So, without further ado, onto my newest web page addition...
Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and Eventually, all things merge into one, and river runs I am haunted by waters. He is sprawled out with a smile on his face, as
if relieved At her feet the small Indian sapper, in uniform, beside the Under the thin layer of dust the angel's face has a powerful Sit back and take a quick peek inside the world of "Lady of the Glen,
A novel of Scotland".... Cat slid down toward sleep. She did not want
to let go; the bed was He latched the door and came into the cubby, unwinding his plaid. It struck her afresh, the knowledge and the wonder: 'This man is mine "You cold lift more that ice, were I not so frozen." The wind had "-warm," he murmured. His hair was damp as he tucked his head Cat, winding her limbs around his to warm him, shivered, then "John says no, that Malcolm told him they had to go on. But the He warmed but slowly. Cat pressed herself more tightly against him. Dair shrugged: the barest twitch of one shoulder. "He swears him- Half and hour later,
Superman and Lois walked inside a "Yes, it is." Lois looked down, avoiding his eyes. "I'm "Did the others know that about the time I gave you my "No... no, they didn't." Tears came to her eyes. "I "Lois, look at me. Just look at me!" He took her in his On the bridge, Picard
heard a male voice say, "Butt out, That voice...
Even as Picard allowed his surprise at the man's insubor- Picard was on his feet, Worf issuing an immediate And it clicked.
"Oh my God," he whispered. "Jack." How many people knew that the Wicked Witch was actually a freak
Munchkin? Or that her sister Nessa Rose, AKA the
Wicked Witch of the East, actually had no arms? How many people knew
that Elphaba bore a child in a nunnery? Nessarose said, "Catch
her, I can't I'm-" and she sagged against "Well, really," she said as Elphaba dumped her on a heap of moldy "You girls, I tell you, the faints, it comes from those tight shoes," Welcome back to Oz," said Nanny after a while. I hated the sixties and
I especially hate the memories I carry from the It made me hate folk music and piety and facial hair and tie-dyed After the smoke had cleared, I promised myself I would never lose aA River Runs Through It by Norman
Maclean:
The book the movie was based on contains, obviously, better
characterization, along with additional scenes that had to be omitted
from the feature film which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Skarrit. I loved
this book, and I loved Norman Maclean's phrasing and the imagery that
his
words bring to mind. This excerpt is my favorite part of the book:
was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.
now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although
some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fisherman in
western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in
length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the
evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all
existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the
sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm
and the hope that a fish will rise.
through it. The river was cut by the earth's great flood and
runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the
rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words,
and some of the words are theirs.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje:
I liked the movie "The English Patient" so much that I felt I had to
have the book, the cd, anything I could find about it.
I ran out after the second time I saw the movie and bought the
soundtrack and book in the same day. Let me readily admit now, I heard
the whole CD many times before I made it past page 20 of the book. But,
given time to develope, the book is just as heart-breaking as the
movie. This is one of my favorite scenes that was never in the movie:
finally to be sleeping, the luxuriousness of such a thing. The
palm of his left hand facedown on the concrete. The colour of
his turban echoes that of the lace collar at the neck of Mary.
six slippers. There seems to be no time here. Each of them
has selected the most comfortable positions to forget time.
So we will be remembered by others. In such smiling comfort
when we trust our surroundings. The tableau now, with Kip
at the feet of the two figures, suggests a debate over his fate.
The raised terra-cotta arm a stay of execution, a promise of
some of the great future for this sleeper, childlike, foreign-born. The
three of them almost at the point of decision, agreement.
joy. Attatched to its back are six light bulbs, two of which
are defunct. But in spite of that the wonder of electricity
suddenly lights its wings from underneath, so that their blood
red and blue and goldness the colour of mustard fields shine
animated in the late afternoon.
Lady of the Glen by Jennifer Roberson:
This novel is set in 17th Century Scotland. It tells the tales of two
warring clans, who happen
to have produced children who fall in love. It sound Romeo and
Juliet-ish, and to a point it is, but this
novel has twists and turns at every corner, and every move you think you
can predict, you find that you cannot...
empty of Dair, who had gone outside to speak with John after his
brother came to wake him, but it was warm beneath the covers and she
was lured by its seduction. Only when the door opened again and Dair
came in did she turn her back on blandishments to rouse to full alert-
ness.
Snow dusted his hair; he was, for the moment, his father, save the face
was incongruously young.
...' She marked anew the scar against his ribs that had come from a
Sassenach blade, and the hemp track around his neck. The flesh that
was not scarred pimpled from chill. "Come in with me." Cat peeled
back the covers. "I'll lift the ice from your bones."
chafed his face. As he got in beside her, muttering of the storm, she
gritted her teeth and wrapped his bare feet in her own.
against her own. " 'Twas a message from MacIain. He has been sent on
to Inveraray, to Ardkinglas."
stilled. The words were simple enough, but the tone, for all his care,
divulged concern. " 'Tis a bad storm, " she said, "and a long way to
Inveraray. Couldna he sign the oath at Fort William?"
governor gave MacIain a letter to explain his delay." He pulled a
strand of her hair out of his face. " 'Twill take him a day or two to
reach Inveraray, but John Hill has spoken for him."
Inveraray was a Campbell town, and in it once, many years before, Ma-
cIain had been imprisoned. Uneasily she asked, "What happens when
he arrives?"
self and Glencoe in service to King William."
