2008 Books Read List

I'm updating the sidebar to have 2009 books read, so here is the copy and paste of 2008

• A Mercy, Toni Morrison
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
• The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold
• Therapy, David Lodge
• The Story of Edgar Sawtell, David Wroblewski
• La Place, Annie Ernaux
• STALLED (started reading) : The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
• Half Assed, Jennette Fulda
• Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
• l'Occupation, Annie Ernaux
• The Fourth Bear, Jasper Fforde
• The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
• Matilda, Roald Dahl
• Under the Volcano, Malcom Lowry
• Getting Things Done, David Allen
• A Death in the Family, James Agee
• In the Country of Last Things, Paul Auster
• A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, Julian Barnes
• Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
• Six Sick Hipsters, Rayo Casablanca
• The Autograph Man, Zadie Smith
• Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Alternatives to Sex, Stephen McCauley
• Empire Falls, Richard Russo
• Suite Française, Irène Némirovsky
• No Country For Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
• Rabbit is Rich, John Updike
• The Kite Runner, Khalad Hosseini
• Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

Almost Famous - movie

I should have tried to sleep, but instead I played with the video on demand on my flight and found Almost Famous, a movie I'd missed in the theatres and that I knew I'd never buy on DVD. It was an enjoyable film, the best of the 3 I saw on planes that day... granted, 20-odd hours into my trip, I wasn't very picky...

The Wedding Date - movie

I watched The Wedding Date with Debra Messing & the very adorable Dermot Mulroney on the flight back to Paris. There were a couple of really sexy scenes with Mulroney that pretty much made the movie worthwhile, although I can admit it is classic chick flick trash. Since I rarely watch this kind of movie I have no problem enjoying it when I do!

Ghost Town - movie

I watched Ghost Town on a flight from Denver to Newark. It was not a great movie and I would have been disappointed had I made any effort whatsoever to choose it - be it with my time or my money, but since it was in front of my face and I was eating lunch on the plane I at least didn't feel ripped off. Greg Kinnear is pretty annoying and has basically not changed since he started acting.

It's hard to believe this got a 7.3 rating on imdb... it really was not a good movie.

Doubt - movie

I went to see Doubt with my mom and her wonderful friend Hildegard. I'm really glad we went, it was a great movie with amazing acting, and I fear I would have missed it had my mom not been in the know...

Slumdog Millionaire

I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with a big chunk of my family and I loved it. Very creative, amusing, touching story, told in a great and modern way. Makes me want to see much more of Danny Boyle's pictures I've missed.

Denver Museum of Contemporary Art - Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is a man not afraid of death or coming back in another life as a member of the animal kingdom, since he seems to love putting animals in some type of decimated form into his art. (Those are real butterflies stuck into the paint, and of course he's famous for putting all kinds of beasts into formaldahyde and then on display).

The new but small Denver MCA had a very small (4 works) show of a few pieces of Hirst that I saw with Pam & her girls. I think the guide/guard said it best when he said "he's a very successful artist if you judge by his prices, and the collectors must know something". He indeed is the master of marketing, is very provocative, and has become filthy rich. Still, is it really good art?

The MCA has a great upstairs area for kids, a big playspace full of FatBoy bean bags. It was more fun (and less urban hip - well, Denver hip which of course means jeans) with kids piling them up and jumping on them...

Bottle Shock

I watched Bottle Shock on my way to the US, mainly because although my airline had a new video-on-demand system, there was NOTHING I wanted to see. So after looking through the titles twice, I finally settled on this. It was incredibly mediocre.

There Will Be Blood - movie

We watched There Will Be Blood thinking it was a Coen Brothers movie (it's not) and I was prepared for way too much violence but it was a different - and better - film than I expected.

It was deep and dark and heavy, but human and real. A very good movie.

la Vie Devant Soi - theatre

We went to see La Vie Devant Soi, which won several awards at the Molieres this year. It was really good, and to top it off we had a great time exploring the Indian groceries and restaurants afterwards on our way home.