Mothers

I want to take a quick second to throw a huge 'Happy Mother's Day' put there to all the moms in the world. Whether you gave birth to them, adopted them, took them in, became a step-mom, are a dad playing both roles or even if you gave them up to better their lives, today is about you. As a mom, I do think it's a little bogus that, for all moms do, we only get one day of recognition so make it count. Go do something special for the moms in your life today. Even something as simple as telling her how much you love and appreciate her will mean the world. Just don't forget to tell them on the other days of the year as well.

I have a fantastic mom, a wonderful mother-in-law (seriously!), perfect grandmothers, and even a great woman who became the step-mom to my oldest children after my divorce. She takes care of my boys like her own when they are at her house and I'm very grateful for that. Happy Mother's Day!

# 11 Tess of the d'Urbervilles

I just finished Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. It took me awhile to get into this book. First, because the copy I had downloaded was riddled with typos and strange grammar. Secondly, because I am used to more contemporary novels and it took me a little while to get the hang of the language. I ended up finding a different version of the book online which made reading it so much easier. Once I got past that hurdle, I was able to really get into the story. I really enjoyed the book, despite the fact that I found myself getting angrier and angrier at the circumstances that Tess kept finding herself in.

From here on out this post could be filled with spoilers, so consider yourself warned. It broke my heart that this  poor girl was never able to catch a break and she was taken advantage of by almost every person she meets, including her parents. First her parents send her away so she can claim some supposed, ancient, familial claim that they are sure will better their circumstances. In doing that she is exposed to Alec, who also takes advantage of her innocent nature in the worst way before she is sent back home, in ruin. Back at home, her parents seem to just hold her in contempt because she wasn't able to come home with a 'proper' husband, just an illegitimate baby. It seems that the baby inherited his mother's luck and becomes deadly ill soon after birth. The whole scene where Tess is trying to get her baby a baptism before he dies, only to be refused by her father is heartbreaking. I could feel her desperation when she takes it upon herself to baptize the baby and then asks the priest if it's 'just as good'. When she meets Angel you hope that finally she'll be able to have something good in her life, something she actually deserves, and I really hoped Angel would forgive her for her past, especially since she was taken advantage of. However, Angel disappointed me more than everyone else, including Alec. He was a hypocrite and to treat her the way he did after confessing that he'd committed the very same sin was just beyond cruel.

I'll admit that when Alec came back into the picture I really held onto the hope that he was sincere in his approach to Tess. That he really felt remorse and was trying to earn redemption for his act. As the story progressed you could see that it was not the case. He was back to his old self, lying and manipulating Tess to get what he wanted from her and I was mad that she fell for it, again. I wanted her to be older and wiser but in the end she fell right into his plot and it led to her ultimate downfall.

So, I liked it, despite being incredibly angry and sad about the outcome. Not everything has to have a happy ending and I'm finding that the ones that don't are usually the ones I like the best. That's just me though, maybe I'm too old for fairytale endings.

Project Gutenberg

A few days ago I was informed of a fabulous collection of free ebooks called Project Gutenberg. They have a collection of over 30,000 books available to read online or download in several formats. Did I mention that these 30,000 books are available for FREE? Who doesn't love that? These are older books who are available because their copyright has expired, so you won't be finding the latest best-sellers but you will find many, many older classic books. I've been using it to read Tess of the D'Urbervilles since the free copy I had found was littered with typos. Their copy was fantastic, no typos or missing quotations marks. So, I just wanted to pass along this information to any and everyone because I think it's just a marvelous resource.

I'd like to give a huge shout-out to Jump_Raven for filling me in on it.  Thanks a ton!

Getting what you pay for (or don't)

I was ecstatic a few days ago when I discovered that I could download at least 35 books from my list for free to read on my desktop e-reader (I don't have a portable e-reader, yet, so I'm stuck reading on my laptop). When I finished Through the Looking Glass, I decided to try out one of these free e-books. I settled on Tess of the D'Urbervilles, having heard about the book but never actually read it.

The copy I downloaded for free was digitized from a 1921 volume. When I downloaded it I thought nothing of this. Words are words, the story will be the same, as long as it's typed it'll be no different than one being printed today. Oh, how wrong I was. Apparently spell checking wasn't used much in the 20's. Neither was proof-reading, either that or something went seriously wrong during the process of digitizing the book. In the first several pages the mistakes were enough to drive a person mad. In the middle of a sentence it'll cut to a new paragraph, like someone accidentally hit the 'Enter' key and didn't bother to fix it, just kept on typing. Quotation marks are very much nonexistent so it's hard to tell what a person is saying out loud or just thinking. The misspelled words are in overabundance, including the names of the main characters, and some to the extent that I can't tell what it's supposed to say. Yes, I realize that the process of printing books was much more difficult in the 20's than it is now so I'll forgive it, but it's incredibly frustrating.

