But alas, I excused the cheesiness of the characters and the plot and let out more than a few laughs.  I don’t really know much about the time that Voltaire was satirizing, so I cannot really comment on anything to do with that.  But I can say that the few notes the translator/editor person gave that discussed how Voltaire basically took his enemies names and put them in not-so-flattering characters… Man, I wish I had the guts to do that (though it probably doesn’t help that the US is a sue-happy nation where even a hint of libel and you lose your arm, your leg, and your last pair of clean pants).

Who says we can’t put money on happiness?  Those who sue seem to think we can.  Voltaire, you lucked out in that regard.  In other ways, not so much.

And what is it with all the books I’m reading lately where people suddenly realize they don’t actually love the person?  I know that’s real life but geez… I’m already getting a healthy enough dose of it!

I lost a very very good friend in a tragic car accident about 5 and a half years ago.  I’m not going to go into details; I still get angry thinking about it.  They say forgiveness is good for you, that it is beneficial to your health.  But there’s a difference between forgiving someone who betrayed you and forgiving the person who killed one of your best friends.  I can say “I forgive” all I want, but at night when I’m alone and frantic, the anger swells through me and I feel the touches of hatred seeping through my soul.  It takes longer to forgive all of this, but this is for a different entry, one that may never be posted as I get wound up just thinking about all this.

I only bring it up as it puts my thoughts on mortality into perspective: I may be 24, but that does not mean I never go to bed wondering: What if I don’t wake up, or get in a car wondering: What if that car slams into us?  I don’t tense like I used to, but it’s all still there.  Truth be told, I think of mortality an awful lot.

And sometimes, I worry I won’t get everything done I want, and that includes reading all the books I want.

I find myself in a great panic.

Is it a wonder I am drawn to the paranormal, to the thoughts of an afterlife as a way to comfort myself?

I was at Half-Price Books just before Thanksgiving as they had sent coupons in the mail to us.  I went in for one book:  I was doing really really well until I found their paranormal book selection.  I bought three, one of which was The Complete Book of Ghosts: A Fascinating Exploration of the Spirit World From Apparitions to Haunted Places by Paul Roland.  Unlike other paranormal books that tell stories and legends but never enough to satisfy the wanting of knowledge that Ikkalee feels, this book took the idea of paranormal existence from a more reporting point of view.  It basically showed the evolution of how our society’s current beliefs in the paranormal came about.  And yes, it was really interesting.

And yes, I refused to read it after 3 am.

Some of the information passed on in truth as the book later proved to be potentially false, but I figured the book was meant to be read like you believed in the Paranormal anyway; it wasn’t trying to convince you of its existence.  It just wanted to explain.

All of my paranormal books, tv shows, and experiences– did you know there’s an iPhone app called Ghost Radar?  Had way too much fun with it one day to the point where a coincidence happened that caused both me and my friend’s mom to jump– mix together until I cannot always keep them straight.  I know I learned a lot from the book; I just can’t remember what.  But I quite enjoyed that it started in ancient times– Ancient Egyptian culture = Fascinating.  I use to tell people I wanted to be mummified– and even included Biblical stories of potential paranormal activity.

The belief in ghosts is nothing new.  Many people have had afterlife experiences.  And yet, Ikkalee still begins to panic as the thought of death grows near.  She can’t even take the humor of people pretending to be dead, anymore.

So.  That being said.  I was also annoyed that she was the person who was uniting a nation.  There were so many other great people out there in this novel, so why settle on the main character?  It just…  I’m a cynic.  Let’s start there.  I’m a cynic and not a big fan of lauding people for things they do not deserve.  I guess since she was more of a pawn, it makes sense she was the face of a revolution, but… There were so many worthier and so many better choices out there.

And I hated the epilogue.

I loved The Hunger Games.  I thought the characters were amazing and the plot was an interesting idea.  And then I picked up Catching Fire.  And while it wasn’t bad… Geez did Katniss bug me.

