I'm sooooo excited! A few weeks ago, I read awesome book called The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It's was seriously amazing! And guess what? Yesterday I found out it's being made into a movie!
The basic plot is about two black women, Aibileen and Minnie and a young white girl nick named Skeeter. It's 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi and both Abileen and Minnie are servants in white households, raising other people's children and doing their cooking. Skeeter has just graduated from college and has come home to live. Skeeter is getting fed up with life at home. She wants to be a writer but her mother doesn't think writing is an appropriate profession for a well brought up girl.
Skeeter was raised by a black housekeeper named Constantine. Not long ago Constantine disappeared and Skeeter desperately wants to find out about her. So Skeeter talks to Aibileen, who works for her friend Hilly. As she does this she slowly starts to realize what life is like for a black person living in Jackson during the Civil Rights movement.
Skeeter knows she has to do something to help. So she convinces Aibileen to let Skeeter interview her for a book. Word spreads and eventually Skeeter interviews all of Aibileen's friends who work in white homes, including Minnie. They call the finished book Help.
You might think this story( Civil Rights in the 60's) has been told over and over and over again. And it has. But never like this. Just trust me on this. The Help is incredibly moving. It brings up things I had never thought of before. I never really thought about what it would be like to raise a child, to love them and have them love you. And suddenly they realize your different because of the colour of your skin and suddenly they think less of you. I never thought about how hard it would be to see that child's parents ignore them, to see that child hurting and you can't do anything about because your "just hired help". I can't imagine how awful that would be.
But don't get me wrong, this book isn't all serious. There are some really hilarious parts too. The Help is just an all around great book.
I can't wait to see the movie! It looks great! Take a look at this trailer:
The Help was rejected by 60 different publishing companies before it was finally accepted. Meanwhile, a friend of the author's decided to make it into a screen play. Now the book is a number 1 New York Times bestseller and the screen play is being made into a movie. Thank goodness because this is a really great book!
“Even though people may be well known, they hold in their hearts the emotions of a simple person for the moments that are the most important of those we know on earth: birth, marriage and death.” -Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Ever since I watched The Kennedy's series on the History channel, I wanted to learn more about the Kennedy family. I especially found Jackie Kennedy interesting. So I read a book called America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford.
To be honest, I didn't like the writing all that much, but I found Jackie's life fascinating. She was born on July 28 1929. She led an extraordinary life full of extreme joy and extreme grief. Jackie brought something new and glamorous to the White House when her husband, John F. Kennedy, became president on November 8 1960. She even went as far as to start the White House restoration project, forever leaving her mark.
In addition to this Jackie became a fashion icon, inspiring countless magazine articles. Even today her name goes hand in hand with good fashion sense. Pill box hats were her trade mark, as well as her bouffant hairstyle.
Jackie was an extremely complex person, a fact that all those close to her were well aware of. She enjoyed attention, but also highly valued privacy. This made her relationship with the press rocky to say the least. She was a very reserved and well mannered person, which made some people believe that she was snobby but she also had a great sense of humour.
Above all, Jackie was tough. She endured the death of two children; the assassination of her first husband as well as his brother Bobby, who she was very close to; and a whole string of other tragedies. Not to mention JFK's almost constant affairs and the pressure of being First Lady. And she did all of this with elegance and grace. That's what I must admire about her.
Jackie died before her time, on May 19 1994.
Jackie was loved not as the wife of the president, but as herself.
I have heard a lot of different opinions about last weeks royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Personally, I think it was great! I was one of those who got up at 5'oclock in the morning to watch it all. I even slept in front of the TV. And I stayed there all day long.
A lot of people have been pretty cynical about the whole thing. I've heard a lot of harping about how stupid people think it is. Well, I think that attitude is stupid! How often do we hear about news that is genuinely happy? William and Kate seem very happy and very in love and there is nothing wrong with celebrating it? Any accusations that they don't have a chance after what happened to William's parents are stupid. They are different people under different circumstances.
My favourite part was when Kate was coming down the aisle and Harry turned and whispered "wait until you see her!" to his brother. I also liked the carriage ride to Buckingham Palace.I liked every thing!
The other day me and my family were driving home from Barrie when a really old Rolling Stones song came on. I mean really old, I think it was a cover of an older song form the 50's. (I'm pretty sure it was before the Satisfaction days but don't take my word for it. I'm a Beatles girl :-) ) So any way me and my mom were rocking out when all of the sudden, out of the blue my brother says something to the effect of " This is stupid. I like music with emotion."
