February in Review

​February brought a lot of exciting things!  Rodeo is a big thing in San Antonio this time of year. My wife and I, along with a few friends, saw Carly Pearce and Michael Ray (Country Music acts) perform after the bull riding and other rodeo events...always a great time!  I had a few auditions and got cast in a short film which is filming as I finish this blog post...more news to come on this next month...very excited about this film and the role I get to play!  And work took me back to Hawaii which was a change of pace after not having to travel for close to 3 months.   

With all this busyness I was still able to read a total of 4 books, most of them award winning selections: from Eugenides, DeWitt, Roth, and Updike.  All pretty good.  

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Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - 2003
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Signed First Printing
****

What a fascinating, informative, exquisite, riveting novel! I am so glad this novel wound up being much more than I expected.  The exploration of the 'third sex' if you will taken to new boundaries, expanding several generations and customs and social settings.  Very enlightening. And Eugenides is indeed a force to be reckon with!

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Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt
First Printing
***

I thoroughly enjoy DeWitt's humor, yet I don't think it really shined all that much with this novel. Set in a village where a lazy momma's boy takes a job as an assistant to a majordomo at a creepy castle. The castle's namesake is more than distraught about a lost love and the protagonist winds up helping him, but perhaps it wasn't the good thing that he did. Tones of Christopher Moore and Cervantes, but this book just didn't soar for me.  

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National Book Award - 1960
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
Signed Later Printing
****

You should know by now I love me some Philip Roth.  Goodbye is his very first book he published. It shows in some areas, yet you can also see his brilliance, his literary stamp of genius throughout the novella and 5 accompanying short stories. Although I enjoyed the title story, my favorite was The Conversion of The Jews. About a young boy questioning his Jewish faith, it has the bite and charisma and silliness that many of Roth's later works encompass.  Absolutely recommend this book! 

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National Book Award - 1964
The Centaur by John Updike
First Printing
***

I have never been big on mythology, therefore it was no surprise that the modern re-telling of the centaur Chiron and of Prometheus did not do much for me. Boring most of the time. Chiron is a high school teacher and Prometheus is his teenage son. Both struggling with self-doubt. However, Caldwell (Chiron) should be described and prescribed as having a depression problem...instead of being half-horse half-man he is more like a half-Eeyore half-man...always moping and just a little tiring.  Although I like Updike's style most of the time this one just left me, meh.  

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What did you read in February?
What are you currently reading?
Anything you recommend?

Thank you and don't forget to check out my Goodreads Page!​