The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern
This book is really awesome. It chronicles the Superman in Action
comics from the death of Superman
through his return from the dead, and to Lois Lane. Although I first
read the book during my Lois and Clark
days, I still think it's excellent, and worth the 527 page read. :)
Take a look at one of my favorite
parts...
LexCorp hangar. Superman spent a moment looking the
place over. "My eyes don't focus as finely as they used to,
but I can still see through most solid objects. There are
no signs of any security cameras or listening devices in
here. This should be private enough." He looked at her
with a longing that was almost painful. "I know this
must be hard on you."
sorry... the others- there were so many wild claims. I
still just don't know. Some of the others knew things,
too."
mother's engagement ring?" He took her hand. "Did
they know the hour and the day that Clark Kent told you he
was Superman? Did they know about the time we flew
off to the mountains to talk about our problems?"
want you to be alive so very much, but you died. I
held you in my arms and you died. People just don't come
back from the dead- not even Superman."
arms. "I don't understand this any more that you do. I
remember fighting Doomsday, and you telling me that
I'd stopped him. And then, nothing. There's just this gray
haze, like a forgotten memory of a dream..."
Q- Squared by Peter David
This novel, kicks BUTT. I don't think there's a Sci-Fi writer around
who can rival Peter's ability
to weave a tale. This novel combines my favorite Star Trek "Bad buy", Q,
with an awesome tale of inter-
dimensional chaos. Here's a brief snippit, that unfortunately may not
make sense to non-trekkers, however if you
read the book, it all explains itself away ;) :
Picard! This is between Beverly and me!" Heads snapped
around from all over the bridge crew, for no one ever...
ever... addressed the captain with such clear contempt
dinate tone to register, he realized that there was some-
thing there vaguely familiar. SOmething that he couldn't
put his finger on...
security alert, when suddenly Beverly's screams came over
the comm badge. Now Picard was heading for the turbolift
when he heard the man's voice trying to say something
that he couldn't make out over Beverly's panicked screams, and
then he heard Beverly saying over and over again, "You're
dead! You're dead!"
Wicked- The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch
of the West
This book brings to life the story of Elphaba, known to the rest of the
world as the Wicked Witch of the West.
As this novel shows, she was not always wicked, and she in fact was
friends with Glinda for most of her life, and
they may in fact have still been friends when Glinda said, "Now go away
before someone drops a house on you!"
Nanny's bosom, and Glinda swooned at the same moment. Elphaba
throust out strong arms and scooped Glinda in mid-collapse. Glinda
didn't
really lose conciousness, but the uncomfortable physical nearness of
hawk-faced Elphaba after that undesired act of desire made her want to
shiver with revulsion and to purr at the same time. "Steady on, girl, not
here," said Elphaba, "resist, come on!" Resist was just what Glinda didn't
want to do. But after all, in the shadow of an apple cart, on the edge of
market where merchants were selling the last fish of the day, cheap, well
this was hardly the place. "Tough, tough skin," said Elphaba, appearing
to pull words from the back of her throat. "Come on, Glinda- you've got
better brains-- come on! I love you too much, snap out if it you idiot!"
packing straw. "No need to be so romantic about it!" But she felt better,
as if a wave of illness had just passed.
said Nanny, huffing and loosening Nessarose's glamorous footwear.
"Sensible folk wear leather or wood." She messaged Nessarose's insteps
for a minute, and Nessarose moaned and arched her back, but began in a
few moments to breathe more normally.
Beach Music by Pat Conroy
This is by far one of the best, if not the best, book I have ever read.
The story is
set in a series flashbacks, some of which are vague, and you don't get
know what really
happened until the end of the book. Though it is over 600 pages long,
it's worth the
read, and is incredibly vivid, and moving. It was hard for me to pick a
piece of the
book to quote without ruining anything, but I think this will work...
noise and bedlam and discourtesy of those cacophonous years. The
shouting is what I recall most clearly, then the posturing, then the
lack of hygiene. It is the only decade I have lived through that did not
have the decency to call it quits when its time had run out- 1970, for
me, was the worst year of the sixties, by far.
shirts and political rhetoric of any kind. My idea of hell is to be caught in
an airport lounge during a snowstorm, listening to an aging hippie song-
stress whacking away at her scratched up Martin guitar as she plays
"Blowin' In the Wind," "Puff the Magic Dragon," "I Gave My Love a
Cherry," "Lemon Tree," and "We Shall Overcome," in that order. Once
I was a wide-eyed captive of those times and there was no twelve-point
program to wean me off the addiction to drivel I succumbed to during
that dreary era of the Vietnam War. The greatest tragedy of that war was
not the senseless death of young men on strangely named battlefields
but that it turned the whole country stupid overnight. It also made
enemies of the closest group of friends I had ever known. We acciden-
tally let ourselves be caught up in the zeitgeist and we were never the
same again, any of us.
friend because of something as subjective and slippery as political belief.
"I'm an American," I announced to all around me. "And I get to think
anything I want to and so do you, by God, so do you." It became my
credo, the central theme of my life, but if it had not been for the intoler-
ance and pigheadedness I exhibited with such grandiosity in those years
and the weird sideburns and holier-than-thou attitude that I paraded
around with, I would have entered into my maturity as uninterested in
the world of ideas as any other Southerner. My whole character formed
around the issue of Vietnam and it nearly brings me to my knees to
admit it. That's all for now. Please stop back periodically, I'm planning
to add some more books here as the days pass- this
is just the beginnings of the page, so be gentle. Any recommendations??
E-mail them to me. :)
Page Created 7-11-98