A lot of John Irving’s books are adapted into movies, but as I read The Hotel New Hampshire I thought, “This one has too many bizarre things going on for it to have been adapted into a movie.” A lot of his books have bizarre things going on, but I was sure this one couldn’t work as a movie. Namely that one of the characters pretends to be a bear, in a bear costume, and people really think she is a bear. And I thought, “Who on this planet earth would ever believe a person could be a bear?” I finished the book and ONE DAY LATER this news story broke:
One day later! Crazy coincidence.
When I finish one of his books, I always miss the characters – they are so well-developed and intriguing that they feel like actual people in my life. So I did an Internet search to try to fill the gaping void in my heart and discovered it is a movie with Jodie Foster, Rob Lowe, and Beau Bridges, and I just have to see how they fit this story into a movie.
Our Endless Numbered Days taught me to always research a book before suggesting it for your book club to read. I can handle disturbing endings, but this one felt like a sucker punch to my brain. I am surprised my book club didn’t kick me out.
I also learned that Mary Poppins and Tinkerbell are pretty mean and intense. I feel like Julie Andrews softened up Mary Poppins a bit because there was definitely no “spoonful-of-sugar-helps-the-medicine-go-down” going on in the book. Also did anyone else know that Tinkerbell told the Lost Boys to shoot at Wendy when she was flying into Neverland and they hit her with an arrow and almost killed her?
Suite Francaise was an honor to read, especially considering the circumstances under which it was written and how it took 60 years to be found and published.
The Namesake was another Jhumpa Lahiri re-read because I was traveling and wanted to have an old friend with me.
I loved the David Sedaris book, as I knew I would.
And, lastly, I learned it’s okay to lie to your children in certain situations. Like if you agree to show your children any pictures that come up while you are reading to them from the hallway, but you have to walk over to their beds and use a flashlight because their rooms are dark, and the pictures look like this…
…it’s okay to tell them these pages did not have pictures so as not to give them nightmares. This was our second time reading Ollie’s Odyssey, and I waited for the part where the kid describes what adults are like at weddings. Too funny, too accurate.
coming full circle 