Wow, it is has been a long time since I have gone a week without posting something. Time just got away from me this time; I have no good reason for my absence other than school is taking up all of my time.
In the last month I have read all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, had to re-write one. Read the plays; Hamlet, A midsummer’s Night Dream, Richard III and watched movies based on all three. If you have not caught the 2000 remake of Hamlet staring Ethan Hawk I recommend you do so. It is set in modern day New York yet retains the language and style of the original.

In my German Lit class we have read excerpts from some great classics. We read:
The Nibelungenlied, by an anonymous author in 1200
Tristan and Isolde by Strassburg (1210)
Ship of Fools by Brant (1494)
Essays by Erasmus and Martin Luther
The Golden Thread by Wickram (1557). This is a great story and I am desperately looking for an inexpensive copy of it.

Last Saturday night my beau and I went to see Lewis Black. I have only seen one other comic in concert and that was back in the 1970s. I saw Bill Cosby right before he stopped touring. As much as I love Lewis, nobody beats Bill when it comes to facial expressions and timing. Still, we had a great time and it was exciting to see Lewis rant live. His opening act was very funny though sadly he had a couple of hecklers who were unhappy that Lewis did not come on right away. Sigh…even as I sit at a cultural event I am still reminded I live in Nevada.

I wish I could tell you I finished a great book this week, but sadly I have spent more time reading and writing about Shakespeare. I wanted to write a blog post the other night but because I was so immersed in the bard’s world I was afraid I would write in iambic pentameter or blank verse. I can tell you I am trying, bit by bit to read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians. I find I do better if I can just sit down and fall into a book but I am only able to read a little each day. I am enjoying it. Have any of you read it?

I will start with the strange news and end with my shopping trip to Borders. So, in my last post I wrote about a book review I held onto for years and how I finally got a copy of the book. Well, I started the book last night but from the very first page something became eerily clear: I had a history with the story. As I read a weird sensation came over me, almost a foreboding feeling. I did not think “ah, I read this already” rather it just seemed I knew this story. Had I previously read it and forgot? If so, why did it bother me, rather than just become another case of forgetting a long past read?

I looked at the publishing date. It was written in 2004, the same year I moved to Nevada. I know I was a little stressed out, but come one, surely I would remember reading this book, yet the title and book cover are very unfamiliar to me. I started a reading log in 2007 so it is possible I read it, but this would mean I either read the book before I saw the review, or read it after seeing the review but never made the connection. These are the two logical (yet scary) choices. The other is that I have some kind of supernatural connection with the story. I am going to continue reading hoping I will finally remember having already read it. I will keep you posted.

I decided to treat myself today to a trip to the book store. I was given a $30.00 Borders gift card last week and felt today would be a good day to spend it. The clincher was the 50% coupon e-mail I received. What true reader can turn down such a deal? I jumped in the car and headed out.

I spent an hour looking at various genres. It was nice to spend time in a book store knowing I had no time limit. No one was waiting at home. I could stay looking all afternoon, and stay I did. I found very quickly that I no longer have the stomach to spend over $15.00 on a paperback novel. Oh sure I found several titles that sounded good; one is titled The Genesis Secret by Tom Knox. Have any of you read this? It is a biblical mystery which critics are saying is better than anything Dan Brown has put out. It looked good, but $15.99 for a book that I will read in a couple of days, then cast off to Paperback Swap? Nope, could not do it, not even with a gift card. I will save the title to my wish list and hope someone parts with it soon. Or maybe my library has a copy. I also saw The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno by Ellen Bryson, which sounds oh so good is a new hardback at $26.00. Again I just could not do it.

So what did I finally decide on? Well, it is easier for me to spend money on nonfiction as these are the books I keep on my shelf to refer back to again and again. Though it still pains me to spend over $15.00 on paperbacks I am happy with my four picks. What do you think? Did I do good? I am not sure which to read first! Oh the dilemma!

The View From Sari's World

Catching up. Has it really been a week?

Book news: a strange feeling comes over me, and I win at Borders

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