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Stunning Literary Analysis by WordNerd and IP: The Book List

2008 December 24
by WordNerd

Spoilers for Ron Rash’s Serena follow.  Do not read if you aren’t a spoiler whore.

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:15:53 AM
Subject: Perfect

http://www.candlesandsuch.com/the-love-pinch-cake-topper-8664.html

Anyway, why did you leave so early? Lots of work or just couldn’t sleep?

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:17:10 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Ha-ha. Is there one with the groom slapping the bride’s ass?

Both. Why are you up already?
IP

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:19:00 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Not that I know of. I can look, though. ;)

After you left, I dozed a bit. Then I got up to finish reading Serena. What an evil, evil bitch!

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:19:34 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

You finished it?

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:20:37 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Si. I’m very happy she died violently.

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:21:28 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

But way too late.

(That’s what I was going to say, but didn’t want to if you hadn’t finished it.)

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:22:26 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Yeah, it took a while, but at least she was killed by the one thing she couldn’t have. And it’s kind of like her husband’s ghost killed her. :D

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:23:08 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

I felt the worst for the cop. He was like the one good guy in the whole story.

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:24:29 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Very true. Tortured to death. Didn’t even try to run when he tried to kill them.

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:25:30 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

One thing the book really lacked, IMO, was any explanation of how Serena got to be the way she was. You don’t just wake up one morning that evil.

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:30:08 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

True. No full background, just merely hinted at throughout. And even then, those type of tendencies can’t be explained by surviving influenza and losing your family. It’s one thing to be strong, quite another to be a sociopath.

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:31:38 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

I thought maybe the truth was that she killed her family. But again, that’s just more evil, not an explanation.

What I really hated about Serena was that she left Colorado for the East Coast. ;)

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:32:43 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Seriously! That’s really a marker of insanity.

Wait, what does that say about you? ;) I should watch out for rattlesnakes and turkey sandwiches . . .

From: IP
To: WordNerd
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:33:35 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

Have you met my one-handed friend? And his mom??

From: WordNerd
To: IP
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 8:34:27 AM
Subject: Re: Perfect

And I thought your cousin Luigi was scary . . .

_______________________________________________

Onto the book list:

Finished:

1) Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany by Steven E. Ozment
2) Women at the Beginning – Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary by Patrick J. Geary
3) Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
4) A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts by Robert Bolt
5) Lisey’s Story by Stephen King
6) 1776 by David McCullough
7) The Savage Detectives: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño (Translation by Natasha Wimmer)
8) The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
9) Duma Key by Stephen King
10) The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
11) Me by Katharine Hepburn
12) The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs
13) The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
14) Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
15) Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
16) The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde
17) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
18) I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
19) Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde
20) The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde
21) Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
22) Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
23) The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime by Jasper Fforde
24) The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime by Jasper Fforde
25) Blaze: A Posthumous Novel by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
26) The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
27) The October Country by Ray Bradbury
28) Once upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez
29) Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
30) The Best American Short Stories 2007 edited by Stephen King and Heidi Pitlor
31) Just after Sunset by Stephen King
32) Serena by Ron Rash

Re-read:

Empty

Currently Reading:

1) Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes by Eamon Duffy
2) The Aeneid by Virgil (Translation by Robert Fagles)
3) In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Boyfriend, or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
2) Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann

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