Movies!

I haven't posted anything in a while! Some new movies I've just seen include The Hunger Games, Avengers, The Artist, We Bought A Zoo, People Like Us, and The Vow. I would definitely recommend The Hunger Games, but only if you like the whole post-apocalyptic thing. The Avengers was good if you like explosions, and The Artist was like a current version of Singin' In the Rain, which is one of my favorite movies ever. After I got over the fact that The Artist was sort of copying that movie, I thought it was very well done. Once I remember what books I've read recently, I'll post again! 

Contest

Our very own Jennifer Griffith has a new novel, Big in Japan, coming out this month. Cool, huh. To celebrate, I'm going to purchase a copy of Jennifer's book for one lucky winner. To choose the winner, I will be drawing names out of a hat, a bowl, or other shallow receptacle. Here are the rules.

1. To get your name in the hat, make a comment on any of the posts. I'm sure this won't happen, but if for some reason I need to delete the comment, it will not count as a contest entry. Every comment you make gets your name in the hat. The more comments you make, the more entries you get.
2. To my contributors, every post you make will be considered an entry.
3. You must be willing to give me your snail mail address, so I can send you the book.
4. The contest goes from now until August 8. I will announce the winner within a couple days of the end of the contest.

Good luck!

Here's the book press release.

Here's the book trailer.

A magic library card

Newbery Medal winner Jerry Spinelli wrote The Library Card as a challenge. He was to write several stories that had nothing in common but an enchanted library card. The result is a magic blue library card that travels through and changes the lives of Mongoose, Brenda, Sonseray, and April Mendez. These are stories that show the positive power and influence books, libraries and the people who love them can have on lives. The stories don't show us how these four kids' lives turned out, only the road down which the library card led them. A couple of the stories are sad, but all beautiful portraits of kids and their problems. Spinelli has a lot of love and empathy for his subjects. The novel has an After Words section at the end which included an interview with the author. There is also "The Book That Changed My Life" in which other authors write about books they love that influenced them. That was my favorite part of the book.

Garbology

Archaeologist William Rathje, the original garbologist and the Oxford English Dictionary define garbology as, "the study of a community or culture by analyzing it's waste." (page 136 of the Nook edition) Across his or her lifetime, every American will, on average, generate 102 tons of trash. (page 11) This figure only accounts for the trash each of us throws out. It does not include all the waste and pollution generated to produce, package, or transport everything we end up throwing away. In fact, trash is America's leading export. (page 16) How is it possible that we generate so much trash?

Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Humes seeks to answer three questions, from page 19:

1.     What is the nature and cost of all this waste?

2.     How is it possible that we create this much waste without intending to or realizing it?

3.     What next? Is there a way back and what would it do for us or to us?

I've been interested in learning about trash and what happens to it and how I can make less ever since I read Garbage Land (fabulous) by Elizabeth Royte. My coworkers have often been coerced into walking around the neighborhood picking up litter. So when, I heard about Garbology, I knew I would find it fascinating.

I wasn't disappointed. Garbology is interesting, well written and well sourced. It's full of so many interesting facts, that I decided I needed to take notes to remember them. Here are a few of those interesting facts.

   

• From page 63-"By the year 2000, Americans consumed 100 billion [plastic shopping bags] a year, at an estimated cost to retailers of $4 billion - costs passed on to consumers."
• From page 90-91-"Scripps researchers found that the [lantern] fish responsible for maintaining a significant part of the global food supply were eating potentially toxic plastic at an alarming rate - 24,000 tons a year in the North Pacific alone." Lantern fish are low on the food chain, and all this plastic is mixed in with the zooplankton the fish eat.
• From page 109-"The United Nations estimates that a minimum of 7 million tons of trash ends up in the ocean each year, 5.6 million tons of which (80 percent) is plastic." All this plastic will never disappear.
• From page 226: "One full day's worth of America's total oil consumption - about 18 million barrels - is spent hauling bottled water around."

The book isn't intended to be overwhelming or discouraging, and surprisingly, it isn't. It shines a light on the true cost of all that trash we hide away, because it never really disappears. Humes wants the reader to see all this trash not as worthless waste, a noun, but as waste, a verb, and recognize that all these resources we are wasting have value. He tells stories of individuals working to reduce wastefulness and how this has benefited them.

I recognize how wasteful I am, and this book inspires me to look at my habits and make changes, so I don't waste all the wonderful resources available to me.

One for the Money, Jane Eyre 2011, Snow White,The Hiding Place, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I am finally updating on the movies I've seen.

I watched The Accidental Husband a while ago.  It has Uma Thurman, Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in it. It's about this radio talk show host, Emma Lloyd, (Uma Thurman) who gives advice about love.  Emma tells a lady who calls that she should break up with her fiance. The lady does and the ex-fiance (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) seeks revenge on Emma and trouble ensues.  It's a romantic comedy. There were some funny parts, but for the most part it was okay.  I don't think I would watch it again.

I saw One For the Money with Kathryn Heigl and Jason O'Mara.  Stephanie Plum (Kathryn Heigl) is unemployed and newly divorced.  She is offered a job in the bail bond business through a family connection. One of her assignments, that she must capture and bring in to be arrested, is an old flame (Jason O'Mara).  The job ends up being much more dangerous than Stephanie originally thought and she must keep herself safe and try to put the pieces of the case together quickly before anyone else gets killed.  It was also only okay for me. It didn't do much for me. 

