Sinking to a New Low

I love my ereaders (and have several so one is always available while others charge) and I've run up quite the tab with Amazon.  It's just so easy to click "buy" and there are so many good, cheap, and sometimes free books available.

If a writer has been recommended and a special for his/her work at Amazon appears, I tend to buy all that is available.  I watch the free and and bonus books closely.  Thus I'm continually adding to my collections of mystery authors, light-hearted reading materials (Jan Karon), or books that look like they have literary merit and I would enjoy the work of slogging through them (John Irving). 

Last summer I discovered 50 Shades of Gray (and wrote about it on this blog), admitting that I enjoyed the entire series of three books very much, even though they were outside my sphere of approved reading  Then a friend recommended Laura Willig and I downloaded several of her series of "flower books" including the Pink Carnation.  Joyce describes these books as "swashbucklers" in the vein of The Scarlett Pimpernel (one of my all time favorites) and frankly, she's a little optimistic in her descriptions.  These are romance novels with a hint of sexual play thrown in to keep us interested.  However, Willig is a decent writer and she holds a plot together so well that even when the mysteries of the books are superseded by the romantic tinglings of the heroine, you keep reading. 

Then Amazon recommended Sylvia Day to me and that's when I kind of lost perspective.  Any pretensions I still held as an English major with a MA degree became lost in the sex, sex, sex.  Romance, heartbreak, reconciliation.  More sex.  Good sex.  Redeeming sex.  Day's literature is called Mommy Porn -- and there's a reason it's called porn.  And every Mommy wants it "hot" like in Day's novel -- and even retired old ladies think it might be fun to sample.  Oooh!  Her novels are HOT!  But unlike E.L. James (50 Shades) who had good plot lines but wasn't that great a writer, Day is a decent, if not better than that, novelist.  She manages to hold you through 300 pages of "hot, steamy romance" in a seven hour marathon read -- and then you want another of her books.  It's like "you can't eat just one" -- and so she's hooked her readers by creating five novel sets.  And I'm reading them all and panting for the next one in the series.  Plus she has the swashbucklers and the period pieces -- and even the mystic romances. 

I started June on a high note, finishing off my Charles Todd series of novels / mysteries set during and after WWI.  I read P.D. James Death Comes to Pemberley (boring but I managed to finish it).  Then dear god, I veered off into Kathleen Morgan and her Highland period romances and several others of that ilk.  But I'd Still I always went back to something literate in between the romance and porn.  

This week, though, I hit a real low.  First I read Antoinette Stockenberg's A Month at the Shore.  Somebody on Facebook had announced that the ebook was on sale for something like $0.99 and so I bought it -- and the proceeded to read the entire thing, enjoying the romance immensely -- and the mystery plot just a little.  Not Mommy Porn, this was truly the ultimate in beach-read romance.. It wasn't art or good writing or fabulously interwoven plot -- it was just a good read. 

Finishing the Shore book last night, I chose the next one to the bottom of my extensive ebook download and, horror or horrors, I had a vampire book.  I hate them.  H A T E!  I don't see vampire movies, I don't read vampire books, I don't want a vampire to have hot steamy sex.   I had no idea when I opened A Hidden Fire (sounds like romance, right?) by Elizabeth Hunter I was embarking on a vampire series -- called Elementary Mysteries.  I had downloaded it free on recommendation and before I could scroll through to close the book, I was hooked and the mystery was good and the vampires were believable and I haven't really come to any romance / sex -- just a potential for one -- sometime in the distant future, maybe. 

June isn't even over yet and I'm reading Mommy Porn, sucking-up-time beach romances, and vampire novels.  Can I sink any lower? 

Enrolling in Hogwarts

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

 

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest." 

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

__________________

Well, not so sure this is the group I'd choose, if choosing were an option, but still -- it's better than being selected to join Slytherin.  I tested higher for Slytherin than Griffindorf, though (by 2 whole points).  The worst match for me was Hufflepuff.   

