j d salinger | the sydney project

Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day.

Posted on September 24, 2013 by sydneyday

In case you didn’t guess from the title of this post, part 1 of The Hollow Crown, a collection of film versions of Shakespeare’s Henriad, FINALLY aired in the US on PBS Friday night. I have been waiting for ages to watch these. Seriously. As soon as the air dates were announces, I wrote them on a sticky note and stuck it to my calender, where I have started at it for months and months on end.

Part one was Richard II, starring Ben Whishaw as the titular character, and including Rory Kinnear, Patrick Stewart, Clemence Posey, Jake Purefoy, David Morrisey, Lindsey Duncan…it goes on. And this is only the first film. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint. And now I’m dying for Friday, so I can watch part two, Henry IV: Part 1, which starts Jeremy Irons as the title character, and my favorite, Tom Hiddleston (eek!) as Prince Hal. It also boasts the amazing Julie Walters, whom I love, and Simon Russel Beale as Falstaff. Is it obvious that I’m really, REALLY excited for this? Does that make we weird? I don’t really care if it does, I was just wondering.

Ok, I will move on from Shakespeare. Though it is not without difficulty.

Other than watching Richard II twice, I also did some crafting this weekend. I made three Fall/Halloween pennant banners. I finally spent some more time working on my cousins birthday present–which was about two weeks ago–and hopefully I will finish it this weekend. As long as it’s not another really busy week. Last week was crazy. I still haven’t made new fall wreaths. I have everything gathered and has been sitting on my kitchen table for three weeks. So my goal is to get them done by this weekend & get them out. My other goal to get my Halloween decor out! I want to make a few things, and I need to try and mend my favorite Halloween sign that one of my dogs ate last year. I have a feeling it’s a lost cause, but keep your fingers crossed anyway.

Let’s see, what else? I got caught up on the past two weeks’ episodes of Breaking Bad–and watched this week’s–and saw that I had missed some serious business. (Spoilers! Avert your eyes!) I can’t believe that Hank is dead! And I was on the verge of tears when I thought they were going to kill Jessie. Intense. That was intense. I watched the Emmys, too. They didn’t suck, but they weren’t great either. It was also the season finale (and possibly the series finale, if I here correctly) of Copper. Oh, and I watched episode 2 of Orphan Black, which I’m loving. I’m so BBC America is airing the first season so I don’t have to Netflix it. My queue is backed-up enough as it is!

I have a feeling I’m forgetting something from this weekend…oh well. Onward!

So, it’s Tuesday, which means it’s Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish (but I will get to that later), and tonight is Face Off on SyFy! Yay! It doesn’t really feel like a Tuesday, but I can’t figure out what day it does feel like. I barely remember yesterday. I think my brain decided just take the day off & chill at home while my body was at work.

This week is Banned Books Week, so instead of using the TTT topic for today–favorite sequels–I’m going to do my top ten favorite banned/challenged books! But before I get into my list, a bit about Banned Books Week the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has more information on banned & challenged books, including multiple lists broken by year or decade, as well as a neat timeline.

Now, onward to my list! There are a few contemporary titles on here, but the majority are classic. And according to the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been either banned or challenged. I have also included some of the reasons given over the years for banning or challenging each book (quotations all come from this ALA page on banned classics).

The Great Gatsby by F. Scot Fitzgerald – Banned/Challenged for: namely language & sexual references.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Banned/Challenged for: language, racial slurs that promote “racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy,” “psychological damage to the positive integration process,” objectionable content, adult themes including rape and incest, inappropriate for age group.
Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak – Banned/Challenged for: dark and disturbing nature.
The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky – Banned/Challenged for: homosexuality, suicide, language, drug use, alcohol use, anti-family, abuse, inappropriate for age group.
Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling – Banned/Challenged for: portrayal of witchcraft as good, occult/satanic themes, violence, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien – Banned/Challenged for: demoralizing content, excessive violence, language, racism, sexual content, “defamatory towards minorities, God, women, and the disabled,” satanic.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller – Banned/Challenged for: language, content.
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell – Banned Challenged for: racism, language.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Banned/Challenged for: anti-ethnic, anti-family, language, violence, occult/satanic references, sexual explicit, unsuited to age group.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – (Now, here is a testament to how much I hate book banning: this is one of my most hated books. I wish to all that is good that I could love this book, but it’s never going to happen. I hate it! But I hate book banning even more, and this is one of the most banned books there is, so I had to include it.) Banned Challenged for: “anti-white,” obscenity, language, sexually explicit including prostitution, “undermines morality,” alcohol abuse.

