The Winter of Our Discontent

It's been a long time since I've read anything by John Steinbeck, and I think he's great. So I got The Winter of Our Discontent as an audio book and listened to it during my commute. The title of the novel comes from Shakespeare's Richard III, and in that play we see what one man is willing to do to achieve his ends.

I'm really glad I listened to this book. Although, I've spent several days recovering from it. Steinbeck is an amazing writer. His descriptions alone are worth reading. That being said, Steinbeck is tough, and this novel is slow moving. Like many of his books, this one drags the reader through the mud before finally giving a little spark of hope at the end. The happy theme of this is corruption and dishonesty taking over America as seen in the life of one man and his family.

It's written in the first person (except for some random chapters in the middle that are inexplicably and jarringly written in the third person) from the perspective of Ethan Allen Hawley. Hawley considers himself an honest man, and he is. He comes from an old family, who used to have money, but now Ethan works as a grocery clerk in a store he used to own. What starts as a game on Good Friday leads to Ethan's complete moral destruction by the Fourth of July.

A fortune teller, some passing conversations with a bank teller, and Ethan's own dissatisfaction with being a grocery clerk, leads him slowly down a pathway of decisions that destroy the man he used to be. And it happened so easily and organically, that Ethan seems to wonder how it all got that far. He convinces himself that integrity is something that he can put on and take off like a shirt and go about his life as if nothing has changed. Just as killing people in the war didn't make him a killer, taking advantage of someone else, or robbing a bank to get ahead won't make him a thief forever.

But in the end, he figures out that he was wrong. He sees his own moral failings in his dishonest and cheating son. Ethan suddenly can't live with himself.

The female characters are interesting in this novel. Hawley's wife is kind of a thin character; there's not much to her. Her friend Marjorie is described by Ethan as a predator, and she is. She wants to lead him down the morally corrupt path and snare him at the end. It's Ethan's daughter Ellen that ends up being a surprising and interesting character. He mistakes her for just another shallow, selfish, teenage girl. In the end it's her perceptiveness that saves Ethan and gives the reader hope for the Hawleys and for the country.

What the Dog Saw

What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell has been sitting on my shelf for a while waiting for me to pick it up. I've enjoyed Gladwell's work ever since I read The Tipping Point several years ago. He has an easily identifiable style, and I like the way he writes clearly and beautifully lays out the story he's telling.

This book is a collection of essays that he originally wrote for The New Yorker magazine. It's divided into three sections. The first section looks at minor geniuses; the second looks at ways we organize experience; the third section looks at the predictions we make about other people.

Gladwell explores hair dye, the birth control pill, choking versus panicking, the Challenger disaster, job interviews, ketchup, and pit bulls among many other topics. One of my favorites was the essay "Million-Dollar Murray" which looked at solving the problem of homelessness instead of just managing it.

I don't think you have to agree with everything he writes to enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's writing. It will help you look at the world, or at least some small part of it, in a new way.

Three audio books to begin the year

I've been meaning to read something, anything, by P.G. Wodehouse for a long time. Finally, I picked up the audio version of Carry On, Jeeves. It was read by Martin Jarvis, and he was fabulous. I loved the book so much that I immediately got the audio version of My Man Jeeves. Jeeves is the private valet or gentleman's personal gentleman to Bertie Wooster. Jeeves is where we get the iconic character of the well-educated butler and his amazing ability to solve problems and do just about anything. Bertie is a self-proclaimed "chump" and I don't know how he got along before he met Jeeves. These books consist of short stories in which Bertie or one of Bertie's friends gets into a ridiculous scrape that Jeeves must then get him out of. Carry On, Jeeves also had stories about Bertie's friend Reggie Pepper. I liked those stories, but I liked the Jeeves stories best. I'm not sure why I liked the stories so much or why I found them so funny, but I did. I think I will major in Wodehouse for the 50/50 challenge this year.

Next, I listened to Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. I enjoyed it, and it was pretty funny. But I didn't find it as friendly or welcoming, if you know what I mean, as the Jeeves books, so I didn't like this as much as I did those. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I not just listed to the Wodehouse books. The scene in which the men try to open a pineapple tin without a can opener is pretty awesome.

