"Hi Everyone,Please comment this post with your chosen novel. For the weekly blogs, just post it to the front page with the title:
Let's keep the blog going over the winterbreak. I will be asking everyone to pick out their new novel for Quarter 3. This will be a great way to keep in touch regarding our literary endeavors."
December 18, 2008 12:41 AM
"WEEK #: Personal Novel Title" --> Ex. "WEEK 1: Atlas Shrugged"
It's a drag to comment on comments in a blog, so I hope these instructions help.
-Nancy
22 comments:
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
-Nancy
Giraffe
J.M. Ledgard
sorry, i don't think i'm following nancy's instructions..i'm pretty blog handicapped.
Family Health Guide
Harvard Medical School
I kid.
I'm probably gonna pick up Brisingr.
Christopher Paolini.
Love Walked In
Marisa De Los Santos
-Alyssa
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Then...
I'm going to watch Capote the movie because I never got to see it.
Neat.
OH Matthew!
I was reading the Harvard Medical School Family Heath Guide at your house one day. And then we tried to see if we had any of the diseases and no matter what we answered to their questions, they said we should go see a doctor. Ha :P
tell me how that is alyssa because i bought it a while ago but never got around to reading it =/
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
Great Tragedy!!
changing my book
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Betty Smith
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
Tucker Max
Haha. Leave it to me to choose a book we allll WANT to read but no one wants to put on a blog, lol.
*Kris, you can take it after I'm done xD*
the five people you meet in heaven,
mitch albom
-rachel
happy new years everyone!
:D
hmm we're supposed to put our weekly blogs on here, right...?
post one: the five people you meet in heaven
right now i'm at the part in the book after eddie (the main character) has died, met person number one in heaven, and is on his way to meet person number two.
so far, i find the book very interesting to read. i usually don't like reading but surprisingly, for me, this is one of those books where you have to keep reading/can't put down.
one thing i noted about this book was how it simultaneously tells two stories at once, similar to life of pi by yann martel, except in this case, the other story is one from the person's youth, not future. this kind of gets confusing but after a while i got used to it. i think for this story in particular, it's a helpful element to have because it reveals more about eddie's character (since the beginning of the book only introduces eddie in his last hour before death). other than the second story being told, eddie remains a mystery to the reader besides the interpretations you get from others around him, and even they only know what they can see from the outside since he isn't a very open man.
more of eddie is revealed when he is in "heaven" and meets the people there. it's interesting because they seem to know more about him than he does himself.
one thing that i found curious about this whole story was the interpretation of what "heaven" is. it's not the usual way people view heaven as, which is a utopia set somewhere above the clouds, protected by pearly gates. for example, when eddie meets person one in "heaven", the setting is at the ruby pier, the place where eddie has grown up, worked at for an uncountable number of years, and met his unfortunate, grave death. eddie is confused, describing ruby pier as the place "he had spent most of his adult life trying to get away from".
after he meets person one in heaven, he is whisked away to meet person two, this "heaven" being a stormy desert where he finds an army soldier's helmet resting on a rifle dug into the ground with dog tags hanging from it reading his name. i haven't gotten to the part where he meets person two, but i'm excited to. i mean, if i were to die and go to heaven, i wouldn't expect to go to a place where i see a sign of death with my name on it, especially if this sign of death wasn't even relating to the cause of my real death.
so far, i'd say this book is a good read. i've been meaning to read it for a long while now but have never gotten around to it. i thought this would be a good time to start since it's not a hard book, and it seems to have a positive message; something great to end 2008 and start 2009 with.
well, that's it for now.
second post soon!
OH rachel
did you read mitch albom's other books
i got em
can borrow if like
;D
Cold Mountain
Charles Frazier
~Jane
I'm in the second chapter and it's pretty good so far. I enjoyed the movie so I thought I'd read it. Book is always better so I'm excited!
hmm actually, I don't know if I'm going to read Wuthering Heights instead.....
Nope nope. I'll stick to my first book. Sorry for the confusion :]
Plain Truth
Jodi Picoult
Hi Everyone!
Well so far, I've read about one-third of my book. I think it will probably be a fast read because I find it interesting. I've read a few books by Jodi Picoult before. The one I'm currently reading is about an Amish girl, Katie, who is being charged with the murder of an infant, found in her family's barn. Katie gave birth to the infant, but denies any claims of having a baby. Having a baby is a sin for Katie because she would have had he or she out of wedlock and because of her religious background. She was lucky enough to be released on bail because Ellie, her aunt's niece, is a defense attorney.
I'm at the point in the book where Ellie is trying to figure out exactly how she will defend Katie when she won't even confess to the fact that she had a baby in the first place. Interestingly, Katie has a boyfriend, Samuel. However, he claims that he isn't the father of the baby and is as desperate to find out who the father is as Ellie. Ellie is starting to build her defense case, contemplating pleading insanity.
This is a complex book due to the venture into the Amish lifestyle. I'm anxious to find out what happens next!
