Last night was the most recent meeting of The Turtle Party: Book Club where we discussed our final thoughts on the Charles Bukowksi novel Post Office. There were a couple of readers who weren’t too keen on the book but most of us loved its simple and colorful style. I, personally, loved the book and am very much looking forward to reading more of Bukowski’s work.

Andy was charged with bringing a few selections for our next book and from his picks we decided to read Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer:

Funny enough, I picked up this book a few months ago to have on hand because I’ve always wanted to read it … it’s been on my “To Read” book pile for a while so now I can finally read it. I understand that this book was made into a movie starring Elijah Wood but I don’t think any of us Turtle Partiers have seen it. Because of the coming holidays, we decided to change up our meeting schedule a bit … we’ll be meeting in 3 weeks time (instead of two) and then again after the New Year.

Last night’s get-together was really fun … I really enjoy getting together for our book club meetings. We have so much fun :)

Plans for tonight are in flux … so I’m not sure what I’m doing yet. Unfortch, I’ve not been feeling better at all so I honestly would not be opposed to another relaxing night at home. I could get some reading done :)

OOOOOH and I’m happy to report that my ticket for the Michael Jackson: This Is It concert performance that David and I were supposed to see back in September (which never happened due to MJ’s untimely death) finally arrived. As I understand it, there were 8 different 3D designs printed on the various tickets for the various performances:

The tickets printed with the special lenticular process, were inspired and designed by Michael Jackson for the fans attending his shows. This is the actual “oversized” concert ticket, measuring 82mm x 186mm (3.23in x 7.32in) for the 50 This Is It shows at The O2. His hopes were his fans would want to keep the special ticket as a reminder of the memorable evening that they would share together. The lenticular concert tickets feature one of eight unique designs printed via the lenticular printing process. Lenticular printing is a 3D process that can contain animation, multiple photos, morphing or a combination of these. The front of the ticket is the lenticular image and the reverse side is the standard ticket detail including the performer name, tour name, show date, venue, section number, row number, and seat number.

*Ticket images are not to scale and are a still image snapshot of the actual moving image represented on the concert ticket.

After the jump, find out which ticket design I got …

READ THE REST OF THIS POST »

Fans of Sex and the City have new reason to celebrate today … People magazine brings us our first look at the book cover for the new Candace Bushnell SaTC prequel titled The Carrie Diaries which introduces us to the Carrie Bradshaw character before she was all sexy in the city:

Sex and the City 2 may not be scheduled to hit theaters until May 28, 2010 – but for fans clamoring for anything new and Sex-related, there’s good news ahead: Candace Bushnell is releasing the new book The Carrie Diaries, a teen prequel to her famous franchise. Set during Carrie Bradshaw’s high school years, the book details the budding fashionista’s early relationships and how she began her career as a writer. According to the publisher, The Carrie Diaries will also focus on Bradshaw’s first love, while the cover art specifically references an incident between the character and her mother. The Carrie Diaries will be published on April 27, 2010.

HMMM … it’s unclear if this book is aimed at adult fans of Sex and the City or new, young fans who are unfamiliar with the SaTC book and/or TV series. I hope the book is written in such a way that adult fans of the original can enjoy the story … and I can’t help but feel it’s weird to aim a book like this at kids. In any event, anything from Candace Bushnell is welcome to me and I am really looking forward to reading this book when it is released next year. I like how the cover has a Louis Vuitton/Stephen Sprouse feel to it … I wonder how LV feels about the homage? Are any of y’all lookin’ forward to the release of this book?