Go on & be a rebel! Read a banned book this week!

P.S. I remembered what I was forgetting from my weekend: I read volumes one through four of Locke and Key!! It’s official, I’m in love. Highly recommend. I plan on finishing volume 5 tonight!

It’s Top Ten Tuesday again!

Posted on July 2, 2013 by sydneyday

Yep, I’m ready to get back into Top Ten Tuesday after two weeks of not participating. This week is top 10 books that intimidate you. It can be the size, the content, the fact that everyone else in the world seems to love it but you don’t…pretty much any reasoning. Here goes nothing:

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger – This had to be the first book on this list for the third reason listed above – most of the world loves this book and I hate it. I think it’s more frustrating than intimidating, but oh well. I don’t understand how Holden Caulfield–mainly the way he talks–doesn’t annoy the hell of everyone else like it does me.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – I love classics, but I’ve never read this because of the massive size of it. And I like big, long books generally. But this one just seems to be on another level.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien – don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love LOTR. But it is intimidating, especially the first time reading it – even though I was already familiar with the story. It’s the vast, detailed world that Tolkien created–the races, the languages, the landscapes, the histories–that is so brilliant and, therefore, utterly intimidating. I can only imagine what it would be like to create something like this.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett – the size of it and the historically epic story (that moves a little slow at times) were intimidating to me at first, but it was well worth the read.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – this is one I picked up 1027 times before I ever actually bought it. I knew a bit about the story and, at the time, I was intimidated by the modernness of the story, namely the bisexual protagonist. This was at the time when I was struggling the most with what my feelings towards homosexuality really were, so reading a story surrounding a bisexual, angry, kind of gothic girl involving serial murder and all that stuff was definitely intimidating. Of course, then I read it and I love the series, and Lisbeth is pretty bad-ass.
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell – I saw the movie before I read the book, so I knew the story & I loved it, but the size of the book was what got me.
The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank – this one is definitely the content: knowing that it’s all real, that she recorded the horror that she went though, and knowing she didn’t survive it…
Night by Elie Wiesel – same as above, it’s the content of this one. It’s the realness – he is describing what he went through as he experienced, firsthand, the horrors of the Holocaust.
The Odyssey by Homer – This one is size and content. First off, I love history and have always been a little fascinated with Greek history, mostly due to be obsession with mythology, so in high school I was excited to finally get to read this. But this is such an epic story, with so much in it, it’s bound to be on alot of people’s intimidating books list.

I know it’s only nine, but that’s all I could come up with.

“It’s not Tuesday, it’s Thursday.”

It’s Top Ten Tuesday!

Posted on April 23, 2013 by sydneyday

It’s that time of the week again: Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

It’s a rainy day in Oklahoma, and I’m loving it. I hope it rains all day. I will take all the rain we can get before the dreadful heat of summer gets here. Please no more fires–especially not within a mile of my house–I can’t handle the stress again this year.

This week’s theme is Top ten books you liked more/less than you thought you would.

And here’s my list:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – I have mentioned before how much I dislike this book & how I’ve never finished it. I really thought I would love this book, everybody seems to. I love the classics in general. But this one. No go.
The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky – this one I knew I was going to like because I watched the movie before I read it, but I ended up loving it so much more than I expected.
House of Night Series by P.C. & Kristen Cast – I haven’t (and won’t) read the entire series, but I did read the first 5 or 6 books. It’s supernatural, it’s set in Tulsa, it combines vampires and mythology…sounds right up my alley. But it was a let down. It was an OK series. Not terrible by any means. But I didn’t love it like I thought I would.
Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – definitely loved this more than I expected, which is saying something, because I knew before I even picked the book up that I was going to love it. But I’ve basically become obsessed with the world created in this book, and in Shadow of Night. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to die before book #3 comes out.
The Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson – loved these books more than I expected. I expected to really like them, but I ended up loving them. And I love the Swedish movies – so much better than the Hollywood remake (which is good, but no where near as great).
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova – loved so much more than I expected. As I have mentioned before, fantastic book. Will definitely go down as one of my all-time favorites.
Dracula by Bram Stoker – this one I really like, but I don’t know that I love it. I never thought that would be the case. I mean, it’s Dracula & I love vampires. I do like it a little bit more every time I read it, which is about once a year.
The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks – I love movies based on Nicholas Sparks books, but until (and since) The Last Song, I have never read his books, nor have I ever had a desire to read them. I like a romance element in the books I read, but I don’t really read books that are mostly or strictly romance. However, my cousin talked me into reading this book after seeing the movie, and I have to admit, it made me cry. I really liked it, which I was not expecting. That being said, I have no desire to read any more Sparks books, and I doubt I will read this one again, but it was worth reading at least once.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown – I knew I would like this book, and I did. I didn’t love it, though. Everyone went on and on about it, but, honestly, Angels & Demons, the prequel, it so much better. The movie, not so much. But the book, for me at least, blows Da Vinci out of the running.
In The Woods by Tana French – Tana French has become one of my favorite authors. This was the first Dublin Murder Squad book. I picked it up probably 20 times before I finally bought it because I couldn’t’ decide if I was going to like it or not. I should never have hesitated, because I absolutely loved it and have loved all subsequent books.

