If it's strange, is it good?

A friend recently loaned me The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (he also wrote Midwives), and she told me to read it because it's very strange. Normally, I trust this friend's taste in books, but I don't normally like books that might be considered strange. Maybe she wanted me to read it so that we could talk about its strangeness. Anway, I decided to try it, and I soon found myself getting hooked on the characters in it. In addition to the main characters, the book includes characters from The Great Gatsby Although I read Gatsby years ago, I don't remember much beyond the basic plot and the setting. But the book fills in the gaps in my memory. My friend called this a mystery, and there definitely are things that you struggle as a reader to understand, but it isn't your traiditional who-done-it... that's for sure. The ending is a surprise, so I won't tell you more, but I do think that it's worth reading. And it is kind of strange.
-June

The Curious Case of Benjamin Gump

Suddenly there are several movies I want to see, but all of them receive mixed reviews from the critics. So we throw out the reviews and go with the one that has the most interesting previews and the longest title... in this case, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. As we watched the movie, I just had this feeling that there was something familiar about it but I couldn't place what it was. Then as Benjamin's mother is giving him a little piece of wisdom about life... something like "You never know what life will bring", it hit me. "Life is like a box of chocolates!" This movie has similar characters and mood as Forrest Gump. At first I thought it was just a southern thing since both movies take place in the south and both sons call their mother "mama". But it's more than that. There's a sweet innocence to both characters, they both experience war, and they both even own boats. I mentioned this to G on the way home, and he thought I was crazy. But I did a quick search online when we got home and there are actually articles about the similarities so I'm not completely wacko. The good news is that I loved Forrest Gump. And I also liked Benjamin Button. But note that this movie is really long (almost 3 hours) so be sure to withhold any liquid intake for several hours prior to viewing.
-June

You CAN teach old dogs new tricks

We've shared many things over the years, and the one thing we constantly share is our opinions. Let's use this forum as a way to communicate our ideas and our thoughts on everything from books and movies to travel and food.

Let's give it a shot and see what we can learn from each other.
-June