[TSS]: Books and Movies

It has been a long while since I've put up a Sunday Salon post, but I have some miscellany I'd like to share with you all, and this is the perfect venue for it!

I recently started watching POV (Point of View) on PBS.  It's a series of independent documentary films.  It's really, really good!  Has everyone been watching this series and not telling me about it?!  I have seen two episodes so far - one about a very conservative Muslim woman in Syria who is working to educate and empower girls through the Qu'ran, and one about Navajo high school students who want to go to college and get off the reservation but struggle to do so because of a whole host of difficulties.  They were both very, very interesting to watch, and I highly recommend tuning into the series if you live in the US.  Up Heartbreak Hill will make your eyes water, probably, but the GOOD kind of eye-watering.  It's so, so good.  I never knew a teenage guy with a massive pink mohawk could be so eloquent.  With all the garbage that comes to us through the airwaves, it's important that we remember those people who bring us quality programming and expand our understanding of the world.  This series is very powerful - watch it!

This weekend is the Newberry Library's Annual Book Sale!  I usually volunteer at this event, but I did not this year.  Instead, I went as a member of the public and was very efficient with my visit there, if I may say so.  I was there for less than an hour, but picked up seven books for only $11!  AND just to sweeten the deal even more, FOUR of those seven books were ones that were already on my wish list!  I don't usually share my book hauls, but here's the list:

The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis - SO excited to have found this one on the shelf!  I have had plans to read this one with Marg for quite a while, so I'm glad to now have it on my shelf so that I'm ready for it.

The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson - I really enjoyed The True Deceiver, so I'm excited to read a book that's so different in tone by the same author.

A Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest Gaines - A more recent addition to my wish list about a murder in the Deep South in the 1970s.  Very excited to read it as it comes highly, highly recommended by Jill.  This will probably be the first one I pick up of the seven here.

Blood & Thunder:  The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, by Hampton Sides - I read Lions of the West with Kari recently and we both wanted to delve more deeply into frontier history, so here we go!

Two Old Women, by Velma Willis - A folk tale about two old Alaskan women who are forced to fend for themselves in the wilderness.  Sounds like a fun, quick read, and one I'm glad to have found as I try to read more diversely.

Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier - EVERYONE IN BLOGOSPHERE loves du Maurier and I've never read her!  I found an uh-mazing vintage edition of this novel and had to pick it up.

Elyza, by Clare Darcy - I like this author's light-hearted Regency romances, even if they aren't always exactly historically accurate.  This one gets high ratings, but I've never found it in a library, so I'm excited to have grabbed this one!

As for what I'm reading at the moment, I am sloughing my way through a few books.  That isn't really fair to say, though, as I'm very interested in all of them.  I am very annoyed by my inability to download and listen to most audiobooks through the library now as my laptop has completely crashed and my iTunes refuses to let me download audiobooks books without wiping out my entire current library.  (How is this possible?!)  Therefore, I am forced to only download books directly to my phone via the OverDrive app, and the app only lets you download MP3 files, not the .WMA files that most books appear to be.  ALSO, the app does not let you listen at 2X speed, so I constantly feel like I am listening to such a slow story when I could be all the way done by now.  Clearly, I need to learn patience.

I am currently listening to The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold on audiobook, the first in her science fiction Vorkosigan series (well, technically the second, but the first that features Miles as the protagonist).  It's very good, but the OverDrive app is really annoying in where it starts and stops so I often find that I've been listening to the same part twice and only realize it maybe 5-10 minutes after I've started (this says a lot about my attention span). So that is upsetting.  But the book is very good!

I'm also STILL reading A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth.  Only about 370 pages to go now, though!  Woohoo :-)  I try to ignore the fact that 370 pages is the length of a good-sized novel, and be proud of the fact that I am 75% of the way done!  I am absolutely committed to finishing the book, but I don't think I will try any more Vikram Seth for at least a few years.  I enjoy his writing style and his characters and the plot, but WHY DOES IT TAKE 1500 PAGES TO TELL A STORY?  I feel this is unreasonable.  Also, 1500 pages of very small font, so it's really like, 1800 pages.  I keep reading and reading and reading and never feel that I am making much progress.  I also feel like, 1121 pages into a book, you should be more than 75% of the way through.  BUT I AM NOT.  Sigh.

I also started Nothing to Envy this week, about people who have escaped from North Korea.  It came highly recommended in the comments of my review of Pyongyang, and I'm so glad you all told me about it!  I'm really liking the narrative style, and I'm glad I was able to pull it into my reading queue so quickly after reading De Lisle's book.  Demick has a much more sympathetic tone than De Lisle did.

And that's all for me!  What are you reading this week?