Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

In Big Brother, Pandora is sandwiched (pun intended) between a manic cycling, health food eating husband, Fletcher, and a grossly obese brother, Edison. When Edison moves in with the family, tensions run high. He pretty much overtakes the whole house not just with his size, but his large personality and stories of his past accomplishments and adventures. His eating is totally out of control and Pandora decides this has to change. At the risk of losing her family, she rents an apartment for herself and Edison and helps him lose the weight.

I just love Shriver's work. While this one isn't my favourite of hers, I really, really enjoyed it. The cast of characters is eclectic and absurd: Fletcher, a builder of unique custom made furniture and fanatic cyclist; Pandora, a manufacturer of wacky dolls; Edison, a jazz musician; Travis, Pandora's and Edison's father, a TV host, and Tanner and Cody, Pandora's and Fletcher's kids. They seemed pretty normal next to everyone else in the cast, however, they too had their problems.

I've struggled with my weight most of my life so the story resonated with me. Even though their experience is very different from mine, I enjoyed reading about their story. I never have and never would attempt a crash diet like they did. Also, Edison's pre-diet bingeng sort of surprised me. I have a healthy appetite, but bingeing isn't something I've ever done, at least not to this extent.

I loved reading Pandora's point of view on her weight loss. Her weight was an issue for her, but she really didn't have that much to lose. Why she chose a crash diet is beyond me? Perhaps it was to support her brother, which was admirable, but perhaps not that realistic. Shriver's whole portrayal of Pandora was insightful and fascinating.

The book contained a few noteworthy quotes:

I believed...that the number of that dial [of the scale] was a verdict on my very character. It appraised whether I was strong, whether I was self-possessed, whether I was someone anyone else would conceivably wish to be. (from Pandora, page 230)

"Put that on my gravestone", said Edison. It hasn't all totally completely sucked. (page 310)

While I enjoyed the book, I admit that the ending had me baffled. It was just so unexpected and confusing. I don't want to say any more than that.

I've read a few other books by Shriver. Here are links to my reviews: The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and So Much for That. I really enjoyed them all.

Highly recommended. I have a few other books by Shriver on my to-be-read shelf that I hope to get to sooner or later. I admire Shriver and her strong opinions on social issues. I don't always agree with her, but I love that she isn't afraid to make a statement.

For more information about this book, please visit the HarperCollins website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at HarperCollins for this review copy.

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver, HarperCollins, ©2013. ISBN 9780061458576(Trade paperback), 373p.

Needlework Tuesday - Zentangles and More

Needlework Tuesday is a post where I share my needlework and other crafting projects.  Here's a quick update on a few of the things I've been working on.  

I've completed 5 weeks of my "year-long" Zentangle project.  Every day, I create a 3.5"x3.5"  tile using one tangle pattern.  With this tile, I'm basically learning the pattern.  Sometimes I'll try out a few variations; other times I'll complete the whole tile with the basic pattern or a variation I like.  Then at the end of the week (usually Saturday) I combine all of the patterns onto one tile.   Here are my end-of-week Zentangle inspired drawings: 

Week 1: Planateen, Lanie, IX, Well, Pippin, Spyz, Crusade

 

 Week 2: Riki-Tiki, Ionic, Worms, Nine Patch, Floatfest, Plates, Leaftlet

 

Week 3: Warped Eggs, Chime, Kandysnake, Minouche, Scrumble, Inapod, Beamz

 

Week 4:  Exis, Bales, DL Nebula, Framz, Aura-leah, AAs, Arrowheads,

 

Week 5: Triadz, Betweed, Pegs, Merryweather, Solow, Blink, Cack 

 

I've included the names of the patterns used below each tile.  I tend to waffle a bit on the whole pattern naming idea, but it sure makes it easier if I find one I like and want to look up how it's done.  Anyway, I've included them for reference.    

 

I haven't included photos of the daily tiles because I really didn't want to post all of those photos.  Some of them are really nice, but many of them are unremarkable.   So far, the project has been going ok, but I'm sort of losing steam.   I'm finding that I have less time do to this each day.  Also,  I'm not thrilled with some of the stuff about Zentangles that I've seen online.  I just might just cut this project short.

