Wildly OT, but I need your help!

Please excuse the OT post, but I really need your help.

Does anyone have any pet turtle recommendations? We (I use this term lightly!) want one that lives primarily on land, not in water.

Totally, completely OT

Do you know what happened to me today? I was merrily writing along when all of a sudden I caught myself in a thought. Did I catch myself in a moment of brilliance? No. I caught myself seriously considering why some American Idol winners go on to great success (Kelly, Carrie) and others don't (Tyler, Ruben). And I mean seriously considering. I wondered about their relative work ethics, choice in managers, and the role of dumb luck.

Can I just add that I don't even watch American Idol? Oh, and I don't even listen to music. I mean, what the hell. Am I losing it?

Felled by audio

I had every intention of posting a review of this fabulous book to the right today. It's going to have to wait until tomorrow, however, as not just one, but two audio books had me glued to the ipod.

First up was John Banville's Christine Falls. This is a mystery he wrote under the pen name Benjamin Black. I loved Banville's The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Loved it. But I have to say that Christine Falls--a mystery, no less--may have even been better. Hands down, Banville's use of POV in Christine Falls was the most skillful I've seen in years. It's a slow read (or listen), because it's fairly dense, but immensely rewarding.

Next up was Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. I purchased this one before the Virginia Tech atrocities, so was reluctant to read another school shooting novel. But...it gripped me from the first moment. Unlike Christine Falls, in which multiple POVs conflict and contradict one another, there is only one point of view in We Need to Talk About Kevin. A one-sided epistolary novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin is compelling from start to finish. And, there's a reason almost every critic used the world "unflinching" in regards to this novel. Narrator Eva is not perfect--she's arrogant, yet critical of herself. She's impatient, yet tries as best she can as a mother. She's almost a genetic copy of her son, but can barely tolerate him from birth. 15 hours and I listened to it all--including the interview at the end. ** And, while I had imagined the ending as one of possible outcomes, it didn't bother me in the least.

Tomorrow I'll be back, I promise. I lost a day to stories.
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**I will mention here that the audio of We Need to Talk About Kevin was, in some ways, a trial. I could hear the narrator's every swallow, every intake of breath, every drink of water. The narrator herself was quite good, but the editing, obviously, left something to be desired. Read this one instead if extraneous noises between sentences bother you :)

Out and About

I'm still editing the Forest (up today at 5pm CST), but I wanted to tell you about a great toddler book I read recently--Wag a Tail, by Lois Ehlert. I have a review up over at Book Buds.

Speaking of Book Buds, did you know Anne will be editing the children's pages for The Poetry Foundation? She gives us the scoop here and reports on a Jack Prelutsky event here.
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In the "it's my blog and I can if I want to" department, Eric Wilson profiles "the headmaster of fashion," Tim Gunn, at The New York Times. Now before you all start thinking I'm a major fashionista, I'll tell you that I appreciate Gunn as a teacher most of all. He's truly a master in the classroom. Take this classic comment, for example: "I appreciate what you're trying to do. Do I love it? No." Perfection.
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In the no comment, but some of you may be interested department: more celebrity, more books.