JRR Tolkein, The Two Towers

I dragged through parts of this book. I started it already sold on Aragorn, so the first half of it was quite enjoyable. And I loved Treebeard - such a creative character and race. Then we got to Frodo and Sam. They're traveling toward Mordor with Gollum and I feel like not much is happening and it's just going on for chapters. I didn't understand how the little nuances could be character development and I didn't think much of these characters (except Gollum, but he's still a bit of a mystery) so I really lost a lot of my interest. I stopped at a point here for a week long break because I didn't want to try to push myself through it.

Turns out I just postponed dragging through it until this weekend. But! It got better when they met Faramir - he's an absolutely interesting character and I want to read more about him right away. And then Sam actually steps up at the very end Sam takes a big developmental step and I found myself actually cheering for him. It's a far more impressive step in the book, so I didn't really love it in the movie in past viewings.

So overall, I liked The Towers. Not my favorite book, but I'm certainly interested enough to finish the trilogy.

Sara Nelson, So Many Books So Little Time

This is the third time I've read Sara Nelson's year of reading through in the last two years. I absolutely love this book. Nelson has a chapter for each week of the year when she discusses not only the book she read and touches on several "rules" readers often create for themselves that she outright breaks, but she gets into why she chose to read each book that particular week. She relates it all to her life. While that's not my MO (at least not typically), I find it fairly interesting. I think it would be interesting to figure out why I choose to read the books I do, so I'm going to add that into the blurb that I write with each book.

I also find Nelson really easy to relate to, like she's my friend. The first time I read it, I stayed up all night to read it (I had intended to read the first chapter and just go to bed). It was like spending the night talking to a dear friend who understands even the weird qualities because she does it herself. That's likely why I keep coming back to the same book so many times.

The only downside is that now I need to add the books she talked about to my To Be Read list, which is already around 350 books long (and that's only the books I can find at the library).

Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition

Because my book club is reading The Lord of the Rings for book club over the first few months of 2009, we're discussing the book and then watching the corresponding movie (extended edition). Before reading the books, this was my favorite movie of the trilogy. It's beautiful and an exciting beginning of a quest. Having now read the book slowly and retained a lot of what I read, I'm surprised by how much Peter Jackson changed - I can understand why he made a lot of the changes though. Merry and Pippin became lighter entertainment rather than the intelligent characters they are in the book, etc. It makes it easier to sit down and watch for a few hours, and there are plenty of quotable lines. Overall, I still really like the movie. However, I'm far more interested in finding out how I see the other two movies after reading the books.

J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

This was actually a reread. I first read it during Winter Break my freshman year of college (Jan 2003). The movie had recently come out and I can't remember if I had watched the movie yet or not. I had received the entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy for Christmas and all my friends were reading it. I remember really liking it and I'm pretty sure that I only stopped after this one due to the spring semester starting. In the last year and a half, I've been hearing all about how awesome The Lord of the Rings is and we decided to kick off 2009 by reading it for book club.

After having seen the extended edition of Fellowship twice in the last four months, I was more than ready to go back through and reread it slowly. I really took my time reading it instead of trying to keep up with anyone else's pace. I also spent a lot of time reading in the airport and on the plane this past week to finish it. I didn't really remember much from the last read so I really enjoyed it this time. There was so much that I hadn't picked up on. It was more fun to see that the other people in book club who have read it before are picking up on quite a lot themselves. Fellowship seems exceptionally layered with so much that I could probably reread it every few years and continue to pick up more with each reread. I assume that will be true of the last two books in the trilogy as well.

One of the debates we've had so far is why Fellowship ends where it does in the book instead of in the place it ends in the movie. In the movie, we see the orcs attacks and Boromir dies before Sam and Frodo leave the Fellowship. In the book, Boromir doesn't die until the beginning of The Two Towers. I really like the ending of the book better since it leaves you with the importance of Frodo and Sam and their mission to destroy the ring.

I've started The Two Towers and I'm really excited to read my way through the whole trilogy.

Reservation Road

This came on after The Golden Compass and the only attraction at first was that Joaquin Phoenix was in it. I got into it once I knew that it was about dealing with the aftermath of a fatal hit and run. We see a husband and wife grieve for their son, and the killer work through his guilt. I probably would have turned it off since I'm not a huge fan of grieving stories, but I'm currently participating in a group writing exercise and my character is grieving. I haven't lost too many people exceptionally close to me, so I decided to keep watching in case I could learn anything. Boy am I glad that I decided to keep watching. Little moments made me cry and I really appreciated the dialog between the parents of the kid.

I wasn't thrilled with the end of the movie. I actually yelled at the TV that I didn't understand the progression to the climax. The movie seemed to skip certain things that I believe needed to be there to push someone that much.

The Golden Compass

I've had The Golden Compass on my To Be Read list for a while now. I wasn't planning to watch the movie first but I stumbled into it on HBO in the hotel this past week. I had heard a lot of mixed reviews of both, but I enjoyed this one. The cast line up was pretty awesome (I'm only listing the people I already knew): Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellen, and Christopher Lee. While it took me a while to get into the movie because I didn't really know what was going on, I did come to really appreciate the characters. I absolutely adored the armored bear Iorek too. I did get blind-sided by the end. They obviously aren't finished with the story and I knew it was a trilogy, but I was not expecting it to end where it did. Overall, it was enjoyable, but if I had a do-over, I'd read the book first.

What's in a Name Challenge

I decided to join a reading challenge this year. I've never done them before, so I think it would be fun to see if I'm up to the challenge.

What's in a Name?
6 books in 2009, and the title has to fit in one of the following categories:

Profession:
Time of Day:
Relative:
Body Part: Cornelia Funke, Inkheart
Building: JRR Tolkein, The Two Towers
Medical Condition:

Happy Reading!