Kemper has
1521 books
(104 selected)
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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
date
|
date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0060989297
| 9780060989293
| 3.84
| 1,320
| Apr 11, 2005
| Aug 15, 2006
|
Vince Camden is a lot like that guy in the old commercial who would wearily trudge out of the house before dawn while muttering, “Time to make the don...more
Vince Camden is a lot like that guy in the old commercial who would wearily trudge out of the house before dawn while muttering, “Time to make the donuts.”. Only in addition to making the donuts, Vince is engaging in selling pot and running a credit card scam. Vince is a former mob guy living in the witness protection program in Spokane WA in 1980. While he actually enjoys his job at the local donut shop, just as birds gotta fly and fish gotta swim, Vince has to engage in some petty crime while spending most of his free time playing cards in a seedy bar with the people that constitute what little underworld Spokane. He also occasionally dates a hooker who has dreams of becoming a real estate agent. However, when some of his confederates in the credit card scam begin acting oddly, Vince gets worried, and his paranoia leads to a week of facing up to his old life and trying to figure out what kind of person he’ll be if he lives that long. I enjoyed the other the other Jess Walter book I’ve read, The Financial Lives of the Poets, and like that one, this is a dark comedy with a crime story veneer on top of a person trying to figure out their place in the world. Vince is an interesting character who has come to enjoy reading and gets a new book every week to impress a pretty lady who comes into the donut shop, but he never finishes one. He is compulsively trying to count how many people he knew that are now dead. Most intriguing are his efforts to understand how he should vote in the upcoming presidential election between Carter and Reagan. With his record wiped clean and voting rights restored, this is the first time that Vince will be participating in the electoral process, and he believes he’s lacking some kind of key information that other voters use to make their decision. It’s a well written and fast paced read that uses a sympathetic criminal character to examine the idea of what it takes to make people change their lives. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Apr 26, 2013
| May 07, 2013
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Apr 26, 2013
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0307958086
| 9780307958082
| 3.35
| 1,247
| Jan 01, 2012
| Aug 21, 2012
|
This book made me such a nervous wreck that I developed a facial tic and had to take antacids while I was reading it. Desmond Pepperdine is a 15 year o...more This book made me such a nervous wreck that I developed a facial tic and had to take antacids while I was reading it. Desmond Pepperdine is a 15 year old lad living in a very rough part of England where life expectancies are short and violence is common. Des is a bright and gentle boy with a big secret. His 39 year old grandmother Grace has seduced him, and Des is worried that his uncle Lionel will find out. Lionel took Des in after his mother died a few years earlier. Des loves ‘Uncle Li’, but he’s also terrified of him. He should be. Lionel is the kind of guy who laces his pit bulls’ food with Tabasco to make them meaner, and he took such pride in being the youngest person to ever receive an Anti-Social Behavior Order after a violent spree at age 3 that he had his name legally changed to Asbo. He'll put a man in the hospital over some perceived grievance and then complain when his victim has the nerve to file a complaint with the police. As a career criminal specializing in loan shark collection and reselling stolen goods, Lionel is constantly in and out of jail. Lionel also has a strict policy that his mom is too old to be dating men, and he doesn’t like it when he hears from a neighbor that Grace has been seeing someone. Des keeps his mouth shut as Lionel finds another young man to blame and forces Des to help him get his revenge. Years pass as Des lives with his secrets and tries to establish a quiet normal life by going to college and getting a girlfriend. He still lives with Lionel but with him always in jail, Des usually has the place to himself. However, after Lionel wins a small fortune in the lottery, he becomes a tabloid sensation. Unfortunately, becoming wealthy does nothing to make Lionel Asbo a better person, and dealing with his whims and moods becomes an even worse minefield for Des. The odd thing is that Lionel doesn’t seem quite as monstrous as he should. Amis does a nice job of depicting the affection that Des has for his uncle even as he has absolutely no illusions as to what Lionel is. With Des’s secret about Grace and Lionel’s skewed logic regarding right-and-wrong, every conversation between the two has an underlying tension that really got to me after a while. And the ending nearly killed me. (view spoiler)[ I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or angry about the plot twist when it turned out the baby was safe after the extended wringer Amis put us through to learn the final outcome. (hide spoiler)] While I enjoyed the story about a bright young man trying to create a life for himself while dealing with the constant threat presented by his sociopathic criminal uncle, I was disappointed in the satire aspects of Lionel becoming famous. It seems like Amis just hits all the obvious points of tabloid culture or wealth enabling someone to act like an asshole. (Which he did a better and more subtle job of in the superior Money.) As a family story, it’s tense and darkly funny. As cultural satire, it seemed obvious and without much bite.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Mar 27, 2013
