Today I was reminded I have a blogspot blog with about three posts on it, the first post being from 2013. Google sent me some email about the blog, reminding me I had it and I went to look at it and it hit me in the feels.
I remember when just about every blogger had a bucket list, and even though many of my favorite bloggers have faded away, I like to think that out there somewhere they are still bungee jumping, checking off new countries, living out of a backpack, running with the bulls and keeping the spirit of the 2010s blogger alive.
I often run into the problem of having a list of a ton of writing projects I want to tackle and then I get paralyzed and don’t write anything.
I’ve never soldiered, so perhaps that made it harder for me to understand this book. I didn’t know much going in other than it was about soldiers in the army in Hawaii on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I finally did it: I read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, which everybody agrees deserves a solid place on every Top 100 Novel Book List of the last century. When I say “read,” I mean I listened to the audio during my work commute, which is a must if you love reading and have limited time.
I finally got around to reading the original Tarzan novel, called Tarzan of the Apes, published in 1914 by Edgar Rice Burroughs–and I was not at all prepared for how violent it would be! I blame the Disney animated film for distorting what I thought Tarzan was.
I try to read at least 10 “classics” per year, books that are highly recommended and are either old tomes or more modern: The Great Railroad Bazaar fell into the “modern classics” bucket, the travelogue was published in 1975 and was Paul Theroux’s breakthrough book that really put him on the map.
The deeper I get into adulthood the more out-of-control my life feels, I am constantly responding and reacting rather than directing, and I don’t like the feeling and I don’t want to continue living in this fashion.
I thought a teacher read this book to the class when I was in grade school, but reading it now, I have no memory of the story–and I certainly had no idea how violent this children’s tale was.
Michael Crichton is best known for his monster hit Jurassic Park, but he has done a lot more interesting projects besides that, including Sphere, which I was lucky enough to stumble across.