Top Two...Albums

So, in the latest installment of this wonderful series, I'm going to share my favorite albums. As in, records. As in, LPs. Let's get to it then. 


1. The Life of the World to Come, by The Mountain Goats


Each song on this record is based on a verse from the Christian Bible, and they are breathtaking. Well, in actuality the verses are just jumping-off points; John Darnielle (the only real member of The Mountain Goats) spins ridiculous, whispered, heartbreaking tales on every single track. It is wonderful. 


2. It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright!, by Mewithoutyou 


I love Mewithoutyou. They are my favorite band. There is no contest. This album is incredibly different than their others, but it is just so incredible. The lyrics are reflections on Bawa Muhaiyaddeen teachings, and they are beautiful, humbling, and quite honestly, life-changing. Check it out. 

Top Two Poems.

I do not pretend to understand poetry, but I love it. I really do. As such, I thought I would share my two favorite poems with the three of you that regularly read "Readingwithcats." I'm not even going to share my thoughts, because I don't want to tarnish your reading experience. Hah. Hah. See:

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away". 



An untitled poem by Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee-- 
One clover, and a bee, 
And revery. 
The revery alone will do 
If bees are few. 





Anyway, I really hope you like them as much as I do. Which is quite a bit, really.

Top Two Movies

So next up in the series we have my two favorite movies. (I realize that absolutely no one cares what a I think. Seriously.) Anyway, I don't really watch very many films, but there are a couple that I really, really enjoyed:

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Claymation? Check. Incredible story line, humor, and acting to boot? Checkity check check. What a wonderful wonderful movie.

2. Godspell

I love everything about Godspell - the musical is also my favorite musical. (If that makes sense.) The acting is endearing, the singing is wonderful, and so is just about everything else. Go watch it.

So there you go. I genuinely hope you watch both of these movies, and love them as much as I do. Bye!

Top Two Books

My two favorite things is a new series I am going to try to do. It is rather self-explanatory, but here we go: I will list two of my favorite things. Let's get started? Books first, since I feel like I need to update my list for you guys; my first post conceded the same thing and it sorely out-dated.

Two favorite books:

1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
2. Cloud Atlas

Both books were written by David Mitchell, who I honestly believe is the cleverest, talentedest, and briliantest (oh yeah, those are totally words) author writing today. You should read all of his books, because they are wonderful.

Later gator.

Let's Change it Up.

Favorite television programs. It certainly isn't literature related, huh? Ha-ha. Nevertheless, we proceed on through the tumultuous waters of the moving pictures on the small screen. I currently watch two shows on television:

1. Parks and Recreation
2. Face-Off

They are so different, and so great. So, so great.

Parks and Rec is a "spin-off" of The Office. However, it should not be known as such; it is superior to its original in every way (at least in my opinion. Which, granted, isn't a very significant opinion at all). Every character on the show is wonderful, from Ron Swanson to April Ludgate. And it is hilarious. So hilar.

Face-Off is the stupidest show ever, but seriously it is so good. It is pretty much a poorly-made American Idol, but the contestants don't sing - rather, they apply special effects make-up. And let me tell you, it is crazy. The stuff they make is so amazing (and terrifying), it is incredible. But also so, so, so stupid.

Anyway, there are my favorite television shows. What are yours?

The Man Booker Prize

So I have been reading a ton of book by David Mitchell, who is an English author (although he lives in Ireland...or maybe Japan. He is very mysterious). Anyway, as I started each one of his novels, they all seemed to have something in common - they were all nominated for the Man Booker Prize. I had never heard of this literary award before, but being the wiki-pro I am (oh yeah), I quickly found the details.

Spoiler alert: The Man Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious in literature, and is awarded for the best novel written in English, authored by a citizen of Ireland, Zimbabwe, or the Commonwealth of Nations.

Anyway, I am about to read a book called The Sisters Brothers which was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. The weird thing: it was written by a Canadian author. His name is Patrick deWitt, and The Sisters Brothers (a comic western...oh yes I am so excited) is only his second novel. Even so, it has been getting wonderful reviews, and I am immensely excited to read it.

My Favorite Nine.

My favorite albums of 2011 -

9. Mutemath, Odd Soul

8. Son Lux,We Are Rising

7. Seryn, This is Where We Are

6. Gungor, Ghosts Upon the Earth

5. St. Vincent, Strange Mercy

4. John Mark McMillan, Economy

3. The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow

2. Josh Garrels, Love & War & The Sea In Between

1. James Vincent McMorrow, Early in the Morning 

I Recently Finished a Short Story...

...And it was "published" on Teen Ink. You should read it (and rate it five stars, of course... of course).

http://teenink.com/fiction/all/article/397526/The-Case-of-the-Helpless-Guineafowls-A-Boo-Boo-and-Slither-Mystery/

Inheritance

I just finished Inheritance. Here are some thoughts. There are spoilers. Don't read this if you are going to read the book. Seriously. The book will be ruined. Alright.

 Writing wise, it is CP's best. You can certainly sense the maturity he has gained with age. The dialogue is better than any of the other books, and his descriptions are amazing.

Despite these positives, I believe there are two major flaws -

A cruel, thoughtless, and unnecessarily sad ending, both to Eragon and Arya's relationship, and to the series in general. Eragon's reasons for leaving were weak, but Arya's reasons for staying were...weaker, to put it lightly. Even so, I thought the ending was touching, in a weird sort of way.

Secondly, too many interesting and crucial plot points were left unexplained. The Menoa Tree, Tenga...the list goes on and on.

