I love hearing from authors and publicists who’d like me to read and review their books. If you have a title you think I’d be interested in, please feel free to contact me at ibetnoonehasthisdamnid@yahoo.com .
For more information about what books I like and how I choose which books to review, check out Mt. TBR's review policy.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Everyone’s done this. Your driving along, or shopping, or cleaning… whatever it is that you’re doing… you’ve got the radio, or your favorite CD, or your MP3 player going straight into your brain… and that song comes one… the one you can NOT help but sing along with. You sing along, almost without even realizing it… loudly… and someone who’ve you either forgotten or didn’t even know was there says, “What’d you say? That’s not the words!”
This first video was the first “Misheard Lyric” vid I saw on YouTube. Unless you’ve looked up the lyrics to this song, you probably wouldn’t know what the real words are anyway, but you sing along because it’s got a great beat and an infectuous melody… it sounds like a magic spell for fun.
And of course… There would hafta be a Numa Numa misheard lyrics video. Songs in English are often hard enough for English-speakers to understand, and one in another language… especially one so popular… is like Christmas at Ritchie Rich’s house, the presents just keep coming!
I once saw a commercial with the next vid’s song part of their own misheard lyrics joke. Rock the Cat’s box? Rock the Cash Bar? Sadly, this song is ACTUALLY in English.
This next song is on my MP3 player, and I know I always sing along. Whether I sing the right words or not, I don’t know… though, after watching this vid, I’ll probably never sing them right again. They’re hilarious!
And finally, this last vid is one of the best known Misheard Lyrics singing. Thanks to the popularity of American Idol and the globalization the Internet has brought us, the Bulgarian Idol show has made us all wonder…
So what’s your favorite songs to sing out loud and along with whenever you hear them? What’s the worst case of misheard lyrics you’ve heard? or even sang?
I’ve been travelling through space and time a lot this week. I’ve been to the desert planet of Arrakis, 8000 years into the future. I’ve been to late 19th century England and Narnia (again) to watch the world’s beginning and the entrance of evil before it was even 5 hours old. And now, I’ve just returned from a frightening not-to-distant future United States. Oddly enough, they have more in common than just time.
In all three books, Dune, The Magician’s Nephew, and Fahrenheit 451, there is oppressive rulers and the reaching into the minds of people to control their very thoughts. With Dune, the Bene Gesserit wish to control who gets knowledge and sight, who marries whom, and even what sex a child will be. The Harkonnens and Sardukars viciously hunt and kill the Fremen in a pogrom, because the Fremen are independent and refuse to kiss the perverse butts of the disgusting Harkonnen “rulers.”
With The Magician’s Nephew, the Witch destroyed her own world in a bid to control it and take the throne from her sister, using the deplorable word to kill all life except the one who speaks it. Then she tries to take over England, but without her magic, she’s just a violent nutter on a thieving rampage. Once in Narnia, however, she’ll hide and bide her time… then make the move to enslave and opress the land for her own pleasure.
Fahrenheit 451, though, is the one I’ve most recently finished, so the thoughts about it are still tumbling around.
The fun thing with Fahrenheit 451 is that it’s been on Mt. TBR since before there was a Mt. TBR, way back when it was just an “I’m gonna read that soon” pile, when there were maybe 20 books on that pile. I have NO idea how many books are on Mt. TBR now. Library Thing says I have catalogued almost 1000 books, but some of those are books I’ve read, or books I’ve mooched away and NOT read. I have tagged 493 books either unread or TBR, but I’ve gotten lazy and haven’t been tagging any of the books I add, so I’d say Mt. TBR is well over 300 books (simply “unread” don’t count as TBR books).