It’s been 49 days since I read this book, but apparently my initial thought upon (almost) finishing was: “Either I’m incredibly brilliant or book characters are incredibly dense.  And people do doubt my brilliancy…”   Let’s put it this way: I know writers are supposed to try to hold out mystery, but I figure out Sherlock Holmes’ mysteries before the big reveal (I’d say before he does but he and I are on similar wavelengths.  He’s just a pompous ass, though I am totally going to watch the movie as I just found it for cheap on blu-ray).  I spent the majority of Catching Fire yelling at Katniss about what was obvious to the eye: and of course, everything had to be explained to her in the last 50 pages.  I was rolling my eyes and groaning by that point.

That’s not to say that her denseness completely ruined the book.  There were some very excellent supporting characters in the Champions of the Past.  I quite enjoyed meeting all of them and seeing how they interacted and how the games changed them.  They made up for my annoyance of Katniss and, like a few of them, I joined them in wanting to hurt her on occasion.  But alas!  Hurting/maiming/destroying the main character is not something that is lightly done, especially in first person, so naturally, she escaped harm to come make me want to throttle her for book three.

When you have nothing to do but read, you sure get a lot read.  Sometimes, you’re not sure you want to.  And sometimes, people really need to stop writing trilogies and sagas.  I know it’s the new thing but seriously?  Sometimes a single book will more than suffice.  Sequels just ruin perfectly amazing books.

Anyway.  I took the first book, The Hunger Games, to work one night back when I worked awake overnights and let’s just say that book was finished in one night.  I was amazed: here was a teenage girl who was nothing but flipping awesome!  She kicked ass, she could survive, she was fiercely loyal, she was all these great things that anyone– not just teenage girls– should strive to be.  The book was such a quick read and I was impressed.  So THIS is what everyone had been talking about for the past few years.  Here was what I’d been waiting for in YA and what I’d been waiting for in modern fiction (I refuse to grace it with the word “literature”) all these years!  Maybe there was hope after all.

Sure, some of the writing was subpar, but there were great scenes and great characters in the books.  I’m waiting anxiously for the movie as a few of the supporting characters are EXACTLY as I pictured them to be.

So I was in love.  I had another awake overnight shift in 2 days and was excited to be able to read the second book.  I was glad I had chosen to buy all three books at once; there was no waiting anxiously like with Harry Potter where I walked around as a 12 year old Zombie stating “I want Harry!” for a good day.  And then, it all crashed.  But that’s for the next entry.

My book goal list does not run much better, as three of the books on it make the top 23 longest books in the Latin/Cyrillic alphabet, according to wiki.  Does this mean I’ll have time to catch up on the blogging I’m behind on?  I sure hope so.

That should sufficiently explain my disappearance.  Except, maybe I shouldn’t have said it right now and should have made Sherlock Holmes figure it all out for me.  He does solve enough to have a book entitled The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.  And *SPOILER ALERT* he dies.  But don’t worry.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle bowed to pressure and he was resurrected.  I just haven’t gotten that far yet.

So yes, Holmes is still a pompous ass, but he’s getting better!  He’s had failed cases on his conscience; peoples’ deaths on his conscience, and in a previous volume, he was outsmarted by a woman.  And oh, how I laughed.

And now, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, I have solved another non-mystery.  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime?  The title to that book can be found in a line in one of the first stories (I’m unsure of which and my copy isn’t near me) in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

And better updates coming soon! I promise!

So back in November– still playing catch-up, but at least I still don’t feel like curling up and never seeing the world again– I found a very slim volume on my “to-read” bookshelf.  It was less than 50 pages and Ikkalee was feeling bummed about being so behind on reading that it made perfect sense to try and read it in one afternoon (which naturally did not happen.  I need to work on this “not crashing the second I hit my pillow” thing).  And that is how I found myself reading Virginia Woolf’s not-meant-to-be-published Carlyle’s House and Other Sketches.