| Apr 02, 2013
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Mar 27, 2013
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0805092439
| 9780805092431
| 3.92
| 3,812
| Aug 03, 2010
| Aug 03, 2010
|
It’s like all the best parts of The Road, The Walking Dead and Winter’s Bone. Temple is a fifteen year old girl who has grown up in the ruins of Ameri...more It’s like all the best parts of The Road, The Walking Dead and Winter’s Bone. Temple is a fifteen year old girl who has grown up in the ruins of America following the zombie apocalypse. She wanders the remains like a post-apocalyptic tourist looking at the wonders created by a ’slick god’ and encountering a variety of people along the way. Supremely capable and confident, Temple has little problem surviving and dispatching the ’meatskins’ she runs across, but she winds up with a determined killer on her trail. This is one of those books that fuses genre with literature, and it’s one of the best I’ve read that’s attempted that trick. Incredible writing not only establishes a completely new society and an unforgettable heroine as well as a rich supporting cast that’s well-plotted, it’s also all done is less than 250 pages. I got way more out this than the hundreds of pages of Justin Cronin’s bloated version of a monster apocalypse or Mira Grant’s overstuffed and repetitive take on the aftermath of a zombie uprising. I found it a bit unbelievable that over a decade after the zombies took over that Temple can still find edible supplies in convenience stores and working cars so easily. Also, (view spoiler)[ I could have lived without the mutant inbred redneck clan. Zombies and dangerous humans were enough of a threat. This came close to pushing a story that had seemed incredibly realistic into horror movie territory. (hide spoiler)] These are relatively minor gripes about a haunting story that’s going to stick with me. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Mar 11, 2013
| Mar 19, 2013
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Mar 11, 2013
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0060885599
| 9780060885595
| 3.89
| 5,845
| Jan 01, 2012
| May 01, 2012
|
It’s probably a bad idea for the US military to allow the troops overseas to get the news from back home. I have this fear that someday the service me...more
It’s probably a bad idea for the US military to allow the troops overseas to get the news from back home. I have this fear that someday the service men and women in places like Iraq and Afghanistan will finally snap after seeing the people they’ve pledged to defend are less interested in what they’re doing than TV reality shows and celebrity gossip. If the military ever decides that the pack of assholes back in America isn’t worth fighting and dying for, we could find all that hardware aiming back at us someday. I really wouldn’t blame them. Billy Lynn is a young soldier who was serving in Iraq with Bravo squad. After Bravo got into a hellacious firefight with a band of insurgents that was captured on camera by an embedded Fox News crew, the members of Bravo become national heroes. To capitalize on their popularity, the Bush administration has Bravo brought back to the US and sent them on a ‘Victory Tour’ (Which just so happens to run through critical electoral states for the next election.) to drum up support for the war. The Victory Tour culminates at a Thanksgiving Day pro football game at Texas Stadium in which Bravo is supposed to play a part in the half-time show. While Billy and the other Bravo members have been enjoying some of the perks of being heroes on tour, it also means putting up with the people who want to prove their support of the troops by fawning over them as well as being used as PR props by anyone with an agenda like the owner of the Cowboys.* Bravo would also like to sign a film deal before they have to deploy back to Iraq in a few days so they can at least get a nice payday for their efforts, but the producer they’re working with is having problems getting Hollywood interested in a war movie set in Iraq. (*Ben Fountain avoids a lawsuit by creating a fictional asshole owner of the Cowboys instead of naming Jerry Jones, the actual asshole owner of the Cowboys.) I started noting passages I wanted to quote in this review, but I hit a point where I was finding something on every page so I gave up on that plan. There was so much about this one that I loved, that I don’t really know where to start. Young Billy Lynn is one of the best and most sympathetic characters I’ve read in a long while. He’s a 19-year-old virgin who can’t legally drink, but he’s gone to war and had more experience with death than most would have in a lifetime. Billy is nervous when dealing with the older wealthier good old boys who want to glad hand Bravo at the game, and he has a somewhat naive belief that there is someone wiser than him that can explain all the feelings that combat and the aftermath have stirred in