Three Places (Bookstores) I Want to Go

               You know how some people have a list of places they want to go before they die? Well, not many people know this about me, but I have a list of bookstores I want to go to before I die.

Shakespeare & Company: Paris, France

               

               Okay, maybe this first one is a little obvious. And maybe it's a little bit because I just want to go to Paris someday. And maybe it's because it's right across from Notre Dame. But I also just want to go there to read!

               Shakespeare & Co. is a famous bookstore based in Paris. It's beautiful, filled (literally) to the brim with books. It's staffed by young, hopeful writers, known as "tumbleweeds," and...oh, just look at it!

    

    

               All those books, stacked up to the ceiling, with wooden rafters and velvety chairs and quaint, cramped hallways. It's so dreamy.

Strand Bookstore: East Village, Manhattan, NY

               

               The Strand Bookstore is less of a quaint, magical bookstore, and more of a wild, chaotic, get-lost-in-the-stacks store (or so I've read.) It isn't THE biggest used bookstore in the U.S, but it holds a close second with a slogan of, "18 Miles of Books." The number one spot actually goes to Powell Books, in Seattle, WA, but...don't want to sound shallow here, but...EAST COAST BEATS WEST, SUCKAS!

               That is not a word. I am sorry.

               

    

    

               I love that you can't actually see into the windows of the building for all the books. If I were a person to use emoticons, I would use the heart one now.

               Oh, what the hell. <3

El Ateneo: Buenos Aires, Argentina

               Are you ready to see the most beautiful bookstore you have or ever will have seen?

               I hope so.

    

               El Ateneo Grand Splendid used to be a theater, if that isn't amazingly and beautifully obvious. All of the balconies and seating areas are now filled with, you guessed it, books. The stage area is a little cafe. The ceiling still has its original fresco and chandelier.

               Can you say siiiiiiiigggggghhhhh?

               The only problem is that, since it is an Argentinian bookshop, almost all of the books are in Spanish. I'll have to bring my own to read if I can't speak Spanish by then. Speaking of, this store may or may not be the only reason I plan on taking Spanish for the next four years of high school.

Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

               This is the first book I've ever read by Neil Gaiman, and I now understand why he is so universally known and beloved (in the nerd universe, that is.) Would you like to know why?

               It's because his writing is magical, and witty, and addictive, and there was, briefly, in this book, a zombie unicorn and sky pirates. Played straight. And it works.

                I loved, loved, loved this book. I loved how it seems almost possible that these magical things are real, side by side with our world, on the other side of a wall in a town called Wall. I loved how Gaiman doesn't take himself too seriously, and it shows in the book. I loved how even two-dimensional characters weren't two dimensional characters, and I loved how twists came that were so simple and lovely that you had to say, Lordy, how didn't I see that coming? 

               I loved how Tristran Thorn is able to take things as they are. 

               This candle will get me to where I need to go, through inexplicable teleportation. Okay.  

               I'm looking for a fallen star. The star is a teenage girl. Sure, why not?

               The tree is talking to me. Okay, then.

               THERE'S A UNICORN FOR US TO RIDE. Sure. 

               I loved this book, and seeing as I seem to be the only one of my friends who hasn't read it, I don't feel it needs too much of a standard review from me following my previous rant about the amazing-ness that is this story. Please, go and read the book, because my ranting and writing can't do it justice. 

...Did I mention that I loved this book?

Merlin Drinking Game

               You know that feeling you get when you have the BEST idea for a new product or game or story or something, except you have no idea what to do with it, so it goes to waste, rotting inside your head until you forget about it? Nerdfighters call that brain crack. Really it's an idea of zefrank's, but I will be taking Hank Green's approach and dumping my brain crack out into the world today (instead of actually carrying out those ideas...because I'm lazy.)

               First off, my family- and I mean my entire family, like aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents- are usually pretty invested in the Academy Awards every year. We all watch the show, we have our own contest to see who can watch every movie up for Best Film first, and, most importantly, we all compete in an Oscar nominee pool.
               We're usually pretty good with the guessing, too, since we try and see everything up for nomination. But every year, everyone hits a stumble.
               What's that stumble?
               THE FREAKING SHORTS.
               The animated shorts, the foreign shorts, all of those ten minute movies that are so cool that they win an Oscar. I think it's great that independent short films can get that highly recognized. Only problem?
               Does anyone actually watch them?
               If you're in my family, then no, you don't. In fact, I've prided myself this year on the fact that I have seen at least one of the shorts up for nomination, and that's only because Marcel the Shell is freaking adorable.
               My brain crack idea? Put together all of the nominees on one DVD package, and then sell it before the award show airs. I would buy that in an instant.