Think about it this way: We all write down thoughts in a journal from time to time, some of which should never see the light of day.  Or, if you don’t keep a journal/blog/notebook of random thoughts to keep your brain from veering off the cliff, think about the anecdotes you email/message your friends about ending up in receiving lines at funerals when you are improperly dressed and hadn’t actually met the deceased, for instance.  Those are the sketches/tales we write that no one, no one, outside a small select group are supposed to be privy too.  Well, once you become famous or well-respected, those thoughts are apparently fair game.  Especially if you are a writer.

Enter Virginia Woolf.  That’s what this slim volume is all about.  It’s sketches she did in her journal that were just her jotting down thoughts or working on her writing, not actually seriously polishing anything.  But they were still interesting to read:  the glimpses into a writer who was at a bad stage in her life.  And actually, while reading the introduction on Virginia Woolf at the beginning of the book that set the stage for the sketches, I began to see so many similarities between her and I.  We both have had (or still have in my case) a stretch of complete unhappiness where we know what we should be doing and it’s not working.  We feel stuck.  Virginia Woolf’s story actually made me feel better about myself the day in November when I read it on the bus.  This is the kind of stuff they don’t tell you about, really, in college classes even with an emphasis on her.

I have a great respect for her.  I should really read more of her writing, and not just these sketches.

And speaking of writings no one save a few are supposed to see, I have a book of selected Woolf letters.  I should also read that.  She’s such an interesting character.  And yes, if I could have a dinner party with people dead or alive, she is totally invited.  As are a bunch of social pariahs cause I sure know how to pick them.

(And speaking of night shift, I guess I need to go get ready for that now… Will finish this entry upon return. Or sometime next week).

Or I will procrastinate because I somehow managed to get a virus on my computer and had to spend too long getting it off.  But that’s in the past.  Back to the books.

Two of my close college friends are obsessed with the Stephanie Plum books and one at least has been trying to get me to read one for the past couple years.  They consider it a guilty pleasure.  I, a literary snob, consider it annoying.

It was a quick read; I will give them that.  And some parts of it weren’t too horrible, but other parts… I was like “Seriously?”  though I don’t think I actually talked to this book.  I yelled at the TV the other night at a dense character, but that’s another story.  Anyway.

Stephanie Plum apparently just keeps going and going, onto book eighteen now, I believe.  As for Ikkalee, book one was enough.  She has more worthwhile things to read.  Or at least books that hold her interest more.  Or at the very least, books she can create personal vendettas against.  There seems to be a lot of the latter.

Back in October– I’m doing so well on updating here!– I read Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian.  One of my friends said it was good.  It was put on my library list (though I think I actually stalked her Amazon wishlist before she told me it was good and already had the book on my hold list: but in my defense, I was snooping for present ideas) and there it stayed for almost a year.  Enter Ikkalee with no money but a cheap book (or non-cheap; really any book) shopping addiction.  I found The Historian in hard cover for $3: I think the store had an over influx of them when it was the “MUST READ” book of the season and now was yelling (albeit softly) “PLEASE take this off our hands!”  So, doing what I do best, I bought one of their 3-5 cheaply priced copies.  And I decided it would make a good Halloween time read.

My friends have told me I just fly through books.  I think I am going slow if it takes me more than 3 days (that and my patience with the story runs out and I’m ready to move on to a new topic).  This one definitely took me more than 3 days.  It’s long.  There’s a lot of detail.  There are about 2-3 different stories all intertwined together– which is really nice, actually, and I kept switching who I preferred to hear about.  And the history– man is there a lot of history.

So the question returns: How much of it is true?

Obviously I know the part about Vlad the Impaler still being alive is not a fact– or is it?  We may never know– but I do wonder about the events they discussed that occurred during his lifetime.  If those are correct, then in a riveting tale, I just learned a ton about European history I did not know previously.  (And aside from WWII, of which I know more than the average American citizen but am still learning new things about daily, I really don’t know much about European History, so I guess it’s not hard to teach me new things).

Anyway.  I think I need to go find my own hole now.  And hide from Dracula.  Though to be honest, I would LOVE to get my hands on some of the books in his library as it is seen in The Historian.  I think it ranks in the top 2, along with the coveted Beauty and the Beast library.  Yo quiero los muchos.