Books read in May, 2013

Only four books, two of them picture and two of them YA?  What happened?  Oh wait, the television series Friday Night Lights happened.

Read
A love story starring my dead best friend
Emily Horner
I grabbed this book just for the title and found a great YA story bravely taking on issues of death, sexuality, friendship, musical theater and bicycling.  The main character reminded me a lot of a friend I knew in high school, which probably helped.  Great read.

The Lighting Dreamer
Margarita Engle
Read for librarian book group
The story of nineteenth century Cuban poet Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda told through poems.  Avellaneda was an interesting person, rejecting a lot of conventions of her times, so that made for interesting reading.  I liked the poems in that they were short and accessible, but didn’t find them particularly moving.  Overall, okay.

Grumbles from the Forest
Jane Yolan
Read for librarian book group
Fun concept: two different perspectives of familiar fairy tales in poetry form.  Great illustrations.  So-so poetry.

Hoop Genius
Coy, Morse
Read for librarian book group
The story of how basketball was invented.  I loved the illustrations which reminded me of 1930s Soviet Union propaganda posters (but in a freer style).

45RPM: Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah

Where I match a song to a specific memory.

In my mid-twenties I lived in my version of Shangri-La:  a five bedroom house with two bathrooms and four other female roommates. One of my roommates was dating one of our neighbors, a late-20s PhD who spent his days doing some sort of scientific research I didn’t understand.  He lived alone, but his younger brother was often over and we saw a lot of the two of them. We called them the James Brothers.  His brother, in the fashion of younger brothers the world over, was the hipper, freer James Brother, working in a job I don’t remember, but more importantly, painting his car with chalkboard paint and playing the guitar here and there.  He was pretty darn attractive, and even more so when he played his guitar for us in our house.   One evening he launched in to the song “Hallelujah” and I knew from the first verse this was a song that needed to become a part of me.  After he finished playing and we clapped I made inquires.  The younger James brother lent me his Jeff Buckley tape so I could spend the next few weeks rewinding and hitting play. Much like the experience of my twenties, the song is both simple and complex, hopeful and melancholy, wrapping angry words in a poetry that hits an incredible range of emotions.  I’ve heard other versions, but I come back to Jeff Buckley,* because the fact that  he was a talented artist who died too soon adds yet another layer to what is already a complex and beautiful song.

*Although I shut off the song when he gets to his “general wailing” part at the end.

Three sentence movie reviews: Before Sunrise/Sunset

My friend at work realized after we had the big double feature, that she too wanted to watch these movies, so I borrowed them back from Christi and watch them we did.*  It’s very fun for me to watch a film I love with someone who hasn’t seen it before, because if they love it, we can talk about that, and if they don’t love it, it is interesting to hear why.  She loved them, though and was a quite astute observer, catching a few details I hadn’t noticed.

Cost:  free (thanks Christi)
Where watched: at home with Tiffany & Tim.  Matt came out at intermission for snacks and conversation.

posters from the same place they were from last time

*And that is how good these flicks are.  Two viewings in two weeks and I still was enraptured.