Re: summer reading
 

7.25 minimum wage? Lmao

The Gift of Valor
 

The Gift of Valor

256 pages

Type:war story, biography

Time: 2-3 hours

Synopsis: Story involving some battles in Iraq (namely, Husaybah), mostly about Corporal Jason Dunham, who placed his helmet over a grenade, absorbing most of the blast. He ended up dieing a couple weeks later (pretty much never came too) and has been nominated for the medal of Honor.

Thoughts: Good story, although the tone of the book is a little too GI Joe for my liking. Understandbly so, though, but considering i work around a buncha marines and see how much of morons they can be.. then again, this IS in wartime. They play him out as a hero, which i dont doubt at all that he is.. but well you get the idea

I actually got to meet the writer of the book. He had toured Iraq 4 times. Kinda neat.... It's pretty sad, and you think about how he had to interview everyone, especially the family, who had to relive jason's death all over again (gradual death which went on for dozens of pages)

The author had his book signed, from some people he had worked with as well as the family. I saw some chicken scratch writing thinking 'WTF'. i finaly got to look at it and it was written from the sister of Jason, who wrote 'Thank you for writing abou my brother'

Prozac Nation
 

Prozac Nation

384 pages

Type: Memoir, psychological

Time: 7-10 hours

Synopsis: Elizabeth Wurtzel talking about her childhood/teenage years, including over a decade of depression

Thoughts: Good book, extremely honest.. although i have to say that it was pretty hard to relate too. She was extremely depressed, crying all the time - uncontrollably, EVERYWHERE. Some cool, slightly shocking stuff. She makes a lot of references to people, books, and movies which i'm gonna look into.

Apparently, its a movie. she made a reference to 'girl, interrupted' so it wasnt that. Looking for it on Amazon, turns out its a movie by the same name starring Christina Ricci.. which ended up going striaght to television. So, i'm not sure how great the movie was. in the end tho, as great a book as it is i tihnk it would bea pretty boring movie. But im guessing ricci must've done a pretty good job protraying her...

Some of those sound interesting. I'm about to start reading Treasure Island.

^^^ive been wanting to read that. maybe thatll be my nextone

i read '20,000 leagues under the sea.' but that was years ago.

That sounds like an interesting book, space exploration and travel has always intrigued me.

Currently reading several books, but this one is quite interesting.

Rommel and his Art of War by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel.

Interesting read about the Desert Fox. If you are interested in WWII history from a different perspective.

Currently reading Falling Angel by [I just know this is goona be spelt wrong] William Hjortsburg. So far, it's pretty good.

Their Eyes Were Watching God
 

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

193 pages

Type: fiction, black, women's issues

Time: 6-10 hours

Excerpt: (this is the first line of the book)
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in reisnation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember eerything they dont want to forget. The ream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

Synopsis: The life of Janie, a half black half white baby born, raised by her grandmother. It's only a small portion of her childhood, and follows her throughout her adult life, getting married and such.

Thoughts: Excellent book! It's a story both about blacks (not so much slavery, but life afterwards) as well as a woman in search of self. Not only a woman, but a mixed woman, not quite fitting in here nor there. It mainly deals with search of love.

It's not that many pages, but the reason why it took so long was because whenever there was speaking, it was written in the way that they would say it. As in, so many of you complain about my grammatics/typos, so you probably wouldnt enjoy this book. It was pretty hard to read, although it did become easier overtime.

Excerpt:

"De snake won't bite yuh... He skeered tuh go intuh uh coil. Skeered he'll be blowed away. Step round dat side and swim off!"

See? Anyway, I've never read any african american sort of literature. I really liked it tho. It would make a great movie (i think it may be one, im not sure)

The chick, Janie, I really got to admiring at the end of the book.

I'm reading that "Haunted" book by Chuck Palahniuk... its fuckin sweet.

Bad Cat
 

Bad Cat - Jim Edgar

245 pages

Time: 1 hour

Type: picture book

Synopsis: It's a picture of 244 cats, all with names and hobbies (obviously, fiction)

Thoughts: Maybe I would like it more if i liked Cats. I mean, I like cats alright, but not nearly THIS much. Some pics were really cute, and others were ugly, while others I was pretty indifferent about.

Anyway.... each of the cat's have names. I found my bf's name (Damian) but I don't recall seeing mine. Anyway, it was kinda cute in a astrological sort of way. As in, I want to find which cat I am and what it says about it (me).

Note: I didn't buy this book, any of these books actually. My cousin lent em to me. I finished all the ones she lent me though, so for work this morning I grabbed the only paper back I had in the garage - Aliens v. Predator: Prey. LOL!!! although weird, it spretty creative, so I'll be finishing it.