The Mermaid Chair

Not such a great book, but I so loved the movie ... it was filmed just a few miles up the road from where I'm living now ... Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island ... gorgeous scenery and a young monk who was very nice to look at. There's a great line at the monastery - "the monks shuffled off in various degrees of huff."

I enjoyed her other book, The Secret Life of Bees. and hope to see a movie soon from this one ... just recently heard that it's in the making

The Watermelon King

We watched Big Fish last night ... again ... one of my favorite movies. Wonderful, magical characters and wonderful actors ... Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Ewan MacGregor, Billy Crudup, Helena Bonham Carter, and that beautiful French woman who won an Oscar this year for playing Edith Piaf.

So I remembered another book by Daniel Wallace that I read last year ... The Watermelon King. Susan Shreve called it "a marvelous combination of Chaucer and Roald Dahl." Such humor and humanity in this story of a young man in search of his identity. His genius has produced a tale both outrageous and heartbreaking. I hope to find more of his mystery and magic.