Friday: Saw Cabin in the Woods which was giddy fun times. It reminded me of a Community episode on steroids.

The first time I saw The Graduate I thought he was a big jerk. Pretty sure that's why I remain unimpressed with the movie (plus, any movie about the ennui of suburban American youth is automatically suspect).

I'll add to your analysis that it's not just Raylan's innate desire to feel a sense of belonging with his roots, it's also that the life he shaped outside of his community and roots isn't really working out either. It'd be easier to cut ties if he had a community of his own.

The arm is not just an arm, it's literally armed. Raylan ain't dropping a weapon 'cos of squeamishness.

My reactions are strangely similar to yours; GE is full of wonderful bits that resonate, but the book overall is a mixed bag for me, while BH is great — so full of fascinating bits and atmosphere and human passion and arrogance. I'm contemplating Our Mutual Friend next; I've realized that the early and middle Dickens…

Poor Trollope, I put second-rank in quotations because that's how I feel he's perceived. The first rank is Dickens, Eliot and Thackeray — and I always feel like Trollope (whom I love) and Hardy get pushed into the second ranking.

The best sci-fi book I read in years (and pretty much the only newly published genre novel I've read in the same period) is Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others, a short story collection. The stories are thoughtful provoking and gracefully written.

Am reading Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, based on the recommendation of Jonathan Franzen in the New Yorker article. It's a little like Vanity Fair, in that the main character is a social climbing, straight-up bitch, only Wharton came from the social milieu she was writing of, and her observations are more…

Agreed; Middlemarch is not just a byword for sprawling plots and multiple characters. The book is designed to be a microcosm of the world its characters live in, so reading it, you are absorbed into the culture, life and social customs of a society at a very specific time and place.

If it makes you feel any better, as a lady, I also face the additional pressure of knowing my eggs are drying up as I type this sentence. Every birthday is one more landmark on the road to complete barrenness. I don't even want kids but fuck, it's depressing to consider.

The video is weird but not that freaky, imo. The song, however, is horrific.

Nope, that's all the Heinlein I've read, besides an aborted attempt at Friday in high school. I must admit, I suffer a failure of nerve every time I contemplate either Starship or Moon…

I know what you mean; for long novels, once I settle in for the long haul, after about 200+ pages, I get into the groove of the thing. That never happened to me with Brothers. It's just a completely unsettling novel.

I love your handle, btw.

Just came home from seeing it. Verdict: it kicked my ass, thoroughly.

Finished another of Heinlein's juvenile novels, Red Planet, which was charming and fun. Having got through Have Space Suit — Will Travel and Star Beast, I'm now thinking Podkayne of Mars? Or maybe finally tackle The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress… hm.

I think that everybody should read Eliot's Middlemarch. As Virginia Woolf perfectly put it, it's "the magnificent book which, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."

Because the Greek myths don't have neat and tidy morals or clear-cut heroics — none of them fit into the neat morality of Hollywood movies. Heracles was the strongest and most powerful hero, but he was also a murderer, somewhat stupid, had anger management issues and was brought down by his jealous wife. Perseus, I…

Not Hollywood, but Marvel. WB/DC seems to be going the more conventional route. So, Bryan Fuller for Dr. Strange?

That's such a strange case for me. I literally can't tell if she was good or not because she's mis-cast in the role. And the whole movie was such a weaksauce adaptation of the Wharton novel that I couldn't abide even finishing the movie.