Not quite....

[Employees from are eating at a table before the dinner rush.]

Girl: Hey, I have a cyst.
Guy: (With a mouthful of shrimp) Is that like herpes?

-Restaurant

My iTunes....very nice....

Summer Reading Time!

Well, readers. I have abandoned you for too long, and I apologize. School has this way of taking over one's life, and leaving little time for more. There are several big book news items to talk about.

1. Khaled Housseni's newest book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. I picked it up a few days ago, but I have had trouble getting into it, as the start of summer has brought its own set of duties. The first 50 pages have been good. It has yet to catch my attention, and never let go quite like the Kite Runner did. That will be one review to come later.
2. AP English Reading Lists - I have to read a few books for my AP English class, so I think I will have a bit of a 'return to classics' this summer. Vonnegut, Faulkner, and I am rereading All the King's Men (a lovely book).
   
3. Environmentalism Takes Hold - For my AP Environmental Science Class, I have to read a book by Stephen Meyer, called The End of the Wild. It is a quick read, only about 90 pages, and shouldn't be too bad.

I have been busy with all of this, as I just got a HUGE shipment of books in from Amazon (YEAH!!!) and have started working through them all. Happy summer, and read on!

Water for Elephants - - Sara Gruen

Okay....I have FINALLY gotten all caught up with everything, and gotten back to reading. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen was my latest selection. This book follows the life of Jacob Jankowski, a first generation American from a Polish immigrant family. It simultaneously reviews the first ninety, or ninety-three (the character himself it not sure how old he is) years of his life, as well as his current life, in a large 'assisted living' complex.

When Jacob was young, he went to Cornell Vet School. The week before his finals, ready to go home to join the family practice, he receives news that both of his parents were killed in a car accident. When he goes to settle their estate, he finds that his parents had kept the fact that they remortgaged their house to afford his Ivy-League education from him, and that they had no money. His father could not bear to see animals getting neglected when people could not afford vet bills in the Great Depression, and had been accepting primitive payments of nuts and garden vegetables when money ran short. So, Jacob was left with no parents, or relatives, with a week left in his education, and absolutely no money. As to not give everything away, i am going to skip a bit here, but he runs away with the small circus, that calls itself the 'most spectacular show on earth.' The owner is a stingy man obsessed with the competition: Ringling Brothers.

All sorts of problems follow Jacob, from having to room with a cranky dwarf to falling in love with his mental boss's wife, to being in charge of an elephant that is 'dumb.' The story cuts back and forth to the nursing home, where the widower is sitting by a window, watching a circus set up in the lot next door. He is promised that when 'his people' come to visit on Sunday, he will get to go. Before, he has a fight with another guest who boasts of having carried all of the water for the elephants when HE worked in a circus. Jacob knows that that is a lie, and gives the newbie a piece of his mind.

This book really gets into a lot of things. It details love, loss, growing old, being young, and not knowing just where you stand, or if you are even on your feet. I really enjoyed it.

Water for Elephants...Coming Soon....

Okay...I recently bought a copy of Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I am starting it today, and so by Friday night, I should have a review ready. I can, however recommend something to read, or NOT to read. I got into the new Baldacci book, the Collectors. It was alright, but it didn't quite grip me like the Camel Club did. I am going to give it about 50 more pages before I give up, but we shall see. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy is also on the shelf. I have a lot to do...better get started....