I Bought New Reading Glasses at the Dollar Store

I thought I'd update on my post that I copied from EO's blog. It was someone's must-read list. I won't copy it here. I printed a list of all the books I wanted to read and put it in my wallet. Each time I went to the library, I'd get a few of those on the list.

My first was The Hobbit, then I went through the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Lots of fun! It was kind of like being in a book club (I think) because I'd talk it over with Maestro everyday and discuss how each book differed from the movies. I thought Peter Jackson & Fran Walsh did a great job adapting the books to the screenplay. Most of the differences just had to do with condensing the story so it could be contained in only 3 movies. I really missed Middle Earth and its inhabitants when I finished Return of the King.

Then, I went ahead in time (or behind, actually, since these were written well before Lord of the Rings et al) to 1800's England for Pride & Prejudice and Emma. It was quite a change in style and subject matter, like seeing 3 guy movies in a row and then going to see a couple of chick flicks. I gotta say I preferred the guy movies. Not that I didn't enjoy Jane Austen's books. They were really interesting and I liked getting a glimpse of what life was like for some in that era.

After that, I read a "trashy" novel that Guatemama & Cissy recommended. Good stuff. I won't do a review on it here, though. Maybe another time.

The Bourne Identity was next. Excellent writing and a great story. The funny thing is, though, that I couldn't get over how completely different it was from the movie. Don't get me wrong, I loved them both. I just couldn't believe they made that movie & named it after the book of the same name. There are some similarities. The main character is named Jason Bourne (or is he?) and he was an assassin (or was he?) who lost his memory. He was trained by a special group named Treadstone 71 (was 71 in the movie?) but not for the same purpose as in the movie, unless I'm not remembering correctly. Ludlum is a terrific writer and I loved how he respected the reader's intelligence. Most of the book is set in Paris (another plus) and when there are phrases in French (or sometimes German) he doesn't bother to translate for you.

Now I've just started The Stand, by Stephen King. It wasn't on my list of books I wanted to read, but EO thought I'd like it, so I'm giving it a shot. It's over 1000 pages, so I may be finished by the time they get here (!) and then again, I may not.

As for other news -- we went out on the boat today and had an expensive -- oh, I mean fun -- time. Cissy has blogged about it so I won't be redundant. What she kindly left out was that when I got out of the boat to get us off the rocks when we were beaching to meet the airboat people, I had our camera and my cell phone.. oh, and the keys to the Trailblazer... in my shorts pocket. The keys and my cell phone are fine. The camera is dead. Or maybe in a coma. And the prop & skag (I learned what this was last year, having ruined a couple of them already) on the boat have to be fixed. So there ya go.

I hope that we'll get a new camera soon so that I'll be able to post pix again. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to blog on old stuff or non-photo topics.