My Lucky Streak

It started with The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone.  When I picked it up off the shelf I was reluctant to start reading it.  At 748 pages the fictionalized biography of Michelangelo, a subject I never felt special interest in, intimidated me.  When I finally made my way through it and came to the end, and read the last words, I was more depressed than normal to finish a book.  I wanted it to keep going.  The story is immensely detailed, from artistic techniques in the 1500s to the people Michelangelo consorted with.  I loved every page, even if I did have some trouble with the Italian names.

And no, I haven't watched the movie yet.

I decided after that I need something a little lighter.  So I moved on to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.  The strange premise intrigued me: I couldn't help wondering how the author was going to pull it off.  The odd format took a little getting used to.  After the prologue it reads like a biography interspersed with sections from "Lincoln's journals" about his vampire hunting escapades and companions.  In the end, I actually really loved it.  You have to be able to totally suspend belief and put aside what you know about Lincoln's life and just go with it.  The narrative is clever and the book moves quickly.

And I don't know if I will be seeing the movie at all.

I've had a used copy of How the West was Won sitting on my shelf for probably close to two years.  Everyone knows how much I love Western movies.  I wasn't sure what I would think of a Western novel.  Turns out, I liked it quite a bit.  The story follows a family moving out west, how the various members become involved with the people they find there, and how their lives shape the places they live. I love the way Louis L'Amour wove the stories together and kept everything cohesive.

For a change, this book was adapted from a movie--which I haven't seen yet.

I don't really remember what drew me to People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, other than the cover art was beautiful and the story seemed interesting.  It is historical fiction in a way, following the mid-1990s rediscovery of  an illuminated haggadah in Sarajevo.  A haggadah, I learned, is the book containing the prayers and rituals Jewish families use at the Passover Seder.  This particular haggadah is special because it has illustrations, and dates from the 1400s a time when Jewish people were not illustrating these kinds of books.  Anyway, while that part of the story is true, the rest of it was invented.  The narrative involves a modern manuscript conservator who is consulted about preserving the damaged book.  The story flips back and forth tracing an invented history of the book backwards beginning of course, during the Nazi occupation.  The story is incredibly interesting and entertaining.  I had to check Wikipedia a couple times to sort out the factual parts from the fictional ones.

This has not been made into a movie.

Unfortunately, my lucky streak came to a halt recently.  After finishing People of the Book, I picked up The Hobbit in anticipation of going to see the first movie in December.  I had avoided reading The Hobbit for a long time, and now I know why.  I was so bored that I got to about page 50 when the traveling party was put into sacks by trolls and decided that was as good an ending as any, and put the book down.  I hate quitting a story that way, but I could not muster up the energy to keep going with it.  I'll probably end up seeing the movie anyway.

Findings

I know I haven't posted my normal "ode to September" this year.  It turns out the apple season started early this year, so Nathan has been out at the local orchard on weekends helping out friends of his parents' who own it.  Then, he said his father anticipates starting work to get ready for harvest toward the end of the month.  And that means Nathan will be helping a lot with that as well.  And as much as I know he enjoys pitching in at the orchard and loves harvest, it is hard to have him gone so much.  So, I haven't felt very "pro-September" this year.  Until  today.  Elijah and I went for an afternoon stroll.  We were walking down a north-south street in town when something fell at my feet.

 My very first colored leaf of the season landed right at my feet.  Suddenly, it all hit me.  And I finally feel ready to say, Welcome, September, I've missed you. 

In other news...
Elijah is growing and changing all the time.  He is so close to crawling, and we can tell he really wants to.  He gets on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth, but hasn't quite figured out how to pick his head up at the same time yet.  And he gets very frustrated laying on his tummy and reaching for things.

Today, I was in the kitchen making a bottle; I had left him in the living room sitting in his Boppy and playing with his little letters and shapes farm.  I finished getting the bottle ready and returned to the living room to find this:

I left the tote bag I take to work leaning against the end table and he had twisted around in his Boppy and pulled the bag over.  This is the first time we've caught him going through something he wasn't supposed to.

Finally, I saw this on Pinterest the other day and immediately called Nathan into the room to see it.  I don't know why, but we both laughed the same way at it: that kind of start low and then the more you think about it really start laughing type laugh.  We would so put it on Elijah if we had one.