Revolutionary Road - the movie

***This post containers spoilers.****

I read this book quite awhile ago (here) and my reaction was somewhat mixed. When I read the book, I didn't particularly care for either of the lead characters. The movie reeled me in a little bit more - at least Kate Winslett did. I had much more sympathy for her character in the movie than I did in the book. Maybe that was because I felt bad for her that she was trapped in a marriage with Leonardo deCaprio who is not mature enough (in my almost 50 year old opinion) to be the leading man. He looks like a child. I didn't like the two of them together in Titanic and I didn't like the two of them together in this one either. You know when I'm thinking, "Go girl!" as she trots off to have sex outside of marriage that the match is not working for me! Of course the ending is just as devastating on film as it is in print, it just has to be mental illness that drives her to her destruction.

Despite the darkness of the story and the fact that, again, I didn't fall in love with either of the characters, I still enjoyed the movie, maybe even a little more than I enjoyed the book.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday started by Marcia at The Printed Page is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). This month Mailbox Monday is being hosted by the library of clean reads. Stop by there to check out everyone else's mailboxes.

From the author, I received

From the Goodreads description: While Olivia deBelle Byrd was repeating one of her many Southern stories for the umpteenth time, her long-suffering husband looked at her with glazed over eyes and said,“Why don’t you write this stuff down?” Thus was born Miss Hildreth Wore Brown—Anecdotes of a Southern Belle. If the genesis for a book is to shut your wife up, I guess that’s as good as any. On top of that, Olivia’s mother had burdened her with one of those Southern middle names kids love to make fun. To see “deBelle” printed on the front of a book seemed vindication for all the childhood teasing. With storytelling written in the finest Southern tradition from the soap operas of Chandler Street in the quaint town of Gainesville, Georgia, to a country store on the Alabama state line, Oliviade Belle Byrd delves with wit and amusement into the world of the Deep South with all its unique idiosyncrasies and colloquialisms.Sounds wonderful, can't wait to dive in!

For myself I purchased.......

From the Goodreads description: Before A.M. Homes was born, she was put up for adoption. Her birth mother was a twenty-two- year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with children of his own. The Mistress’s Daughter is the story of what happened when, thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her. I love a good memoir - crossing my fingers it is as good as it sounds.

And for next year's Christmas reading, I found.....

From the Goodreads description: She was my first kiss. My first love. She was a little match girl who could see the future in the flame of a candle. She was a runaway who taught me more about life than anyone has before or since. And when she was gone my innocence left with her. The story doesn't specifically say Christmas but these little gift books say Christmas to me so I'll save it for then.

I got two audiobooks this week, one from a friend and one from a second-hand store......

From the Goodreads description: The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. I've already started this one and so far it is great - better than the movie.

From the Goodreads description:"Why was an elegant lady brutally murdered the night before 9/11? Why was a successful New York banker not surprised to receive a woman's left ear in the morning mail? Why did a top Manhattan lawyer work only for one client, but never charge a fee? Why did a young woman with a bright career steal a priceless Van Gogh painting? Why was an Olympic gymnast paid a million dollars an assignment when she didn't have a bank account?" All these questions are answered in False Impression, but not before a journey of twists and turns that will take readers from New York to London to Bucharest and on to Tokyo, and finally to a sleepy English village, where the mystery of Van Gogh's last painting will finally be resolved. I've never read Jeffrey Archer, despite his having written gobs of books.

And on the iPad, I downloaded a few freebies including this one.....

From the Goodreads product description: A penniless young knight with few prospects, William Marshal is plucked from obscurity when he saves the life of Henry II's formidable queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In gratitude, she appoints him tutor to the heir to the throne. However, being a royal favourite brings its share of conflict and envy as well as fame and reward. William's influence over the volatile, fickle Prince Henry and his young wife is resented by less favoured courtiers who set about engineering his downfall. In a captivating blend of fact and fiction, Elizabeth Chadwick resurrects one of England's greatest forgotten heroes, restoring him to his rightful place at the apex of the Middle Ages, reflecting through him the tumults, triumphs, scandals and power struggles that haven't changed in eight hundred years. Chadwick is also new to me but this time period sounds interesting and, of course, it was free!

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

From the Amazon product description: On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man. Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset.

This was a great story! I've enjoyed a couple of Tracy Chevalier's other books Burning Bright and The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Each of those were historical fiction; they had a fictional story woven around a famous historical figure, Blake in Burning Bright and Vermeer in The Girl with a Pearl Earring. I liked this book better. Like the others, the main character was a real person but this time it wasn't anybody that most people would have heard of before. Mary Anning gained some notoriety in her time but her fifteen minutes of fame was over until this book brought her back. Her work, the recovery of fossils, has it's place in the local history of Lyme Regis but it's not something any one who didn't have a yen for fossils would know anything about. The result of unearthing all this is that the story felt fresh and exciting and I learned a little something at the same time. It was also a fairly short book at only 300 pages so it moved quickly and kept me engaged throughout.

