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Top Ten Reads for 2012

Listed here will be ten books that I would like to read this coming year. The Titles are not listed in any particular order.




#1 Our Culture, Whats Left Of It: The Mandarins and the Masses

• Theodore Dalrymple




• 2005




• 360

This book title I found on the internet. I think the book will be interesting because it is a commentary on our society. The book is lengthy, but its also very modern so it might not be that bad to tackle.

#2 Pride and Prejudice

• Jane Austin




• 1813




• 448

This is a pretty cliche book to want to read, but I'm a college bound high school student so this book wouldn't hurt to have under my belt. I enjoyed the movie, so I'll enjoy the book.

#3 The Color Purple

• Alice Walker




• 1982




• 272

This is a book I've always wanted to read, but I've never got around to it because of my procrastination problem. I mainly want to read it just so I can say, "The book is WAAAY better than the movie." The book isn't too bad in length, and it was written in the 80's, so the difficulty level shouldn't be bad. I can handle it.

#4 Shadow and Act

• Ralph Ellison




• 1964




• 317

I mainly want to read this because I read Invisible Man and I loved it. I know this will be a doozy, because I had to do a lot of re-reading in Invisible Man, but I'm sure I'll enjoy this book. Ellison has a very sophisticated style of writing, so if I read sophisticated writing I will then become sophisticated.

#5 The Portrait of A Lady

• Henry James


• 1881


• 656

This was a title I found while looking up a page number for one of the other books on this list. The title caught my eye because I'm on this quest to being a sophisticated lady, so I thought reading this book would help me reach my goal. Turns out the book is a typical romance novel. Of course, I'm down to read it because everyone knows Wendy Miya loves romance. The length of the book is ridiculous, and it was written in 1881! We'll see if I make it through all of the pages.

#6 Cry, The Beloved Country

• Alan Paton


• 1948


• 329

As, I'm typing this reflection that I want to read a lot of books because I've seen the movie. Anyway, I'm interested in this book because it is set in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I was born. That is basically it, the story is very sad and I like a good cry every now and again. The length isn't too bad, and I'm sure the writing style is not the worst I've seen. I'm always prepared with the Dictionary app if worst comes to worst.

#7 A Shore Thing

• Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi


• 2010


• 304

I want to read this book, because I know it will be a critically acclaimed literary classic. All sarcasm aside, I actually love snooki and I'm sure I'll get a good chuckle out of this book. Its light, not too long and I KNOW its not a difficult read.

#8 The Book Of Awesome

• Neil Pasricha


• 2011


• 402

This book is another book that is gonna be really easy and quick to read. I'll enjoy because I love books like this one. Basically, I love lists.

#9 Kardashian Konfidential

• Kourtney, Khloe, Kim Kardashian


• 2010


• 256

Not only am I interested in deep topics, but I'm interested in the shallowest of topics as well. For exampe, I love the Kardashians and everything about their lives. I'm shocked I haven't read this book yet. It'll be a quick easy read, so my classy lady books won't feel lonely.

#10 Murder Inc.: The Story Of the Syndicate

• Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder
  


• 1951
  


• 512 pages

Murder Inc: The Story of the Syndicate(1951) by Burton B. turkus and Sid Feder is one of the titles I found while trolling the Internet for book titles. After growing up watching mob movies, I have developed a slight obsession with organized crime. This book seems like it would indulge my obsession, so why not read it. The number of pages scares me, but If the book is good it shouldn't matter. I also enjoy old-school phrases which, according to my research the book is full of.

Fitzgerald's hopeless and reminiscent tone shows how he feels about how people treat the things they love and want the most.

Fitzgerald says "and as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes..." The word moon makes the reader think of the night and the word night is usually correlated with struggles and obstacles. Then the section that says "inessential houses began to melt away" those houses are being compared to the struggles in the night, so when they "melt away" it is like the struggles are melting away. Then later it says "I became aware of the old island" this is like when people have a dream there will always be obstacles in the way and so those obstacles make the dreamer lose sight of that dream. Fitzgerald is saying that we need to let the world be still, like the shore that night, and let the obstacles "melt away" so people can focus on their dream, which at that time, and still today, was the American Dream.

In the twenties, when this book was written, the was a small sexual revolution. People were more open about the topic of sex. Fitzgerald used that new openness, when he correlates seeing the new world from the shore to seeing a breast. He is saying that seeing the new world puts the same gleam or sparkle in a man's eye as seeing a breast.

Humans are always looking in the past, but want a great future. He says that "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. " Then he says " So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." both of these quotes talk about a humans struggle between the future and the past. The second quote is a metaphor that compares people to boats going against a current. People are always trying to move to the future but the past keeps pulling them back.

In this passage Fitzgerald is basically saying that humans are always striving and dreaming and hoping for a better future ,and that they should not lose sight of their dreams and hopes just because a few obstacles get in their way. We have to "beat" on and not let the "current" of life push us back.

3rd 9weeks reading list

I have read 3 books, the equivalent of 6 books



Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison



Copper Sun- Sharon Draper



The V Club- Kate Brian



Copper Sun by Sharon Draper is about a girl named Amari who becomes a slave. She lives in a village in Africa but is kidnapped by people who seem like friends and her and many other young people are transported to America to be slaves. She meets a girl and they work together to find their freedom. I liked this book because it really shows how slavery was, even though the book is fictional it is very accurate.

Forster's My Wood

Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .

This is an ad I saw at the movie theater. What was funny was that I saw it after I complained about how expensive concessions were on top of the outrageous ticket prices. It really is a good deal if you are like me and don't like to spend one thousand dollars at the movies.

When I first saw the add I got really excited because I thought that concession prices were finally dropping. I suddenly realized it said stimulus Tuesday, and that these prices were only valid on Tuesday's. Now, in the summer a movie on a Tuesday night is okay, but during the school year no one's parents allows them to go to the movie theater on a Tuesday.

This move by the theater was pretty good. They realized that if they lowered concession prices on a Tuesday night that they would get more customers and the revenue wouldn't suffer because they would gain more people and make up for the price drop because before the discount there were less people coming.

Be A Child Star?? I Wish!

We all know who Will Smith is. Yes, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. Well he's moved past those days and has a had a few kids. His son, Jayden, has starred in a few movies, But I wanna focus on little Willow who has just recently hit the scene. Some of you guys might have heard her little tune "Whip My Hair." She is a very talented little girl and a little bit too mature. Recently I went I was reading through some blogs that I regularly visit and I came across an article about little Willow Smith. The article was about an interview she had, and she said that "people are relying on her." After I read the whole article and the opinions Miss Jia gave I agreed with her.

Should Children be allowed to become Stars?

This is a hard question to answer, because when you child has that much talent you want their talent to be brodcasted to the world. The thing that made me think about this issue is that she felt like people were relying on her, and like Miss Jia brought up is she feeling pressured to become a star? I think that if a child wants to be "famous" then they should be allowed to pursue their dreams. Then again we've all heard the stories about child stars like Gary Coleman, Drew Barrymore and many other adults who were once child stars. We've heard about their problems and how their lives were not normal and how they felt like they weren't children. It is a very hard thing to think about because of the high percentage of tragic stories, but I still think that if the child wants to pursue their dream then they should be able to.