So there you have it. This was a hard one for me, because my instincts about books are usually pretty spot-on, though nothing in life is 100% predictable, thank goodness. How boring would that be? Then again, after last week, I think the world probably needs a little predictability for a while.

Happy Tuesday!

Top Ten (Twenty? Thirty?) Tuesday!

Posted on April 16, 2013 by sydneyday

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

Before I get into things today, I want to send out my love, thoughts and prayers to Boston. Please know we may not with you physically, but our hearts are there will all of you!!

As you may have noticed, today is April 16th. Probably just another day to most of you, but not to me. Today would have been my daddy’s 45th birthday. I miss him every, single day, but especially on special days like today. I know he isn’t physically here anymore, but I carry him with me in my heart (and my eyes, and my lips, and my toes, and my stubbornness, etc.). So Daddy, Happy Birthday. I love you and miss you so very much!

Now to books!! This week is blast from the past: we are supposed to pick a past topic that we missed & do that. Well, I couldn’t pick just one. But I did narrow it down to two…albeit, one is just a wee bit longer than ten :).

Here goes nothing!

Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Read

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger- I have tried to read this at least 10 times and I have never once finished it. I don’t even know if I have gotten half way through it. I hate it. Holden drives me up a wall, the way that he talks especially. I hope someday I will be able to finish it & will no longer hate it, but I’m not holding my breath.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – I have it. I just haven’t gotten around to reading it over the past 6 years or so. I will read it…eventually.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkein – I know. I should be shot for this one. Have my nerd card revoked. Again, I have it. And I have started it more times than I can count. But I always get distracted by a new book or something. BUT! I am determined to read it. I will not go to grave until I read it.
1984 by George Orwell – Nope. Never read it. We didn’t read it in high school (at least not that I remember). This is another one that I will read eventually.
City of Bones/Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare – I WILL read this before the movie comes out. It’s been on my list for a while (along with hundreds of other books), and I am determined to get to it sooner rather than later.
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum – Again, I should be shot for this, because I have loved, and I mean LOVED, the movie for as long as I can remember. And I love The Wicked Years series, too (highly recommend, by the way, though not for children). I will read this as well.
A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin – I have book one. I have started it three times, but same as with LOTR, I get sidetracked by something new…seeing the LOTR movies and GoT series on HBO makes me feel like they can wait.
Bridget Jones books by Helen Fielding – I LOVE the movies. They (the first one in particular) are some of my favorite movies, especially chick flicks, but overall as well. I still can’t believe I haven’t read the books/articles.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – I also have this one and started it, then didn’t really have the time to delve into it (and with this book, that’s necessary!). I REALLY want to finish this, though!
Neverwhere and American Gods by Neil Gaiman – this really goes for everything by Neil Gaiman. I’m currently reading AG (and loving it) and I plan to ready everything by him before the year ends.

Now, on to the second topic…be forewarned–I have a few more than 10:

Top Ten (Plus a few) Books I’m Dying To Read

The 3rd Divergent book as well as the 3rd Discovery of Witches book – seriously DYING for these two books to come out, especially DOW. I’d kill for an advance copy of it, though I’m pretty sure not even those are floating around yet.
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Dead Ever After by Charlainne Harris
Inferno by Dan Brown
Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Click
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Broken Harbor by Tana French – which happens to be on it’s way to me as we speak!
The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Under the Dome by Stephen King
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Sharp Objects & Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Honestly, this list could go on and on. Just check out my To Read shelf on Goodreads. And that doesn’t include the hundreds of books I have written down on pieces of paper all over my house.

What else was I supposed to do? Oh, photo challenge. I’m just a little behind…ok, ok, it’s more than a little. But I’m hoping to get caught tomorrow on this week’s music post.

Now I’m off to see the wizard!