Yes, my Kindle sleeps next to me

I am the proud and unassuming owner of an Amazon Kindle. It was given to me almost a year ago by my good friend, Evan, who said “If anyone in the world needs one, Monet – it’s you.” And boy did he create a monster. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love books. I love how books smell, especially borrowed books from the library (smoke, powder, cheese?). I love the overall aesthetic look of books and I love how if you’ve read one book enough, you can open it right to your favorite parts. And there’s something to be said about how awesome your bookshelf looks crowded with books. But seriously, the world of the e-reader is just as awesome. Here are my top five reasons why you might want to consider coming to the dark side: Read more »

Best television show ever? I'll fight you over that.

I’m an absolute huge fan of Lost (so much of a fan it required two adjectives), and unless you’re living under a rock, you probably know that the sixth and final season started a few weeks ago. I won’t go into how depressed I am that the show is going to end, or how upset I am that they switched it to Tuesday nights while I’m in class (the nerve of ABC, not checking my class schedule).

While Lost has its roots firmly in science fiction (as the producers said, a non-genre answer to all the questions wouldn’t be satisfying), it also has a tendency of throwing little bits of awesomeness to the literary crowd. Namely, the show has featured all sorts of books, sometimes as just tiny details, sometimes as works that affected characters lives. One character, Desmond, talks about how his love for Dickens and names his sailboat Our Mutual Friend. Two antagonistic characters quote Of Mice and Men at each other. The conman character reads everything he can get his hands on and a fight erupts over Watership Down. There’s a nod to Carroll with an episode title. There are more, but others before me have already done lists of the works featured.

So on the one hand, we have something self-labeled as sci-fi. On the other, with reference to a wide range of books, making the (well developed) characters feel like they’re actually in our world, like they might actually exist (or maybe that last is my wishful thinking). Genre vs. literature wars aside, I love this show, and completely want to believe that watching it, in someway, makes me literary. Maybe once I graduate I’ll read my way through the Lost reading guide.