Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: The Trailer

Jonathan Safran Foer is really good at writing books people want to turn into movies. I didn't ever see Everything is Illuminated, but I did read it and liked it well enough. This next one though, I'm going to see for sure. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is in my top three of all-time favorite books and while I know the movie can't live up to the book's magic, I do hope it comes close. 

Banned Books Week and Some of My Favorite Banned Books

This week is Banned Books Week; a week that celebrates our freedom to read and began in 1982 in response to an increase in challenges to books across America's libraries, schools and bookstores. Everything from contemporary literature to the classics have been challenged, namely for exploring controversial topics.

In honor of banned books week, I have created a list of my favorite books that were banned or challenged in 2010/2011. Click here to see the full list of books banned in 2010/2011.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close/ Jonathan Safran Foer: This was my favorite read of 2010. It's a book about making sense of the world around you, coping with loss, and learning how to live. Banned because of it's "profanity, sex and descriptions of violence."

The Diary of a Young Girl/Anne Frank: I've read this one twice, once when I was a young girl and again in college. This is probably the most important diary to ever be published and was challenged because of "sexual material and homosexual themes."

Water for Elephants/Sarah Gruen: Gruen's story emphasizes the importance of empathy and understanding, toward both people and animals. It was banned because of "the novel's sexual content."

The Awakening/Kate Chopin: It's actually really sad to see this one banned this year. Published in 1899, this book emphasizes a departure from the typical 1890's family structure and celebrates a woman's desire for independence. Banned because the cover shows a picture of "a woman's bare chest."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time/Mark Haddon: This is another one of my very favorite books, told from the pov of an autistic child, I think the novel promotes tolerance and understand of those with disabilities. Banned because of "foul language."

The best way to celebrate Banned Books Week is to read a banned book!

Other banned books I have reviewed:

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings/Maya Angelou

Slaughterhouse-Five/Kurt Vonnegut

Lady Chatterley's Lover/D.H. Lawrence

A few more birthday presents

I had my last of three parties last weekend for my birthday and lo and behold, I got two more books! Two more books that I am really excited about:

The Night Circus/Erin Morgenstern

The Art of Fielding/Chad Harbach

Thank you to my wonderful sister and her generous family. While we are on the subject of my sister, I have to show you the AMAZING birthday cake she made for me. A birthday cake to top all birthday cakes... the RAINBOW CAKE.

Butter cream frosting and six colorful layers, this is by far the best birthday cake I've ever had. Not only did it look awesome, but it was quite tasty. I'm thinking my sister is proooobably way cooler than your sister.

Anyway, the birthday is officially over and I've received so many good books to read I really don't need any new ones for quite awhile. Really.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

"Can you imagine how fine a drink the black ichor that collects in leaden coffins can be?"

As far books go, this one was a gem. I've had my eye on it since this time last year, when many bloggers were reading it for RIP. Then I received it as a birthday gift from my generous friend Ben and couldn't wait to read it. The Graveyard Book sucked me in immediately; set in a delightfully macabre atmosphere we follow Nobody Owens, Bod for short, a human boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard. Bod is taught all of the things that the dead know and learns how to move around the graveyard just as a ghost does. He is granted freedom of the graveyard, visits the world of the ghouls, and befriends a dead witch who lives on unconsecrated ground.

The story is a coming of age novel related in a unique and compelling way. Though the book incorporates the fantastical; ghouls and ghosts, mist walkers and high hunters, it also works didactically, highlighting the importance of seeing the world and living a fulfilled life. All in all, it turned out to be a really fun read, especially for this time of year. It was straightforward without feeling simple; fanciful without feeling contrived.

In Gaiman's acknowledgments that follow the novel, I found a particularly interesting tidbit: "Artist and author Audrey Niffenegger is also a graveyard guide, and she showed me around the ivy-colored marvel that is Highgate Cemetery West. A lot of what she told me crept into Chapters Seven and Eight." If you have read Her Fearful Symmetry, you know how vast and intriguing Niffenegger's descriptions of cemeteries can be. Even though the two novels are very different, I couldn't help but smile after learning each were influenced by the famed Highgate Cemetery.

