Between the Covers: Stories from My Bookcase

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin

I read Tales of the City and one or more of its sequels quite awhile back, but I don't really think I understood much of it until Michael Tolliver Lives brought some of it into perspective for me. So I was glad I picked up this title.

Michael Tolliver is an aging gay man living in San Francisco. He is also HIV positive, which is why to some of his acquaintances from the past, it is a welcome surprise that he still lives. This book, published in 2007, loosely references characters and events from Maupin's series Tales of the City. At this point though, Anna Madrigal is no longer landlady on Barbary Lane, and everyone is pretty much 20 years older. Michael, or Mouse as he is fondly called, tells the story now from his point of view.

This book is not for the faint hearted. To be honest, I wondered whether everyone in San Francisco all just thought of sex all the time, haha. Or was drugs or marijuana really that much pervasive in their lives. There is also a very racy scene in the novel that might not sit well with a conservative audience. But you can skip that page and move along if you like. The story is a good study on what we consider family to be - more than blood relations, what does it take to consider someone, or a group, to be family? It can be comforting to know that even if one wasn't so lucky to be born in a family they felt they belonged to, they can still find that family somewhere as long as they open their hearts to it.

 

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

BTC Annual Review 2012

Back in the end of 2011, I published a handwritten list of what’s on my To Be Read pile. At the time, it contained 35 titles.  How many of those titles have I read (and blogged about) already? How much more are on the list?

READ:

  1. The Glass Lake
  2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  3. The King of Torts
  4. Heart and Soul
  5. Lady Killer – this shouldn’t have been on the list, I read it back in 2010 but forgot about it.
  6. Silver Wedding
  7. Michael Tolliver Lives!
  8. Goodnight Nobody – also read in 2010
  9. Best of Friends – read, 2010
  10. The Copper Beech
  11. My Friend Leonard
  12. The Dreams of Ada
  13. Revolutionary Road
  14. Evening Class
  15. Certain Girls
  16. The Happiness Project

I can’t believe I’m coming up to only 16, which means there are 19 left. Really? Where are these books? Since Habagat happened, I’ve been having a hard time locating my other books that I’ve yet to read. Tsk. I really must embark on decluttering our space.

These were other books I read in 2012 that somehow weren’t listed on my TBR post:

  1. Open House
  2. The Hunger Games (I’m starting on Catching Fire soon)
  3. Wicked
  4. Battle Royale
  5. The Jefferson Key
  6. Dear John
  7. The Return Journey
  8. Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat
  9. Inkspell
  10. Delivering Happiness

So it looks like I’ve read 23 books in 2012. Not bad. How many will I get to read in 2013?  I know my TBR pile has grown so one of my short term goals is to round up all of those books, get them stacked in one place and list them. Another goal is to maybe buy half as many books as I bought in 2012. Not sure how I can achieve that! Hah! Smile

BTC is not only about my books. I’ve also been posting about Movies! I’d have to say that most of these movies were seen at home rather than in cinemas, and that’s okay. Smile This year we already kicked off our movie-going tradition with two movies this first weekend. I wonder if we’ll be keeping it up the rest of the year? We’ll see.

So here are the movies I wrote about in 2012:

  1. The Fourth Kind
  2. Journey 2 The Mysterious Island
  3. The Vow
  4. Unofficially Yours
  5. Furry Vengeance
  6. Circle of Friends
  7. Wrath of the Titans
  8. Alice in Wonderland
  9. Rachel Getting Married
  10. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
  11. The Amazing Spiderman
  12. This Means War
  13. Tangled
  14. Finding Nemo
  15. The Boys are Back
  16. Click
  17. One Hour Photo

I watch a lot of TV, specially when I stayed home last year because of my back pain. Looks like I didn’t write about my shows much, let’s see if it will be any different in 2013.

  1. Game of Thrones (S1, E1-6)
  2. Jane by Design
  3. TV Shows Rediscovered

All in all I published 74 posts in 2012. The month with the most posts is February. Let’s see how productive Between the Cover’s gonna be in 2013.

Oh, and thank you for coming by to read me. I appreciate your feedback and comments a lot. Cheers to a wonderful new year! Smile