SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! Lolita

Hello,

Since there is no one coming to the boards, I might as well make this like a journal as I read, so I can document the passages that I found interesting and make commentaries. I am not even 50 pages in yet - I am in the first part. But I have to admit, I think this guy is a nutcase! I did not know it was based in part on true events, although it is not far fetched, since we do see cases like this all the time.

The first sentence made me laugh - Lolita fire of my life, fire of my loins..... WTF?!?!?! hahaah I am sure we all want a man to talk about us like that. hahaaha It is also interesting how he says he grew up a happy healthy boy, not some sicko. However, I do think he was sick ever since that one escapade with that young girl. Sad that she ended up dying.

It is also funny how he ran away from his true desires by getting married, yet his wife had an affair and left him. I bet he was never connected in the marriage, he was always just giving 10%. Since his true desire was a girl with just barely any pubic hair.

Interesting the whole idea of Nymphics. I had never heard that theory before. I guess I was not a nymphet. Or maybe I was. How sick that he would go to parks and watch girls, I can just picture this older man alone on a bench. Just looking at little girls, hoping one would fall and show her underwear. How sick.

How crazy about that prostitute that was young. I am sure that happened more often back then. And I am sure it happens now, many girls start on prostitution at a young age. I am just so disconnected from that life, Since it is not something I have ever been exposed to. I still get surprised when i see a prostitute walking down the street at nigt. Like, wow that still goes on! haha

How crazy how his ex wife died of child labor and what a guy from Pasadena told him about her life. I can picture her fat and doing that experiment of the racial reactions to a diet of bananas and dates in a constant position on all fours. He has wished he could see a picture of her. I can relate to that though, when you end a relationship you are always left with some crazy psycho desire to follow their life all the time. dont lie girls, we have all been there! :)

I am by the part that he is moving to the United States now, must go read!

Love,

Norma

Any recommendations on good books?

I havent seen any recomendations lately - just wanted to see if you guys had picked up any good books over the last month that you guys loved.

I am reading Real Murders right now, super awesome book. Once i finish it I will put up a review on it - however let me warn all of you it is a long series! something like 10 books or something! but do not worry - I will always prioritize my Book Club books! :)

Happy Reading!

Norma

SUPER DUPER Spoiler - BOOK 3!!!

LOL - At this very moment (1:25 pm on Sunday, August 1rst) Mabel Penate is probably sweating and rushing around Norma's kitched in preparation for the meeting.  Well Mabel, I finished the book last night and now know all about Zala and what "All the Evil" is! Lol! We are waiting for you! Hurry!

I've started book three... wondering is Salander is going to be allright and how she will get herself out of her NEW mess...being accused by her father of attempted murder!

SUPER spoiler! Book 2 - The Girl who Played with Fire.

So I love reading about Salanders new life, and all the wonderful things she can buy herself.  Isn't it funny that even with $3 billion kronor, she finds herself shopping for furniture at IKEA? She is really an amazing character, I think so far I have enjoyed the second book more than the first - it has been action packed since page 1. How is everyone feeling?

P.S. The lawyer is plotting revenge...we all knew it would happen.

Spoiler Alert - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Discussion

Pg. 222 - Salander has up to this point, been portrayed as an incredibly hardheaded person which would never let someone take advantage of her (to the point of being a little nutty).  For some reason - she has just submitted and debased herself by giving head to the lawyer that is her legal guardian. What is that about? Her thought process during the entire situation is very detached. 

I also think its interesting to note all the points of view that we as readers are given access too - just in this chapter we hear Salanders thoughts, as well as the scumbag lawyer. He says, "This is better than a whore. She gets paid with her own money". What a scumbag! I wonder what Salander has in mind for revenge...

Update: Salander has had her revenge, and created a powerful enemy.  Mikael has just discovered that Celia was in the bedroom and was the person that closed the window... I had a feeling about her, but I feel like its too obvious.  There is another culprit...what about Martin? Lol.

Eat Pray Love

I really enjoyed this book - especially during the eating and the love part. I feel like the writer was really funny and easy to read - and in a way she makes the reader feel a connect and relate to what she is going through. I think it is a great book for a woman to read. I am planning on reading her second book that is related to this one - Committed.

Here is what Shelfari had to say:

At 32 years old, Gilbert was educated, had a home and a husband, and successful career as a writer. However, she was not happy; she was depressed with her marriage, often spending the night crying on her bathroom floor. She divorced her husband and entered into a relationship with another man, but this relationship did not work out either. She decided that she needed a change. She spent the next year traveling the world. She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life (Eat). She spent four months in India, trying to find her spirituality (Pray). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two and love (Love).

Hope you all enjoy :)

Teahouse Fire

My Recommendation: The Teahouse Fire

My thoughts: It was really slow to get into (I started it 2 different times) but if you are a reader that is interested in Asian cultures and want to get a look into the Japanese culture, this is a really great book for that.  From this book I learned that Japan is an extremely subtle culture where one gesture or gift can have a series of meanings.  Every culture I have grown up with is extremely obvious to the point of being vulgar, as I have become.  If someone is trying to tell me something, I want it said in the plainest language possible.  It is exactly the opposite in Japan - not just in language but in the clothes you wear, the gifts you give, every action you make.  It focuses on the tea ceremony which was an art, and has become almost extinct in the country.  It was a great look into the Japanese culture - and at the same time a really good story to keep you interested (lesbian love affairs? lol).   

 Shelfari Description:

see section historyA sweeping debut novel drawn from a history shrouded in secrets about two women-one American, one Japanese-whose fates become entwined in the rapidly changing world of late-nineteenth-century Japan. When nine-year-old Aurelia Bernard takes shelter in Kyoto's beautiful and mysterious Baishian teahouse after a fire one night in 1866, she is unaware of the building's purpose. She has just fled the only family she's ever known: after her French immigrant mother died of cholera in New York, her abusive missionary uncle brought her along on his assignment to Christianize Japan. She finds in Baishian a place that will open up entirely new worlds to her- and bring her a new family. It is there that she discovers the woman who will come to define the next several decades of her life, Shin Yukako, daughter of Kyoto's most important tea master and one of the first women to openly practice the sacred ceremony known as the Way of Tea. For hundreds of years, Japan's warriors and well-off men would gather in tatami-floored structures- teahouses- to participate in an event that was equal parts ritual dance and sacramental meal. Women were rarely welcome, and often expressly forbidden. But in the late nineteenth century, Japan opened its doors to the West for the first time, and the seeds of drastic changes that would shake all of Japanese society, even this most civilized of arts, were planted. Taking her for the abandoned daughter of a prostitute rather than a foreigner, the Shin family renames Aurelia "Urako" and adopts her as Yukako's attendant and surrogate younger sister. Yukako provides Aurelia with generosity, wisdom, and protection as she navigates a culture that is not accepting of outsiders. From her privileged position at Yukako's side, Aurelia aids in Yukako's crusade to preserve the tea ceremony as it starts to fall out of favor under pressure of intense Westernization. And Aurelia herself is embraced and rejected as modernizing Japan embraces and rejects an era of radical change. An utterly absorbing story told in an enchanting and unforgettable voice, The Teahouse Fire is a lively, provocative, and lushly detailed historical novel of epic scope and compulsive readability.