Happy new year!

Happy 2013 to all our contributors and readers! Did you complete the 50/50 challenge? Did you at least read a few books and see a few movies you might not otherwise have read or seen?

I made it to just over 50 books. WooHoo! I only made it to 34 movies. Bummer. I'll do better this year.

I plan to repeat the 50/50 challenge in 2013. I hope you'll join me. Even if you don't do the challenge, I hope you'll keep reading the blog and sharing your book and movie recommendations.

I hope you find amazing books and films in 2013!

My 50 Flicks

So, I tried at the beginning of this challenge to write a little about each of the movies I watched. Well, that seemed an overwhelming task. The thought of writing about each one seemed to take the enjoyment out of the challenge a little, not sure why. I actually like to write, but it became more challenging than the actual movie watching.

I previously watched a few movies and mentioned them in another post, but what I ended up doing is over the course of the year I just kept a list of all the new movies I watched and here now is the list. It is not in the exact order I watched them, at least not the first ones on the list, but it is the complete list. My attempt at 50 new movies in a year culminated with the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey this past Saturday.

As far as reading the books, yeah, that didn't happen. I did read seven or eight over the course of the year which is pretty good for me, just ask my sister. Anyway, here is my list of 50 new movies.


1. The Hunger Games
2. Mirror Mirror
3. The Avengers
4. Step Into Liquid
5. The Tale of Despereaux
6. Rango
7. The Zookeeper
8. Scorched
9. Chaos Theory
10. That Thing You Do
11. Man on a Ledge
12. Men in Black 3
13. Burlesque
14. Snow White & the Huntsman
15. The Endless Summer
16. War Horse
17. We Bought A Zoo
18. Tower Heist
19. Rock of Ages
20. Kung Fu Panda 2
21. Hugo
22. Cars 2
23. Brave
24. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
25. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
26. This Means War
27. The Amazing Spiderman
28. Blue Crush 2
29. 16 Love
30. Ride the Divide
31. Xanadu
32. Highwater
33. The Dark Knight Rises
34. Double Dare
35. The Bourne Legacy
36. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
37. My Fair Lady
38. Footloose 2011
39. A Thousand Words
40. Crazy on the Outside
41. Premium Rush
42. Katy Perry: The Movie
43. From Russia With Love
44. Emma
45. The Fifth Element
46. The Double
47. Pitch Perfect
48. Here Comes The Boom
49. Skyfall
50. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

If you want to know what any of these movies were about let me know and I'll do my best to explain.

Happy New Year!!

Books & movies

Our brother and sister dynamic duo, Melissa and Brian, both completed the challenge. They're not comfortable posting, but Brian said I could publish their recommendations.

Books-
Lost Empire by Clive Cussler-  Occasionally over descriptive but a good action mystery. Plus you learn things.

Action Philosophers- Plato Smash. Cartooned Philosophy, entertaining.

What Color is Your Parachute?- Read the second half first. Possibly helpful if you have no direction in life.

The Bartimaeous Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud- Recommended by Rachelle. Rerecomended by Brian and Melissa. Listen to the Audio Book, the reader is excellent.

Poems by Robert Frost- Very good writer, more versatile than originally known.

ABC's of Relativity: Understanding Einstein by Bertrand Russell-  Occasionally technical but entertaining and educational.

The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde- Laugh riot.

Lost in a Good Book and Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde- Recommended by Heather. Quick but highly entertaining.

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov- Entertaining and unique perspective.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick- Read the book don't watch the movie(Hugo). Very quick (despite being over 500 pages) told half in pictures half in words.

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley- Recommended by Heather

King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard- Keep reading it gets better.

Murder at Bridge by Anne Austin

The Murderer by Ray Bradbury (Short)- Just read or listen to it.

A Confederate Girl's Diary by Sarah Morgan Dawson

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman (Short)-  Read pdf, looks like a newspaper, with adds, interesting point of view.

Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan- Book 2 in a series (read book 1 first).  If you like the Percy Jackson series, the books not the movie, you'll like it. This one is Egyptian rather then Greek based.

