Chuck Palahniuk is an interesting guy. Well, his novels are interesting, I don’t know the guy. Because some of the themes and subject matter in his books can be a bit hard to swallow sometimes, Palahniuk has been labeled as a nihilist by critics. I could see that I suppose, but that does not make me like his novels any less. Maybe it is the shock factor that he brings to literature that initially drew me in (Hey, we all stare at train wrecks don’t we?) but after I made it through the first grisly book, I realized that I really do like the guy’s minimalistic approach to writing. Palahniuk sticks to short words and simple sentences. His writing very much mimics the average person’s speech patterns. This minimalistic way of writing also helps to substantiate the characters in his stories to make them seem more real. With a few exceptions, Palahniuk’s characters are generally reminiscent of someone who has been marginalized by society or another force. His nobody characters come off as aggressive or self-destructive but often end up wrapped up in very philosophical deliveries, either from the characters themselves, or by the narrator. Palahniuk employs very cynical, black humor to the impossibly ironc scenarios that unravel through his books. Palahniuk often begins his novels at the end of the story so that the reader is left to discover how it was that this event came to be. Despite his raunchy, disturbing content, Palahniuk is still selling tons of books and maintaining more followers than critics. While his novels will never make Oprah’s book list, they are still pretty entertaining if your looking for something quick and a little out of the ordinary.

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Fiction books are fun, but if the story does not pick up pretty quick or seems to drag on a little too long, I generally get board and abandon the book. Who needs to sit through tons of pages of the same old predictable things when you can read the beginning and the end and fill in the rest with your imagination, thusly creating a story that’s probably more entertaining than what the other 187 pages in between have to offer? Wow, that was a run-on if I ever saw one. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really great fictional novels out there. I have some favorite authors that wouldn’t disrespect by skipping pages, but they are few and far between. Maybe that’s just saying more about my attention span than anything else. Non-fiction is another story. Unless it’s a math textbook , or something in the same family, I can read a non-fiction cover to cover and not get bored. I’ll read about any topic from WWII, to quantum physics. I’m not a pocket protected, wheezing, little mutant or anything, I just like learning about things. Non-fiction is tricky though. You gotta make sure your reading facts, not some guy’s vague recollection of an event. Sometimes it’s hard to discern between fact or fiction. Some authors are tricky and convincing. Once I thought I was reading a true account of the evolution of our society till I got to the end. Then all I learned was that the Devil was polluting the minds of liberals all over the world and the Bible is the only thing that would save us. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know, but it wont help me win trivia games or impress people with my knowledge on ungulates or tuberculosis.

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With all the hype of the Twilight movies and books, I can understand that there are a lot of people out there who are pretty obsessed with the new movie and the actors in it. What I can’t understand is everyone creeping around trying to get personal information about the actors and being nosey and trying to get in to their lives. The main actors in the show, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, have been linked together since before the first movie was in theaters. They have done several interviews together where it’s pretty obvious that they are dating. This, along with the parts they play in the movie as Bella and Edward, has caused insanity among the paparazzi and press. People are going wild, chasing them around trying to make them talk and taking pictures of them when they are trying to get away. Can you imagine that life? You are that young, and everyone in the country is trying to find out who your boyfriend or girlfriend is, and they are running around chasing you to catch you holding hands with them? I can sit here and blab on and on about how I think they should just leave them alone, btu they are not going to. Even if they confessed and said they were together, people will just not leave them alone. This is why I love my personal life, and I love my privacy. I feel so bad for these people, and I think it would be impossible to have a healthy relationship when put in this position. I feel sorry for y’all, and everyone needs to just back off!

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Do you remember the books you loved when you were little? The Berenstain Bears, and Dr. Suess books are classics. Once you pick one of them up and start flipping through the pages, you will begin to remember your favorite stories from when you were a kid. That little trip down memory lane is a fun one. Actually Dr. Suess and his tongue twisters are fun for all ages. I still like “One Fist, Red Fish, Blue Fish”. It’s still hard to get through without messing up. Maybe it’s just me though. It’s probably not that difficult at all. Kid games are fun to relive every now and then also. Remember games like Battling Tops, Mouse Trap and Candy Land? All I can remember about those games is that they were a blast! I tried to play Candy Land with a friend’s kid the other day. All I have to say about that is the memory is definitely better than the real thing now. Keeping those memories alive is important though. It’s crucial to keep in mind the things you loved when you were a child to be able to relate to kids when your older. I personally try to relate as little as possible to small children. They make me nervous, but someday I may want to talk to one a little more. If I ever do have a kid, I at least want to know how to make it happy. I never want to be one of those stiff, stern adults who have forgotten about all of the things that make up a good time for a 4 year old.

