People are Weird About Books

People really are kind of strange about books. For instance, some people will only read a certain type of book or a certain author or books that aren't over 100 pages and they read thousands of these and call themselves "well-read". Books are like cereal to me, there's so much goodness to choose from I cannot commit myself to one brand or flavor.

Anyhow, I've found out that there's a whole community of people out there who participate in "book challenges". You go to a website and it will say something like "Read 5 long Russian novels in 6 months." And then you sign up and give the names of the Russian novels and at the end of it you either feel like a complete success or a complete failure! But lists are involved, so automatically I feel like this is something that I need to be a part of. Because am I wrong or is there no other satisfaction like checking something off of a list.

Well, this year I am going to join these freaks in their book challenges. Except, I'm not going to commit myself to "Russian novels", "chick-lit" or the "100 books in a year challenge". I'm just going to start a challenge where I read books and we'll see how many I get to.

First Up:


I started the LOTR trilogy about a year ago and finally finished. Fellowship of the Rings was great, The Two Towers was like swimming through molasses in January and The Return of the King was great (except the second to last chapter "The Scouring of the Shire", which was unnecessary and dull, I really don't care about hobbits...only elves).

As I was reading the book I realized that I don't remember the movie at all. What I do remember about ROTK was being so embarassed in the movie theatre because I was bawling at the end of it and couldn't control myself. The book was no different. But, I still don't get it and *SPOILER ALERT* is going to the grey havens just another way of saying I'm going to die? But seriously, what I don't get is Bilbo had that ring for years and he was able to live for a long time (he's bat shit crazy at the end, but still livng and btw, can you imagine what he's like in Rivendell? I'm sure he's the crazy uncle that everyone ignores, but the elves must just be like WTF are we doing with this guy?) so why not Frodo?

And also, does it seem to anyone else like Gandalf maybe doesn't know as much or have as much power as we would think he does? Either that or he's just kind of a shitty friend because he's always abandoning hobbits in their time of need. The only power we ever really see from Gandalf is his ability to make fireworks and that was when he was Gandalf the Grey. I kept thinking come on Gandalf...do something cool and wizardry...you're Gandalf the White now. And then he wouldn't do anything except talk and that wouldn't get much accomplished.

Anyways, I can check this book off my list now. And I'll give it 5/5 stars, or 8/10 stars. You pick.