All posts by Ti

Hi, I'm Ti! I blog about books and life over at http://bookchatter.net

The Sunday Salon: Summer Living (or not)

Sunday Salon

This is the first summer where it has not felt like summer to me at all. Weather wise, yes…yes, it’s summer but the feeling is not there. You know that feeling. That feeling you have when it’s blazing hot outside and you are sitting inside with a tall glass of iced tea. Or that feeling you have when you are sitting outside with a good book and you can hear the sounds of kids splashing in the pool a couple of houses down.

Nope. This is a Bummer Summer.

The Boy is too busy with summer school, his ASB and cross-country activities and I am too worn out trying to keep track of everything. I mean, what kind of acid am I on? I have a wide open Sunday and what do I do? I scrub the floors. How pathetic.

We did manage to work some fun in though. Yesterday we hit another concert in the park but the band was only so-so and everyone kind of got bored. I mean, when the band plays the same song THREE times, you can’t help but grow bored. However, The Boy had some friends with him and we met up with some friends there, so The Girl was happy. Of course right in the middle of the concert the teens yelled (quite loudly) over the Zimmerman verdict. I have my opinions over the whole thing but the Huffington Post said it best, “Not Guilty. But, not innocent.” Very true.

What am I reading?

I just started Eva Moves the Furniture by Margot Livesey. I thought it was a ghost story which is why I picked it up but from the write-ups I’ve seen of it, it looks like it may be magical realism and I cannot stand magical realism. Can anyone tell me if it is?

What am I cooking?

Tonight we are grilling steaks, baking some potatoes and roasting corn. There may be ice cream too.

What am I watching?

We plan to watch Oliver! the musical later. That is the next show the kids are in and although The Boy did the show once before when he was 10, it will be The Girl’s first time doing it. They are both looking forward to it. So many great songs.

What do you have planned for today?

Review: Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions
By Kurt Vonnegut
(Dial Press Trade Paperback, Paperback, 9780385334204, 1999, 320pp.)

The Short of It:

A wildly confusing romp through silliness.

The Rest of It:

Vonnegut fans will chew me up and spit me out over this one, but man oh man… what a crazy book!

Dwayne Hoover is a business man who happens to be losing his mind. Kilgore Trout is a struggling science fiction writer who ends up winning the Nobel Prize. On his way to the Midland City arts festival, Kilgore encounters Dwayne in the cocktail lounge of a Holiday Inn. After being introduced to Kilgore’s work, Dwayne believes that the message within Kilgore’s book is one directed toward him personally and he completely comes undone. A lot happens, but after injuring dozens of people and biting off Kilgore’s finger,  Dwayne ends up in a mental hospital.

Clearly, I missed the message with this one and I am always searching for a message when I read. But this one was just way, way out there. Too much for my over-addled brain to compute at the time. If I rated this one on entertainment factor alone, I’d rate it pretty highly but what was with all the penis talk? Penis size is apparently a big deal to Vonnegut as it was mentioned often. Say, every few pages or at least it felt like it. For me though, entertainment factor alone wasn’t enough.

That said, this would be a great book for a book club to pick apart. I’ve talked to some other readers and they all say that this is not his best work. I’ll definitely read something else by him, but this one I can’t recommend unless you want to experience an acid trip without actually dropping acid.

Source: Borrowed
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