Oh hi. Hi. Happy New Year.
Time flies between these entries. I had another that was half-written and I never published.
I have spent a lot of my time working on jewelry projects, both serious and just for fun.
I've been reading.
You know how I love
teens.
So I was naturally drawn to
this book when I saw it at the bookstore.
I've been slowly reading it, taking breaks to read other things. Mainly
Chesapeake by James Michener. That book took me
forever.
However, if I had a lot of time on my hands and didn't have a huge pile of other books I wanted to read, I'd read another Michener book.
I enjoyed it partially because of the subject matter.. if you read this blog regularly you know all about my Maryland obsession. This book took place on the
Eastern Shore, however, and my east shore experience is overshadowed by my
Chincoteague experience.
Anyway, I think Chincoteague should be part of Maryland. The lifestyle is pretty similar, as most of our fishing was done on the Chincoteague Channel and bay as opposed to the frightening Atlantic.
And I have spent my fair share of time on the Chesapeake of course. So the book starts out with Native Americans and gets really sad and swells up with more sadness about slavery, but I think it never again achieves the effectiveness of that first storyline as the Choptanks respectfully live off the largesse of the bay, only to slowly fade away and die off, watching their lands invaded and destroyed.
So it was pretty good anyway. It spanned centuries and sometimes moved nice and slow only to brush over other time periods. Believe it or not I prefer the slow going, detailed storylines to the sweeping encapsulations of decades.
I ended up buying a copy of the book because I'd checked it out from the library maximum amount of times. I will give my copy to my mom now. She will look at it and assume I read it in a week, because I used to be a bright, fast reader. I'm not anymore.
It's been bothering me how my intelligence has withered away. I'm trying to read more, and learn to retain information like I used to. It's very frustrating.
I have a feeling that practicing some math would help stretch my brain a little but I never cared for math.
So I've been slowly making my way through "Teenage," barely gaining any knowledge of the subjects covered, but enjoying the book nonetheless.
It's just chock full of facts about early adolescent murderers and the devastating effects of World War I, and the rise of mass marketing and all that.
While reading about the crappy "Bright Young People" and the fascinating Brenda Dean Paul and the behavior of these people and their influence and portrayals in literature of the period, I decided to put "Teenage" down yet again, and read some of the books mentioned. This might be my way of prolonging the enjoyment of reading this book. Having my cake and eating it, or something.
I just finished
Les Enfants Terribles, and I liked it and noticed its similar themes to other things, like
Cruel Intentions, which was actually based on
a much earlier French novel about decadent assholes, and my favorite movie as a teen,
The House of Yes. Not just because of sibling intimacy, but indulged children in suspended adolescence, as well as the male characters reciprocal insanity being somewhat more subtle, bubbling below the surface or whatever.
So next I am reading "
This Side of Paradise" and "
Vile Bodies."
I'm hoping this will help me get smarter.
I also checked out two Gossip Girl books because it's another undertaking I feel obligated to somehow. I guess I enjoy them? I don't even know. I like talking about them. They're good for conversations. I tried to talk about Les Enfants Terribles and I just sounded like an ass.
Labels: books, history, teens
The recordings are great and eye-opening, but the booklet that comes with it is not to be missed. If you have any interest in history, politics, or the evolution of recorded sound and its impact on society (I fall into this latter category), I highly recommend this. Archeophone is the BEST. I wish I could afford to own every single thing they released. I've got my eye on 
