Read More: Vitamin Discoveries and Disasters

I really enjoyed The Emperor of All Maladies--I wrote about that book sort of recently on this very blog. As I was reading it, I thought "wouldn't it be fun if there was a similar book about the history of vitamins? Something fun to read, easy to understand? That would be so useful at work!" I don't know if you've ever tried to delve into the science of vitamins, but it can get deathly boring fast.

So I started looking around. I found this book: Vitamin Discoveries and Disasters, by Frances Rachel Frankennurg. It's not quite the compelling read that Emperor of All Maladies was. But it's written in a charming way. The author uses plain and matter-of-fact writing, but she has uncovered lots of amusing anecdotes about the discovery of vitamins--and an understated sense of humor lurks behind the stories throughout. It's sort of written in the style of a bed-time story for dorky children, à la Microbe Hunters by Paul de Krief. Anyway, if you're interested in what vitamins do and how we figured that out, then this is a decent choice!

-Kristin

Read More: The Neverending Story

Continuing my reading of young adult and children's literature, I decided to read The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. I had no idea until fairly recently that it was a book first. Would the book be even better than the movie? It was hard to believe that this would be the case, since it is one of the greatest movies ever, but I was excited to find out. At least until Elliot saw what I was reading on the bus and asked loudly, "You're reading that?" As if only a mentally disabled adult would be reading such drivel. After that I could feel the eye's of other passengers on the buses and trains reading the cover and staring at me with their awful judging eyes.

The first half of the book was the old, familiar story we all know and love with two minor, but oh-so-major differences. First, the world was Fantastica, rather than Fantasia. Fantastica is a much less appealing name. Whoever thought to change it, kudos to you sir or ma'am. Second, my heartbreak was not mended in the book. Artax did not come back to life. Normally I like a bit of death in my novels,  but only of people, not horses and other animals. In addition, there were a few scenes left out of the movie, but to no ill affect. If anything, the movie was better than the book, which is highly unusual. They did a great job figuring out what the different creatures would look like and they made them much more endearing, scary, etc. than the book did.

In the second half of the book Bastian gets stuck in Fantastica and must find his way back. He is given the power to make his wishes come true and reconstruct Fantastica, but there is a cost and he may get stuck there forever. Maybe this is what the Neverending Story 2 is about. I saw it once and don't remember a thing about it, except that it wasn't very good. The same goes for the second half of the book. I cared not a whit for this Bastian and whether he found his way back to his papa or not.

To sum this review up: skip the book, watch the movie.

- Megan Leigh

Read More: Death in the City of Light

Update: My opinion on this book differs a bit from Kristin's. I decided to read the book, despite her advice not to bother with it, and was happy that I did. The first 3/4ths of the book were definitely more interesting, but I didn't find the trial section as tedious as she did. It was written in a way that I couldn't guess if he would be convicted or acquitted. I do think it could have been written in a more concise fashion, but it didn't bother me much. There were many questions that remained unanswered, but speculation is half the fun!

- Megan Leigh

This was a random read. I picked up Death in the City of Light on a trip to the library to get some other books--it was in the new releases section.

It is about a serial killer who haunted Nazi-occupied Paris. You know how I love my Eric Larson books, so I figured this historical crime book might be fun too. Also, the critics apparently loved this book, so that was a good sign. Perhaps it was time to give another true-crime author a chance. But was this a fun read, you ask? It was just so-so.

The story is a compelling one. An elegant Parisian townhouse hides grisly secrets. A sadistic doctor is accused of a staggering number of murders, hiding within the chaos of war-time Paris. It sounds like the plot of a promising horror movie, right? All of the elements are there, and the book starts out with a lot of promise. But it starts to really drag midway through, and by the end it gets really bogged down in descriptions of the court case. Over all, this book was easy and mostly enjoyable to read. But I'm not sure I would recommend it. It's so long, and in the end very little is resolved.

One plus is that I learned a lot about Nazi-occupied France. Did you know that France was occupied for four years? Four years! I had no idea. And that Hitler ordered Paris destroyed, with explosives ready to blow up the Eiffel Tower and all of the other prominent buildings in Paris? The Nazi general in charge of Paris refused to follow orders though, and luckily the Allied Forces came to the rescue before the whole city was in absolute ruins. These are the kinds of things we should all learn in history class!

-Kristin

In the Theater: Norwegian Wood

Since yesterday's theater outing wasn't the best (this does not refer to the company I was keeping at the time, but to the choice of movie) I decided to give it another go tonight. I met up with Cat at the International Film Center downtown to see the film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

I hate to say it, because I so wanted to love it, but this moving was Boring. Yup, that's right, with a capital b. I'm sure it didn't help that I saw this movie at my bedtime with Cat dozing off and yawning next to me, but wide awake I'm sure it would have at least got a boring with a little b. Now let me tell you why!


It started off really disjointed, showing scenes that added nothing to the story and this continued somewhat throughout the whole movie. Someone, somewhere, has an editing problem. Beware the 2+ hour movie.

You never really got to know or care for any of the characters. A lot of the characters, although important in the book, are superfluous in the movie, just thrown in here and there and you wonder why bother? Although the two relationships are the focus of the movie, you don't get to see their evolution, which is probably why it was hard to sympathize with any of them. I would have liked to have seen a difference in the scenes between the two girls to help visualize the choice he had to make. Keep the time with Naoko slow, boring, with little dialogue and the time with Midori exciting and entertaining. At first this is what I thought the intention was, but both relationships just turned dull. If I were Watanabe I would have said 'so long' to both.

