the beach

in my previous "wishlist" post around the holidays i mentioned that i wanted your favorite book because i would love to read it. Tim from PJ's gave me The Beach by Alex Garland. It was a good chunk of pages and took me the last couple weeks to finish. the narrator, Richard, was so entertaining that the book was rarely sitting on the shelf or the table or the wardrobe bedside - it was glued to my hands (ask the roomies). christine came in one morning, glanced at me as I was reclined on the couch with my nose in the novel and inquired, "are you reading for fun?" I didn't know how to answer the question... and I really don't think I did - instead I just smiled, laughed on the inside, shook my head and went back to Thailand.

when I finished the book I persuaded everyone to watch the movie with me before we went to indoor. indoor was rainchecked due to gym hours, and everyone was too hyper to watch a movie, so a couple of us ended up mustering through it with a room full of chaos. I had used one of my free Hollywood Video rental coupons, courtesy of some large Del Taco fries and sodas - which were purchased and consumed by LM's varsity coaches i might add, and rented the movie "The Beach" starring Leo DeCaprio. it was no bueno - they took an absolutely skewed version of the Richard character from that of the book and it all went downhill from there. Despite the Harry Potter series, in the future I am going to choose to either watch the movie OR read the book - not both. nevertheless, thank you Tim for giving me the book - it's been awhile since I've enjoyed a novel that much.

next on the list is "watch on the rhine", written by someone who I've forgotten but it was recommended by an anonymous German. I have a feeling I might pace myself more with this one =).