Reading...

I went to the library for the first time in YEARS over my Christmas break from work. I don't know that I had been there since I was a kid. Some things have been updated-no more microfiche. Some things have not-the SAME nasty old ladies still work there. They used to scare the holy hell out of me when I was a kid and frankly, they still do a little bit. I should have been a librarian.

I checked out Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. Great book. I thought the movie was enjoyable, nothing horrible but also nothing wonderful. I had heard that the book was better. I know that if I had read this book first, I would have HATED the movie.

Thinking about it made me ponder-if you love the book is it impossible for the movie to be any good? Someone asked recently what my favorite movie adaptation of a book was and I couldn't answer. Yeah, there are a few great ones but they were mostly made back in the Golden Age. To Kill A Mockingbird really can't be beat. But overall, the movies come up lacking. I wonder, would I have actually enjoyed The DaVinci Code if I hadn't read the book first? Probably not, but I guess you never know.

There was a quote in the last passage of the book that I thinkwas in the movie too. Here goes...

There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

That just made me smile.

Now I am reading a novel by Elie Wiesel called The Gates of the Forest. I think his writing is splendid. I really enjoyed "Night" (thank you Oprah for the exposure) but it is a bit of a downer as well.

I don't know why, but I really am interested in reading about the holocaust. I secretly believe that my family on my mom's side was Jewish. I think they decided to change that about themselves when they immigrated from the Czechoslovakia/Polish boarder at the turn of the century. There is a picture that my grandmother had of her oldest brother. He sure looked a lot like that Adrian Brody guy who played the Pianist. Jewish features, nose. He died of the flu during WWI. Some of the things my grandmother said about the family's traditions make me think that it is a definite possibility. How sad it must have been to decide to deny your background out of fear or want for ease of persecution. Must be like what some gays feel like today.

Wonder where that picture is today? Hopefully one of my aunts has it somewhere safe so that someone can remember that young man who died too young too long ago.

I hate that I have a fascination with some things... The holocaust, Mary Kay Letourneau, E!. It makes me feel a little shallow and a little morbid all at the same time.