 

One note about the above photos:  I shouldn't have used my macro lens to shoot these.  It really highlights all of my shaky lines, which is the opposite of what I'd like.  :(

 

The other thing I've been sort of working on is my temperature scarf.   It's up-to-date as of October 4.  I just recently started using the lighter yellow (which represents temperatures between 7C - 14C).   I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the greens (dark for 0C - 6C, light -1C - -7C) creep in.  As you can see, I still have tons of ends to weave in. 

 

 

The last thing I was working on was my long wrap. If you remember from a month ago, it was skewing to the right. I tried a pattern adjustment suggested by Heather and her sister, but it didn't quite work fix the problem. I'm definitely going to scrap the thing and make something else. Just not right away.

I'll hope to be looking into some Christmas crafts soon, but it might be a bit early for me.

That's it for this week.
Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather over at Books and Quilts.

Star Wars: The Secret Life of Droids by Jason Fry

Happy Star Wars Reads Day! It's the day where people all around North America celebrate Star Wars and reading. As I mentioned the other day, DK Publishing is celebrating by offering 30% off Star Wars books (for a limited time). These terrific books can be found in their Star Wars Boutique.

For more information about Star Wars Reads Day, go to the official site. There are activities planned all across North America.

A free downloadable Star Wars Reads Activity Kit with recipes, crafts, colouring pages and games can found at both the DK site and the official Star Wars Reads Day site.

Today, I'm posting a review of one of the books in DK's Star Wars Boutique. 

May the force be with you. 

Star Wars: The Secret Life of Droids features all different types of droids from the Star Wars universe. Readers will learn about their functions, technology, missions, and lives.

I really enjoyed this book. I was only familiar with a couple of the droids, namely R2-D2 and C-3PO, so the rest of the books was really enlightening. A few of the others looked familiar, but I didn't really know much about them. It's all fascinating stuff.

The book contains lots of photos and tons of information about droids. Some of the information is presented in a question and answer format. Questions include: Can a droid by trusted to complete a mission?, How are droids made?, How does C-3PO relax?, etc. I really like this format. There are some really good questions I hadn't thought of. My favourite: Do droids have friends? You'll just have to read the book to find out the answer.

The types of droids are presented in sections. It mostly presents the material in general terms. That is, it doesn't focus on any one particular droid, but rather a class of droids. There are two notable and delightful exceptions: R2-D2 (astro-droid) and C-3PO (protocol droid). ;)

The "droid data" buttons feature some interesting trivia while the side boxes provides cool stats about the different droids. There's a lot I didn't know.

There were lots of cool pages and topics in this book. Here are my favourites:
Droids Versus Life-form (pages 10-11)
Types of Droids (pages 12-13)
A Day in the Life of a Droid Trader (pages 56-57)
Droids for Sale (pages 58-59)
How to Choose a Droid 60-61)
Droid or Not? (pages 82-83)

The book contains a table of contents, a glossary and an index.

Highly recommended for the Star Wars fan.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at DK Canada for this review copy.

Star Wars: The Secret Life of Droid by Jason Fry, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2012. ISBN 9780756690151(Hardcover), 95p.

Star Wars: Character Encyclopedia by Simon Beecroft

Happy Star Wars Reads Day! It's the day where people all around North America celebrate Star Wars and reading. As I mentioned the other day, DK Publishing is celebrating by offering 30% off Star Wars books (for a limited time). These terrific books can be found in their Star Wars Boutique.

For more information about Star Wars Reads Day, go to the official site. There are activities planned all across North America.

A free downloadable Star Wars Reads Activity Kit with recipes, crafts, colouring pages and games can found at both the DK site and the official Star Wars Reads Day site.

Today, I'm posting a review of one of the books in DK's Star Wars Boutique. 

May the force be with you. 

Star Wars: Character Encyclopedia features more than 200 characters from all six Star Wars films plus the Clone Wars. It gives various statistics and information on each of the characters.

Great book!! It was so much some to learn all of the cool facts about each of the characters. I loved that the book was presented alphabetically by character's first name or title. That made it easy to find the characters I was most interested in reading about. I did eventually go through them all, but I wanted to find my favourites first.

