New Layout

--by Abby

I'm trying another layout. I really like it. Its easier to read and cleaner than the last. Tell me if you hate it.

Administrative Notes:

1. Let's try to start with a Newspaper-esque byline to make it easy to follow who is writing.
2. I'm considering doing a chapter-by-chapter on my next book (as yet undecided) just because it would be more fun for following along and predicting. I'll probably do a separate post for each chapter.
3. If you are starting new book, try to shoot me an email so I can add it to the widget on the side. Also lets make sure to tag things.

Love you Bloggers.

Wonderful Tonight

"Yet I came to believe that although something about me might have made them put pen to paper, [the song] was really all about them." The same night I read that passage in Wonderful Tonight I watched an interview with Tegan and Sara where Sara admitted that whenever you're in a relationship and you write a love song you tell your significant other that the song is about them. Actually, the songs are about how the other person makes you feel, so really it's about you. "I have albums full of songs about... myself." This really isn't a major part of the book or anything, but it's an interesting concept.

Pattie Boyd certainly has had some of the most amazing and famous loves songs written about her, or at least, with her in mind. "Something," "Layla", "Wonderful Tonight." It's enough to make a girl jealous. Why aren't songs being written about me? But Pattie's life was more than sunshine and pretty songs. She dealt with a crazy childhood, Beatlemania (George's fans hated her), her husbands' infidelity and Clapton's alcoholism.

I'm not spoiler-fying any of this, because it's an autobiography. Her wikipedia page is practically the cliffsnotes.

I enjoyed the book. Some of the best stories were stories of her childhood in Africa or later stories of her drug experimentation with George and the other Beatles. I think Pattie may have met every person alive during the Sixties, because every five minutes I was being introduced to another person. The book has some stream-of-consciousness to it, she'll mention a person who is at a party she's attending, and then spend the rest of the page explaining how she knows that person and the rest of this person's life story. And then back to the party. It's a little confusing sometimes.

Anyway- the book was a good read and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the private lives of two of rock and roll's biggest stars. Or to anyone who, like me, hopes to someday have a song written about them.

My Next Book

I've finished Wonderful Tonight (more on that later) and I'm deciding now which book to read next. I think I'm going to read the Curious Incident... next, but I did also start Chuck Klosterman IV last night as I was going to bed, so who knows if I'll actually stick to the plan. And also I'm on my way to Barnes and Noble because I'm going a little stir crazy in this house.

Check back later tonight if you want to know what I thought of WT.

Finishing The History of Love

I finished "The History of Love" this morning at about 12:30am. Since I didn't have anything going on yesterday, I devoted all my evening to finishing it.

SPOILERS

It was a roller coaster of a book. It went from three seemingly mismatched tales to this one solid, amazing story. To be honest, the book started with this old man, Leo Gursky, and I didn't like him very much. He seemed down right crazy, and one of those old people that I never want to become. The fact that his old childhood friend from Poland lived in the apartment above him was charming though.

The girl Alma, daughter to the woman whose husband died, wasn't as deep as I would have hoped. She seemed like someone who you started to truly know by the end of the book, which is probably why I didn't want the book to end. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed her, but for my own curiosity I want to know what ended up happening between her and Misha, her immigrant friend whom she figured out she was falling in love with, again, at the END of the book. Yarg!

And the author of the book "The History of Love" within the book "The History of Love" (how complicated is that!?), Litvinoff. What a warped man he turned out to be. I could never print a good friend's work under my name, even if I did have their eulogy at the very end.

The parallels in this book were great. Essentially, Krauss' "The History of Love" was Litvinoff/Gursky's "The History of Love", complete with Leo's eulogy at the very end. It was spectacular, unexpected, and I just know that I want to read it again to catch all the things that I missed.

The History of Love

by Nicole Krauss

While buying copies of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" for my book club, the shop keeper, Heidi, recommended this book to me as well, which, as it turns out, is by Jonathan Safran Foer's wife.

Synopsis: This book is similar in style to Foer's work. Foer uses multiple story lines to describe a common theme, and so does Krauss. She takes three very different lives that seem to be on complete opposite ends of the grid, and weave them together in surprising and interesting ways that you would have never anticipated. One story involves an old man bent on his own death, a young woman who lost her husband and whose daughter constantly tries to set her up, and an author of an inspirational book that motivates many characters entitled, "The History of Love". It's also a book within a book.

This sounds intense and unlikely to make sense, but so far, I'm more than half way through and it is downright fantastic. I just hit a point where I gasped and said, "WHAT!? Wow! I did NOT see that coming."

New Look

I'm trying out new looks for the blog. Lemme know if you love or hate.

Book Recommendations

My friend Jean has a fancy real book club with live, face to face meetings and everything. She recommended this book.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer. It was very creatively written from the viewpoint of a nine-year-old child who lost his father in the 9/11 tragedy. The kid was on a quest to find the lock to a key that he found in his father's closet after his death, so there is a bit of a mystery about it.