Fox 8 by George Saunders

Fox 8
by George Saunders

Published: 2013
Publisher: Random House
Genre: Short Story, Fantasy
Hardback: 48
Rating: 5
Goodreads
Website

First sentence(s):
Deer Reeder: First may I say, sorry for any werds I spel rong.

A darkly comic short story, a fable about the all too real impact that we humans have on the environment

Fox 8 has always been known as the daydreamer in his pack, the one his fellow foxes regarded with a knowing snort and a roll of the eyes. That is, until Fox 8 develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak “Yuman” by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children’s bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people—even after “danjer” arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack.

PeekAbook:

My two-bits:
Although this short tale has a whimsical vibe with fox-speak that causes chuckles, it relays serious warnings.

The illustrations are spot on.

Lovely Books and Things - 9.22.19

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update
Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

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HAPPY THINGS:

1. Listening to Billie Eilish's Bad Guy --- duh

2. Eating Mid-Autumn Festival Chinese Mooncakes

3. Pre-dawn photography session at the Golden Gate Bridge Toll Plaza bus pad - shadows

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Author event:

A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
-Historical, Russia, Moscow | Goodreads
Bookshop in West Portal won an instagram challenge which granted them a visit from Amor Towles for Q&A.

Bookshop West Portal
Winner of the #agentlemaninmoscowcontest
hosted by Penguin Books

Akin
author: by Emma Donoghue
-Historical, Mystery, France | Goodreads
Bookshop in West Portal hosted a Q&A with Emma Donoghue to celebrate her new release, Akin.


Library:

Supper Club
by Lara Williams
-Contemporary, Feminism | Goodreads
THIS blurb got me…

A sharply intelligent and intimate debut novel about a secret society of hungry young women who meet after dark and feast to reclaim their appetites--and their physical spaces--that posits the question: if you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into?

Savage Appetites
Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession
by Rachel Monroe
-True Crime | Goodreads
SOME dark matter with women.

Fox 8
by George Saunders
-Short story | Goodreads
IMPULSE pick up from library shelf.


AND watched: on DVD

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2010)
Une bouteille à la mer (original title)
Director/Writer: Thierry Binisti
Writer: Valérie Zenatti
Stars: Agathe Bonitzer, Mahmud Shalaby, Hiam Abbass
-Drama | imdb | my rating: 5
Tal is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this harsh reality to grapple with it, and thereby ever so slightly change it. Only 60 miles separate them but how many bombings, check-points, sleepless nights and bloodstained days stand between them?

ELEMENTS of friendship, hope, peace permeate throughout.

Rocketman (2019)
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Writer: Lee Hall
Stars: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden
-Biography, Drama, Music | imdb | my rating: 5
A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John's breakthrough years.

FANTASTICAL musical rendition (with favorite hit songs) of Elton John's life from childhood to present had some sad but feel good moments.

IT chapter 2 (2019)
Director: Andy Muschietti
Writers: Gary Dauberman
Based on book by: Stephen King
Stars: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader
-Drama, Fantasy, Horror | imdb | my rating: 4
Twenty-seven years after their first encounter with the terrifying Pennywise, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back.

FACING fears and a certain clown equals scary times.

Downton Abbey (2019)
Director: Michael Engler
Writer: Julian Fellowes
Based on tv series: Downton Abbey
-Drama | imdb | my rating: 5
The continuing story of the Crawley family, wealthy owners of a large estate in the English countryside in the early 20th century.

LOTS of smiling, chuckling, snickering while watching Downton Abbey in a tizzy for preparation and hosting responsibilities for the King and Queen of England.

Ms. Purple (2019)
Director/Writer: Justin Chon
Writer: Chris Dinh
Stars: Jake Choi, Tiffany Chu, Mark Krenik
-Drama, American Korean | imdb | my rating: 5
MS. PURPLE, from award-winning filmmaker Justin Chon (Gook), is the poignant story of the family loyalties of an Asian American brother and sister, set in a dreamy vision of Los Angeles’ Koreatown, reminiscent of Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.

Kasie (Tiffany Chu) struggles to take care of her comatose father at home, refusing to put him in hospice, because he raised her and her brother when their mother abandoned them. Kasie works as a Koreatown karaoke hostess, making good money keeping obnoxious drunken businessmen happy, and is well able to handle herself, but when her father’s in-home nurse quits, she is desperate. She calls her estranged brother Carey (Teddy Lee) to come home and help care for their father, and he agrees. As they reconnect over their dying father, Kasie and Carey confront the deep emotional wounds of their difficult shared past, attempting to mend their relationship.

Winner, Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature, Dallas International Film Festival.

This screening included a Q&A session with Tiffany Chu (actor), Alex Chi (producer) and moderated by Masashi Niwano, Festival & Exhibition Director at the Center for Asian American Media.

BEAUTIFULLY done with colors, soundtrack and quiet scenes.

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* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon
Goodreads
Website
Facebook

Published: 2017
Publisher: Random House
Genre: Historical, Literary
Hardback: 368
Rating: 4

First sentence(s):
On our wedding day I was forty-six, she was eighteen.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

My two-bits:

At first I tried listening to the audio version for this because of its all-star cast. But I found it hard to follow along with the many resource references for the short bursts of text. I found reading the print version better as I could skim over the reference notations which made a more seamless story.

Interesting storytelling style with this one which could work for some but not others. I was okay with it after getting used to its rhythm. The story is told in bits and pieces with many voices and a few main characters that stay throughout.

Got me thinking of grief and the afterlife - specifically, the Bardo which is known as the transitional state in Tibetan tradition.

One amusing image that tickled me was this...

On other days, everyone she met manifested as a giant mustache with legs. -Hans Vollman
chapter xxvii, page 79

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* part of Man Booker Prize Reading Challenge (here)

* part of Tournament of Books 2018 (here)