him. However, he also has a grunt's hyper-awareness of hypocrisy and bullshit. As Bravo endures a long day of being used as props for photo ops and a half-time show, Billy’s musings and observations about the people and events in the stadium showcase a society that will spend billions on sports but pays it’s soldiers a pittance while patting themselves on the back for the way they support the troops by offering them applause and trinkets before sending them back to war. That’s a powerful point, but what makes this so great is that the message is delivered so deftly and without the heavy handed political left or right wing political manifesto that is part of almost any writing done about these kinds of subjects. It’s also funny and absolutely nails many things that are great and ridiculous about America. It’s only March, but I think I may have an early winner for Best Book I Read This Year.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Mar 07, 2013
| Mar 14, 2013
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Mar 07, 2013
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0061692042
| 9780061692048
| 3.52
| 8,280
| May 18, 2010
| May 22, 2012
|
So here was a list of things I was thinking about to mock and/or reference when reviewing Canada: 1) O Canada 2) Hockey 3) Canadian bacon - The meat 4) Ca...more So here was a list of things I was thinking about to mock and/or reference when reviewing Canada: 1) O Canada 2) Hockey 3) Canadian bacon - The meat 4) Canadian Bacon - The movie 5) Mounties (e.g. Dudley Do-Right, Sergeant Preston, the guy from Due South) 6) This 7) America’s 51st state 8) Wolverine 9) Alpha Flight 10) Celine Dion 11) The McKenzie brothers 12) Brandon’s beard Ah, but sadly, this book depressed me too much to dig into this treasure trove of material so I guess I’ll just have to stick to reviewing it instead. In 1960, fifteen year old Dell Parsons’ world is turned upside down when his parents commit a bank robbery and are arrested. With no other family willing to take them in, Dell and his twin sister Berner are on the verge of being taken into custody by the state of Montana, but Berner runs away while Dell is whisked over the border into Canada by a friend of his mother’s. Dell is left in the boonies of Saskatchewan under the care of Arthur Remlinger, the owner of a hunting lodge who has his own dark and tragic secrets. There was a great deal I liked about this one. Ford’s writing has a melancholy beauty to it, and he builds up the characters incredibly well. By the time that Dell’s parents rob the bank, Ford has explored every corner of the family dynamic so that you understand completely why two law-abiding citizens become a half-assed version of Bonnie & Clyde. Most of the book is Dell’s coming to terms with how that one act forever alters his life, and it’s almost physically painful to read about how a bookish naïve boy who was dreaming of joining the school chess club winds up isolated and living in a shack on the Canadian prairie. However, the mystery fan part of me was a little perplexed by this. When you get a Pulitzer Prize winner writing a book that hinges on a criminal act, you know it’s not going to play out like a genre piece, but I can’t help but think about other stories I’ve read by guys like Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake or Dennis Lehane in which they show the impact of a crime on the lives of ordinary people. What bugged me about this is that the basic set-up is in the first paragraph of the book jacket summary, yet the robbery and Del’s flight to Canada don’t occur until about the half-way point in the book. The personalities and mis-matched nature of the parents as well as the relatively minor crisis that triggers the robbery are explored well in the first half. You feel like you really know these people, but I kept thinking that I’ve read crime genre books that didn’t require nearly as much time to create complex characters and believable reasons for their illegal actions. But this is one of those books that is about the writing itself as much as the story, and in that aspect it succeeds. I just can’t but wonder what a good crime writer would have done with this story, and I can’t shake the feeling I probably would have liked that version a bit better.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Feb 14, 2013
| Feb 24, 2013
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Feb 14, 2013
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 8817674672
| 9788817674676
| 3.83
| 7,324
| 1983
| 1988
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Treasure of the Rubbermaids 19: Big Rock Candy Mountain The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid container...more Treasure of the Rubbermaids 19: Big Rock Candy Mountain The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths. Francis Phelan is living the romantic life of a hobo during the Great Depression. Drifting from town to town by hopping trains and with no responsibilities to tie him down, Francis enjoys the company of his fellow bums as they share cans of beans and jugs of wine. OK, that’s bullshit. Any notions of the hobo lifestyle having some kind of appeal are dealt with quickly and brutally here. Francis’s existence is a daily grind of trying to avoid freezing or starving to death, and a hobo’s corpse quickly becomes food for wild dogs. With few teeth left in his head and a simple shoestring being beyond