Whhhhhhaaattttt? " What's that supposed to mean? You don't think this song has emotion?" I demanded.
" Uh no. It's just some guy playing a guitar!" replied my brother. First of all, I'm pretty sure that's what closed minded parents thought about Elvis back in the day, aside from being horrified by his dance moves.
Then my brother asked me what kind of emotion I thought there was in that song. He thinks he's so smart.
" I don't know- jubilation (yes I actually said that- it was an in the moment thing) excitement, freedom, happiness! " What was his answer?
" Happiness isn't a emotion, it;s a feeling." Which is two different words for the same thing, last time I checked.
But I'm not writing this post to pick on my brother. That's just a bonus :-p This whole thing got me to thinking. A lot of the music we listen to, my brother included, tends to be sad or angry. That goes for other art forms too. People got tired of listening to music that didn't express all the crap that was going on in the world around them a few decades ago. Which isn't a bad thing but I think that now people might think that happy music- heck happiness in general- is uncool.
But it's not! It's okay to be happy! It's okay to listen to music that just makes you happy, even if it's not protesting world hunger. That doesn't make you blind to what's going on, it just makes you a human being who needs to escape from it for a bit. Who likes to be happy.
I stayed up late last night to finish reading Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography by Susan Cheever, so I thought I would let some of my enthusiasm out by writing this post.
In case you were wondering who in the heck Louisa May Alcott is, she wrote the classic novel Little Women and many other novels. I found it very interesting that a lot of the book Little Women ( published in 1868) reads like a autobiography. In many ways the fictional March family is like the real Alcott family. Like the Marchs, the Alcott family consisted of a strong, loving mother four daughters and a father. Louisa's sisters Anna, May and Lizzie became the fictional Meg, Beth and Amy. Much of the plot of Little Women mirrors Alcott's own experince.However there are some major differences .
Susan Cheever brings out the point in her book that many people believe that Alcott is Jo second fictional March sister. However this is not true. While Jo was much loved by her family for her tomboyishness, Alcott was often punished for it. I also found it interesting that the father in Little Women was mostly absent, Alcott's father was often a driving force in the family, dragging them into his harebrained scemes..
What I found most interesting was that Louisa May Alcott was an independant women in a time when this was almost unheard of. She remained single and suppored her family with her writing.
Even though Louisa May Alcott died at age 56 almost 150 years ago, she is remembered through her work.
Hi everyone! I haven't posted anything in a bit, but I thought I would talk about something that I saw on TV last night, namely the primer of a 4 part mini series called The Kennedys.
Apparently there was a lot of controversy about whether or not to air this show. I think the History Channel might have canceled it at one point but I'm not sure. I found it really interesting. I watched a special on TLC about the Kennedy's home videos and it caught my interest so I'm really glad that they decided to air the mini series.
So far I think the acting is pretty good. Barry Pepper, who plays Bobby, is so much like the real thing that it is almost creepy :-)
One of the things that really struck me in the first episode was the ambition of Joe Kennedy and the way that his whole family listened to whatever he said. I wonder how that is going to play out in future episodes?
The Kennedys is on the History Channel Sundays at 9:00. Watch it! :-)
Hiya! This week I'm gonna tell ya what I've been reading! I thought I would wait to continue with this until I've read something good enough to actually have something to talk about. So I'm not rambling on. Like I am right now :-)
Any ways I've read two really good books lately.
So the first is Anna Karenina. I know, I know. Intense right? Not really. For those of you who aren't book nerds, Anna Karenina was written a couple hundred years ago by a Russian guy named Leo Tolstoy. It's about a woman named Anna Karenina (Quelle surprise! :-) ) who has an affair with a Count and has to deal with the consequences of her decision. At least that's what it's about on the surface.
A lot of people are scared of Tolstoy. This is understandable. An 800 page book written originally in Russian is a little intimidating. At least I thought it was. But I was wrong. Anna Karenina was surprisingly easy to read. I got completely lost in it. I think Tolstoy was very brave to write so frankly about a subject that was so taboo at the time. I sometimes find that books written in the same time period as Anna Karenina are a little unrealistic. I sometimes wonder if people really spoke that way. But in Anna Karenina I had not problem imagining the characters yelling at each other, laughing, crying.
It's definitely a great book. I also just finished reading Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen. It was amazing! It's about a young vet named Jacob who joined a circus during the Depression. It has a little bit of everything. It's happy, sad and moving all at once. I don't want to give anything away. All I can say is you need to read it!