[Source, Source]

Yesterday we saw a few NSFW photos of Heidi Klum covered in chocolate in the new photobook Rankin’s Heidilicious and today we get to see a few more NSFW nekkid pics of Klum in all her, well, Heidiliciousness:

Yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this new photobook is chock full of many nekkid pics of the German supermodel. After the jump, check out a few NSFW uncensored images from the book, none of which feature chocolate of any kind …

READ THE REST OF THIS POST »

Supermodel and new mom (again) Heidi Klum is the subject of a new photobook by celeb photographer Rankin (née John Rankin Waddell) titled Heidilicious which is full of, well, photos of Heidi Klum. I would imagine that many of the photos in this new book are on the racier (ie. nekkid) side … I mean, judging by this photo alone:

That’s a lot of chocolate Heidi’s wearing … and, wouldn’t you know it, all of that chocolate doesn’t completely cover everything adequately. HMMM … yeah, you see what I mean about the tone of this book. After the jump, check out a few NSFW uncensored photos from Rankin’s Heidilicious which feature more of this chocolate fun …

READ THE REST OF THIS POST »

Last night was the latest meeting of The Turtle Party: Book Club and was our time to have our final discussion on Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. There was a mixed-bag of opinions on the book and we decided to rate the book 3.5 stars out of 5. I personally found the narrative too loose to follow and it took me well past the midway point of the book to even get into it. Had it not been for the book club, I would’ve abandoned the book by chapter 10. In retrospect, we discussed how it might’ve been more successful had we read a book from early in Vonnegut’s career rather than near the end of it.

Caleb brought a selection of books for us to choose as our next book to read … by overwhelming consensus, we decided to take on Post Office by Charles Bukowski:

I’m really excited to read this book … it’s been one of the books I’ve been dying to get to. I look forward to discussing it with my fellow Turtle Partiers soon.

David and I are in full blown cleaning mode today … his sisters arrive tomorrow and we need to get this place in shipshape. That said, we are taking a break this afternoon to grab some food with a friend of ours we haven’t seen in ages. This evening will most likely be spent in the aisles at Target loading up on supplies … fun times!!

No big news to pass along from yesterday … it was a very quiet day for David and me. I have a lot of reading to do so I really needed to stay in and get some of that finished. I really wanted to finish Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann which I started a couple of weeks ago and I finally managed to get it done. OMG, what a fabulous book. I loved every bit of it … those of you who mentioned in the comments that I would love that book were so right. I really need to watch the movie version now … so much fun!! I also needed to get some reading done on Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. The Turtle Party: Book Club meets tonight and I am supposed to have half of the book read … well, I did get some reading done but not the required half … mainly because I started reading a new biography of William Shakespeare that I simply cannot put down:

Biographies on Shakespeare are all pretty much made up of conjecture primarily because there aren’t many records left by Shakespeare himself and he never left any writings about his personal life. This new book, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt is really a fantastic read. He manages to paint a portrait of what Shakespeare’s life *may* have been like based on anecdotal evidence left by his contemporaries. The writing is really superb and Shakespeare’s life is wholly fascinating.

In any event, that’s pretty much what I did yesterday … tonight, I meet up with the other Turtle Party folks. It’ll be good to see everyone.

Shocking Paris Hilton news to pass along today … the overexposed heiress was spotted shopping in SoCal for something so surprisingly out of character that the mere sight of her latest shopping excursion left me slack-jawed and stunned. Paris Hilton was caught shopping … at a book store!

What’s even more shocking is that Paris went shopping at one of the best book stores in LA — Book Soup on Sunset Blvd. At first, Paris was seen perusing a book titled The 48 Laws of Power … here is a book description:

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power in to forty-eight well explicated laws. As attention–grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers. Some laws teach the need for prudence (”Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), the virtue of stealth (”Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions”), and many demand the total absence of mercy (”Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”), but like it or not, all have applications in real life. Illustrated through the tactics of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, P. T. Barnum, and other famous figures who have wielded–or been victimized by–power, these laws will fascinate any reader interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.

But once Paris discovered that there were NO PICTURES in this book, she decided to pick up a pretty and oversized photo book instead … then she sped away in her fugly ass pink Bentley. The thought of Paris Hilton actually reading a book — any book — just hurts my head. Paris Hilton may be famous for doing very outrageous things … but this has to take the cake.

[Photo credit: Splash News]