However, it was free, so I have very little room to complain too much. You get what you pay for and I didn't pay anything, so I should be grateful to get anything at all. As I read more it's becoming less noticeable to me and I'm quickly picking up where the quotations should be so it's becoming easier to read. Plus, I'm very thrifty so I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If I want something for free, I'll have to live with the imperfections.

#10 Through the Looking Glass

I finally managed to get some quiet time last night after my daughter went to bed. I took a long bath and finished off Through the Looking Glass. I loved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland so I figured I would love this one too and I enjoyed it but not nearly as much as the other. It was fun and silly and easy to read but I'm not sure if I was rhymed out or just tired but I was having a hard time getting as engaged in the story as I did with Alice in Wonderland. It just didn't draw me in and I found that my mind would wander to other things as I was reading. It's OK though, I still really liked it and I'm sure I'll come across many books on the list that I really don't like, probably even a few that I downright hate.

I'm hoping to move right into a new book today, though I have no idea which one yet. I'll have to go through what I have available and pick one a little later today. I have a paper for my English class tonight that needs to be attended to first as well as reading a few scenes of Streetcar Named Desire for the same class. I hate leaving it to the last minute but I need to decide on a controversial topic for my paper and I can't pick one. I better get on it, class starts in 6 hours.

Happy Discovery!

Before starting this journey I was very anti the e-reader trend. I'm still not 100% sold on the idea of e-readers like the NOOK  or the Kindle but I'm getting real close. I just really love the look, feel, smell of a real book, or dead-tree books as I've seen them be called. Maybe I'm a little old school but I like to snuggle into a chair with a book and can't see the e-reader being able to replicate that feeling. Not to mention that the idea of a massive library of books being replaced by one little electronic device just breaks my heart. However, when I started this journey it dawned on me that 1001 books is quite a lot, especially when it was my intention to buy more often than not because I love buying books and having them at my disposal. Now I'm met with a few conundrums. First, is that 1001 books takes up a fair amount of space, which I don't have a ton of. I could borrow from the library but like the idea of building up a family library of books for my children to be able to access as they grow older. My second, and probably more important, conundrum is that 1001 books actually costs quite a bit of money, something else I don't have a ton of. Of course, I'm not buying them all at one time so it's much more manageable but it's still a concern.

So, getting back to the e-reader debate, I had the idea of e-book downloads brought up to me by a friend. I sort of blew off the suggestion because of my e-book prejudice but the idea simmered in my head for a few days. This weekend while sitting home bored I began looking up the specs and reviews on the different kinds of e-readers, trying to keep an open mind. I do love the idea of having so many books, so easily at my disposal, especially on vacations or long car rides. As I researched them I find that the idea is becoming more and more tempting.

While checking out the Nook on the Barnes and Noble site I found that they have several classics available for free download. That was enough of an incentive for me to download their desktop reader to my laptop to check out. Today I searched the free e-book selections for anything that may be on my 1001 list and found 35 books easily! I downloaded those immediately and added them to my 'to be read' list. It was like Christmas or my birthday come early! 35 free books and more possibly to come when I look harder. YAY! Now the idea of buying an e-reader is becoming much more appealing since I don't want to read all those on my laptop, I may go blind staring at my screen for that long. So now I need to ask around for opinions on the different kinds of e-readers for pros and cons of each kind. I have plenty of time since my disposable income is limited and it'll take me awhile to save up enough for one. At least I have plenty of free reading material now so I can put my book money towards my e-reader fund.

I still kind of feel like a dead-tree book traitor.

Lazy, cold Saturday

Well, it's May! My favorite month of the year and not just because it includes the day of my birth. May is like the gateway to summer, a promise that it's just around the corner. However this week has been full of snow, rain, hail and other general unpleasantness so my May day is a little overcast and a tad chilly. I am not pleased.

So here I am, on what should be a nice warm day, stuck inside with nothing to do and a whiny four year old. I should be out playing in my yard, or laying on the grass finishing my book. Nope, not going to happen today. To top it off I just paid rent and am saving for a vacation we're taking next week so I lack the funds to go out and do anything as well. I could (and should) finishing cleaning the house but there's really no fun in that. I also have several recipes that need typed up for my class on Tuesday but again, where's the fun in doing homework?

I attempted to read but the aforementioned child kept climbing on me and nagging for juice every time I tried. I'm feeling like this day is destined to be spent on the couch, watching crap on TV and generally doing as little as possible. Actually now that I think about it, that doesn't seem like too bad of a plan.