I got back from my trip a few days ago and am a little jet lagged - my sleeping schedule right now is 5 am to 2 pm. Of course, this isn’t all that different from my normal sleeping schedule so it isn’t that big a deal. Anyways, in the last few weeks (especially the last week in Fiji) I did a lot of reading and watching (mostly TV shows), so I guess I should do some reviews.
I don’t really feel like writing any book reviews but here are some general impressions of what I read:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – I’ve loved every Harry Potter book since 1 and 2 (and I liked those a lot too) and this one might be my favorite, though I would really have to go back and reread them to be sure since all of it tends to run together for me. I might be a little more biased towards this one too because it basically filled all of my time on the 20 hour trip home (which is actually how I started reading Harry Potter – read the first 2 and part of the 3rd on a much much longer trip home from Kenya). Anyways, it was a tad slow and meandering in the middle 3rd (Harry, Hermione, and Ron wandering in the forest) but the last 3rd really made up for it. Awesome ending.
And can we please god get a real director to do this movie?! No offense to David Yeats (Yates?) or whatever his name is because Order of the Phoenix was good but would it kill them to go after Spielberg or Peter Jackson to finish it off? The decision to get Alfonso Cuaron to direct #3 was inspired, especially after the first two movies were kiddie crap, but I’m getting tired of this British nationalistic bs where some random British TV guy gets one of the biggest movies on the planet just because they don’t want a foreigner doing it. Rant over.
Cloud Atlas – this is a relatively new novel by David Mitchell mixing multiple connected storylines across time. It’s a big idea type book and was really good. Highly recommended.
One Hundred Years of Solitude – I really liked this book also but wouldn’t say I loved it. The writing is incredible but it’s true that there really isn’t a main character there that you can connect with emotionally. Still a great book though.
The Brothers Karamazov – I have about 100 pages left in this. I started reading it last summer in Guatemala but only got through 200 pages and stopped when I got home, mainly because it’s pretty dense and hard to get into, particularly since there isn’t an especially coherent storyline at the beginning. I started where I left off in Fiji and really liked it. It’s not as good as Crime and Punishment in my (very humble when it comes to comparing classic Russian literature) opinion but the psychological and spiritual aspects of Karamazov are quite interesting and thought provoking.
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