-Kris
Changing 3rd Quarter book to:
Running With Scissors
Augusten Burroughs
post two: the five people you meet in heaven
right now i'm at the part in the book where eddie is meeting his fourth person in heaven.
so far the people he's met in heaven are:
1 - Joseph Corvelzchik, "the Blue Man", one of the "attractions" at the Ruby Pier's freakshow
2 - "the Captain" (his real name isn't mentioned), Eddie's commanding officer during WWII in the Philippines
3 - Ruby, her husband built the Ruby Pier and named it after her
4 - Marguerite, Eddie's wife.
5 - ...?
one thing that's been bothering me and fueling my intentions to finishing this book is the fact that no one answers eddie when he asks if he saved the little girl before dying or not. (he died by saving...or trying to save...i wouldn't know...a little girl from a falling cart from the "freddy's free fall" ride which is like an old-fashioned version of today's "tower of terror"). oh well. i guess that's what makes a book good, isn't it? something to keep you guessing, keep you wanting to read 'till the end.
it's kind of ironic how, while in heaven, eddie has to go back to probably the most harshest times of his life. during his second "lesson", eddie re-visits his days in the Philippines where he had to endure being a prisoner of war, seeing his friend/fellow soldier contract a deadly disease and be shot by their captors, and gets shot in the leg which leaves him crippled for the rest on his life. this is also the time of his life which haunts him and gives him nightmares every night until long after the war is over...a "darkness", eddie calls it. during his third "lesson", eddie is taken to a scene during his life, by ruby, which he has never seen before: his mother being sexually harassed by a drunk family friend/the night which caused his father's death. eddie has never had a good relationship with his father and one incident during eddie's adolescent life causes the two to be on not-speaking terms until even after his father dies.
again, like how i've said in my last entry, the interpretation of what "heaven" is in this novel is a very abstract one. if i were to have died, i wouldn't expect to go back to the worst, most trying parts of my life...the parts i'd rather like to forget and move on from. but then again, isn't it these times which really shape us into who we are?
now that i think about it, it makes sense to visit the most horrible periods of your life after you die. you get to come to terms and make peace with those times and the people in it. when eddie is in ruby's heaven, she tells eddie that he must make peace with his father, the man he hates and has hated most of his life. ruby puts it in a logical way:
"edward. learn this from me. holding anger is a poison. it eats you from inside. we think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. but hatred is a curved blade. and the harm we do, we do to ourselves. forgive, edward. forgive. do you remember the lightness you felt when you first arrived in heaven? that's because no one is born with anger. and when we die, the soul is freed of it. but now, here, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it." (pgs. 141-142)
i could somewhat relate to eddie and his third person's lesson. in my life i've been hurt a number of times, as we all are. when i read about how much eddie despised his father with so much hatred, for constantly making him feel worthless/not part of the family, treating his mother like an object, always being drunk, one person came to my mind; a person in my life. though this person isn't my parent...and i'd never consider her a parent of mine...i felt much of what eddie felt. i felt his anger, his rage, his frustration. i don't see me forgiving this person any time soon, seeing as there has been no improvement (just as eddie's father's ways stayed the same throughout his life and no change was made), but reading this chapter was somewhat of a release. (though i have to admit, i would've felt even better if eddie got to punch his father in the face during that one fight they had...)
it makes me wonder who the five people i'd meet in heaven would be; which points in my life i'd be taken to and enlightened about. it's interesting how, through mitch albom's eyes, we learn more about our lives after death than we did while living it; just as the way sometimes we learn more about a person when attending their funerals than we did while knowing them while they were alive.
egh...this is too long!
end~~~
-rachel
post three: the five people you meet in heaven
i finished the book! and i'm very satisfied with it.
eddie's encounter with marguerite was by far my most favorite of the five. hers actually had some aspect of happiness to it...it had the element of love. true love.
one thing i wondered though was what type of parent eddie would be if he and marguerite were to have children (after their marriage, marguerite finds she is infertile and desperately wishes to adopt, but complications arose and they couldn't afford it). eddie's only paternal influence and perception of fathering comes from his father, whom he hated. they say that when we become adults, some of us inevitably turn into our parents, even if we claim we hate them. i noticed that toward the middle of his marriage, eddie started to show some traits of his father and the way his father treated his/eddie's mother's marriage, such as getting into bad habits (eddie's father = alcohol, eddie = gambling). he and marguerite even started not speaking to each other at one point; very odd and unexpected compared to the beginning of their relationship when they were completely crazy over each other. fortunately, later on they repair their relationship and fall back into their deep, passionate love. but...then marguerite dies. agh! so tragic.
eddie's fourth lesson was that even though marguerite had passed away, their love still lived on. she says to him, "lost love is still love, eddie. it takes a different form, that's all. you can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. but when those senses weaken, another heightens. memory. memory becomes your partner. you nurture it. you hold it. you dance with it. life has to end, love doesn't." (pg. 176). i've always wondered what i'd do if my spouse were to die (that is, if i don't die first). i've always thought re-marrying was a fine decision for people to make (with the mindset that they are doing it because they know that their deceased spouse would only want them to be happy and live a satisfying life)...but then i think: what happens when the spouse and his/her new spouse both pass away...won't all three meet up in heaven somehow? what happens then?
