Necessary Chocolate

In the last moments of summer... Watch the Movie!

I did it! I watched True Grit. Well, I listened to it. That counts, right? The DVD played in the background while I worked on Saturday. I heard the properly formal, musical language, caught some of the beauty of the cinematography, and didn't see anyone hanged, or cut, or shot, or beaten. Not a bad deal.

It's definitely autumn here. The leaves aren't quite changed yet, but the nights are nice and cold and the days are clear. Two goals --Read with a Warm Treat and Read after the Chores are Done -- are ahead... I'm sure I've accomplished both sometime but not deliberately, and there should be deliberation given to a warm treat. My friend Julie's new book, The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, is out tomorrow - doesn't that sound like a story that deserves a warm treat? 

True Grit

I can't say that westerns are truly a new genre for me - my grandfather owned every Louis L'Amour and I read them all on our camping trips together. But it's been years since I read a western. 

True Grit was the right choice for me. The book's voice, that of the fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross, is deliciously frank, poetic, Sunday Schoolish, and smart. If I'm going to read a western, there might as well be a few bible verses worked into the narrative. There's LOTS of blood - enough that I'll probably end up watching only fifteen minutes or so of the Coen Brothers version of the movie.

So that's my new genre read. I read a few new mysteries, too: Anthony Berkeley's The Poisoned Chocolates Case and his Trial and Error. Both were lots of fun, in the classic 30s mystery tradition. And thanks to my cousin Alyson I'm reading a couple of Brandon Sanderson's sci-fi/fantasy novels, before the deadlines come to roost. 

How about you?

PS: I finallly shipped out the little theaters today. Look for them within the next week or so!