The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket- 2nd in the series

The Hunger Games- If you like that stuff.

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Old Man's War by John Scalzi- Scifi, first in a series (worth reading them all), author with humor.  If you don't like scifi, not for you.

Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan- see Throne of Fire except Greek and Roman mythology.  2nd book in a different series.

Ready Player One- 80's pop culture nostalgia

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens- If you haven't read it yet.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne- a pleasant late 1800's romp.

Above Suspicion- Predictable and sappy but enjoyable.

Are You Ready for the End of The World (Short)- Scifi short story with a funny twist.

The Book Thief- recommended by a sister



Movies-
Stranger than Fiction- Quite possibly the best Will Farrell Movie.

Winnie the Pooh ~2011

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra- don't think, just watch .

Waking Sleeping Beauty- Insightful Documentary into the 1990s Disney golden age of animation.

Pirates: Band of Misfits

Apollo 18- scifi, suspense. 

A Monster in Paris- French but the dub is good.

Avengers- for the .001% who hasn't seen it, they should.

Sherlock season 2-  Don't have to watch season one, though you should especially if you don't want episode one to ruin the first season.  Only 3 episodes but work it.

Johnny English Reborn-  turn off brain and enjoy.

Brave

Castle in the Sky-  you should see all Miyazaki films

Metropolis~ 2002- animated.

Atomic Mom- documentary, definitely not for everyone.  About the atomic project in the Navy and the bombing in Japan.  Some archival footage that is not for everyone.

Hidden Fortress- Japanese subtitled.  If you are a film person.

Rear Window-  Everyone should watch more Hitchcock.

Get Smart season 1- Original series that everyone should see, but don't marathon it.

Wallace and Gromit- All are a must see.  Of note is World of Invention.  Cleverly disguised educational material.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol- Director Brad Bird (Incredibles, Iron Giant).

Some Like it Hot- classic worth a watch.

Men in Black 3- better than 2.

Haywire- Action a la Bourne.

The Amazing Spiderman- not the best super hero movie, but good.

Fanboys- Watch it once and done if you want a glimpse into uber geek culture.

The Man Who Knew Too Little- Hitchcock (the Man Who Knew Too Much with Bill Murray is a comedy based on this.)

A few random movies

I've been trying to catch up on my movie watching over the holidays and have seen a rather random assortment of films.

The Prince of Egypt. I decided to watch this because I wanted to hear Brian Stokes Mitchell sing "Through Heaven's Eyes." It was an animated movie about Moses. Not my favorite, but it was not bad. The best part (other than BSM's song) was the plagues. That was very well done.

Bye, Bye Birdie. This was the original movie from 1963 with Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh and Ann-Margaret. Rock star Conrad Birdie is drafted, and as part of his farewell performance, he kisses one of his fans. I think it was a parody of Elvis hysteria. Mostly, I thought it was lame. The songs weren't even very good.

Arsenic and Old Lace. This is a Frank Capra Halloween movie. It's a strange mix of comedy and murder. A man (Cary Grant) figures out that his aunts have been murdering lonely men. His brother is crazy and thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt. The aunts trick him into digging the Panama Canal in the basement and burying all the "yellow fever" victims there. Then a third brother shows up, a murderer, and he looks like Boris Karloff. It's ridiculous, but Cary Grant is really good.

Mission: Impossible III. Action, explosions, Tom Cruise. Need I say more? Yes, it was directed by J.J. Abrams, and at the very end of the credits (for all of you who were paying attention) there is a Lost reference.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. A beautiful movie, although not as good as The Lord of the Rings. The fate of middle earth is not at stake, so it doesn't feel as important, if that makes sense. I need to see it again because there is too  much to take in during just one viewing. The casting and acting were good, and by the end I really enjoyed it.

Lincoln. I LOVED this movie. It was perfect. I was nearly in tears several times. It's the story of the passage of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery. All the acting was excellent, and it was well written. I thought the way they handled Lee's surrender and Lincoln's assassination were very interesting and unusual. Daniel Day-Lewis was great. I particularly liked the way he walked. It's just how I imagine Lincoln would have walked.