egh, i don't know.
hopefully 1. my spouse will die when we're both really old so i won't even have the (selfish?) thought of re-marrying, or 2. i die first. hah.
the fourth lesson reminded me of movie "the notebook" and the death cab for cutie song "i'll follow you into the dark" haha.
the fifth person eddie meets in heaven...scared me. i read this part of the book at 5am (i didn't sleep the whole night/morning so i decided to just finish my book already) when everything was silent/dark...and if you know me, you know that i get creeped out really easily. but anyway. the fifth person is a little filipino girl named tala. back when eddie is recollecting his time during the philippines, he remembers that when he sets the supply hut of the camp ablaze, he thinks he sees a figure in the shadows; a person. he shouts in desperation for the person to come out before it's too late, but no one does. it is only now, when eddie meets tala, that he realizes that indeed, there was a person there in the burning structure; a little girl. eddie killed her. (hmm, eddie seems to be the cause of quite a few deaths in this story without his knowing...i wonder if this happens to all of us...if we all, in some sort of twisted events, caused a death or two without intent or knowledge of doing so). moving on, the part that was the most eerie for me the most (besides the fact that eddie kept mentioning "a dark figure in the shadows"...that kept giving me the heebie-jeebies...) was when tala asks eddie to wash her. she sits by a nearby river and when eddie looks at her, her skin is now "horribly burned. her torso and narrow shoulders were black and charred and blistered. when she turned around, the beautiful, innocent face was covered in grotesque scars. her lips drooped. only one eye was open. her hair was gone in patches of burned scalp, covered now by hard, mottled scabs." (pg. 189). just imagining that...egh. another part that gave me the chills was when eddie asks her why she's in heaven. she responds with "you burn me. you make me fire" (pg. 188). little kids talking about death like that...so innocently...creeps me out. i guess cause it's so expected that children shouldn't (cant?) die since they're so young and innocent...free of sin of any kind. and i guess that's also why so many horror films have some form of creepy little kid added into them.
but anyway!
i enjoyed reading this book.
mitch albom is a very insightful author...the lessons his five characters in heaven teach are inspiring and really open your eyes to see how precious life is.
i wrote too much again.
]:
-rachel
My first "manini" post" :]
In my novel thus far, the main focus has been on the separate lives on the two main characters, Inman and Ada. The first chapter is with Inman in the hospital, recovering from his wound. He was fighting in the American Civil War and was shot in combat (bullet grazed his neck). Inman is scarred from all that he's seen while fighting in war, and states that he's never going to be the same man he was before in the letter he writes to Ada. Inman notices things others don't even take into consideration, like the patient next to him, Balis. Balis too after the war changed into a silent, depressing man. No one took notice of him, in fact, they hardly knew he was there, but Inman was always observing him. Slowly understanding what the war has done to him. When Inman comes back to the hospital after a morning outside, Balis is not there. Out of curioisty, Inman asks one of the nurses, and just what Inman thought, he passed away quietly. The end of the first chapter left me thinking of how scarred Inman really is. The statement, "He set his foot on the sill and stepped out the window," gave me much thought to what was going on in his mind at that time. Questions such as, "suicidal?" "Does he give up?" formed and I want to know what will happen between his and Ada's relationship. Is he really a changed man? Can he ever be the same with her again? I'm really interested to see what happens next.
Hmmmmm!
Jane
Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mark Twain
So far, my book has not been that interesting. It started off slow, like many books do as we go in to depth with introductions and such.
The book is about a woman named Cornelia Brown, who is a cafe store manager in Philadelphia. When a man named Martin Grace walks into her cafe one day, Cornelia's life changes forever. I thought the way that the author wrote about his existence was quite childish and fantasy like at first. However, I suppose the romantic aspect of the story was enough to keep me intrigued.
The story made me think about themes such as love as first sight and soul mates. I'm not too sure if either of these things exist, but then again nothing is ever for sure, for sure in life. So how are we as humans to know when it's worth it to take a chance at something we might not get, and risk getting hurt in the end, or perhaps live a happily ever after.
The eleven-year old girl, Clare Hobbs that the story is based around struggles to find her identity, and is caught trying to deal with her mother's bipolar disease.
I have never had to deal with someone who was bipolar so I cannot say that I know how she feels. In addition, I cannot imagine having to deal with someone with a disorder, especially if that person is a family member. I cannot imagine the psychological troubles that she has to go through in order to deal with her mother's situation. I tend to have mood swings at times, and I cannot even understand how other people put up with me. However, I have these mood swings when I am in a right state of mind. I cannot imagine these people having these changes in feeling, and not even being able to control it. More or less, I cannot imagine having to deal with people that are in this state of mind.
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