However, if CP writes a future installment (book 5) wrapping up all the plot lines and allowing a more satisfactory conclusion to Eragon and Arya's relationship, my opinion would drastically change. If we find out that  Eragon is somehow able to eventually return to Alagaesia, I think Inheritance would shine as the best book out of the Cycle.

The Great Gatsby

I just finished Mr. Fitzgerald's novel, and loved it. Of course. 


At first, when I finished it, I thought I had had an epiphany; the beautiful yet murky, mysterious yet strikingly clear metaphors and symbols; the endearing yet foreign characters...all lay before me, unveiled and mine for the taking. 


Except, oh wait. Everyone (or, at least, nearly everyone) who has read Gatsby since it was published in the 1920's has had those exact same startling realizations. And the craziest thing is, they did it without SparkNotes there to comfort and guide them along the path of enlightenment concerning Jay, Daisy, and the American Dream. I kid. But seriously, people before SparkNotes were smart. Really smart. Reaaaaaaallllly smart. 


Anyway, the whole point of this post was really just to let you know that basically none of my thoughts (or yours, for that matter) are original. It is kind of a terrifying (and sometimes incredibly comforting) idea. 


In conclusion, here's a quote about Tom Buchanan -

(Her husband was) one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. 

On Trends.

So I think everyone can agree that J.D. Salinger created a monster in 1951 when he wrote A Catcher in the Rye. Granted, YA is an incredibly undefined, straight up weird monster, but it is a monster none the less.

(There is something amiss with that last sentence. Please disregard it.)

YA is changing. It's always changing - genres are changing, settings are changing...even the writing styles are changing. Now here's the crazy thing - it only takes one novel to set an entirely new tone; a tone mood that soon runs rampant throughout every YA novel published. Some books that did just that:

Harry Potter - Not only did J.K. Rowling raise the bar infinitely high for every YA author when she penned The Philosopher's Stone, but she also inspired a movement of magic. Soon, The Boy Who Lived became "The Boy Who Did Pretty Much Everything,With Magic."

Twilight - My personal favorite, Twilight has had more impact on a genre than any other book in my lifetime, and perhaps, well, ever. Literally every single YA book written in the five years after Twilight was released was either about vampires, or was a "paranormal romance novel." Way to be Stephanie Meyer, way to be.

The Hunger Games - Dystopian novel are "the" genre right now, at least among YA novelists. I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember reading that Suzanne Collin's publisher has started throwing away any submissions that are labeled as Dystopian. The Hunger Games not only rejuvenated a lost genre (try and name a Dystopian written before 2005 that is not called "1984" or "A Brave New World").

Finally, we come to our current state of affairs:

Every graphic novel, ever - Let's just get it out of the way. I absolutely despise graphic novels. Yes, some people love them and everything, but I am certainly not one of people. Haha. In all honestly, I think they take away the best part about books - the ability to create everything (the characters, the settings, etc.) yourself.

However, some authors (Ransom Riggs and Patrick Ness(!)) have started to use heavy illustrations and pictures in brilliant ways. Perhaps the best example is Ness' latest book, A Monster Calls. The illustrations are beautiful, inspiring, terrifying, and above all else, vague. Every single picture lends itself to your imagination, aiding it in incredible ways.

A Monster Calls

So that's what I think is coming next. Pseudo-graphic novels. Who's pumped?

Questions

So here are some questions. You can answer them in the comments below. Get on that.

Do you prefer fluffy kittens, or acid.

Do you prefer dogs, or $1 million in cool cash.

Chimpanzees.

Do you prefer beautifully written Greek mythology or MURDER.

Manchee the Dog is my Effing Hero

So last month I picked up The Knife of Never Letting Go at Borders, pretty much on a whim. It sat on my bookshelf for like three days before I finished The Hunger Games (fourth time) and decided to give The Knife a shot. Five hours and 500 pages later, I went to bed.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't get any sleep at all that night. Holy gosh, Patrick Ness is an unbelievable author. Other than perhaps The Hunger Games, no other book I have read has captivated me that much. Even though Ness didn't appear to be pulling any tricks (such as ending each chapter with a cliff-hanger), I cared so much about Todd and Viola (and Manchee... especially Manchee) that I was forced to keep reading. Seriously though, Manchee might be the greatest talking dog in the history of Literature.

(Quick note - In the world of The Knife, every man has something called Noise, which basically entails hearing ever single thought anyone nearby is thinking. Got it? Alright, let's move along.)

There was a certain aspect of Ness' writing that impressed me above all else. Even though Todd (the main protagonist) had a very distinct (otherwise know as illiterate) voice, Ness wrote the story in such a way that you were allowed (not forced) to look past his lack of "educashun." I'll be honest - I really didn't like Todd at all through the first few chapters. However, as the story moved on I began to empathize with him. What would people think of me if they were attacked by my every thought? I don't even want to consider it.  Eventually Todd's choices revealed that he was a whole effing (a Todd word) lot smarter than me, and probably a better person as well. I won't give away anything else about the plot, because it is really effing good.

Seriously, just read it.

Chaos Walking/Patrick Ness is the Man

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to focus on writing about each of the Chaos Walking books, starting with The Knife of Never Letting Go (obviously). 

Spoiler alert: 

They are awesome. 

In fact, everything Patrick Ness writes is straight up sterling. That is just a fact. 

Top

Since this blog is going to be focused primarily on literature, I suppose I should throw out a few of my favorite novels. That way, you can decide if you would like to read on, or - more likely - run away as quickly as your little legs can carry you.

In no particular order -

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
All Creatures Great and Small
1984
Bridge to Terabithia
Lillith: A Romance
Harry Potter
Surprised by Joy
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Frankenstein

Eclectic, yo.

Oh yes - my favorite authors are Patrick Ness and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Not that it really matters.