Finished Enemies, Tim Weiner's history of the FBI. TL;DR: The FBI used to be evil, but then J Edgar Hoover died and now it's just incompetent at being good. Next I'm "reading" Great Gatsby for school, and probably gonna read American Lion if I can find it in audiobook form.
Reading the second tale of the Malazan book of the Fallen, the Deadhouse Gates. Its like Prince of Nothing lite. All the battles and character development that I love with out the metaphysics that cause things to bog down.
Just finishing up Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy. This is the best fantasy no one has ever heard of. I've been reading fantasy for 40 years and just came across it by accident. Also reading Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween.
This is a reference to a conversation Greg and I had at PAX East.
It is? I can't remember it. How'd it go?
We were talking about reading books and you stated that you hardly ever read the written word and almost always default to audiobook which left me in shock. I think afterword we had a discussion about which was better. I can't entirely remember.
We were talking about reading books and you stated that you hardly ever read the written word and almost always default to audiobook which left me in shock. I think afterword we had a discussion about which was better. I can't entirely remember.
Sounds like neither one of us was particularly interested, since we can't remember :P
We were talking about reading books and you stated that you hardly ever read the written word and almost always default to audiobook which left me in shock. I think afterword we had a discussion about which was better. I can't entirely remember.
Sounds like neither one of us was particularly interested, since we can't remember :P
Or maybe we were so disgusted with one anothers position that we both tried to suppress the conversation :P :P
Just finished rereading Murakami's Norwegian Wood. That book always gets to me, good thing that I read it too, reminding me why I was taking Japanese again, despite it being such a difficult language.
I'm primarily reading Guide to Cartooning, by Al Bohl; and slowly working my way through Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz. Pretty soon I'm going to start How to Look at Modern Art, by Philip Yenawine; Salmon Doubts, by Adam Sacks. Oh, and maybe another real book... as I do have one or two of those that I should maybe actually read around here...
I recently finished Making Comics, by Scott McCloud.
I've got to ask: have you read Hand Behind the Mouse and/or Chuck Amock? If you like reading about cartoons, those are what you need to read.
Speaking of which, I picked up Mel Blanc's auto biography when I was in Hawaii for something like a dollar with a biography of General Wild Bill Donovan (one of those is a comedy, and I'll let you guess), so I think I'll have to read that when I get back into a cartoon sort of mood.
Just started reading Gareth Roberts' novelization of Doctor Who: Shada. Not sure how close it is to Douglas Adams' version, but given the history of trouble that particular production had, it probably shouldn't be that big of an issue. So far, so good. Pretty much reads like a typical episode from the classic series only with a few new series references here and there.
That history of Halloween kinda sucked so now I'm reading What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1814-1844. Just started and it's already great.
I'm currently reading "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut. It's just okay so far but I imagine it'll pick up soon. The satire is very strong, as always, and is making me laugh out loud.
My father's buddy in the Army wrote a biography/memoir called, The Devil's Disciple. It's mainly about his experiences in the Army and in Vietnam.
There are several pictures and stories of my father in there and even a chapter about him. He sent a copy to my father. I plan on getting the Kindle version to read it.
You can see an image of my father on the back. That's pretty cool.
Just finished reading the main three books in Hitchhiker's. The second book was my favorite of the three, but overall it just didn't really capture me that much. I couldn't get into any of the characters, so I didn't really care about what happened to any of them. Which is sort of fine because the books aren't really about them, but I just don't get invested in books like that.
Next up, going to try to do Player of Games before Scrym does their episode on it.
Picked up Fail-Safe, a military fiction book from 1962 about a theoretical (but realistic) nuclear scare. Very interesting to read something of this age that is still relevant. Also, been doing 1Q84 on audiobook for months now, hard to find time to get back to it b/c I only put it on when I'm out of podcasts, but I'm past halfway and def enjoying it. Weird fucking book.
About halfway through Hydrogen Sonata, and I'll be starting John Birmingham's Axis of time Trilogy afterward - the basic premise of which is that a multinational millitary taskforce from 2021 and ends up in 1942, and end up severely altering history.
I'm currently making my way through The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I remember that my teacher read it to us when I was in 5th grade and it scared the ever-living daylights out of me, so I wanted to see how scary/entertaining it actually was.
The chapter entitled "The Third Expedition" is still the most interesting chapter to me, even all these years later.
Mostly read All Souls. Its not a bad book, but I wish I hadn't read it. The time and energy I put into reading it did not get me anything I don't already get everyday going to school with Southie kids. Also, the narcotics use was a little exaggerated. In my experience, its a lot more alcohol than anything else.
Now I'm reading American Lion again. Four words: God damn it cholera!
Finished Neuromancer and The Fault in Our Stars. Hoping to get to divergence soon, or maybe the second hunger games book. A lot of young adult fiction in my future right now.
I've given up on Breakfast of Champions. To be fair, I got in about 70 pages and I realized it was just not jiving with me and it wasn't Vonnegut at his full abilities (he even admitted this in the forward).
I felt in the mood for a hard boiled detective novel, so I've picked up Raymond Chandler's: Farewell, My Lovely; the second Philip Marlowe novel. I'm really enjoying it so far! I'd never read Chandler before this and I love his writing voice and style. I'm gonna stick with this till the end.
On The Fault in Our Stars: nice young adult book, but John Green seems to write every character the same. It's pretty blah at times when you could swap any characters into the scene and have the same dialogue.
I read Spike Milligan's war memoirs. The first volume is called "Hitler, My Part in His Downfall." All the four volumes are short -- I'd say 150 pages or so. If you don't know Spike Milligan he was one of the greatest and most influential British comedians. He, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe did a show in the 60s called The Goon Show -- which all the Monty Pythoners point to as their inspiration. (http://www.thegoonshow.net/) So his war memoirs are very funny and also very good. He writes a lot about the main part of military life and what most other memoirs skip: waiting around doing nothing. "Nothing was happening and it was happening quite regularly." The guys in his unit were either as mad as he was or happily went along with whatever weird time-killer he came up with. Focusing on the regular life stuff makes it all the more jarring when he starts writing about being in action. Very funny and I think a really important war memoir.
Comments
I recently finished Making Comics, by Scott McCloud.
Speaking of which, I picked up Mel Blanc's auto biography when I was in Hawaii for something like a dollar with a biography of General Wild Bill Donovan (one of those is a comedy, and I'll let you guess), so I think I'll have to read that when I get back into a cartoon sort of mood.
There are several pictures and stories of my father in there and even a chapter about him. He sent a copy to my father. I plan on getting the Kindle version to read it.
You can see an image of my father on the back. That's pretty cool.
Next up, going to try to do Player of Games before Scrym does their episode on it.
The chapter entitled "The Third Expedition" is still the most interesting chapter to me, even all these years later.
Now I'm reading American Lion again. Four words: God damn it cholera!
I felt in the mood for a hard boiled detective novel, so I've picked up Raymond Chandler's: Farewell, My Lovely; the second Philip Marlowe novel. I'm really enjoying it so far! I'd never read Chandler before this and I love his writing voice and style. I'm gonna stick with this till the end.
Focusing on the regular life stuff makes it all the more jarring when he starts writing about being in action. Very funny and I think a really important war memoir.