There were many over the top dramatic scenes. It was so hard for me not to laugh. My favorite was when it showed Watanabe wailing into the air atop a rock, a long string of drool hanging from his mouth and flying in the wind. It went on for five minutes and that drool string never broke. Was I really supposed to be moved by that?? I did note a line I would like to scream-sob at a future boyfriend or sister or even family dog: "Your presence is painful to me!"

For all its faults, it was a really pretty movie though! The winter scenes alone would have made me want to die inside. But in addition to having to see snow and wind, we were sitting next to some sort of air vent that was blowing cold air on to us. It was what those interactive movies from 5th grade should have been. Another plus, if you could call it that, was that I coveted all their apartments filled with 60's decor and their cute clothes. But that's not enough to give this movie my approval. I hope that this movie hasn't convinced Cat to never read a Murakami book!

Finally the movie ended and I could head home to my nice, warm bed. This is when the drama finally began for the night. When I got back to my stop to catch the 1, the clock struck 12 and the subway systems underwent their transformations from a model for national transportation to out of order, out of order, out of order. Suffice it to say there was walking to different stations and many transfers. One train I got on smelled like shit, literally. I was only going up one stop so I decided to tough it out, out of sheer laziness. There were only two other people on the train who either had colds, fake noses, are suffered from extreme laziness as well, so I had a pretty unobstructed view of the benches and underneath. I looked around for the poo, but couldn't see anything. I know it was there somewhere. I hope the reason I didn't see it was not because I was sitting in it. I should check the back of my coat in the morning.

- Megan Leigh

In The Theater: Woman In Black

Our newly added happiness goal is to start seeing adult (no, not that kind of adult) movies in the theater at least once a month. I see on average one movie a year, which is pretty depressing, because I really enjoy seeing movies on the big screen! "But who doesn't?" You may ask. The lady who wrote The Happiness Project, for one. There are a lot of loonies out there. One of the best times of my life was when my friend Jay was working at a movie theater and we saw all sorts of movies for free. I don't know why he had to quit and get a better paying job, with no benefit to me (except for that little benefit of getting me a job...).

Today was our first movie day. We went down to our local theater at 86th and were ignored by the ticket seller, which confused us. Was the theater not open yet? We went to Barnes & Noble to waste some time and came back, but the ticket man was still ignoring us! Finally he caved and sold us our tickets, which were only $6 before 12:00. What a deal!

Then on to the concession stand. We got kid's packs, which have the perfect size popcorn, soda and chocolate treat. These were priced about a dollar cheaper than normal too. We paid the price in another way: Shame. The ladies standing in line behind us asked what these special packs were. "They're the kid packs," Kristin told her. "They're the perfect size popcorn for us!"

"Those are for you!" They tittered. Our cheeks reddened. We hung our heads and scurried away.

As you might expect for a movie in the morning, the theater was just about empty. And as you also might expect, because it's our luck, someone decided to sit right behind us in the empty theater. And, of course, he was a loud breather. The scariest part of the movie was when he made some really loud snorting noise.

Now let's get to the movie. It was The Woman in Black with Danielle Radcliffe. A horror flick. The story line was just the same old, played out story line: Woman separated from dead baby. Now she haunts and kills other babies until she is reconnected with her own. Or perhaps she'll never stop. I don't know. I'm pretty confused about the ending. I'm not going to waste my time thinking about it too hard, since the rest of the movie was so mediocre. The woman in the bathroom afterwards (not a ghost) thought the same. Loud does not equal scary, we decided as we washed out hands.

- Megan Leigh

Recipe in Progress: Braised Tempeh with Veggies

This was a recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian book. So far, this book has been the less-accomplished younger brother who coasts on the success of his older sister (How to Cook Everything). Nothing has wowed me yet.

The braised tempeh turned out pretty bland. Basically, you stir fry some crumbled tempeh with ginger, garlic, and spices (it smells really good). Then you throw in coconut milk, veggies of your choice (I used chopped cabbage, peas, and okra--I was getting rid of what was in my freezer), and rice noodles. Everything was supposed to be bathed in a fragrant yellow curry sauce, and it looked like it would be tasty. But it was disappointingly tasteless. Boo.

All I would like is to recreate the yummy, soothing yellow curry that you find at a place like Thanh Thao. I have been trying to get there forever, and I haven't gotten any closer. Does anybody have any secrets?

-Kristin

Read More: The Best Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky

I've previously read The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and enjoyed them both (except for that ending of Crime and Punishment!), so I was excited to read his short stories. I figure if you can do well with a huge novel you can definitely write an awesome short story. But I must say he is a much better novel writer if these were his best stories. Most were pretty boring. There were one or two that I did enjoy, though. So it wasn't all for naught. I guess.

Most of the stories had the same reoccurring theme: sad, reclusive man. Some of the sad, reclusive men had good souls, but were destined to a life of loneliness. Most of the sad, reclusive men were little cowardly bastards, looking down their noses at the rest of society, longing to show everyone just how much better they were than the rest. Maybe I felt a bit of an aversion towards these stories because they hit a little too close to home. I could see where my life is headed all too clearly. Watch out world. This bitter woman is coming for you.

- Megan Leigh