Books and Blogs and (A and) B-Movies

I've been hearing and thinking about this quote quite a bit lately: 'Write the book you want to read.' And I think I have a related corollary: 'Read the books you wish you'd written.' There are so many books and so little time (relatively speaking) that we just can't afford to read things that are lazy, or stupid, or derivative, or just bad for us. I remember also hearing sometime ago that you should never read a book that's less than a year old - and while there are still some authors that I like and trust and whose work I'll buy the minute it's released, in general I think that waiting is a good strategy. That way there's time for hype to settle, and for something to pick up Amazon reviews (I'm also trying not to read things that have less than 50 generally positive Amazon reviews, as I do a whole lot of my reading through my Kindle these days - ooh, and if a novel that's only a couple of years old is free for the Kindle, there's generally a very good reason for that, with a few exceptions... TANGENT) and you can really make an informed decision about something you're about to commit a good chunk of your time too!

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So I have this former student (well, she's not really my student, she's one of Phaid's students that I briefly taught and think is fabulous) who used to take a lot of teasing (PATRICK) for not believing in 'love'. It was really great, therefore, to see her post a link to A BLOG ABOUT LOVE: A Love Story with the preface: 'THIS. It's real, it happens, and I want my own.' She happens to be gorgeous, smart, talented, funny (obviously, we have a lot in common) and we have a similar taste in websites (particularly fashion commentary) so I figured this would be something extraordinary... AND IT IS. And she's absolutely right. That's what I want, too. (Kristen, if I stumble across any potential British candidates I will certainly send them your way - and if you run across any applicable older men let me know, -K-?)

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I saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was charming and delightful, with my friend Gemma last night, who is also charming and delightful. I'm fairly sure we were the two youngest people in the audience. (Also, The Decoy Bride, starring Kelly Macdonald and David Tennant, is not nearly as terrible as the critics made it out to be. It's not particularly good, but it's not horrific, either. And there are some good one-liners. And the scenery's great. And David Tennant.)

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I wouldn't mind a good sheep-stealing raid every now and then, myself. (Sorry. You'll just have to watch the film.)

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