Actually a pretty fast read, but the end was not to my liking. It seemed overly convoluted. Maybe the author’s straight non-fiction history would be more my cup of tea.

Hilarious, smart, and sweet, so unlike everything else. Definitely one of the best films in a long time. Ellen Page was absolutely brilliant. If only a Diablo Cody came along more often than every blue moon in Hollywood! Long live the Previa!

Drank with swordfish steaks, israeli couscous, and squash. Very zingy! Nice for the Vegas summers, it’s 107 tonight.

Really great. Why aren’t more people talking about this movie?

I almost didn’t read this because it was in the “Mystery” section of the library and that is not my usual stomping grounds. I’m still not really sure how this amounts to a mystery, but I am glad that I searched it out and read it. It was brutal…that part will stay with me and haunt me, but the writing was better than lots of the “literary” fiction. The story grabbed me and I had to keep reading. So, lesson learned, don’t judge a book by it’s genre?

I wasn’t all that impressed with the writing in this book, but what can I say? I finished it. Ho-hum.

I just love Rebecca Solnit!

I normally don’t read books about mental illness because I have an aversion to psychobabble and self-help books. Because of that stereotype, this wouldn’t have normally caught my eye. But it was promoted recently through the Dear Reader website and I read a couple chapters with my morning coffee at work and kind of got hooked. The book is actually really amazing with writing that brings you into the world of the author’s mind with raw honesty. That is what really amazed me, how exposed it must feel to have bipolar (or any mental illness.) Despite the bipolar, Marya has and shares a real personality, a true voice and it is a remarkably funny one! We should be so lucky as to find this type of intimacy in any piece of writing. Rarely can memoirs pull it off. Certainly puts my own petty struggles in perspective.

Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers. Pure genius.

This was one of the better movies I have seen in a long time. I love westerns, but sometimes they are so slow that it is all you can do to keep track of who’s who. This film, on comparison, is paced perfectly and is really dramatic with excellent characters that are memorable and complex. I loved it. Can I have a horse that answers to a whistle?