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I hate how when you read a book, and then it comes out to be a movie, you are always disappointed in the movie. I think it’s just impossible for a movie to portray what someone reads. Any time you read a book, you get that specific mental image of what you think the characters look like, and everyone can’t have the same perception of the descriptions that are given in words. You might see the entire settings different, or a scene you had imagined in your head so well may come out differently when shown on TV. I think it’s just hard for directors to please everyone. I try not to get too upet when movies aren’t what I had hoped after reading the book, because I understand it can’t happen exactly. With the Twilight Series, a lot of people were mad about some of the actors that were chose to portray certain characters, because those actors were not what they had imagined when they read the books. I, on the other hand, really enjoyed the movie in part because I watched it before I read the books. So, when I was reading the books, I was imagine the actors from the movie doing the things they were doing, and I didn’t have the chance to make up in my mind an image of what they should look like before hand. Sometimes it’s better that way, to see the movie first and then read the books so you can appreciate them both.

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I know there are TONS of people out there that are going to understand me on this one. I’m a little into (obsessed) with the Twilight series. Some of you are on the same page, some of you are gagging, and some of you don’t know what I’m talking about so I’m surprised you have the internet and you are reading this. I can say, I was one of those gagging until I got a random Christmas present that was the series, so I really didn’t have a choice but to read them. I love to read, and at my last job that’s all I did was sit around and read books all day pretty much, so it didn’t take me long to start the first one and fall in love. Also, before I had read the books, a friend and I went to the movies to see “Role Models”, which was sold out. We were fucking pissed, and the only other movie that was starting at the same time was Twilight, so we went into that to see what the fuss was about. I had no idea what was going on, and I was surrounded by 13 year old girls who were squealing over Edward Cullen. But, after reading the books, I will probably be one of those girls. And I’m not alone, I may be 23 years old but everyone of my cousins and most of my friends have read them. Now, coming up on November 20th, the newest movie will be coming out, New Moon. I CAN’T WAIT to go see it, but I know that there’s no way I’m going to be one of the people waiting inline outside the theatre. I’m going to have to wait until a matinee showing to get in, because all the tweens will be trapped in school. But, until then, I will re-read the book and impatiently wait until I can go and not have to wait in line.

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The most recent book that I have read is “Freakonomics”, written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Levitt is an economist that has some pretty nontraditional ideas about what is wrong with the world, and Dubner is a New York times journalist who helped him in writing the book. Both men agree that there are several problems with the world today, and also agreed on some pretty strange ways we can over come these problems. One that caught my attention was their opinions on the crime rate dropping lately. They say that the reason crime rate is no longer as high as it was, or escalated to what others thought it was going to was because of the legalization of abortion. As a woman, this is probably something I’m supposed to be appalled by, but it makes sense. I mean, the underage, poor woman out there who are unable to afford birth control are the ones who were, at the time, in need of abortion when it was illegal. They were the ones that were having babies in horrible circumstances and having to raise them with nothing, and those were the kids who were then causing the increase in the crime rate. Those were the kids who were out there after having bad parenting and just wanting to find an easy way to get money, often resorting to dealing drugs. It’s a sick thing to think about, legalizing something that everyone thought was so disgusting and it having such awesome repercussions, but I’m going to have to agree with that one. Some other ideas I find pretty hard to agree with, such as the name you give your child can have effects on how smart they will be. I don’t think if I had some random name I’d be a different person or somehow have received a better education. But, to each his own.

There are some other ideas that these men have come up with that are pretty strange, but also make sense when you think about it. It’s an interesting book that I’d recommend to anyone. Just have an open mind and be ready for some pretty strange comparisons that don’t make much sense until you read it. Agree with it or not, you have to give the guys some credit for coming up with these ideas, and even more so for coming up with interesting and creative ways to try and fix some of the worlds biggest problems.

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