Page to Screen: Live and Let Die (1973)

Live and Let Die
based on the novel by Ian Fleming

I was driving home with a few friends in the car, on the way back from something, when “Live and Let Die” came on one of Atlanta’s classic rock stations. I usually play Russian radio roulette while in Atlanta since they took my beloved the Journey away, but I paused. “Hold on,” I said. “I think I recognize it.” “It’s that Bond song Paul McCartney did,” my friend Isobel informed me. “Back up, Paul McCartney did a song for James Bond?” Much riffing (on McCartney, Bond, and my own ignorance) ensued. So, as you can see, between Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan, the James Bond franchise is an empty desert dotted by the occasional Grace Jones. I had literally no idea what to expect from Roger Moore, so I went into Live and Let Die utterly blind.

Review: Ten Days in a Mad-House

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly

Matthew Goodman’s Eighty Days is a really fantastic piece of nonfiction—the kind that’ll make you gasp out loud, even though you know how this race between two lady journalists in the 1880s is going to turn out. I’d heard of Nellie Bly in passing before (something something asylum something something), but Eighty Days introduced me to her in her entirety, from birth to death. Naturally, despite Goodman’s warnings about Bly’s subpar attempts at writing novels, I was interested in what put Nellie Bly on the map: Ten Days in a Madhouse. While it was originally published as a series of articles in The New York World, it was collected into a book the same year (1887), making it eligible for my establishment.

Review: The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

For some insane reason, I thought that my final finals season at Agnes meant that I would have tons of time for reading. This was not only a lie, but a damned lie. I checked out every book I could only get at my college library and a handful of books from the local library. Fines piled up on the school books and the local books went home, unread, save for one: The Man in the High Castle. I’d only known Philip K. Dick by reputation, and I had confused The Man in the High Castle, the “Nazis won World War II” story, with another “Nazis won World War II” alternate history short story that was much more dour and depressing. Well, not that this isn’t…

Review: Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

I started Tiny Beautiful Things on a Sunday and logged into my library account later that day. Huh, I thought, it’s due tomorrow. I tried to renew it, but was faced with the fact that somebody else wanted to read it as badly as I did. What was a bibliophile in her last weeks of college to do? Why, finish it the next day, of course, neatly avoiding library fines and actual work in one fell swoop. It’s not procrastination if you’re doing something else productive, we all know that.

Reading by Ear: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

For a very long time, I hated Kurt Vonnegut. More specifically, I hated Slaughterhouse-Five. It was assigned to me during my first or second year of high school, so I was still doing debate and still in the throes of what I like to call “The Wombat Years”—a bad period spanning most of my adolescence that featured bangs, rabid femmephobia, and constant, quiet anger. That last one had a hair trigger, and Vonnegut tripped it by, in my memory, calling Billy’s daughter “a bitch”. (This may or may not actually happen in the book.) I finished the book, since it was for school, but I scowled more than usual all the way. I am no longer a wombat, but that loathing remained. I did know I’d have to revisit this eventually for Reading by Ear—I just didn’t read that much as a kid, y’all!—but I was expecting the worst. And all I’ve got to say is praise and hallejulah, the Wombat Years are behind us.

Page to Screen: Iron Man 3 (2013)

Iron Man 3
based on characters by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby

As much as I enjoyed Iron Man and Iron Man 2, I don’t really think of myself as an Iron Man fan. In the Marvel universe, I usually gravitate to Thor and X-Men. (How excited am I about the new all-lady team? SO EXCITED.) So I didn’t make plans to go see Iron Man 3 at midnight, as I usually do for big franchise films—I like not being the only one in the audience gasping, clapping, and cackling. Plus, it was during my last round of undergraduate finals. And yet, when the reviews started piling up, I tuned them out, in an subconscious attempt to remain unspoiled. Deep down, I wanted to see it. When an opportunity to see it on opening day came up, I took it.

Page to Screen: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

Diamonds are Forever
based on the novel by Ian Fleming

Well… that’s it. I’m done with Sean Connery as Bond. Well, there is Never Say Never Again, which I imagine I will eventually watch, but it’s not an Eon production, so it’s not canon. If I was an extra-canonical (thanks, Holmesians) completionist, I would never get anything done. My attention span is simply not suited to that much of a commitment. After the heights of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and becoming rather fond of Lazenby’s take on the super spy, it was a bit of a bumpy road back to Connery, especially since I loved On Her Majesty’s Secret Service so much (well, comparatively). Can Connery reclaim his territory once and for all? Well… not so much.

Review: Fashioning Teenagers

Fashioning Teenagers by Kelley Massoni

When I was what is technically considered a teenage girl, I was far too busy reading fanfiction, scheming to get my hands on Velvet Goldmine, and being a femmephobic little terror to even realize what mainstream teenage culture was. In my understanding, it was something to do with Saved By the Bell, which I couldn’t watch without my mother darkly muttering about how it gave my brother unrealistic expectations of high school. It’s both a blessing and a curse: I never felt like I was chained to a script, but mostly because I had no idea that the script existed. Thus, I was pretty blind to Seventeen magazine until I read an article that cited this book, which pointed out both Seventeen’s age and its origin story as a women’s service magazine. I had to investigate.

Review: Beyond Katrina

Beyond Katrina by Natasha Trethewey

And that’s it—that’s the last book for my “Old South, New South, No South” class. I think it’s really just hitting me that this is it—college is over. Knowing anything about my life for sure beyond a year out is over. Wearing chucks and band t-shirts every day is over. Not cooking for myself is over. (Thank you, Jesus.) But enough about me and my “problems”, which fade away in the face of what Beyond Katrina covers. Our professor has been talking up the book since day one of the class, and I’ve been looking forward to it because of that. Well, that and its slim size. That’s always appreciated when finals are posed to attack…

Review: Vessel

Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

I’d never heard of Sarah Beth Durst before Michael Ann Dobbs reviewed her latest novel, Vessel, for io9. While I do end up reading a lot of young adult fiction, I don’t especially pay attention to that market, electing instead to float around speculative fiction spaces and fellow omnivorous book bloggers online, so something like Drink Slay Love was way off my radar. But Dobbs’ review made me immediately add it to the spreadsheet—not so much because of glowing praise, but because of that premise. Somewhere in time, child Clare is throwing a tantrum and claiming that Durst stole her idea (from an awful fantasy manuscript squirreled away on a long-dead computer? Shut up, child Clare). I, as an adult and actual person, merely appreciate what Durst did with a concept I’ve always found intriguing.