Healthy lifestyles and the living dead

Yesterday I came across a book called Fat of the Land. So I wrote a review of it. I haven't read the book, although I'd like to. I tend to do that when I'm short on my own books to review and need something new to write about -review books I haven't read, I mean. I need to get on The Library at Night, but that'll wait until I'm back at school since it's already packed up in a bin and honestly I don't have the stamina to dig through the bins and boxes and bags I'm taking back to find one book no matter how much I love it. Allow me to breathe for a moment -that was quite a sentence.

Anyway, this book. It looks good. I compared the author to Bear Grylls. You know something is being done right when that happens. If I hadn't liked him I'd have compared him to Les Stroud. I hate Les Stroud with a fiery passion that I don't really understand. He just annoys me. I go from annoyance to hatred with spectacular speed, clearly. I also cannot stay on topic today. Not enough caffeine in my system.

Basically the idea of Fat of the Land is that we need to be able to find our own sources of food. Langdon Cook is going to tell you how. And, according to all of the reviews I read and his blog (which I now follow), he's going to do it in a very entertaining manner. All the more reason to drop a few bucks on the book -you could be entertained and save quite a bit of money into the bargain, if you're willing to get your hands dirty.

Awesome.

I've also been writing like a woman possessed for Suite101. I wrote 2 articles yesterday (despite my goal of 3. I do other things with my day than write. Sometimes. Yesterday was just one of them), and of course by write I mean sat down and thumped my keyboard until coherent thoughts formed. It also involved several games on Mindjolt to, you know, get the creative juices flowing.

In the end I got them written, polished and published. Then I went to bed and read a tawdry mystery novel that I didn't really like all that much. If a writer develops his characters so poorly that I can't actually remember their names 180 pages into the book, something is very wrong. But I digress.

Articles!

I reviewed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which you should read. The book, I mean. And the review).

I also wrote about Reading and Understanding Ayn Rand. Because I could.

The Library at Night and healthy eating

I finished reading it last night! Wow that took forever to read! (Okay, so it took like a couple of weeks, that is forever to me. I can barely remember back two days ago, so shut up already). It was totally worth going through it slowly though...I'd start it all over again right now, in all honesty. I wish I was as well-read as Alberto Manguel (I also wish my name sounded that cool). He conveniently includes a "non-canonical" list of his favorite books at the end of TLaN, which I think is awesome.

Yes, I'm going to read all of them. I'd read a few that were on the list...but not too many. Less than 10% I'd bet. Sort of depressing, given how much I read, but he's had a lot more time to read than I have!

Also, listening to Queen makes me want to watch Flash Gordon. No, I'm not kidding. I'm hitting up the library after I leave Panera to see if they have that or the movie version of The Fountainhead. I know that a) they won't and b) the movie will probably bug the hell out of me since it won't be as good as the book, but it's Gary Cooper playing Howard Roark. I can't resist that. I just can't.

In other news, I wrote a review of a book about eating healthy smoothies and how good it is for you. I figure since I now have doctor's orders about cooking all my own food at school this year due to severe food allergies (essentially I'm allergic to everything ever*), I should probably start looking for cheap healthy ways to not starve to death. Also this book just came out it and looks pretty good.

*Seriously: I'm allergic to artichokes, MSG, preservatives (including formaldehyde, which is in a surprisingly large amount of foods) -which are ubiquitous in anything that isn't a raw vegetable essentially and soy, which is also in everything. I'm not kidding. It is so hard to avoid eating this stuff (minus the artichokes, they're pretty easy to spot), and it really restricts what I can eat, how much I can eat and where. It's not like I get instantly sick eating stuff, but if I have high concentrations of any of those things within a limited time period, it does not end well. So now you know.

Also, I wrote a bunch of stuff on Suite101. Okay...so I wrote 3 articles and put them up. But still! That's 3 articles! I'm working on a fourth and rewriting a previously written piece about another book by AJ Jacobs (who I love), so I'll have plenty of stuff to start putting up. The Suite articles are

• Writing Good Book Reports (like you couldn't use that at some point in your life)
• Religious Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter (why didn't they have this written when we were in high school?)
• Social Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter (see above)

The ones I'm working on will be of

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Oh yes. It will be awesome.) and
• The Know-It-All (which you should go read right now, because I said so)

Words, words, words.

Because it's David Bowie as Jareth. And because I could.

Well, here I am -back from the birthday high of yesterday. It was an excellent day. Presents were opened (awesome, awesome presents, I should add), coffee was had and dinner was consumed -followed by dessert and more coffee. It was a good year to turn 20. I got a new coffeemaker for school when we did Festivus with the Shoemaker clan-along with Coraline, candles and some blank books to write in-so you know it's a good day when that happens. Coffeemaker (and coffee to go with it), money for books (remember The Library at Night? I'm still reading that, actually -slow going right now because I've been leaving the house more often. Weird.), a thing to sit my Mac on so it stops burning my legs (I actually have what appears to be a burn mark on my left leg from using my extremely hot laptop for long periods of time. No joke), a t-shirt that says "Han Shot First" (he totally did) and a game called Literati, which will be opened and played with great gusto at some point today.

Okay, enough of me being as excited as a little kid about all of my neat gadgety and/or papery presents, on to my next item of interest. Last night, as a mental change from reading The Library at Night, I started reading my copy of The Time Traveler's Wife. I felt that was fitting, since the movie came out yesterday and Eric Bana is in it. Yummy. I will see the movie based on him alone, whether or not I like the book. However, and this is an early judgment since I read 6 pages before I fell asleep, I think I'm going to like it. Niffenegger's clear prose and familiar yet elegant style centered me very firmly in the book. The characters feel like people I've known or could know and the story itself just seems interesting. I'm sure the movie version isn't going to do it justice (when do they ever? Seriously. Name a few), but it's worth seeing anyway I'm sure.

When I write my inevitable review, it will of course be on Suite101 as opposed to Examiner, which I'm now stocking with articles written more to attract a lot of fast hits than anything else...people aren't appreciating my lengthy literary reviews on there. So I'll put them somewhere that they might be useful -hopefully. We'll see. It's hard to know if people read about literature on the internet. I do, but that could just be because I write about it online. And because I'm a nerd.

Regardless -once I start posting to Suite, I'll start giving you links. In the meantime, my Examiner is still going to be updated 3 or 4 times a week (maybe), but it won't be the stuff you're used to seeing.

Trying to read over the noise of my little brother's Speed Racer Sky Jump toy is impossible, even for me. It sounds like a cement mixer. As much as I love explosions, car crashes and death-defying stunts, sometimes the desire for silence (or at least quiet) takes precedence.

Reading The Library at Night is not an experience to be had when noises abound. The book takes on the feel of a library and its many silent tomes, and it demands to be read when the reader is able to sit peacefully, still and soak up the stories. At least that's how it seems to me, book-obsessed as I am (this book proving to be no exception to the rule; in fact in many ways the desire for this book is greater than for others, this being a book about libraries -a book about books -a book written by a man who has a gorgeous library that, when I see pictures of it, fills me with envy).

The Library at Night is a book I read with coffee in mind or at hand, and with nothing else going on. It's spoiled otherwise. Stringent demands for a reader like me; I read anywhere: in class, in the car, in bed, outside, inside, in restaurants, while driving (okay, just kidding) -you get the idea.

The book is great. Habent sua fata libelli -my new favorite phrase. Books have their own fate.

Go buy a copy of TLaN. I haven't reviewed it yet, but I'm telling you now -you don't want to miss out on this.