his means, Francis dispels the myth of the carefree hobo. Particularly cringe worthy is a scene in which he is trying to take advantage of a visit to a friend’s apartment by cleaning himself up and his underwear falls to pieces when he tries to wash them in the sink. Think about how skeevy those drawers had to be and tell me you want to hang out by the campfire under the bridge. Francis is also dealing with a fair amount of guilt. He hit the rails the first time after killing a scab during a strike, and while he eventually came home after that incident, another tragic turn sent him on the bum for good when Francis dropped his infant son who broke his neck in the fall. (Way to go, butterfingers!) His life as a hobo added to his regrets as the rough existence of a drifter forced him to kill others along the way. As a wise man once sang: Nothing beats the hobo life Stabbing folks with my hobo knife Back in his old home town of Albany, Francis is stuck trying to work off a debt to a lawyer and dealing with the many ghosts that his past has haunted him with. He’s also trying to look out for his hobo girlfriend Helen and his buddy Rudy. Running into his grown sons provides the shocking realization that his family doesn’t hold a grudge for him abandoning them, but can Francis ever forgive himself? Francis story is sad and compelling, and he’s an interesting character. He makes no excuses for the things he’s done or how he lives. Despite his capacity for violence, he doesn’t look for trouble. He’s generous with what little he has as well as compassionate. He’s got a kind of cheerful pragmatism despite the regrets he has. The story of Francis makes this worth checking out, and it’s certainly well written, but I’m a little shocked that it won a Pulitzer. It seems very good, but not at a level of greatness that kind of prize would indicate. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Jan 30, 2013
| not set
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Jan 30, 2013
| Paperback
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| 0061493341
| 9780061493348
| 3.39
| 6,381
| Jan 01, 2012
| Sep 11, 2012
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A bunch of quirky characters wear clothes from the ‘70s and use old technology like a portable 8-track player while dealing with each other’s personal...more
A bunch of quirky characters wear clothes from the ‘70s and use old technology like a portable 8-track player while dealing with each other’s personal tics? I honestly wasn’t sure if I was reading a Michael Chabon novel or a Wes Anderson screenplay for a while. Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are co-owners of a vintage record store in Oakland, but the business is circling the drain. A former pro football player is about to finish them off by opening up a huge retail store featuring an extensive used vinyl section just down the street. Their wives, Gwen and Aviva, are also partners in a midwife practice, but when a home delivery goes sour, they also find their business at risk. Archy and Gwen are about to have a baby, but he can’t stop cheating on her. The sudden appearance of a 14 year old son named Titus he has never acknowledged doesn’t do a lot for the marital harmony. Nat’s son Julius is geeky kid with a love of comic books and Tarantino movies who is just realizing that he’s gay and falls for Titus. If that wasn’t enough general confusion, Archy’s estranged father, a former star of black exploitation movies, shows up again with a blackmail scheme in which he tries to shake own the ex-athlete that is about to put Archy out of business. As you can tell from the summary, there’s a lot going on in this book. Archy is at the heart of it, and he’s an interesting character. An oversized vinyl buff who wears vintage leisure suits, Archy seems like a calm and mellow guy who rolls with the punches, but over the course of the book Chabon shows how he’s a man terrified of choice and consequences so he floats along trying to keep everything the same even as he knows big changes are inevitable with a baby on the way and his business going under. He reminded me a lot of another Chabon character, Grady Tripp from Wonder Boys. The other characters are well thought out and the whole story has a funny bittersweet feel to it. There’s a couple of times where I felt like a character deserved a brisk slap for being too self-indulgent, but Chabon does a good job of sensing those moments and having another character call them on it. I particularly liked that even though this involved a collectible industry and has a lot of geek shout-outs to comic books and other nerd touchstones, that Chabon never lets it devolve into nostalgia porn. There’s an interesting undercurrent of the old school small community based business versus the modern corporate world, but Chabon doesn’t supply easy answers. It’s pointed out that the big store would create hundreds of jobs and revitalize a dying neighborhood while the used record store is more of a hobby than a business for Archy and Nat. Gwen and Aviva have to deal with hospital politics to keep their privileges for their home birth practice while the doctors treat them like crap. The biggest struggles the characters have with each other and themselves is trying to strike the balance of trying to work on their own terms while being responsible and providing for their families. While it’s an entertaining read filled with off-beat characters, it never really sucked me in the same way that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay did, and I’d rank Wonder Boys and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union ahead of it. It’s certainly not a bad book, it just doesn't seem to have the depth that Chabon’s other work I’ve read had. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Dec 12, 2012
