I forgot to mention that I read “Pirates In an Adventure with Scientists!” by Gideo Defeo. Fergus lent it to me. I was very funny. It’s a very small book, only takes a night to read, a bit like A Series of unfortunate events for size and ease of reading. A very worthwhile distraction… read it inbetween long books!
Just Read…
Just finished ‘Bag Of Bones: Stephen King’ on Sunday. I really enjoyed it, had me gripped over the weekend when I read most of the 660 pages. 
I also finished The Water is Wide:Pat Conroy’ last week. I really enjoyed it, even if it has taken me months to read a rather small book, but hey things got in the way. It’s nowhere near as good as Beach Music though, but then he did write TWIW almost 30 years ago!
Before that I finished ‘The Electric Michaelangelo:Sarah Hall’ I did enjoy that as well, but I’m not sure what is required to be on the ‘booker shortlist’. I guess having just finished a Stephen King novel and just started another ( The Long Walk, written under the name Richard Bachman ), it made me think about all that literature snobbery that goes on. I would say that TEM is a better written book, ie: use of words and language, however, Kings’s stories are ALL better – and to me, that’s the important thing.
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Where art thou Romeo
I watched half of Baz Luhrman’s “William Shakespeare’s Rome + Juliet” last night. And although the film was excellently shot and produced, it couldn’t get me past one thing… Shakespeare. What the f##k is he going on about? There are many beautiful lines in Romeo + Juliet and these are amplified by the context of the actors in the film and Baz Luhrman’s interpretations, but on the whole I just can’t keep with the plot.
—
Romeo: Has my heart loved ’till now? Forswear it, sight! For I never saw a true beauty ’till this night
—
Juliet:
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy
—
Juliet: What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
—
Actually, reading Shakespeare is at least easier.
I’ve never really got into Shakespeare, although I like many of the reinterpretations, and Mel Gibson’s Hamlet is about the best that stay close to the original narrative, I just get lost in the text; I just don’t understand it!
I guess I would have enjoyed the film had it ditched the original text.
Romeo & Juliet, Baz Luhrman, Shakespeare, Romeo + Juliet, Mel Gibson, Hamlet
Shakespeare, Romeo + Juliet, Baz Luhrman, Mel Gibson, Hamlet