Good, "afternoon by the pool" reading

My friend Amy and I went down to the library's annual book sale on Friday morning. My sister-in-law, Jo Anne, clued me in to how many great books you could get cheap (and James Robert would tell ya'll that I'm cheap...although I prefer the term "bargain-hunter"), so when I saw the advertisement for the sale, I knew I had to go. We bought some great books at $1 per hardcover and $.50 per paperback. As we paid, they reminded us to come back the next day for their $2.00 for a bag of books sale. $2.00 for as many books as will fit in one of those plastic grocery bags! I took the kids down to see what was left. On a whim, I threw a bunch of paperbacks into my bag. I wanted some books that I didn't care if they got a bit wet while reading in and around the pool.

I picked up "{THE} HOURS" by Michael Cunningham. It's not a book I would typically pick up, as the cover has picture from a movie based on the book. I'm a bit odd in that as a general rule I feel books should be books, and movies should be movies. Whenever they meet, people are usually disappointed. But this particular book swayed me with the "Winner of the pulitzer prize" tag...which of course, like all good marketing, worked to reel me in.

Anyhow, it was fantastic! A quick afternoon's read. I got to the final chapter and the relationship of one of the characters to the others dawned on me and I sucked in a breath. It was just fantastic. I highly recommend it. If you don't mind a bit of warped pages from pool water - I'm willing to lend out my copy.

Oh - and here's another piece of advice...skip "The Haunting." I was very disappointed in it. I absolutely love M. Night Shyamalan's work. This had moments, but there just wasn't enough of his brilliance to carry the entire movie. I felt sort of gypped. Of course, Betty Buckley got high billing in the opening credits, so I guess I should've known...the last time I've seen Betty Buckley was in 1980 on "Eight is Enough!" It seemed more like a Made for TV movie. A pretty good one...but still not quite big screen material.