| Dec 19, 2012
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Dec 12, 2012
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1594487367
| 9781594487361
| 3.76
| 18,730
| 2012
| Sep 11, 2012
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Junot Diaz brings back Yunior from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as the narrator for most of the stories but leaves out the Dominican history a...more
Junot Diaz brings back Yunior from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as the narrator for most of the stories but leaves out the Dominican history and the geek references. Instead we get to read about heartbreak, infidelity, remorse, alienation and cancer. You know, the stuff that makes life worth living. Taken as a whole, these powerful stories give us a history for Yunior as he grows up in Jersey as a Dominican immigrant dealing with his family and his tendency to cheat on the women in his life until one betrayal too many sends him into a downward spiral that seemingly lasts for years. The odd thing here is that I never felt that depressed or sad while reading. It isn’t that Diaz doesn’t create sympathy for his characters. He does, and he does it often. So even though the stories are pretty ugly on one level, the writing flows so well that it never felt like I was stuck in a dark place even though they aren’t exactly cheerful reads. Believe the hype. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Dec 02, 2012
| Dec 06, 2012
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Dec 02, 2012
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0297859382
| 9780297859383
| 3.96
| 249,853
| May 12, 2012
| May 24, 2012
|
If you’re feeling sadistic and really want to freak out some newlyweds, give them a copy of this book, but be aware that there’s a good chance you’ll...more
If you’re feeling sadistic and really want to freak out some newlyweds, give them a copy of this book, but be aware that there’s a good chance you’ll end up with someone sleeping on your couch while they rush to get a quickie divorce. Nick and Amy Dunne started out as a couple that you usually only see in movies. Attractive, smart and hip with cool jobs at New York magazines, they’ve even got great back stories with Nick being a small town Missouri boy who made it in the big city and Amy was the basis for her parent’s successful series of kid’s book called Amazing Amy. Their storybook romance collapses when the economic downturn costs them both their jobs, and then they have to move back to Nick’s hometown to care for his ailing parents. On their fifth anniversary, Amy suddenly vanishes and there are signs of a struggle in their house. Nick’s behavior seems odd and suspicious as Amy’s disappearance turns into a media sensation. Told to us in parallel first person accounts, Amy’s version from their first meeting and early years up until her disappearance and Nick’s story from the morning she vanished onward eventually make it clear that something was very wrong in this marriage. There’s several things I loved about this book. The He-Said/ She-Said story telling structure develops both Amy and Nick incredibly well, and I found my sympathy constantly shifting from one to the other. Flynn also makes some great points about how the media is both feeding on these type of crime stories and influencing how people react to them. Best of all is that it surprised me several times, and I’ve read enough thrillers and seen enough crime movies that I usually don’t get caught off guard. I thought I had this one pegged about a third of the way through it, but Flynn had several more twists, turns and loop-the-loops that I did not see coming at all. I had a few problems with it. (view spoiler)[There was a lot of little inconsistencies. Amy is so smart that she can outwit the police and not leave a single trace, yet keeps all her money with her instead of stashing some of it somewhere? She’d really relax and hang out with a couple of Ozark grifters and not come up with a way to prevent them robbing her? The woman who plans everything out for a year to the point of having a checklist for faking her own disappearance doesn’t make out a budget to maximize her hide-out cash and doesn’t know what a gallon of milk costs? Plus, I was a bit let down that Flynn turned Nick into the ‘hero’ of the story by the end. I enjoyed the book most when I realized that a brilliant sociopath had married a lazy narcissist with misogyny issues. To me, a better ending would have been for Nick to once again take the easy way out and willingly stay with Amy to enjoy a life of celebrity as they sold her story. They deserved each other in a way so I would have found an ending like that more satisfying. (hide spoiler)] Still, this was an intriguing book that went much deeper than your average thriller when looking at the dark side of marriage. Fans of this one should also check out Mr. Peanut(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| Sep 2012
| Sep 08, 2012
