Items good and bad

1) The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray is officially out in four days. Woo hoo!

2) I have just purchased the Labyrinth Soundtrack and it is fabulous. When I hear a song, I can see exactly what's happening in the movie, even though it's been years since I last saw it. Labyrinth is the best movie ever made, and no one will ever convince me otherwise. Jim Hensen, Goblins, Jennifer Connelly, and David Bowie in tight pants! You can't go wrong.

3) Today at the library I noticed two young boys, around 5 and 8 years old, sitting in the children's section. They were just sitting there looking sad and incredibly bored. So I went over to talk with them. And apparently their Dad had ditched them to go and do something on the adult side of the library. So I asked them if they would like to look at some books while they were waiting, and they said no. And I said, "Well, you look bored. I'll go find you some books and you guys can look at the pictures." So I found some picture books, brought them back to them. And they didn't even open them. They sat there for 45 minutes, completely bored, with an entire children's department of books surrounding them. It was so frustrating, because I don't want to force books on unwilling kids, but I mean really, what is this world coming to??? Obviously their parents don't read to them at all. If my parents had ditched me at a library at that age (or any age) I would've been in heaven.

4) I noticed that SB over at Digital Diamonds has attempted to read God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and found it... lacking. I read this book a few months ago, but just never got around to posting about it. Basically, although I agree with the sentiment behind the book whole-heartedly, I have to say that it is a spectacularly badly-written book. First of all, it's a tough slog at times because he uses a lot of big complicated words. Sometimes it's good to add a new word to your vocabulary, but there are other times when it is completely unnecessary. Hitchens may think he sounds intelligent, but really all he's done is make his book inaccessible to normal people. People who don't have the patience to wade through his overly-complex prose. If you want to convince people of your point of view, then you should probably try to speak to them on their level.

Secondly, and more importantly, he meanders. He starts out the book well with a well-organized introduction. And each chapter seems to start out fairly well, with a clear direction of where he wants to end up. After that's where it all falls to pieces. He meanders of topic, goes into various asides, and often ends the chapter in a completely different place than where you thought you were headed at the beginning. If I had turned in essays like that in university, I would've gotten a C-plus, at the most. I don't know a lot about him, but I think I read somewhere that the guy's a journalist. For someone who is supposed to write for a living, he sure doesn't appear to have had much practice.

Really, the book in general is a pretty big disappointment. It promises so much with it's bold controversial title, and then just ends up being barely mediocre. Sad, sad, sad.

5) Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!