i read a lot a lot

first things first.

now on to the books, some of which i finished before my last reviews but i forgot.

xliv. the dangerous summer, ernest hemingway

non-fiction about a legendary bullfighting rivalry during one summer in spain. man, hemingway can make anything sound good, even animal torture. i went so far as to watch youtube videos of antonio ordonez and luis miguel dominguin, and my conclusion can only be that his descriptions and stylish stylish bullfighting pictures far outweigh the actual spectacle.

xlv. survivor, chuck palahniuk

i haven't read chuck palahniuk in a long time, mainly because i loved fight club and then everything else i tried after that (guts, choke) was just a bit too much gross in relation to concept. but survivor was good, i'm not surprised now that it was his next book after fight club. nice concept, still some outlandish assumptions, but made me think.

xlvi. the girl with the dragon tattoo, stieg larsson

well a friend gave this to me for my birthday (in april) which just goes to show how many books i have lined up to read. i was a little skeptical going into it given the huge popularity, obviously, and because i'd flicked through previously in a book store and not been impressed with the writing. now that i've read it the sheer force of story overcomes any misplaced qualms i had. basically i had a european, faintly german voice reading it in my head, which definitely helps with the setting. phrasing and idioms have that kind of fluent european english squareness, like colonel hans landa.

just had a thought that scrolling on touchscreens vs mouse wheels is not really intuitive because they work in opposite directions. on a mouse you scroll down but on a touchscreen you flick upwards. maybe it's me though, i also have occasional lapses regarding water taps and tofflemires.

not material things

19xliii. shantaram, gregory david roberts
this book is around 900 pages and took me since approximately May to read, mainly because of its poor portability. i will admit also that it didn't make very good bedtime reading because i'd get sucked in and then get inadequate sleep. i think the reason for so many pages is that there are so many words used to describe something or a conversation, just a lot of writing to get through. but i would qualify it as good writing about india, which doesn't happen easily.

22ii. wicked, capitol theatre sydney
a little backstory, my sister loves wicked. she went to see it with her friends a few months ago and since then hasn't stopped singing (slight exaggeration). so since i missed out on seeing the show with Team Ice Cream she has been trying to get me to go before it ends in september. anyway turns out there is a lottery before every show for $30 front row tickets! which we won yesterday, for the saturday matinee. no on in my family ever wins anything lottery-related except for my dad, and sure enough he won it for us.
so it was a great show! our fears of only seeing legs or up-costume were unfounded.

hmm so this 101 list is pretty much the only reason why i blog... except for this one:

i should just start a watermelon-themed tumblr.

these are things i have acquired

48vii-xi. yep, actually buying music in the form of CDs. white chalk had 3 copies of the front cover, separate pages. somewhere along the line i also got 2 alicia keys albums.

40. then i got this which i have not actually paid any money for yet:

so pretty! so customisable! i spent a solid 6 hrs before going to work on the first day i got it, downloading apps, swishing between the 7 home screens, setting allllll my preferences which i love doing. being a mobile internet noob i managed to use 80% of my 500mb/month on the 1st day, whoops. then i figured out wi-fi. no major complaints yet! except that telstra's pre-loaded 'applictions' (really they are web shortcuts to their own site) can't be removed, but because i don't have them on my home screens they don't really bother me. SO MUCH TO PLAY WITH.