78 points -- Ravenclaw

67 points Slytherin

65 points Griffindorf

59 points Hufflepuff

I guess I'm Ravenclaw by large majority.  

Wonder if there's a 50 Shades of Gray quiz.  I'm fascinated by the fact that people either love or hate the book / series, but nobody goes, "Eh, whatever."  Tina Fey wrote in EW that she "simply wasn't into that kind of thing" once she'd picked up the book and read the opening page.  Snob. 

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created:  

Get Sorted Now!

Sinking into the Muck

I'm going to admit to a shameful excess. I downloaded a "light porn" novel onto my Kindle after reading a review about it in Entertainment Weekly. And I haven't been able to put the book down. I spent all Sunday completely wrapped up in the first installment of E. L. James 50 Shades of Gray. And when I finished it, I downloaded the second and third novels in the trilogy. I'm about 60% finished with the second book -- and I would have finished it last night if at midnight I hadn't suddenly realized I only had four hours left in the night until I had to get dressed to be at school. Because spring break is over, darn it. And today my inner goddess is screaming in pain because I won't know until tonight if Ana and Christian are going to have S&M or vanilla sex in the Red Room of Pain or on the piano or in the shower or on the boat or on top of the bookcase . . .

Are the three novels literature? No. Are they dirty? Not really. The sex scenes are pretty much standard fare except they occur on every other page and at least three times every single day -- sometimes more. Are they believable? Not in any sense. A 21 year old college student who is virgin and never, ever touched herself -- and had no idea how? Ridiculous. A man who has multiple erections for every single sexual congress -- and can do this multiple times during a 24 hour period? There's only so much Viagra can do. A man who is so filthy rich he earns $100,000 every hour -- but has the time to have sex multiple times every day? His business would soon go belly-up.

But I'm hooked. I read and laugh. I enjoy the inner conversations Ana has with herself -- and the troubles she keeps encountering. I have just at tiny crush on Mr. Gray (of the title) -- and it reminds me a little of how I felt about Hubby when I first met him way back there in 1972. So I keep reading. And reading. And reading. And enjoying nearly every minute of my time spent wallowing in this pulp fiction.

A Little Treat

Woke up very, very early this morning with the "stomach flu" -- it was a mild case but left me exhausted and depleted and sleeping until noon. Then I climbed out of bed, opened up my Pitt State account, set up two Google.docs for the group work assigned for the coming week, and saw that I had been assigned grades on the homework essays, the group essays, and the midterm exam -- all taken in the last two weeks. I had 97.8% of the grade (or 137 out of 140 points) at the half-way point.

Feeling a tad relieved (though the final huge paper is still due), I climbed back in bed, put in an SOS call to Hubby for some 7-Up, and read my new copy of a very old John Irving, The Water-Method Man. Irving wrote this in 1972 and it was his second published novel. As with all the novels I've been pouring through, I was unable to put it down until I had finished it.

Many of Irving's themes are present: Vienna, dancing bears, sex as a force of life, man lost in his fears and failures. And many of Irving's delights are present, also -- his humor even in the darkest moments, his ability to make you care about the protagonist even when he's truly a jerk, his use of juxtapositions with time and place. Not his best, but riveting none-the-less.

Hopefully my head will be clearer and my stomach much more settled tomorrow. Next Wednesday my final project paper is due -- and I haven't written a word of it yet. Plus there are still those two Google.docs I've got to participate in the writing of. And one other essay that's supposed to involve the interviewing of three paraprofessionals (at a minimum). I don't have a para at my school, nor do I know one to contact now. Still, I've worked with them during the last four years - so magic tea leaves do your thing, invent me one more essay out of whole-cloth.

Another One is Gone

Dick Francis died at age 89 today. Salinger, Parker, Francis all gone this year.

Okay. I won't actively miss Salinger. Frankly, I didn't get Catcher. But I did teach it because some of my kids did get it. Especially the boys.