So, some of my thoughts on Fahrenheit 451…
One of the things that Guy Montag has to do is to decide which book he’ll sacrifice. Captain Beatty knows he took a book and tells him if he turns it in within 24 hours, it’ll be forgiven. Montag’s not sure if Beatty knows he has one book, a hundred books or which title, so he figures if he brings him one book, any book, he’ll pass without suspicion. But how can he choose? He decides not to turn over the last known surviving copy of The Bible, which was a funny moment with his wife, who asked him: Which is more important, me or that book? Der, easy answer…
*SORTA SPOILER ALERT* After running from the police, Montag finds a group of men hobo’ing who have memorized a chapter of a book, or even entire books, and burned the hard copies, and now wait for a time when society will return to it’s senses and want literature again. They half-jokingly introduce themselves as the particular book title, i.e. “Hi! I am Plato’s Republic, and Simmons is Marcus Aurelius.” Knowing how the statement “I am” is an affirmation, and also that the more you say it, the more it takes hold and becomes a truth about you, I wonder who they’ll be in 20 years. Their personalities, and such.
In Fahrenheit 451, Mildred, Montag’s wife, is very attached to her “family,” the people on the television. These “relatives” yell at each other, call each other names, act the fool, and are otherwise “entertaining”. They have a device that allows the owner to hear their own name in messages and shows, and the picture is even adjusted to make the actor’s lips appear to say the name. So that for her, the announcer says, “Mrs. Montag, wouldn’t you love to try Denham’s Dentifrice?” And their living room, or parlor room, has wall-sized screens (remember, this was written in the late 40’s – early 50s), and when you had all 4 of your wall-screens installed, it would be just like being in the show… surrounded by your “family”. Creepy! and sad…
Clarisse McClellen is the oddball neighbor that sets Montag’s feet on the road of awakening. She tells him of how kids her age frighten her. They enjoy killing each other and themselves and destroying things. They go to the “amusement park” and break windows in “Vandalism Town” or drag race legally, as long as they have enough insurance they can destroy whatever they want.
One of Mrs. Montag’s friends tells how she thinks it was nice having kids, and she does her best to accommodate them the 3 days out of a month she has them (the rest of the time they’re away at school… grade schoolers, btw). She just plopped them down in the parlor with the “relatives” as soon as they got home from the hospital. But, she doesn’t know why they hate her. Hmm…
So, If you had to sacrifice one of your books to save the rest, which one would go into the fire?
I’d be tossing the Babysitter’s Club ones… maybe the stray Captain Underpants one I think’s somewhere around here. The Reader’s Digest condensed books could be chucked, too… if they’re still here.
If you were one of the books (which was the vid clip, btw… Montag meeting the Books), what book would you be and why?
It’s a book I’d re-read mentally and recite every day… it’d become a part of me and eventually I’d become that book to an extent…. I think I’d pick the book of Proverbs (Montag was the Book of Ecclesiastes) because it’s wisdom. Everything you need to know about dealing with people, living life, psychology… everything…. is in Proverbs.
Your turn! What book would you sacrifice? Which would you be? Why?
Hello and Happy Hump Day! Woo-Hoo! And who doesn’t like a good hump? Today’s Viral Video Wednesday has a few new things about it. First, we have a button! WooT! I’ve got a few other pics to turn into buttons, and if you’ve got one, lay it on me! 🙂 Second, if you look at the bottom of the picture header of this blog, you’ll see a Viral Video Wednesday tab. I’ll be keeping the current week’s VVW there, and you can add your blog in the comments so I can check out your VVW posts, too 🙂 The third change to VVW is, at the end of my post and on the VVW page, I’ll let you know what the subject of next week’s VVW so you’ll have a week to hunt down some fabulous vid clips for your own VVW posts 😀
The famous comedian W.C. Fields once said, “Never work with children or animals” and the reason for his sentiment is clear: They will upstage you and steal all the laughs! If you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with the pastor at the carry-in, only to be interrupted by your four-year-old, “Mommy, Pastor Bill does TOO have a watch… See! It’s right there on his arm! Pastor Bill, did you buy that at the dollar store with the $3 Mommy put in the offering last week?” then you KNOW that kids can chime in was some really hilarious stuff every now and then. So this week’s VVW is dedicated to all those darned funny things the little whipper-snappers say!
Poor little Colin suffers from two things endemic to childhood… Like most children, he absolutely adores being the star of the home movies, and he struggles with the correct pronunciation of some words more than others.
