitely can see a number of things coming before the characters identify them themselves. Fun and fast, of all three here, my favorite.

I can't remember if there was anything else in there so I guess we are all up to date!