A Big Stack of Books - The Last Two

Finally! The last two books from the stack! My coffee table looks so bare ...

Magpie Murders is a new release from Anthony Horowitz, a murder novel within a possible-murder novel. The narrator is a book editor at a small publisher and she's just been given the next book in a detective series. She settles in for the weekend to read the manuscript and we read it along with her. Both of us notice that the last chapter is missing and we, of course, think about contacting the author -- right until the moment when we find out he is dead, a presumed suicide.

The inside book is a pretty standard cozy mystery in the Poirot style. The outside book is an up-and-down journey through the actions of a woman who thinks solving a mystery in real life is just like a novel. I liked this one but didn't love it, perhaps because it was one of those books where there aren't really any likable characters. The inside author is horrible and the outside one is just a little too much of a mess to want to hang out with. So, the final word on this one is that it's fun enough to pass the time but not a do-not-miss.

Bellwether by Connie Willis is one of her non-science-fiction books so don't be confused by people who label it wrongly in LibraryThing based solely on assumptions. This story takes place almost entirely in an office building, with a few forays out to trendy restaurants and cafés. It focuses on a woman that studies fads, a man that studies chaos, a flock of sheep, and an administrative assistant named Flip. It's a bit of a comedy of errors, like To Say Nothing of the Dog, a bit of a romance, and a great satire about trends. I really had fun listening to this one and it has kind of put me in the mood to binge read/reread some Willis!

Back to a clean slate,
K

Nonfiction November: Yes Please

I was given a pretty (and heavy! nice paper!) newly-released paperback copy of Yes Please by Amy Poehler to review. Though I had this lovely paperback, I was told repeatedly that I *had* to listen to it on audiobook. So I got on the library hold list and, when it was available, I started a co-read of sorts. And now that I've done it, I want to recommend it to everyone else who hasn't read this book yet. Poehler's humor comes through in both mediums but there are benefits to each one. If you listen to the audiobook, you get Seth Meyers, Patrick Stewart, Carol Burnett, Kathleen Turner, and even Amy's parents chiming in. If you get the book, you get to see childhood and teen pictures of the young comedienne. I definitely feel like I got to have the best of both worlds on this read.

This book is funny and profane, sometimes dark and sometimes thoughtful. It was a little disorganized but I'm guessing that there wouldn't be a simple way to organize such diverse content. My favorite parts were the discussion of Parks and Recreation (which I didn't start watching until last year and now I still haven't quite finished because I don't want it to end) and the insider look at SNL. I loved Amy's potty mouth/keyboard and her parents' Boston accent. I wasn't so into the semi-frequent drug mentions or her talk about smoking (though she seems to have quit now). Overall, this was a very honest sharing of her life both in and out of "the business" that was as comfortable as a late-night talk over drinks with a friend.

Peeking behind the curtain,
K

New Release: Silver Screen Fiend

I have a stack of books here to review but last night I started and finished Patton Oswalt's short second memoir Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life From an Addiction to Film and I couldn't fall asleep because I was thinking about my own connection to film. So, I thought that I should get this post out of my system and then go back to the other books.

Patton's story is about how, for four years, he overdid it a bit (understatement!) by seeing hundreds of movies, sometimes going to the theater almost every night as he also kept up his routine of comedy performances and also began to break into film and television. He also talks about some of the history of the comedy scenes in various locales throughout the late '80s and the '90s, but the part that really resonated with me was the way he found, lost, and found himself again through film. In the back of the book, he lists all of the movies that he saw in those years and, though he has upwards of 750 movies on the list, out of curiosity I counted up how many of them I had seen and I easily passed 200. It blew my mind to think that I had seen so many more movies even than that. Which then led to me thinking about what role movies have played in my life.

When I was in kindergarten, our family of two adults and four kids moved to California into a two-bedroom apartment. We lived there for four years (and one more kid) and, as you can probably guess, looked for lots of ways to get out of the house. Whether it was going to the local movie theater on summer mornings for their family-friendly discount movies or piling into our Chevy Nova and heading to the drive-in for a double feature, the movies were an escape, a source of joy, and a time of bonding (except for Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan ... that just gave me a fear of bugs crawling into my ears). Then my grandma started taping movies off of cable and we ended up with a home VHS collection in the hundreds. We watched movies ALL of the time, discovering new films and re-watching old favorites dozens of times. After I finished high school, I got a job at a music and video store (Music Plus forever!) and started another journey into film as I watched almost every new release that came through the store. Through my college years, our cheapest entertainment option was the local Blockbuster (where we actually ran out of films that we wanted to see) and then, after college when we moved to Washington, I worked at another music and video store for a while. Around that time I also finally discovered Turner Classic Movies and a whole other journey through classic film started (with The Thin Man and Laura and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir). I haven't seen as many films as Patton and I still have a lot of back catalog films that I would like to eventually see but, just like him, I have shifted to have more of a balance between film and other pursuits (some of which has come thanks to this blog and the rest thanks to having a kid). Many films now bring back vivid memories of the time I watched them (Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the drive-in, Empire Records twice in one night in my tiny college bedroom) and the feelings and thoughts they inspired. I wasn't watching them for technical reasons like Patton (who wanted to become a director) but I noticed the same things, the same moments, when a single line, a single look stole the show. I can't imagine having grown up any other way, with all of these moments building me into who I am today.

So, now that I've spilled my guts, tell me, are you a movie addict? Do you have an all-time favorite?

In 1.85:1,
K