Quick Read

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fun read. Not Hornby's best, but still entertaining.

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Required Reading in the Northwest

The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest by Timothy Egan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you love the Northwest, you should read this book. Egan's first book is a thorough look at the landscape, the people, and the history of the region. Even though it has been twenty years since it was published, it is still incredibly relevant. Egan is an environmentalist and an outdoorsman and a lot of the book is about water and trees. He talks about how the landscape has shaped the people and how the people have shaped the landscape.

I learned a lot about my home and Egan has inspired me to explore it further.

View all my reviews >>

Saw the movie, then read the book.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Very entertaining. This was my first Sherlock Holmes and he wasn't at all the stuffy English dude I was expecting.

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My Books & Movies in 2009

This is the fourth year I have kept track of movies I have seen in a theater and books I have read (2008, 2007, 2006).  Today I took down the calendar and had a look at my year in book and film.

JANUARY
Doubt
Milk
America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins
Last Chance Harvey
Benjamin Button

FEBRUARY
Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day by Gina Trapani
The Reader
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Bolt
Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby
The Wrestler
The Wrestler (2nd time)
Getting Things Done by David Allen

MARCH

APRIL
Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough
Sunshine Cleaning
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

MAY
Earth
Is Anybody There?
Star Trek
Wolverine

JUNE
Underworld by Don DeLillo

JULY
The Best American Travel Writing 2008 edited by Anthony Bourdain
Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara
Public Enemies
Moon
Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story by Tony Wheeler

AUGUST
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

SEPTEMBER
The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World by Michelle Goldberg
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
(500) Days of Summer

OCTOBER
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Accidental Adventurer by Barbara Washburn

NOVEMBER
The Men Who Stare at Goats

DECEMBER
La Danse
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
Sherlock Holmes
Up in the Air

In progress—Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

The number of books I read took a slight dip from previous years, but the number of movies I saw was only half of previous years.  That reflects my move to a new town where I don't have a huge movie theater in walking distance (however, many of the movies I did see were at the Grand, an awesome non-profit movie theater here in Tacoma).

I read a whole stack of awesome books this year.  I somehow ended up reading the giant Underworld and the giant Infinite Jest back to back, which I wouldn't necessarily recommend.  However, both were great (especially IJ).  I also really loved Theodore Rex, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Public Enemies, and The Dante Club.  You can check out all my ratings over at my Goodreads profile.

I saw some great movies and some stinkers too.  In the stinker category: Bolt, Wolverine, and Public Enemies.   Some of those in the great category: Sunshine Cleaning, Star Trek, Moon, (500) Days of Summer, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Sherlock Holmes, and Up in the Air.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to read more...I should probably add a resolution to watch more movies.

Xanga to Blogger

I'm trying to find a way to import all my posts from Xanga into this blog. However, Xanga makes that incredibly difficult. So, for now, for older posts you can visit the old blog: http://martha1104.xanga.com/

My Movies and Books in 2008

This is the third year I have kept track of movies and books on my wall calendar (2007, 2006).  I only recorded books that I had read for personal enjoyment (no textbooks!) and movies that I had seen in the theater.  So, today I took down the calendar and had a look at my year in book and film.

JANUARY
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts
Juno
I Am Legend
Charlie Wilson’s War
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
I’m Not There
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Michael Clayton

FEBRUARY
Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell
27 Dresses
The Savages
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Row Hard
Murch
The Collaborator of Bethlehem: An Omar Yussef Mystery by Matt Beynon Rhys

MARCH
A Girl from Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

APRIL
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
Best American Non-Required Reading 2007 ed. Dave Eggers
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

MAY
Iron Man
What Happens in Vegas
Prince Caspian
Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel

JUNE
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Get Smart

JULY
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

AUGUST
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Wall-E
The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon
Brideshead Revisited
Basin and Range by John McPhee
Tropic Thunder

SEPTEMBER
Superpowers by David Schwartz
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
Elegy
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

OCTOBER
Body of Lies

NOVEMBER
Quantum of Solace
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

DECEMBER
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
A Changed Man by Francine Prose
Slumdog Millionaire

In Progress: America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins

I moved from Spokane to Tacoma in May and I haven't been reading as much or watching as many movies since then.  I'm still working on getting back into a routine.

By far, the worst movie I saw in 2008 was What Stays in Vegas (which wasn't particularly surprising).  27 dresses and Body of Lies weren't that great either.  I Am Legend probably had the worst ending.  Robert Downey Jr had a fantastic year.  Both Iron Man and Tropic Thunder were great.  I also really loved Juno, No Country, I'm Not There, There Will Be Blood, Wall-E, and Slumdog Millionaire. 

You can read my book reviews at goodreads.com.  Superpowers and Benedict Society were incredibly disappointing.  But, I read a whole stack of FANTASTIC books in 2008.  A Changed Man, Theodore Roosevelt, Then We Came to the End, and A Sense of the World were probably my favorites of the year.

My Movies & Books in 2007

This is the second year I have kept track of movies and books on my wall calendar (here's 2006).  I only recorded books that I had read for personal enjoyment (no textbooks!) and movies that I had seen in the theater.  So, today I took down the calendar and had a look at my year in book and film.

JANUARY
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
JPod by Douglas Coupland
Borat
Pursuit of Happyness
Volver
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
The Queen
Babel
The Departed
The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook by Justin Spring
Notes on a Scandal
FEBRUARY
The Last King of Scotland
Pan’s Labrynth
Letters from Iwo Jima
Music & Lyrics
Children of Men
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind

MARCH
Because I Said So
Zodiac
The 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

APRIL
The Lives of Others
Blades of Glory
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Zero by Jess Walter

MAY
Spiderman 3
Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
Waitress
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Thirteen Days by Robert F Kennedy

JUNE
Knocked Up
Pirates of the Carribbean: At World’s End
Ocean’s 13
Nancy Drew
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

JULY
Transformers
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
Ratatouille
Sicko
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
You Kill Me
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)

AUGUST
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
The Simpsons Movie
Death at a Funeral
Superbad
Becoming Jane

SEPTEMBER
Four Quarters of Light: An Alaskan Journey by Brian Keenan
Stardust
Stardust (second time)
Once
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

OCTOBER
Getting to Yes by Fisher, Ury & Patton
Into the Wild
The Darjeeling Limited

NOVEMBER
The Nightmare Before Christmas – 3D
Trade
Lars and the Real Girl
America (The Book) by Jon Stewart

DECEMBER
The Best American Travel Writing ed. Susan Orlean
The Big Four by Agatha Christie
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Atonement
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Currently Reading (but not finished in 2007):
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts

P.S. (Jan 28, 08)
The worst movies were Because I Said So, Spiderman 3, and Nancy Drew.

The best books were A Long Way Down (a hilarious and uplifting story about attempted suicide), Snow (set in Turkey), The Worst Hard Time (personal stories about the Dust Bowl. National Book Award winner. Seattle author.), The Zero (excellent 9/11 fiction that never mentions 9/11. Spokane author.), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (natch), and The Yiddish Policemen's Union (Jews, chess, and Alaska. What more could you want?).