The Death of J.D. Salinger

This past week, J.D. Salinger passed away at the age of 91. It doesn't appear that his death was caused by anything other than natural causes. But the notice of his death made me starting thinking if I have ever read a book by Mr. Salinger. To be honest, I don't think I have. His most well know piece of work, "The Catcher in the Rye," has not been something that I have read or had the opportunity to read. I may be one of the only people that I know of that did not have to read that book in high school. Since I have not yet read this book, I do want to make a point to read this book during my journey through 75 books by the end of the year.

Mr. Salinger seemed to be someone who did not enjoy the spotlight - at least from everything I have read. He almost seemed to be kind of agoraphobic. He seemed to want to leave his life completely unknown to the outside world, getting angry at those who wanted to write biographies about him. He seemed to want to just write without worrying that his readers would want to know about the man behind the words.

I know that there are many other works besides his most well known work. If any of you have ever read any Salinger books, let me know which ones I need to check out.

Not quite like Julie following Julia...

So if the title of this post didn't give it away, I just finished watching Julie and Julia -- which by the way, is a wonderful movie. While watching it, it made me think about what I could do more of to try and find my happiness like Julie did by cooking. My idea: reading as many books as possible between now and the end of the year. My goal, which may seem quite lofty, is to read 75 books. Not only do I want to read books, but I want to blog my way through books I have never read and the feelings and findings that I experience along the way. The question is: What book shall I embark on this journey with? What's the first book that shall come my way?

Ah....date night.

So last night after being treated to a lovely dinner at Red Lobster by my boyfriend (whom I shall call Fierce Football Fan for blog purposes), we decided to go rent a couple of movies. We each chose a movie and came home.

Having never seen either of these movies, I was kind of interested to know why one of them was up for an Oscar last year, and how the other one would compare to previous war movies I had seen. We first watched a movie called "The Hurt Locker", which was FFF's choice for a movie. I did not read anything about the movie, nor had I seen any previews for it before. The movie had the feel of a documentary almost, as it did not really seem to have any sort of plot that it was really following. The reality of the setting, being placed in 2004 during the Iraq War, made it feel like I was watching something that was taking place live. It turns out that while there seems to be no plot throughout the movie, the idea that a soldier may feel that all he is meant to do is fight in battle sticks out tremendously. It made me realize how much harder it must be for the men and women in our armed forces to readjust to live outside the battlefield. This movie was different from any other war movie that I have ever seen and made me feel like I was seeing the true emotions that the brave men and women of our country feel.

The second movie that we watched was nominated for an Oscar last year. "Rachel Getting Married" was a movie that I thought would blow me out of the water, as I frequently expect Oscar nominees to be able to make me emit that kind of emotion. While Anne Hathaway did an incredible job of playing a recovering addict, there were moments when I felt that the feelings were not as sincere as they should have been. There were moments of greatness and moments when it felt like there was no way that people could change their feelings that fast. While the concept of the movie was good, I felt that the execution could have been slightly better. I can't quite put my finger on the exact moment when I started to look at my phone to see what time it was, but anytime a movie cannot hold my attention, it is usually a movie that I don't plan to see again.

Has anyone seen either of these movies? Any opinions?

Literary Lunatic

That's precisely what I am...a literary lunatic. I don't know that I have ever met someone who enjoys reading as much as I do. Not only do I love reading to the level of lunacy, but I love learning too. A combination that I didn't think was possible - the ability to love reading and learning. I know I sound like a huge geek, which I may be, although I think I'm just an average young woman interested in everything around me. I'm so interested in reading and learning that I decide to write a blog about it. But this blog isn't just about reading and learning -- its about opinions. I don't want it to just be me giving reviews and recommendations -- I want opinions for people as well. Ask me a question, give me a recommendation, give me your opinion on whatever you want. I'm an open book - an open book that thrives on the idea of our first amendment. We all have a voice for a plethora of topics and I want to hear what you have to say.

First things first: I just finished reading Time Magazine's Person of the Year issue and it made me think: If you could choose, who would you name Person of the Decade?