I first saw the following video on “The Ellen Degeneres Show” It’s always funny to watch a child when they realize where they’ve gone wrong in a conversation… that little “A-ha” moment when they take one step closer to understanding their world.
The next video brought back memories of my oldest daughter’s trips to the dentist. An utter dentophobic, she had to be given the red liquid sedative (Versed) AND the piggy-nose (nitrous oxide) to get her into the chair, then she had to have a TV headset playing Powerpuff Girls to keep her mind occupied while the dentist did anything inside her mouth. Even routine teeth cleanings could disolve into a puddle of tears on the 5 foot overstuffed Pooh Bear in the waiting room. So I completely understand David’s behavior.
What do you get when have an adorable little boy with big brown eyes telling Knock! Knock! jokes? Well… I have girls, so maybe that’s why I never got this…
And I think I’ll end here with the following video. Before you slip that DVD of Jackass Unlimited into the DVD player, remember that little pitcher sitting next to you is taking it all in, and will recount the whole scene to Pastor Bill at the Mother’s Day after-service dinner a couple weeks from now.
.
Do you have a favorite kid vid? share it with me in the comments, or better yet, post your own Viral Video Wednesday “Kids Say the Darnedest Things!” at your blog and leave the link in the comments so I can visit!
Every day Charles Schine rides the 8:43 to do the job he has done for over a decade in a New York advertising agency. With a wife and an ill child who depend on him, Charles is not a man who likes changes or takes risks… until he is late for his regular train – and sits down across from the woman of his dreams.
Her name is Lucinda. Like Charles, she is married. Like Charles, she takes the train every day to work in New York City. Her train is the 9:05, and tomorrow she will be on it again – and so will Charles. For there is something about Lucinda, the flash of thigh beneath her short skirt, the way every man on the train is eyeing her, something about this time of the morning that will make Charles take a chance he shouldn’t take, break a vow he shouldn’t break, and enter a room he should never enter…
In a matter of days, a flirtation turns to a passion, and Charles and Lucinda are drawn into the dark side of the American Dream. In a matter of weeks, Charles’s life is in shambles. A man is dead. A small fortune is stolen. Charles’s home is violated and everything violently spirals out of control.
But Charles is about to discover that once you leave the straight and narrow, getting back on track is the most perilous journey of all. And for Charles, that journey – of lies, terror, and deception – has just begun…
An extraordinary work of Hitchcockian psychological twists and high-voltage intensity, this novel brilliantly weaves together a man’s past and present into a story of menace – and hurtles us toward an astounding, surprising ending. Brace yourself for a roller-coaster ride through the frightening darkness that lies waiting around us – and within us – once our lives become DERAILED …
–Derailedby James Siegel, dust cover blurb
Derailedby James Siegel is full of twists and turns and punch-in-the-gut dramatic stops that propel the story forward at a terrifying pace. It’s very easy to have sympathy for Charles, though it was through his own actions that the world is crumbling down around him, and to will him to win out over Vasguez and his accomplices. Derailed illustrates the “line upon line, precept upon precept” and “slippery slope” concepts as Charles crosses farther and farther into moral ambiguity while trying to hide his adulterous indiscretion, a secret any reader with a brain KNOWS will eventually come out.
All in all, the book is a good book in that it entertains and thrills the reader. It does experience some slow spots, but those are more for the purpose of lulling the reader in order to amplify the coming shock. And for the most part, the story is believable and possible, enough is established before the bomb that saves Charles goes off to prevent it from feeling like a deus ex machina. However, beyond the initial horror of the rape scene and terror of being stalked, the book isn’t memorable.
Derailedby James Siegel is intense, has a lot of violence, language and sex, and not for sensitive readers or anyone under 18. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.
I have a feeling Derailed is a better movie than book. Here’s the movie’s trailer:
Tainted by Brooke Morgan
The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy
Strange But True America: Weird Tales from All 50 States by John Hafnor
Red Letters by Tom Davis
Dragon House by John Shors
Book reviews, entertaining and humorous posts, as well as memes and giveaways, In the Shadow of Mt. TBR is a fun and informative place to relax in the shade!