I read books
When it is 90 degrees out, I don't feel much responsibility to get things done. Usually summer weekends are filled with gardening, errands, fixing the house up and having fun. But when it is this hot, I feel pretty good about myself just for getting up and making my own meals. It is kind of nice in the sense that I don't even remotely feel compelled to be productive. This weekend I read.
I read Truth and Consequences, by Alison Lurie. A good summer read, not too heavy. It is the story of Jane and Alan Mackenzie, who are, respectively, administrator and professor at Corinth University, clearly a thinly disguised Cornell University, where Lurie works. They meet Delia Delany, a visitng scholar, and Henry Hull, her husband, when Delia comes to Corinth University. Of course, stuff happens. I thought it was nice in that all the people seemed real and to have real motives and emotions. Henry was a bit too little fleshed out, but the rest of them were believable. It makes you wonder what real life people the story was based one. It only took a few hours to read.
I also read The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan. This one had gotten a lot of press when it was published, it is the story of Evelyn Ryan, raising her ten (!!) kids under very poor circumstances, since her husband is rather an alcoholic, and thus not a real stellar breadwinner. Evelyn enters a LOT of contests and wins many of them, enough to push her family up over the edge of dire poverty. The book was little too long, but pretty entertaining. I think at the time the main action of the book takes place, Evelyn would have been about my age (39), and already the mother of ten. One kid every two years for twenty years. Unimaginable. I saw that there was a movie, with Julianne Moore playing Evelyn, which seems totally unbelievable and Hollywood-fake. Julianne Moore is just too beautiful (no offense, Evelyn!) to play that kind of role. Although Evelyn did apparently have a good amount of dignity and grace, I would spend the whole movie just thinking how fabulous Julianne Moore looked.
Anyway, it is a good "slice of life" book for the 1940s and 1950s Middle America category. Pretty entertaining and informative.
Now, when will it cool off? My bathroom is half painted, but it was too hot to finish it this weekend....
I read Truth and Consequences, by Alison Lurie. A good summer read, not too heavy. It is the story of Jane and Alan Mackenzie, who are, respectively, administrator and professor at Corinth University, clearly a thinly disguised Cornell University, where Lurie works. They meet Delia Delany, a visitng scholar, and Henry Hull, her husband, when Delia comes to Corinth University. Of course, stuff happens. I thought it was nice in that all the people seemed real and to have real motives and emotions. Henry was a bit too little fleshed out, but the rest of them were believable. It makes you wonder what real life people the story was based one. It only took a few hours to read.
I also read The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan. This one had gotten a lot of press when it was published, it is the story of Evelyn Ryan, raising her ten (!!) kids under very poor circumstances, since her husband is rather an alcoholic, and thus not a real stellar breadwinner. Evelyn enters a LOT of contests and wins many of them, enough to push her family up over the edge of dire poverty. The book was little too long, but pretty entertaining. I think at the time the main action of the book takes place, Evelyn would have been about my age (39), and already the mother of ten. One kid every two years for twenty years. Unimaginable. I saw that there was a movie, with Julianne Moore playing Evelyn, which seems totally unbelievable and Hollywood-fake. Julianne Moore is just too beautiful (no offense, Evelyn!) to play that kind of role. Although Evelyn did apparently have a good amount of dignity and grace, I would spend the whole movie just thinking how fabulous Julianne Moore looked.
Anyway, it is a good "slice of life" book for the 1940s and 1950s Middle America category. Pretty entertaining and informative.
Now, when will it cool off? My bathroom is half painted, but it was too hot to finish it this weekend....
posted by Shelly at 7:51 PM
1 Comments:
finished the one good turn book. it was pretty good. a little "hammy" at times but went fast and had an interesting plot.
we bought unfinished nightstands and decided to stain them to approximate the color of the bed. well, we stained differently and his is at least a shade or two darker, and neither really matches the bed. will try a second coat tomorrow.
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