But Francis and Parker brought me great entertainment and delight. I shall miss them incredibly.

I know that many thought that Francis didn't write his novels, at least alone. But regardless, my mother-in-law introduced me to him in the 1970's and I've read ALL his mysteries -- sometimes twice. Once summer I read them in chronological order.

The same for Parker. I've read all three series, and even the Raymond Chandler addition -- and loved every one. None as much as the Spenser series, but in dark times, in depression, in the times when I've needed escape dreadfully, nothing could replace a good Parker novel.

I shall miss the good times these authors brought into my life.

Death of a Dear Friend

A tradition for Hubby and me on Sunday morning is watching CBS Sunday Morning. Somehow I had missed the fact that our favorite author, Robert B. Parker, died this week. When Sunday Morning eulogized him briefly today, our household went into mourning.

Parker has been one of our most read authors during the last 30 years. Our home library contains all the Spenser novels and most of the spin-offs, too (Jesse Stone and Sunne Randall). I even loved the Spenser TV series with Robert Ulrich, though, of course, Parker himself hated the series.

I enjoyed the stories about Parker and his wife Joan -- how they lived in a duplex with her upstairs in her own private quarters and he could only visit when she invited him upstairs while she had free roam of the entire complex. He, like Spenser, did all the cooking for them both. I thought the couple (like Susan and Spenser) had worked out a wonderful relationship. I enjoyed the stories of his sons, especially the gay one whom they accepted openly and clearly admired.

Spenser, Hawk, and Susan have been an integral part of our family. When Hubby had his aneurysm, the novels he reread over and over while recuperating were the early Spensers. Several times in my life I've reread the Spenser books in chronological order. They always bring us a new sense of delight. Now that Hubby is beginning the onset of glaucoma, he asked for big print Spenser novels for Christmas this year. On our last trip to Barnes and Nobles Hubby left with three new copies of Spenser books that were duplicate copies of worn-out ones on our shelves.

Robert P. Parker brought us much happiness. We thought of him as an old and trusted friend. We will miss him greatly.

The Last in the Series

I've been waiting patiently for the final Harry Potter book to be published in paperback form. The books are just too big for me to hold and read for 1000 plus pages. I learned that with the first, and only hard back, Harry Potter that I bought.

The series had been out awhile when I bought my first book from Sam's, the Walmart big box store. I wanted to see what all the shouting was about. I fell in love -- and I passed my book around to my friends and they all became hooked, also. After the first book though, I only read the series in paperback form so I was always a couple of books behind everyone else.

My Potter collection is now on the bookshelves of my classroom. I bought the entire Twilight series at the school library book fair last spring and read the first three in that series, but couldn't stomach anymore of it and never got through book 4. My kids love it and if it gets them to read, I'm fine with that. But the writing is nowhere near as good or the plots as inventive as the Potter series.

I suppose because a new Potter movie is out that Scholastic decided to publish the seventh Potter in paperback -- finally. I've been waiting impatiently since the book came out two years ago. In fact, I did cheat and read the last chapter online -- just to make sure Potter didn't die. On Saturday, there in the children's book section at Sam's, was Harry Potter and The Deadly Hallows.

I didn't open the book until Sunday evening and I've been wrapped up in it ever since. I cried when Dooby died and cheered when Potter went back to Hogwarts. I'm nearing the true and final end of the book now and I'll be sad to put it down. Three summers ago I re-read the series 1 - 5 books just to review all the events. I don't watch the movies but I love the story telling of the writer. I doubt that I'll ever re-read all seven books but I have found pure escapist entertainment in the series. What more can you ask from a good book?

The readers of sci-fi among my family and friends scoff at the Potter books, but I think they are just being intellectual snobs, believing that book meant for "children" can't be all that wonderful. When I read the last page sometime tonight, it will be like losing a good and close friend. It will take me awhile to find anywhere near the delight in another book that I have had from Rowling's Potter series.