I have more of Tracy Chevalier in my TBR pile and will look forward to reading more from her.

Chevalier has all sorts of interesting background and pictures at her web site. Those would be fun for a quick look even if you haven't read the book.

This book counts towards a few challenges...

A-Z Challenge 2011

This challenge is hosted on it's own blog by Becky of Becky's Book Reviews. I completed this challenge the last two years 2009 and 2010 by books with titles from A-Z. (You can also chose to do it by author.) I am not a very active participant in that I rarely remember to link up my completed titles or visit any other participant blogs but it Is definitely a personal goal for me to finish!

Here is where I will keep track of how I do this year....
A- Anne of Green Gables
B- By Fire, By Water
C- Change of Heart
D- Don't Blink
E- Eclipse Bay
F- The Faith Club
G- Girls' Night In
H- The Hour I First Believed
I- I Dare You
J- Jane Eyre
K- Katie Up and Down the Hall
L- The Lace Reader
M- My Reading Life
N- Never Change
O- One True Thing
P- Picture Perfect
Q- Queen of Broken Hearts
R- Remarkable Creatures
S- Safe Haven
T- Two Little Girls in Blue
U- The Undomestic Goddess
V- Veil of Roses
W- War
X- The Devotion of Suspect X
Y- The Year She Fell
Z- Of Mice and Murderers (Z series)

Okra Picks Challenge

This Southern books challenge has been pickling in my brain since....OCTOBER! Can we say,,procrastinator? And, maybe also, a little unfocused since now I am thinking about pickled okra and ready to crank the car, shoot to the Piggly Wiggly and get some.

The challenge is hosted by Kathy at Bermudaonion. It goes until March 31st so there is still a little time. Click on the logo above for all the details.

I am in at the Goober level 1-3 books. mainly becasue I know I can accomplish having just wrapped up My Reading Life by Pat Conroy - nothign like setting the bar low.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy an Okra Pick

From Goodreads: Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life. Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is also a vora­cious reader. He has for years kept a notebook in which he notes words or phrases, just from a love of language. But read­ing for him is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity. In My Life in Books, Conroy revisits a life of passionate reading. He includes wonderful anecdotes from his school days, mov­ing accounts of how reading pulled him through dark times, and even lists of books that particularly influenced him at vari­ous stages of his life, including grammar school, high school, and college.

I wanted to love this one because I love Pat Conroy but, unfortunately, I didn't. I was not able to reconcile what I expect from Conroy - a novel - with what this was - essays. I hold myself to blame for that. I needed to read more slowly, to let one story finish and be done before I started the next one, but I just couldn't stop myself from plowing through so then the disconnectedness felt more acute. Each story is meant to be savored on it's own; there are stories set here in Beaufort, others in Atlanta, even Paris, there are stories from his childhood, his years as a young author, and anecdotes about his later years, but I wanted them all to be connected in a more linear way and that's not the way this book is laid out. It didn't help that I haven't read most of the books that greatly influenced Conroy's life - Gone with the Wind - no, War and Peace - no, anything by James Dickey (haven't even heard of James Dickey!) - no, Look, Homeward Angel - no,no, no - it just goes on and on highlighting my lack of literary knowledge! So in the words of George Kastanza, "It's not you, Pat, it's me." (And yes, I fully expect next year, some ambitions blogger will host a Pat Conroy My Reading Life Challenge - I can see it coming!)

This book is an Okra Picks and counts towards the challenge being hosted by Kathy at Bermudaonion. By reading just this one book, I acheive the level of Goober!

The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner

From the Goodreads description: At first, it seemed like a good idea. In the wake of September 11, 2001, American Muslim Ranya Idliby contacted a Christian woman (Suzanne Oliver) and a Jewish woman (Priscilla Warner), proposing that the three of them write a children's book on the commonalities of these major religious traditions. Almost from the start, their "faith club" meetings devolved into wrangling; as one reviewer put it, "more Fight Club than book club." The three women argued with each other and also with themselves; even faith itself was brought into question. Through sheer stubbornness, the women continued their sessions, candidly tackling their own and each other's stereotypes, misconceptions, and deep beliefs. The Faith Club stands as a monument to their persistence, a testament to their faiths, and evidence of the difficulties that lay ahead.

As I read this one, I felt like I was learning a lot about Judaism and Islam but as I reflect back, it is hard for me to come up with any cold hard facts. I did learn that Judaism does not believe in an after life like Christians and Muslims do. That gave me pause yesterday as I attended a funeral of a family friend. So much of what was said had to do with the comfort we could all take from knowing he is enjoying heaven, and I do think that notion is very comforting to the living. I wondered how Jews mustered the extra strength to find solace without that idea as part of their faith system.  So without taking away a detailed understanding of the three faiths from this book, what I did take away was a sense of hope. Religions have been characterized in the media by their extremes but this was a reminder that the vast majority of people are moderate in their views and would say that kindness to others trumps all else.