Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

"This is a wonderful book, brilliant and personal, rich in spiritual insight, filled with sorrow and a great sense of humor. Elizabeth Gilbert is everything you would love in a tour guide, of magical places she has traveled to both deep inside and across the oceans: she's wise, jaunty, human, ethereal, hilarious, heartbreaking, and God, does she pay great attention to the things that really matter."
-Anne Lamott

I admit I was hesitant to read Eat, Pray, Love when I first saw it popping up around town. It seemed overly emotional and girly and honestly too religious for me. But it would not go away, it was everywhere, in everyones hands, I saw people miss their train stops over this book! And so, when I had the opportunity to pick up the book for a bit less than cost I thought, "Why not?" And thank goodness I did. It was so enjoyable.

The book takes place after a very difficult divorce (enter what I thought was going to be the too emotional and girly part) but Gilbert was smart enough not to give us all the nitty-gritty of her divorce and so I didn't feel like I was listening to a stranger complain about how hard life is. It is split into three different sections (corresponding with the title) and takes place in three different countries. Eating in Italy, Praying in India and Loving in Indonesia. I too love to travel and have no money to do so right now which made reading a book about travelling the next best thing after being there myself. Each section was a bit better than the previous and the ending came together quite well. I closed the book and thought, "Look at how far she came over a single year!" It was a nice reminder that you really can turn lifes lemons into lemonade.

Also, it wasn't until after I started Eat, Pray, Love that I realized why the authors name was so familar to me. Elizabeth Gilbert is also the author of The Last American Man, another peice of non-fiction that was exceptionally well written. If Eat, Pray, Love is a woman's novel than The Last American Man is a novel for a man's man. But this is just reinforces how versitile she is. Both of these books seem to be directed for a certian people group but both go far beyond what you expect from them. If you are looking for something to read either of these books will fill a few days of your time in a very pleasent manner.

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

Sadly I think my excitement to read Hammett's The Maltese Falcon may have gotten the best of me--and the novel. There I was going around telling everyone..."they say its the best detective novel ever written!!" Well, it is good, of course, but best ever? The real weakness for me was all that convoluted secrecy. I know what you are saying..."Amber, it's a DETECTIVE novel, you aren't supposed to know everything!!" I understand but the whole book I was very patient about waiting to be let in on what was really going on. And then finally everything gets wrapped up in the last 20-30 pages and you realize, you pretty much new everything that was going along already. Yes, there is a bit more information but there wasn't enough for what I had built it up to be.


Now that I am thinking about it, I cannot believe I went around telling everyone it was (supposed to be) the best detective novel...obviously I am going to give that title to Crime and Punishment. My favorite of all the novels ever written (talk about a title that is hard to live up to)!!

After all this negative talk I feel I should say it was a fun book to read. And very cinematic in its nature. The setting was always shrouded by cigarettes and sexy women with bright red lipstick. And then you have the suave and handsome hero who is always just barely escaping the law. It is hard to resist. If you do not go into the book thinking it is going to be one of the greatest novels you will ever read I have no doubt you will really enjoy it.

And for those of you that are interested (and are in the small minority of people who live near by) the movie is now second in our queue, which means we will be watching it sometime next week!

When I was a kid...

Since we are on the topic of Children's book I thought I would take a moment to mention some books I recently came across that I loved as a child. Please, someone else tell me you remember "reading" Frank Asch. I stared at these books for countless hours when I was just a wee thing, totally mesmerized by the pictures, so desperately wanting to eat mooncake!

Other favorite childhood books??

Mrs. and Ms. Bush Write Children's book.

(Author and Bush twin Jenna shows her rawker/edgy side)

This is one of the more interesting book stories I have read lately. As you all follow the story of the Bush twins, I don't need to tell you that Jenna Bush is already a published author of a book called Ana's Hope, about her time with UNICEF. This I gathered from the cover.
Now she's teaming up with her mother to write a picture book (?) about kids that don't like reading. Just what kids not interested in reading books need: a book of pictures about how reading sucks. "It’s a book that I’ve always wanted to write," says Laura Bush. She also said it was going to be difficult writing a book of pictures, because "In a picture book, there are so few words." Got that?

A Man Booker Dozen

The Man Booker announced its long list today, they are:

Darkmans by Nicola Barker

Self Help by Edward Docx

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

The Gathering by Anne Enright

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Gifted by Nikita Lalwani

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

Consolation by Michael Redhill

Animal's People by Indra Sinha

Winnie & Wolf by A N Wilson

The long list for those of you who (justifiably) don't keep up with Man Booker's inner workings is the first round of finalists for the yearly prize (which I believe comes in October). The long list will soon turn into a short list and then everyone will go mad trying to read all the short list books before a finalist is chosen, right?

My only comment about the list: "Ian McEwan again!"
I've never read him, but doesn't it seem they have their nose up his ass a bit?

Unless. Already. Not Yet.

Back in January, azf read Unless, by Carol Shields. She loved it, started talking about it frequently, recommended it to everyone she talked to, and went online and bought several copies cheap to distribute to people in order to make them read it.
So I read it. Now I'm coming on to Luminous to encourage people to read it. If you didn't take azf's word, you probably won't take czf's word. But I'll add my name to the chorus, and recommend Unless, because it's absolutely brilliant. My Goodness.