recent "reads"
Do books on tape count as books one has "read"? I don't have much time to sit around with bound pieces of paper, but I'm "reading" every word with my ears in the car. My little portable tape player is so handy that I've had to replace the batteries in hardly a month. The first book I read was Enchanted April, (also a movie) about a few women who get away from the drab English winter to sunny Italy for some peace and quiet. All are frustrated and unfulfilled in their lives and marriages, but the "magic" of Italy soothes their souls and everything is better again. Not very deep. Rather effusive. And definitely entertaining. I remember the movie as being a nice afternoon-ish movie.
Next up was Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I was surprised at how close to the book the movie (Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, etc) was. Sometimes the dialogue was verbatim. (Yea, okay, so I've seen the movie that many times...I did live in a girls' dorm, you know.)
Now I'm listening to Matilda by Roald Dahl. The Greens named their daughter Matilda after this book, so I had high hopes. Yes, parts of it are genuinely funny. And I am still hoping it will get better, but right now it feels like the beginning of Harry Potter books when he is at the Dursleys, and I get tired of those parts really fast...the slapstick quality, the genuine injustice.