Love is a Mix Tape

I just finished this book, Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. I'm in that dangerous position, you know the one, where you've just finished a terrific book and you really want to immediately jump into another one, but you have to pick just the right book, the perfect book, because anything less than perfection will be a disappointment compared to the book you just finished. Yeah, that's where I am. My next read is Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris, which I have mixed feelings about. I love Mr. Sedaris immensely, but I've heard Holidays isn't as rip-roaring as, say, Me Talk Pretty One Day.

But. Let's get down to love and mix tapes. First off, it's a memoir. I really need to read more memoirs, I think. A fiction book with the most fabulous plot just doesn't hit as close as when it's a true story, when it really happened. And Love is a Mix Tape is a beautiful story. It's your good old-fashioned guy meets girl, girl tragically dies kinda story, with the added bonus of being chock-full of music.

Seriously, if you like music at all, indie/pop/rock/whatever, this book is great. Each chapter starts with a mix tape full of songs that were important to his life at the time. Reading it made me want to make playlists upon playlists of songs for every occasion! I'm toying with the idea of buying a copy of this book for my boyfriend and giving it to him along with an I-Lurve-You! mix tape.

And so here for you, dear readers, is a playlist. I started making it with a blogging/writing/creativity theme in mind, but all my playlists quickly turn into random songs I think are rad. So here you go. Listen to it.

Knitting + Adorable = Win!

Mochimochi Land is the source of some (most) of my favorite handmade things on the internet, so I am absolutely ecstatic that there's now a book!

Unfortunately, I doubt it'll ever be available in the piss-poor library system in my county, so I might just have to shell out some cash for this one at Barnes and Noble.




 Once I get my hands on it, though, be sure of two things:
1. I'll be the happiest knitter alive!
2. You, dear readers, will be hearing allll about it.

Ozzie the Octopus

Is there anything about this that isn't amazing? An octopus in your bathtub that makes the water come out of his tentacles instead of the boring ol' spout! And as if this wasn't enough, you can make it color your bath water! Although taking a bath in colored water might be unsettling, come to think of it. I wonder if you could make it spit out bubble bath...

So I ran some errands today, first to the library and then to Walmart (where I fell in love with ozzie the octopus). I came home without it, though, but I did get NINE WHOLE BOOKS at the library! I hardly know what to do with myself. Four of them are graphic novels, though, which won't take me long to read. I've just finished The Color Purple (which was terrific) and I think I'm going to start the short of the graphic novels now - Unlikely by Jeffrey Brown. I should sew something, but I just can't drag myself away from my books!

Decisions, Decisions!

Dear Blog,

It's been a while. I barely recognize you. While I was off last week gallivanting in the ocean, I callously left you here to be ignored. Even if I had brought my laptop, I'd've hardly seen you - the wifi at this house was a lie. A temperamental, fickle temptress.

So I guess I'll just have to bring you up to speed.

I spent the past week with my family in a cottage in Nags Head. Highlights: my nine-month-old cousin, finally finishing the puzzle after working on it all week, and a bucket full of shells brought back from our daily walks down the beach.

I spent the week doing pretty much one of two things: being on the beach, and reading. Often at the same time. Consequently, I finished FIVE WHOLE BOOKS! Can you believe it? The whole summer I've managed to slog through one book, then in a week I knock out five! Here's what I read:

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (this was mostly finished by the time I got to the beach)
God is Dead by Ron Currie, Jr
Push by Sapphire
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Love in the Time of Cholera, Push, and Remains of the Day were stellar. God is Dead was very good. Survivor was okay, not great. I enjoyed them all, though, and I'd recommend them all.

So now I have a decision to make - what next?

My options are Fool by Christopher Moore and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I was supposed to read The Color Purple for my American Novel class last semester, but what with all the snow we never got to it. I'm sure it's going to be a terrific literary work. Fool was recommended to me by my dad, and I must admit, Christopher Moore isn't the greatest author on the planet. BUT it's based on King Lear, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

What do you think? Which one should I read?

And I'm going to the library on Monday, so give me suggestions on what I should check out as well, dearest readers! I'd be much obliged.

The Bibliophile in her Native Habitat

My mom was my photographer today, and let's just say she took a little artistic license with the pictures. When I looked over at her and saw that she was holding the camera crooked she actually seemed surprised when I asked her to hold the camera straight.

The cardigan is from H&M and the shoes were a present from my grandmother, but what I'm most proud of is the dress. When I bought it from Goodwill, it was white, but I dyed it and some other clothes (a t-shirt and a pair of shorts) pink yesterday. Well, I really was just trying to give the faded shorts some new life, and the t-shirt was in my "to give away" pile, so I really didn't care about it, but I was very excited to see how the dress would turn out. And I must say, I'm very happy with the dusty pink color.

The dyeing process:

Note how the colors fade from the original violent fuschia to the pale pink of the last picture (which, the clothes still being wet, is darker than they eventually turned out). The shorts did darken up a bit, which is nice.

I spent today running errands with my mom. I came home from the library with three books and a movie: Remains of the Day, God is Dead, Push, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I decided to check the movie out after reading this post at The Clothes Horse. I was going to watch it tonight but I'm far too tired for a movie before bed so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

And I admit, I got a bit carried away with myself with the books. I'm going to take them all with me when I go to the Outer Banks with my family next week, but I have to finish Love in the Time of Cholera before I start any of them!

A Delightful Romp Through the Postmodern Imagination

I think I really just like the word "romp." Isn't it so wonderfully giddy?

Anyway, I finished this book yesterday, called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. If you're perceptive, you'll have noticed (Good for you!) that the word house is in blue. This is one of the many (MANY!) oddities contained within this novel. It is laid out as a nonfiction work, complete with footnotes, appendices and an index. House of Leaves, however, is a work of fiction. Most of the footnotes reference nonexistent works, and the apendixes and "exhibits" at the end of the book are half-missing. Entire passages are struck out and written in red, and the text often appears broken into segments, sometimes upside-down, sometimes diagonal.

If this sounds like a headache to read, I'm not surprised. Pages replete with bits of words removed because they were supposedly burnt away by ash? Pages missing? One word to a page? Footnotes, for crying out loud? And not just any footnotes, footnotes that DO NOT EXIST! No thanks, you may say, Leave that kind of reading to the professionals.

I gobbled it up. I have to turn the book in a different direction to read every page? Yes, please! A book within a book within a book? The more the merrier!

House of Leaves is quite possibly the most intriguing book I have ever read. The sheer amount of time and research that must have been put into making it as polished as it is astounds me. As soon as I finished it I wanted to start over from the beginning. It has layers upon layers of meaning, and I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface.

If you don't like to think too hard about the books you read, this is not the book for you. If you're in the mood for something challenging, pick this up right away! You must!