Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed "My" Life

 I ordered from "The Great Courses" (college lectures you listen to in your car or home) The World Was Never the Same: Events That Changed History.  Professor J. Fears from the University of Oklahoma selected 36 events beginning in 1750BC through today that in some way he feels impacted and changed the world.  Satisfaction Guaranteed The Battle of Vienna (1683) anyone?  It got me to thinking.  Now that's a dangerous thing to do.  It got me to thinking about what major events IN MY LIFE changed MY life.  Were they decisions I consciously made or was I fortunate (to use a favorite Obama word) or had dumb/bad luck?  Read more...

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Two Mann Booker Award Winners: Julian Barnes and Michael Ondaatje

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes 

2011 Mann Booker Award Winner
160p

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje 
256p
Winner of the Mann Booker Prize in 1992
For The English Patient

Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned The English Patient because you may go running from this review like Elaine did on Seinfeld when she went to see the movie with John Peterman. But please don’t. First let me explain why I’m doing two reviews at once. As you can see, both books are rather short. They both have a similar theme: Older men who are now looking back on their lives and contemplating if they’d made the right choices.  Read more...

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Contain This! My Life In the Unorganized World

My blog has moved to www.satisfyingmycuriosity.com.  If you've enjoyed this blog, please check my new site out for other interesting comments on culture, travel, book reviews, and music.


Somewhere along the way, maybe it was my husband spelling it out for me, I discovered I did not have the "organization" gene.  Not anal enough, I guess.  I don't mind going hunting for a pair of flip flops that have hidden themselves under the bed.  Or better yet for an excuse, looking for one the cat hid during hide and seek.  In reference to the above where my husband spells out my lack of neatness, I graciously let him know about a few of his idiosyncrasies.   But this isn't about his lack of patience or his abundance of macho, it's about me and what I've been trying to do to overcome my A: lack of neatness gene B: laziness C: don't give a rip attitude.  I blame it on A. Read more...