The Mad Scratchings Of An Electronic Pen

I read The Selection books in 2014 and I enjoyed them. An interesting premise that I had really seen before, even I knew how the books would end. So I was excited when I found out that there were two follow up books dealing with the next generation.

The Heir fit well into the world that Kiera Cass created. We were introduced to Princess Eadlyn and quickly dived into the set up leading into her selection. This book ended with Eadlyn down to half a dozen prospects and developments in her family forcing her to take a hard look at herself.

The Crown however sped along, with Eadlyn picking the guy I figured she would but an ending for the political events that came out of left field - along with a revelation about a character's background that was totally unexpected (maybe the tie-in books brought up hints of this?).

While I liked The Heir, the ending that was slapped together in The Crown was nearly farcical and left the whole series with a bad taste.

When I was packing for my time in KS I made the choice to bring only one non-school book with me, The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

I set a goal to go through and read the plays that I haven't yet. Since that day, I've change the goal slightly: I will read, listen, or watch the plays I hadn't yet.

So in the interest of making lists (I do love lists)...

What I've Read (Seen, Listened to, Acted In, etc): 18/39
Comedies
A Midsummer Night's Dream -R,S,A
As You Like It - S
Love's Labour's Lost - R,S
Much Ado About Nothing - R,S
The Merchant of Venice - R,S
The Merry Wives of Windsor - R
The Taming of the Shrew - R,S
The Tempest - R, S
The Two Gentlemen of Verona - R
Twelfth Night - R,S

Histories
Richard II - S
Henry IV, Part 1 - S
Henry IV, Part 2 - S
Henry V - S (aka, thank you Hollow Crown)

Tragedies
Hamlet - R,L
King Lear - R
Macbeth - R,A
Othello - L
Romeo and Juliet - R,S,A


Yet to be Read (Seen, Listened to, Acted In, etc):21/39
Comedies
All's Well That Ends Well
Measure for Measure
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
The Comedy of Errors
The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Winter's Tale

Histories
King John
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 2
Henry VI, Part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII

Tragedies
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus (soon to be watched)
Cymbeline
Julius Caesar
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida

I just finish "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo".

The third day after I started I was in the back room when the trailer for the movie came on.

( Trailer and me rambling about all kinds of plot points... )

Hey guys, I have stuff to talk about!

Last week I was at the library and looking out at me from the CD rack was "Wonderland" the musical.

Could she be the one, you know?
Tin man, lion or scarecrow?
Wait that's from a different show

I almost drove off the road when I first heard that.

And then I realized that by switching a few songs around I could have a squeal to "Alice" - which I then plotted out ::head desk::



( Previous days here... )

Day 26 - A pairing that you hated and ended up loving?
Christine/Eirk “The Phantom of the Opera”

I was first introduced to this fandom through the old black & white movies and then ALW's musical.


The B&W's were trying to play up the horror aspect of the story and the musical didn't really delve into the love between Christine and The Phantom (who they never name).

And then I read the book.

The man's voice spoke again: "Are you very tired?"
"Oh, to-night I gave you my soul and I am dead!" Christine replied.
"Your soul is a beautiful thing, child," replied the grave man's voice, "and I thank you. No emperor ever received so fair a gift. THE ANGELS WEPT TONIGHT."

"My anger equaled my amazement. I rushed at the mask and tried to snatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice. The man said, 'You are in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.' And, taking me gently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair and then went down on his knees before me […] And the voice, the voice which I had recognized under the mask, was on its knees before me, WAS A MAN! And I began to cry... The man, still kneeling, must have understood the cause of my tears, for he said, 'It is true, Christine! ... I am not an Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost ... I am Erik!'"


"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul. "And you, Christine, tell me, do you hate him too?"
"No," said Christine simply.
"No, of course not ... Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves,"

Day 01 - What is your current favorite ship?
Day 02 - What was your very first ship?
Day 03 - A pairing that needs to happen now?
Day 04 - The pairing with the most chemistry?
Day 05 - The pairing with the least chemistry?
Day 06 - Best kiss?
Day 07 - The most heartbreaking scene?
Day 08 - The pairing with the most baggage?
Day 09 - The most believable relationship?


Day 10 - The least believable relationship?
Jo/Mr. Berh “Little Women”

This one just grates. It was only a few years ago I found out that there was a huge outcry when Jo refused Laurie, it got LMA so upset that she wrote this pairing instead.

Posting mostly to let you know I'm alive ::waves::, but more importantly...

I have a Neverending Story icon!!!!!

I missed yesterday, so here is two in one!

Day 01 → Your favourite song : Glasglow Love Theme by Craig Armstrong
Day 02 → Your favourite movie : The Cutting Edge. And in my world the Disney type made-for-preteen follow ups never happened.
Day 03 → Your favourite television program : Um... On right now or Ever? On Right Now - Big Bang Theory. Ever - Firefly
Day 04 → Your favourite book : I could no soon choose a favourite star in the heavens.
Day 05 → Your favourite quote : Depends on the day, "Life's tough, get a helmet." seems to be a good one.
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy :
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy :
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad :
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobbie of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy

Snagged from julielu
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see, I've read 42, though I have quite a few that I want to read soon.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who haven't read 6 and force books upon them

Snagged from madamruppy  these are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the owns you own but have not read. I have to say, I read a lot of classics when I was in school or this list would have a lot less bolded.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion - I got through half of it.
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice - Like 50 thousand times
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma - See note from P&P
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged Ugh!
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility - See note from P&P
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park - See note from P&P
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables - got through about 5 chapters, then my head exploded from the sheer amount of NOTHING!!!
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion - See note from P&P
Northanger Abbey - See note from P&P
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down - You no have mates, you no have chicks, you stupid bunnies!!!
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers