https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog my reading blog for 7th period :) en-us 2018-10-28 21:41:05 UTC 2019-01-19 14:55:19 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/File.png lysol https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/297813887
This book of Mary Oliver's poems is a collection of many of her smaller books of poetry plus brand new poems.  This book was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, a National Book Award Winner and was published in 1992.  Some of the poems in the book reach all the way back to 1963.  The poems range in subject matter from her own life experiences to her reactions to interaction with nature. She paints vivid pictures.  One of my favorite lines is from "When Death Comes"  and is so exact I can feel it. When death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades.  When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn.  And then it goes on to celebrate life with the line "I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in my mouth."  She concludes with this beautiful line, "I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement."   Her many poems bring this same kind of amazement and eye-opening wonder. One poem is about a a near-miss with a an alligator that took me right back to watching "Crocodile Dundee."  One of her most famous poems is called "The Journey" and is kind of a fight song for people saving themselves. It begins with the line One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-.  The poem ends with the beautiful line determined to save the only life you could save.  I recommend Mary Oliver's poetry for a quick trip to nature, for a reminder of your own personal power, for a battlecry of life. ]]> 2018-10-28 21:59:36 UTC https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/297813887 lysol https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/302915467 This book was very hard to get through, but it was definitely a good read. It was definitely NOT what I expected. I did not expect McMurphy to die at the end. I knew something had to happen to him in order for the book to have an ending that made sense, but when Bromden smothered him to death and when Billy Bibbit killed himself I was very surprised. Some of my favorite parts were when McMurphy brushed his teeth with Comet and when Bromden got to look out the window for the first time in many years. The latter part brought tears to my eyes because my it reminded me so much of my aunt's dog who had just died recently. I would recommend this book to everyone not only because it's such a classic but because of its impeccable imagery and poignancy. Kesey brilliantly blends reality and hallucinations with vivid metaphors, similes, and elaborate language.  I can't really speak to whether or not it met my specific expectations because before I started reading I honestly had no clue what to expect. I had seen glimpses of movie scenes and knew that Jack Nicholson was one of the main characters, but other than that I didn't really have a clue what to expect. It turned out that McMurphy, the character Nicholson played in the movie, is not the main character of the book. Instead a man named Bromden is the lead character. I did watch the movie after I finished the book and it was not nearly as sad as I expected. The movie skipped over so many important book details that it was difficult to feel fully invested in the characters in the same way. ]]> 2018-11-10 22:03:48 UTC https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/302915467 lysol https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/305107996 I am currently reading "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks. It is told from several different points of view and from different points in time. So far I have only read two points of views; one is Lola, a Jewish girl in early WWII, and the other is Hanna, an Australian woman in Sarajevo restoring a book. Lola's story is much darker than Hanna's. Lola has to leave her home and all her family behind to be killed. She joins a small band of other Jewish escapees as part of the "resistance". She must experience many awful things no human should ever be put through and witness awful things no human should ever have to see. In one scene, Oskar, one of Lola's life-long acquaintances, realizes he has frostbite in his foot and all the gangrene has made it impossible for him to carry on. Lola and Oskar see that he will have to be abandoned but when Lola takes Ina, Oskar's 9 year old sister, Oskar insists that she come with him. Oskar picks up Ina, carries her to the river, steps out to where the ice is most thin, and falls through, killing both of them. This is just one of the grueling scenes, and I'm only on page 79. It's hard to imagine that Lola's life was a reality for so many people during WWII, and that so many people today are experiencing similar trials and hate. Reading Lola's story makes me feel much more sympathy for current-day refugees struggling to survive. Hanna's story hits very close to home due to its relevancy. Her story takes place in Bosnia in the 90's, a war-torn wasteland of gunfire, rubble, and the ever-present cloud of death casting a shadow over Sarajevo. ]]> 2018-11-16 03:19:21 UTC https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/305107996 lysol https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/316226064 I finished People of the Book and I really enjoyed reading it. Now I am currently reading "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I am only a few pages in and I can already tell I am going to enjoy reading this book! I don't want to get my expectations too high but I really hope justice is served at the end. Most books take a few pages to hook the reader, but I was interested within the first few sentences. It was a little difficult to read the rape scene and it came so early I wasn't quite prepared for it, but it just makes me want Susie to somehow get vengeance on Mr Harvey. I don't know that I have ever truly hated a character within the first chapter of a book before, but I sure hate Mr Harvey right now. The way the author  weaves flashbacks to the actual rape/murder in with Susie's current story about heaven is brilliant. ]]> 2018-12-20 17:08:02 UTC https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/316226064 lysol https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/316624640 I am about halfway through the "The Lovely Bones" now and I am still having a hard time putting it down! I'm starting to wonder if the police are ever going to realize that Susie's dad is right about Mr Harvey. I think Mrs Salmon needs to side with her husband instead of cheating on him. Susie seems to be trying to justify her mother's actions, but I believe they are inexcusable. Mr Salmon is having such a hard time with his daughters death, and his wife's actions are only making things worse. I don't really like when Susie goes back to talking about heaven. Those parts are when the book starts to get dull but the story picks up right afterwards, fast enough keep my interest. I am a little confused about what happened in the cornfield, but I think Mr Harvey tried to attack Clarissa. If that's what happened I think the story could go two ways: Clarissa realizes Mr Harvey was attacking her and leads the police to arresting Mr Harvey, or Clarissa thinks what Mr Harvey was doing to her was Mr Salmon and gets him arrested. ]]> 2018-12-24 21:44:33 UTC https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/316624640 lysol https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/322398798 I finished reading "Animal Farm" by George Orwell last night and although I kind of already understood what the book would be like, I was still very disappointed. I think Orwell tried to give a whimsical example of how communism could never work, but instead I interpreted it as how fascism can flourish so easily under the mask of communism. I was disgusted with the ending, though not surprised. The pigs becoming human-like was just a way to fit in that humans are essentially pigs in his metaphor for humanity. If I had written the book, I think I would've (at the end) put in a scene that showed the pigs had been conniving with the humans the whole time, not just building a relationship with the humans throughout the story. My ending may not make sense in the context of the rest of the book but I think it would better embody not what Orwell was trying to say, but what he truly meant. Nothing shocking happened in my book, but I already had a certain guess as to what would happen. I think the best part of the book (albeit the saddest) was when Benjamin the donkey finally speaks up and says that Boxer isn't going to the hospital, but to a glue factory. The animals' outrage at this gives the reader some hope that they might be able to realize what's really happening in the pigs' regime and get some justice, but these hopes are quickly crushed by Napoleon's lies the animals so easily believe. Overall, I feel more "cultured" after reading this book, just because I know of its significance in the history of literature, but I still feel a little remorse that I spent time reading such a predictable book. Now I'm moving on to "A Mighty Heart" by Mariane Pearl]]> 2019-01-19 14:34:00 UTC https://padlet.com/lysol/annesradreadingblog/wish/322398798