Sabriel, by Garth Nix
My next book in line after
A Death in the Family was going to be
Prozac Nation. But, I immediately fell into a crisis of my own, felt utterly lonely and knew it would not be a healthy reading choice. So I picked up
Sabriel, by Garth Nix, instead.
This series was recommended to me by a coworker at Borders. I had been reading
The Golden Compass trilogy by Philip Pullman (
go buy them now! They are fantastic!), when he recommended it, and being in the mood, picked up the first one.
The writing is certainly for a younger age than the Harry Potter books and even Philip Pullman, though the content is for a more grown age group (there's kissing, puberty, romance, and death).
Sabriel is not really a necromancer, but she is, just as her father is. She can go into the world of the dead and bring back those who should not be there. In this world, the dead roam the earth and are trying to take over. It's hard for me to describe because I was so down in the dumps while reading it, but I am going to read the rest of the trilogy. I enjoyed it and love the fantasy land stories.
I am currently in the process of finishing
The Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling. After that, a real story about The Fasting Girl. See you later!
A Death in the Family, by James Agee
A Death in the Family by James Agee was recommended to me by Stephen King. Yes. Stephen King. I had just read
On Writing by S.K. In the back of the book, he published a list of recommended reading. This was one of them.
James Agee was not alive when his book was published, so he didn't even know that for this
first draft(!), he won the Pulitzer Prize.
The story is about a man named Jay who leaves his home in the middle of the night to see his father, who may be living his last moments. When he arrives, he sees the problem is not as serious as would seem and so returns home. However, on the ride home, he dies in a car accident. The rest of the book centers around how each member in the family deals with the tragedy.
It was amazing to read being that I experienced my own father's death and when I was 13, the death of an aunt. The way Rufus' mind works in this book (the son) is eye-opening and honest. Somehow feeling prouder and conceited because you now have a tragedy in your history and under your belt...
Read it. It's great.
Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis
Holy fuck! You MUST get this comic. Spider is a journalist who is out for one thing: the truth, and he cares not who gets hurt, angry, cries, or pisses on his shoes in order to do it. He's satyrical, he's bitter, he's caring, he's funny, he has the best insults never to have hit Fox TV. Spider ROCKS! I've read the first two book sin the series and am quite ready to read more.
Transmetropolitan, my new journalist hero.
The Authority, by Warren Ellis
I just read
The Authority by Warren Ellis. I have been trying to open my reading horizons. Comic books are pretty fun to read. They don't leave me hanging as much as a novel, where I can't wait to get to the next page, so I'm reading while I'm walking, but I certainly wouldn't only read half a comic book either. I like it. It's fun, it's fast.
Things happen!. It's great to have a read without all the
waiting that's usually involved in novels.
This is about seven (maybe six) superheroes who were once all, as far as I can tell so far, regular humans (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Some of the characters chose their super powers over a regular life because they believed it was worth the risk to save the world from other powers that are evil. This first book covers two catastrophes. I definitely admire the imagination of Warren Ellis. Jenny Sparks is the leader: her power is electricity. There's a doctor/shaman whose powers are still a little wishy washy, but he can change just about anything. Apollo gets energy from the sun and uses a burst from his eyes to obliterate the enemy. Midnight is stealthy. John can kick major ass with is bare feet and there's a lot of jaw smashing and blood spurting when he gets angry. I think he can also "meld" with surroundings, so he becomes a part of it. Swift can fly. I'm not sure what else her power is, to be quite honest. They ride on a huge spacecraft that is both in the earth and around it, so they are everywhere at once. (To get it straight is mindboggling; this is not for the scientifically-accurate folks who get pissed if an icon isn't possible in a movie).
Give comic books a shot!
When Your Body Gets the Blues by Marie-Annette Brown and Jo Robinson
So I got a little down, see, and thought that maybe I should research, care about myself, do a little "self discovery." That means I got to reading a few books. The first one I tried and read about the first 10 pages before deciding I wasn't dumb enough to read it. I didn't like how she wrote, I didn't like what she had to say in the first 10 pages. I'm not an infant trapped in a woman's body. I'm a woman who wants loving like an infant. This book was called
Women Who Think Too Much and don't get it unless you want to think that you're unreasonable. I'm not unreasonable. So I skipped it.
I then got this book from Borders (as I was working that night) called
Depression: The Way out of Your Prison. It seemed informative at first. Then I looked at the chapter listing. The entire thing is about what your prison is, how you got to your prison, what it means, and there follows a
three page chapter on leaving the prison. I read about 90 pages of the book and got fed up. she focuses a lot on depression for Christian woman (she is, by no means, a Christian--but then, neither am I and therefore, I found I the book irrelevant to me). She claims depression has nothing to do with chemicals or biology. That it is a prison women build around themselves for security from fear. I can believe it to an extent, but not a far enough extent that I'd read the entire book.
I then fell upon a book I read about in
Self magazine and heard about again on NPR.
When Your Body Gets the Blues and
score. I found something.
This book is great. It taught me that I'm not necessarily
depressed, but I am certainly moody. MOODY. I become irritable, I become anxious. Sleeping is hard. Being nice is hard. Being pleasant and companionable is HARD. For two weeks, I've been following the LEVITY program advertised in the book. It requires only three things.
1). Walk for a minimum of twenty minutes a day, five times a week, outside.
2). Go outside at least 20 minutes a day for light
3). Take vitamins.
It has helped me tremendously. Online, I found a journal chart to keep track of my moods on every day, how much light I got that day, how much walking I did. You notice a pattern from month to month, based on your walking/light, vitamins, and your own menstrual cycle. I more easily recognized my good moods (which is so hard sometimes!) and also recognized when I was about to become irritable.
Last week is the best week I have had in ages! I felt so great!
I found the LEVITY supplements online for $8.99, they contain the main six ingredients recommended for everyday on this program (the book outlines what each vitamin is for, why you may not be getting enough of it already, etc.) You can buy them from the
website for $14.99 plus shipping and handling, but if you can get them for $8.00 plus s/h, why not do that? You can find them
here.
I recommend this book. It was a fast read, interesting, instructive, and based on many research studies.