Each character takes up one page. There's a large labelled photograph of the character in addition to smaller photos and lots of information about the character. The data file lists various attributes of the characters. It's different for the character types, but it could include:
• affiliation
• type
• manufacturer
• height
• home world
• species
• diet
• habitat
• life span
• appearances (lists the movies in which the character appears)
• See Also (lists similar or related characters)

All of these were helpful to know, but I especially loved the "affiliation" and "appearances" ones. Because I'm not the most avid Star Wars fan and I didn't recognize a bunch of the characters right off, but these two attributes helped to put the characters into context. The characters who appear in only 1 or 2 of the movies (or the Clone Wars, which I haven't watched at all) were the ones most elusive to me. I think I have a much better handle on everyone now.

Table of contents has all of the characters listed with page numbers. The book also contains an index, which is especially helpful for characters who go by more than one name.

Highly recommended. The book is written for 7-17 year-olds, but I think adults (like me) will also enjoy this book.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at DK Canada for this review copy.

Star Wars: Character Encyclopedia by Simon Beecroft, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2011. ISBN 9780756682538(Hardcover), 208p.

Happy Star Wars Reads Day!! More Books to Enjoy.

Happy Star Wars Reads Day! It's the day where people all around North America celebrate Star Wars and reading. As I mentioned the other day, DK Publishing is celebrating by offering 30% off Star Wars books (for a limited time). These terrific books can be found in their Star Wars Boutique.

For more information about Star Wars Reads Day, go to the official site. There are activities planned all across North America.

A free downloadable Star Wars Reads Activity Kit with recipes, crafts, colouring pages and games can found at both the DK site and the official Star Wars Reads Day site.

In the past, I've reviewed a number of Star Wars titles in DK's Star Wars Boutique.  The links to my reviews for books I reviewed previously can be found below.
 

Star Wars: Mysteries of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary

You Can Draw Star Wars

Star Wars: Year by Year Visual Chronicle


Please note that some of the covers and content might have been changed since I reviewed these.

Have a great day and may the force be with you! 

Star Wars: Beware the Dark Side by Simon Beecroft

Happy Star Wars Reads Day! It's the day where people all around North America celebrate Star Wars and reading. As I mentioned the other day, DK Publishing is celebrating by offering 30% off Star Wars books (for a limited time). These terrific books can be found in their Star Wars Boutique.

For more information about Star Wars Reads Day, go to the official site. There are activities planned all across North America.

A free downloadable Star Wars Reads Activity Kit with recipes, crafts, colouring pages and games can found at both the DK site and the official Star Wars Reads Day site.

Today, I'm posting a review of one of the books in DK's Star Wars Boutique. 

May the force be with you. 

Star Wars: Beware the Dark Side takes young readers through the dark side of the Star Wars universe while learning more about Darth Sidious, Darth Maul and Darth Vader.

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot. For some reason, the description on the website made me think that it was a storybook featuring Star Wars characters. However, it's not, but I still enjoyed it. The book delves into the details of the dark side and features the characters who use the force for evil. It goes through the Sith legacy and powers before launching into the various characters. It does go into the Star Wars storyline a little bit, but it's quite segmented.

The book is written for young proficient readers. Some knowledge of the Star Wars universe might be helpful. The book also features a table of contents, glossary, and index.

Highly recommended for young Star Wars fans.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at DK Canada for this review copy.

Star Wars: Beware the Dark Side by Simon Beecroft, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2007. ISBN 9780756631147(Softcover), 49p.

Star Wars Reads Day - October 5, 2013

October 5, 2013 is Star Wars Reads Day.  It celebrates Star Wars and reading.

DK Publishing is celebrating by offering 30% off Star Wars books (for a limited time). These terrific books can be found in their Star Wars Boutique.

For more information about Star Wars Reads Day, go to the official site. There are activities planned all across North America.

A free downloadable Star Wars Reads Activity Kit with recipes, crafts, colouring pages and games can found at both the DK site and the official Star Wars Reads Day site.

I'll be celebrating the day by posting a few reviews of the Star Wars books offered by DK Publishing.

Until then....May the force be with you.