Book List! Movie List! Music List!

Hello my little cherubs,

My blog has been a bit too serious lately, so I decided to tell y'all what I'm reading/listening to/watching. I have always been a trend-setter, and many people copy me and the things that I do...so I decided to make it a little easier. Here's what I'm up to in Israel when I'm not going to dangerous West Bank cities!

Books:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - I read her Atlas Shrugged several years ago, and really enjoyed it, so I decided to read one of her other novels. The Fountainhead is quite good, very well written and has great character development. But Rand likes to hit you over the head with her points, and it's not only unnecessary, but also gets irritating. Although I enjoy her books, and even agree with many of her opinions, she should have used more subtlety.

Harry Truman Biography by Robert Ferrell- My mother really admires Truman, so I decided to read his biography. Although he did many wonderful things in his presidency, and had an enormously positive effect on the formation of Israel, I was slightly disappointed by some of the things that I read. Just some minor corruption stuff, like putting his wife on the payroll when he was Senator, and the fact that he was "elected" to many of these positions in the first place because a wealthy businessman wanted a connection in the government...just things like that. And I realize that they are so common in politics, but I just sort of thought that Truman was one of the good guys. Maybe I should stop watching the West Wing. It's making me too idealistic!

Deception Point by Dan Brown - Fun, fluffy suspense novel by the writer of the Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed it, because it had a lot of scientific elements, and was set in the arctic (two of my favourite things!), and it was a fun read, but definitely not great literature. Although I didn't think that the Da Vinci Code was either. Can you say overrated?

Hanna Senesh, Her Life and Diary - I've read it before, but I still cried through so much of it. Beautiful, but absolutely heart-wrenching.


Music:

"Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen or Rufus Wainwright - great, great song. Download....I mean, go out and buy it immediately!

"Common People" by William Shatner - Yes, Captain Kirk himself did a cover of "Common People" that seems so bizarre and so bad that it must be good. I love it.

"Respect" by Aretha Franklin - Always a great song, and I'm putting it on the list because of a funny thing that happened to me on the bus this morning (Eema and Ilana, you didn't just read that). The driver, a 55ish year old white man, looked so bored, and when we driving through Mea Shearim, when the song "Respect" came on the radio. He turned up the volume and started bobbing his head to the beat. Too, too funny. I guess he just doesn't get enough R-E-S-P-E-C-T!


Movies/Television:

Although I have neither a laptop nor a collection of DVDs (because I'm poor), I have been borrowing both from my friends (because I'm a freeloader). So here's what I've been watching!

Star Trek - Don't judge. I love it. My roommate Lydia has a fairly large collection, but I've already watched all the episodes (several times!). The only ones that I haven't watched is Star Trek Enterprise, which I still can't get into. It has a fabulous introduction that still gives me goosebumps every time I see it, but the actual episodes are mediocre at best. Disappointing.

Family Guy - I never saw until I came here, but I've copied a bunch of the episodes on CDs to bring back with me to Canada. By far the best one is "Wish Upon A Weinstein", which has never been showed on television because it's too politically incorrect. And funny! Great show.

Bridget Jones Edge of Reason - I'm going tonight to see it in theatres. I've heard that it's gotten bad reviews, but I loved the first one, and want to go see it anyway. The fact that Colin Firth is in it might have something to do with it...