               Secondly, I don't know if anyone reading this likes the show Merlin, on BBC America, (heck, I don't think that anyone is reading this,) but I do. And lately one of the main female characters has decided that she's evil. Because of this, after she does something particularly evil, she's developed a habit of flashing an evil smile at the camera, to show how evilly EVIL she has become. Only thing is, she flashes one of these, oh, I don't know, every five seconds or so?

                 

               So my next brain crack idea isn't something inventive or anything, but I propose a Merlin drinking game, that would go a little something like this:
               Take one sip for every time Arthur doesn't notice Merlin saving his ass.
               Take another every time Merlin gets his retribution, i.e., making Arthur fall on his ass.
               And finish your drink every time Morgana flashes an evil grin five seconds after giving a main character a pitiful, woe-is-me-look.
               I would play this myself, if I had friends who watched Merlin, and if said friends and I were above the drinking age.

               And finally, a brain crack idea that is really just a complaint, not an idea. I was only reminded of this by trying to write this post. My complaint: TAB.
               The key, not the drink.

               I'm a little bit of a grammar and formatting Nazi, so it drives me crazy that I can't hit the tab button in the blogger editing window. What I usually end up doing is copying the space of one tab from MS Word and then hitting Ctrl + v every time I need it. Which sucks.

               Actually, I just forgot and his TAB right then, and I almost published my post. 

               I mean, I know it's not a big thing, and that some people hit tab and enter to publish, but I'd really rather just have the indent. So if any of the blogger fairies read this, could you get to work on that? Pretty please? With correct punctuation and spelling on top?

The 2011 One Hundred Book Challenge!

Pretty simple- I'm taking the challenge to read 100 books this year. But I'm starting late- I think I've only finished one or two these past couple of weeks. I'm going to start listing them on this blog, with a few reviews to go along with them, and hopefully I will reach one hundred by December 31st! Re-reads, partial reads, and picture books do not count! (Though I don't plan on reading any Dr. Seuss this year...)

1. Sold, by Patricia McCormick
2. Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old G.I., by Ryan Smithson
3. Fallout, by Ellen Hopkins

Matched by Allie Condie

        Cassia has lived all of her life under the watchful guardianship of the Society. She sees no faults.

         

                   
          They tell her what to read.

          Because culture was too cluttered before.            
          There was too much.

          It’s for the best.    

          What to wear.

          It’s practical. No jealousy, no vanity-

          It’s for the best.

          Who to love.

         

          That most importantly. The Match gives us our perfect partner. Our perfect life.

          It’s for the best.

          But Cassia’s views of her stable and structured world alter, after the night of her Match Banquet, after her Match is revealed –perfectly- to be her best friend, after she believes her life has been set in motion, after she sees someone else’s face on her Match’s microcard: a second Match. An outsider. Someone remarkably and cautiously different from those who surround him.

          And she can’t help but be drawn to him.

          The second Match, the secret Match, the wrong Match, pulls the wool from her eyes. She starts to see the injustices of her world, where her actions are predicted by the Society before she thinks of them, and she starts to yearn for freedoms that she’s never wanted before.

          She wants to rebel.

          But there is no rebellion in the Society. Not ever.

          Matched was a Christmas present, and I finished it on the 27^th. I am desperately awaiting the sequel.

          Everyone who I’ve talked to about it says it reminds them of The Hunger Games. Which is true- the rival love interests, the dystopian setting, the overall themes, they’re very similar (although there’s a lot less violent, gory death in this one.)

          But what it really reminds me of the most is Lois Lowry’s The Giver- a classic, if you ask me. The absolute acceptance of the Society’s laws, under the promise of a longer, perfect life, is almost as eerie as the way the characters do exactly what is predicted of them, to the point where Cassia’s data predicts she will pick the green dress to wear to her Banquet, and she does. The people of her world innocently believe in the Society- at least within the confines of the cities – in the same way Joshua’s people blindly follow the Sameness in The Giver.

          Although they seem aware of the lack of choice, too. It’s just that the act of choosing what you want seems so little next to the safety, the perfection, that the Society has to offer. Not to mention the ever present threat of Reclassification…

          I loved this book. And since I’ve been in a bit of a book funk these past few months, roaming listlessly from novel to novel with no winners, I’m so happy to be able to say that.