Publisher: Harper Collins, 2008

Books I Feel Like Everyone Has Read Besides Me

Let's be honest, there are more than ten books I feel like almost everyone has read besides me. Those I-never-had-to-read-that-in-school so I never got around to picking it up, and the hyped books that I typically don't succumb to. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.

1. The Help/Katheryn Stockett: Since the movie has come out, I feel like the last person who hasn't read this.

2. The Lord of the Rings/JRR Tolkien: The movie ruined me from ever wanting to read the book.

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude/Gabriel Garcia Marquez: I've had this one sitting on my TBR for over two years, I just haven't picked it up yet. After I finish it, someday, I'm sure I will kick myself for waiting so long to read it.

4. The Kite Runner/Khaled Hosseini: I actually am interested to read this one, just haven't ever picked it up at a bookstore.

5. The Hunger Games/Suzanne Collins: I've heard really good things about this series and I'm hoping to read it sooner than later.

6.Atlas Shrugged/ Ayn Rand: Honestly I simply have no interest for this book, no matter how many people tell me I have to read it.

7. Freedom/Jonathan Franzen: This one got a ton of hype last year, but I didn't succumb. Maybe someday.

8. Tinkers/Paul Harding: Everyone scrambled for this one after it won the Pulitzer in 2010.

9. Little Bee/Chris Cleave: Another one that I'm interested it but never picked up.

10. Never Let Me Go/Kazou Ishiguro: I have The Remains of the Day sitting on my TBR and I want to read that before I pick up any of his later works.
photo via Book Lover

Thoughts on The Marriage Plot

I was pretty excited about this one. I don't think I have been this excited about a book since I was 13 and the second Harry Potter book was published and I know that many of you share my enthusiasm for this one.

In lieu of a traditional review that will be posted the week of October 11th, I wanted to share a few non-spoiler thoughts on Eugenides' latest novel, The Marriage Plot.

• This novel was everything I hoped it would be and reminded me why I love reading so much.
• Whenever I read Eudenides I have an urge to cancel all plans so I can stay at home and read all day; he has got a serious gift for sucking me into his plots.
• There are many passages throughout the novel that I underlined thinking to myself, "exactly!"
• I hope it doesn't take another 10 years for Eugenides to write another book.
• It would be interesting if Cal Stephanides met Leonard Bankhead.
• The ending of this book is probably the most satisfying ending I've read all year.

A big thanks to Melissa Rochelle from Life:Merging who sent me her ARC. You can preorder The Marriage Plot, or go buy it October 11th.

Birthday Books!

Remember last week when I created this list of books I would like for my birthday? Well, the big day has came and went and I'm happy to say I received a few of them! A big thanks to my mom and my friend Ben, for their generosity. You guys are the best!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Windows on the World by Frederic Beigbeder

The Submission by Amy Waldman

In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

I'm so excited about all the great new books on my TBR pile. I'm thinking it will be awhile before I have the need to buy more books. Seriously.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris: Audiobook

I won this audiobook in a giveaway over at The Avid Reader's Musings a month or so ago. I normally don't buy myself audiobooks unless I am going on a long, solo road trip, so this was a treat for me and it certainly made my drive to and from work more enjoyable.

Classified as a collection of "fables," Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk features absurd and clever short stories that include an array of animals that each offers a moral of sorts, emphasis on "of sorts". He highlights the amoral behavior of the animals to allow the reader to consider their own morality, or lack there of. I've heard that David Sedaris is a fantastic narrator to his audio books, and this held true throughout Suqirrel Seeks Chipmunk. However, to my disappointment there were only a handful of stories that were narrated by Sedaris. Of course some stories are more obscene and more entertaining than others, but I especially enjoyed the chapters that Sedaris narrates himself.

This is my second Sedaris, and I have to say I enjoyed Me Talk Pretty One Day over this one, though it's hard to compare the two because they are so different. But, if you do get a chance to listen to this one on audio I wouldn't pass it up. It's definitely one-of-a-kind. I enjoyed this one more on audio than I think I would have had if I read the print version, simply because Sedaris' narration adds a lot to the stories.

Publisher: Little, Brown, 2010