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Paperback swapping

My friend highly recommended an online bookswapping site: paperbackswap.com. I signed up last week, posted a few paperback books and so far, someone has already requested one of them. When you send a book, you get a book credit, which means you can request a book. I haven't yet requested any because I have a whole stack of books in my to-be-read stack. At this point, for me, I'm elated to give some of my paperbacks away, for although I enjoyed most all of them, they are not worth the space for keeping. (If you live in a 2-bedroom condo like I do, you'll understand!)

This is exciting for me! I love books and I treat them like fine china, but they pile up, about as fast as souvenir cups do. For books I've read to go on to a good home gives me a go-green kind of feeling.

This might be something you're interested in too!

A couple of good movies

So, we rented 2 good movies this past weekend: Gran Torino and He's Just Not that into You.

I liked Gran Torino because Clint Eastwood as a crusty old bud is a riot! The words he utters under his breath will make you laugh. The scene with the Italian barber is a classic; and then the scene with the barber and the teenager is even better! The transformation of Clint's character through the movie and up to the very end is inspiring. Cranky old men do have a heart afterall! The ending is powerful; there is sacrifice.

He's Just Not that into You was funny as well. The main character played by Gennifer Godwin is so charming and likeable. She befriends the just-call-a-spade-a-spade Justin Long, better known as the Mac guy in those television ads. (I've forgotten what their film names are!) There are a lot of other good actors too: Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Afleck. What I liked about the movie is although the title is rather negative, the good characters get the happy ending, while the seedy ones... well, their ending is not so perky.

Both movies are on Comcast, and I'd highly recommend either one!

Hannah Coulter

I was sorry to see the book Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry come to an end. What a story full of the circle of life and death. Hannah marries into the community (or rather "membership" as they call it) of Port William and becomes its staunchest supporter! Port William is a small Kentucky town full of farmers along with other townspeople who hold it together. Life is hard and death and grieving follow, but what do you do but "live right on"? In other words you face it and do the best you can! That's what Hannah has done all her life, and lucky for her, she married a man who had the same philosophy. By the way, this was Hannah's second marriage as she was widowed by the war.

Wendell Berry is such an elegant writer. It was hard to believe that he could write so aptly from a woman's point of view. Berry has been compared to William Faulkner with Port William being the Kentucky version of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. (The big difference though is that Port William families are not nearly as dysfunctional as Yoknapatawpha's, though they  they certainly have their fair share of struggles.) Berry has written several books about Port William and since it's a small town, you can imagine that the other books contain the same characters from a slightly different perspective. I'm trying to figure out which book of his to read next!

If you like Southern fiction, books about husbands and wives who depend so beautifully on one another, and books that make you want to connect more with those you love, then I'd recommend Hannah Coulter!

Books and more books!

In the past month, I've read some good books:

• Sisterchicks Go Brit by Robin Gunn Jones, which got me in the mood for our trip to London and got me reading the book of Jeremiah again because she references it a few times in the book. (Jeremiah is actually a very positive book in the Bible; there are lots of promises from God to give us hope!)
• Sometimes a Light Surprises by Jamie Langston Turner, a novel about the effects of long-term bitterness and how it impacts our lives and those around us. The way Jamie portrays what a person is really thinking is just amazing and clever. And, even up until the last chapters, I had no idea how the book was going to end! (I can't wait for her next book!)
• Quaker Summer, by Lisa Samson, which actually won a Book of the Year award a couple of years ago for some genre of Christian fiction. It was thought provoking. A lady is struggling with her life: her husband is a successful doctor and her son is an adorable teenager, but something is missing. She is caught up in material possessions until one day, God gets her attention via a kangeroo! (That's all I'm going to say, except that I couldn't put this book down. And, like Jamie, Lisa Samson has a way of capturing a person's thoughts and she makes them part of the plot, and some of them are pretty funny too!)

Thanks to my generous, gift-giving sisters-in-law, I have a few more books to read now:

• Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes, by Robin Gunn Jones, which is definitely a light-hearted book, but the theme of most of her Sisterchicks books, and this one will probably be no different, is that God is good and he wants our relationships on earth to bring us closer to our relationship with Him.
• Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry, which is about a lady, Hannah, who is reminiscing about her life over the past 70+ years and her life has not been easy. Her wisdom looking back is is almost poetic. I've actually already started reading this book, and have already cried at least twice. (That's a good thing: I love books that make me cry!)
• On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson, which is a fantasy, probably a little like The Lord of Rings. This is definitely a type of book that I'm not used to reading, but the book looks so charming and there are good illustrations throughout. (Maybe I'll do better with this book than the Rings trilogy, which I never really quite understood.)
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows which is a novel set on the island of Guernsey during WWII and right after. The book is basically a series of letters! I like it already, because it'll be a fun and painless way to learn more about the German occupation there.
• Embrace Me by Lisa Samson which is a book about some very interesting (that's an understatement!) characters whose lives collide, and then I bet we can watch what God is able to do! I've read the first couple of chapters and look forward to getting back to it.

Do you have some good books, too, to read this summer?

A cereal from the past

I bought some Grape Nuts cereal today after reading an article about them a couple of weeks ago in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124381591156970663.html. The article must have been pretty popular, because last week I wanted to buy a box, but my grocery store was all sold out!

The article has a few random points about this cereal that has been around over 100 years, one of them being, "What exactly is a grape nut?" Is it a grape or is it a nut? The article comfirms that it's neither; it's more like a loaf of bread that has been cooked, dried and crumbled to smithereens.  The article mentions that sales of Grape Nuts have been on the decline since Euell Gibbons who promoted them died. I guess he was irreplaceable... or maybe there just wasn't enough sugar and other "fun" ingredients in them for the next generation? It also mentions that Grape Nuts were first marketed to cure lots of illnesses, and they have also been marketed to men, claiming it's the manly cereal!

Do you have memories of your parents buying Grape Nuts when you were little? I remember pouring a bowl of them once and I couldn't finish it because they were so filling! My dad loved them. They were definitely the grown ups cereal. Me, I much preferred Frosted Flakes. Even so, Grape Nuts do remind me of a happy childhood. So tomorrow morning, I'm going to pour a small bowl and enjoy the memories.

I'll just have to reduce my carbon footprint another way

I do not like fluorescent light bulbs! For one thing, they have an odd shape that does not work well with some of my lampshades. There's a lamp in my bedroom whose shade teeters precariously on that oddly-shaped bulb and it looks funny. Two, the light is a strange color; it's not warm-colored like incandescent bulbs and gives skin a funny tint.

But, the worst part about fluorescent bulbs is that I cannot read as well with them, especially when it comes to reading newspapers. This is the deal breaker for me, and it will cause me to go back to normal bulbs. Note: I'm usually very environmentally conscious and do my part to reduce the carbon footprint. But, you gotta be able to read!

On a good note, we use a fluorescent bulb on our back porch, and I like it because the light is not too bright and doesn't shine annoyingly in my bedroom window.

So, as foreshadowed two paragraphs above, the next time I'm at the dollar store, I'm going back to incandescent!  I'll just have to make up for my carbon footprint some way else.

Well, what's your take on fluorescent lighting?