I love Jane Eyre. I have read the book (although it has been a long time).  I have seen a couple of versions of the movie, but I had not seen the newest version from 2011 until a couple of weeks ago.  I liked it.  It was pretty good.  I need to read the book again to remember.

I watched Snow White and the Huntsman.  It was a twist on the original fairy tale. I didn't like it all that much. The evil queen was a bit too scary to me.  The actors didn't have much chemistry in my opinion.

Since I recently read The Hiding Place, I decided to watch the movie with the same title.  First of all, in order to understand the movie you must read the book.  They don't give much background information in the movie and at some points it was a little confusing even after having just read the book. (There were some people there that had never read the book and they had no idea what was going on.)  Second of all, it was a little slow, but I thought it was a well made movie. (From the trailers I thought it would be much cheesier) Third of all it misses some important parts of the book (I do realize they can't put everything in the movie otherwise it would be forever long)  Overall, I liked the movie.  I am glad I watched it and at the end the real Corrie ten Boom comes onto screen and talks for a few minutes.

The last movie I've seen recently is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  Watching it really made me want to visit India.  It is such a beautiful, dirty, different, exotic place.  The movie is about a group of retirees that are enticed by a hotel in India aimed at elderly people.  The cost of living is cheaper and it is a new and exciting place to live.  It goes through the trials and adventures of the people as they get settled and get used to the culture of their new place.  I must say that there was a  bit of sexual content in there but they don't ever show anything.  The show had potential to be awesome.  I did love all of the scenes of India.

Hugo Cabret

I put off reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, because I like words and most of this 500+ page book consists of illustrations. But they are wonderful illustrations drawn in pencil on watercolor paper. I shouldn't have put it off so long. Brian Selznick is an excellent artist and illustrator. This book deserved The Caldecott Medal (for children's book illustration) that it received.

This is the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphaned son of a clock maker, who finds an automaton in the burned-out remains of the museum where his father died. Hugo repairs the mechanical man, and it changes his life. Along the way, he learns a little bit about himself and the world and finds out he's not all alone.

The illustrations move the story along in a way that text cannot. During the scene when Hugo falls onto the train tracks and is in danger of being hit by an oncoming train is beautifully depicted through a series of illustrations showing the train getting nearer and larger. The illustrations are very much like stills from a movie, which is appropriate given that one of the characters is the early filmmaker Georges Melies.

Here is part of a scene From one of my favorite text parts of the book, pages 374-375:

Hugo thought about his father's description of the automaton. "Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?" he asked Isabelle. "They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell the time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder, like the automaton. Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do." 

Isabelle picked up the mouse, wound it again, and set it down. 

"Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose . . . it's like you're broken."
. . . 

Hugo and Isabelle were quiet for a moment, and then Isabelle said, "So is that you're purpose? Fixing things? 

Hugo thought about it. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe." 

"Then what's my purpose?" wondered Isabelle. 

"I don't know," said Hugo.

Ultimately, this is a book about healing and finding purpose in life as well as those people who can help you fulfill your purpose.

A short review on a little blog, can't do justice to this book. It is well worth the read.

A diet book

Yes, I read a diet book, and I'm suitably embarrassed. I chose to read The Petite Advantage Diet: Achieve That Long, Lean Look. The Specialized Plan for Women 5'4" and Under (maybe if I ate the title I wouldn't be hungry for the next week!) by Jim Karas, because it is aimed at short, fat females of which I am one.

Let me just save you $15 or a trip to the library. It comes down to this: don't eat foods that are white (except cottage cheese as it is a good source of protein), do eat lots of healthy protein and fruits and vegetables and strength train using a somewhat intimidating contraption called Gravity Straps.

I suspect by the end of this post, you'll understand that I'm a short, fat female who will probably stay that way. I didn't care for the tone of the book; it was a little too unprofessional for me. But Karas has written several books and helped many women lose weight. There were two new-to-me concepts in the book. The first was calorie cycling in which the short, fat female is aided in sticking to her calorie restrictions by having two days of eating 1,100 calories followed by a day of eating 1,600 calories. The second was the work-out plan which consisted only of strength training using Gravity Straps which are hung on a door and help you use your own body weight to build muscle. Even if my doors were sturdier than those break-apart kind they have in Hollywood or if I had any doors besides the bathroom door that had enough room outside it to do the workout, I'd still be worried by my general lack of coordination and fearful of the plan. If done properly, these exercises done in 31-minute sessions, should increase the heart rate enough to improve cardiovascular health.  Maybe I can start with some of the non-strap exercises and work my way up to the straps.

I didn't like that Karas said cardio exercise is a complete and utter waste of time (I think that's a direct quote, but I didn't use the quotation marks in case I'm actually paraphrasing). I like cardio exercise, and after telling me that I need to move my body for at least 90 minutes a day, I don't want to hear that some particular type of movement is a waste of time. On the other hand, I liked that he gave me permission never to train for or run a marathon. He considers cardio a waste because mostly people (at least the short, fat females) eat too much because of their work out. They go on that two-mile run with their girlfriends then immediately head over to the cafe for grande coffee and a giant muffin. That is a no-no.

On the whole, I didn't really learn a whole lot I didn't already know. But it's good to have the reminder that I need to practice what I know. It also helped to motivate me to increase the amount of time I spend doing strength training exercises, even if I'm not anywhere near where I should be.

So, on the whole, a useful read.