You may have heard/seen this piece on NPR last week: Why Women Read More Than Men.   

The article talks about the gender gap between men and women when it comes to reading fiction. But it also has disturbing statistics about reading in general. Last year the typical American read only four books, and one in four adults read no books at all. Isn’t that awful? I can’t imagine not reading — what wonderful places you go and people you meet, what beautiful sentences by masterful writers…

Apparently reading has been on a downward spiral for awhile, and I find it interesting that we’re actually reading less, what with all the citywide reading programs, Oprah, and all these book clubs everyone seems to belong to, myself included.

And it gets worse: Kids read less than adults. The statistics show even Harry Potter may not be able to reverse the trend.

What book would you recommend to someone who hasn’t picked up a book in a year or three? (I bet all of my friends can guess what my pick would be without clicking the link….)

I absolutely love this time of year. Starting tonight through the end of the year (and beyond), there is at least one movie release almost every week that has some kind of Oscar buzz, although you may have to wait a little longer for some of them to come to Memphis.

You can start checking off your must-see list tonight with “3:10 to Yuma”  (see John Beifuss’ review here), and pencil in “In the Valley of Elah” in a couple of weeks. Be sure to make time for “Ira & Abby” (whenever it gets here), which is one of a couple of comedies this fall getting attention at film festivals. (I just loved writer/producer/actor Jennifer Westfeldt in “Kissing Jessica Stein.”) Brad Pitt follows soon after in the impossibly long-titled “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”

These all look good, but what I’m really waiting for are three films that are adaptations of some of my favorite books. Ian McEwan’s beautifully written tragedy “Atonement” opens in the UK today, but we’ll have to wait till November to see Keira Knightley and my new favorite actor James McAvoy as the ill-fated lovers.

“Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is finally brought to the big screen with Javier Bardem as the romantic Florentino Ariza, who doesn’t get the girl but never stops pining for her over the course of 50 years (while taking solace in the arms of many other women). Hope the film includes my two favorite scenes in the book — when Florentino eats flowers and drinks perfume so that he may know what it is like to be with his beloved Fermina Daza (only to wake up in a pool of fragrant vomit), and when he watches her reflection in a mirror at a restaurant for hours then pesters the owner for months to sell him the mirror that held her reflection. Sigh…

The film that has the most potential to disappoint: “The Kite Runner.” It’s always risky to film an extremely popular book, and already the trailer for Khaled Hosseini’s bestseller has me a little worried. I know you can’t really take too much stock in trailers, but it makes it seem like the war tears apart Amir and Hassan instead of Amir’s cowardice and betrayal.  But there is the pomegranate tree, and I love director Marc Forster (”Monster’s Ball” and the enchanting “Finding Neverland“), so I’m crossing my fingers…

What movies are you really looking forward to this fall?

You read John Beifuss’ story today about the movie that’s going to be filmed in Memphis in October, right?

Well, there’s a chance part of it might be filmed in The Commercial Appeal newsroom.  So we were all talking about who we’d like to meet if the opportunity arose. Of course, the guys were all about Kate Beckinsale, and some of the gals were imagining fawning over Matt Dillon, but Alan Alda is who I want to shake hands with. I just admire him as an actor and a person and think he’d be interesting to talk to.

My co-worker Carolyn, who works out of our Germantown office, was on the conference phone and said two people just asked her “Who’s Alan Alda?”

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The tax-free holiday starts Friday and goes through Sunday. Last year I decided not to battle the crowds, but I did go online and order some new uniforms for my kids, so I saved a little money.

Some people have said you get a better deal AFTER the tax holiday when items get discounted. Have you found that to be true?

Are you shopping tax-free this weekend?

I admit it, I thought that t-shirt smeared with makeup that read “I ran into Tammy Faye at the mall” was hilarious. Who knew that after worshiping with Tammy Faye Bakker in person I’d be the one feeling like a joke? Read the rest of this entry »