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Sep 01, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0316097772
| 9780316097772
| 3.19
| 4,249
| May 01, 2012
| Jul 31, 2012
|
Previously I’d read two Megan Abott books, The Song is You and Queenpin. Both were razor sharp noirs set in the past with cynical hustlers smoking cig...more
Previously I’d read two Megan Abott books, The Song is You and Queenpin. Both were razor sharp noirs set in the past with cynical hustlers smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey and basically behaving like the type of people who belong in a black and white movie. This book is about cheerleaders in a modern high school. It’s not as different as you’d like to think. Addy has long been the best friend and lieutenant to Beth, the captain of their cheerleading squad. Beth is smart but self centered with a mean streak and a knack for the complete social destruction of anyone who irritates her. When a new young coach inspires the squad and pushes them to new levels, a contest of wills between Beth and Coach ensues. When Addy begins to side with the Coach, Beth steps up her efforts to reclaim the top spot and tries to use a secret against Coach while Addy scrambles to try and limit the damage. When a tragedy occurs, Beth gleefully begins a campaign of psychological warfare against Addy to convince her that Coach isn’t what she appears to be. Megan Abbott’s writing continues to be among some of the best stuff I’m reading these days and she does some outstanding work in two areas in this book. First is the way that she puts the reader inside the head of Addy and makes even a bitter and grumpy middle aged man like myself understand and empathize with a teenage cheerleader. Second is how she builds up the world of cheerleading with the constant practice of stunts that can cause serious injury if they go wrong. The work and pain these young women go through to excel at what they do seems as serious and intense as an NFL training camp. I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as her other two books, but it’s still a four star read.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Aug 11, 2012
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Jun 10, 2012
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1594202249
| 9781594202247
| 3.63
| 4,949
| unknown
| Aug 04, 2009
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Reading this book gave me a serious urge to watch The Big Lebowski again. Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello is a private investigator in LA in 1969, and he’s also...more Reading this book gave me a serious urge to watch The Big Lebowski again. Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello is a private investigator in LA in 1969, and he’s also a damn dirty hippie who smokes dope constantly. Doc gets a visit from his old girlfriend Shasta who has been seeing married and wealthy Mickey Wolfman. Wolfman’s wife and her boyfriend want Shasta to help them with a scam to get Mickey committed to an asylum, but Shasta feels guilty and wants Doc to help Mickey out. Doc no sooner gets started than he gets blamed for a murder by his arch enemy LAPD Detective Bigfoot Bjornsen who has nothing but contempt for hippies. Mickey and Shasta have vanished, and while Doc tries to wrap his foggy brains around these developments, he’s also approached by another woman who claims that her boyfriend, a saxophone player in a surf band that supposedly died of an overdose, is still alive. The Crying of Lot 49 is the only other Pynchon I’ve read, and this one has the same kind of hazy vast conspiracy lurking in the background . And like that one, I was left kind of liking the book in a general sort of way while thinking that Pynchon is just fucking with me on some level. There’s a lot going on in here in terms of information and secrets with a friend of Doc’s feeding him info he’s getting from the first primitive form of the Internet. The spacey and affable Doc makes for a unique main character to guide us through a noirish but laid back landscape, but it was Bigfoot Bjornsen with his constant stream of anti-hippie comments that I found the most enjoyable. ‘Cause much like Bigfoot and Eric Cartman, I am also a hippie hater. I get why Pynchon is worshipped as such a post-modern master, but there’s just something about his style that isn’t engaging me at the gut level. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| May 23, 2012
| Jun 12, 2012
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May 23, 2012
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0099437961
| 9780099437963
| 3.69
| 45,980
| Jul 28, 1999
| Jun 05, 2003
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To most people a lullaby is a soothing song meant to help coax a child to sleep, but in Chuck Palahniuk’s hands it becomes a death spell that can kill...more
To most people a lullaby is a soothing song meant to help coax a child to sleep, but in Chuck Palahniuk’s hands it becomes a death spell that can kill anyone. Of course, that’s not twisted enough for Chuckie P. so he had to throw in some witchcraft, necrophilia and dead babies to really make it a party. Carl Streator is a newspaper reporter working on a feature about infant crib deaths, and he has his own tragic experience in that area. When Streator sees a book containing an African chant at several homes where the baby died, he does more digging and discovers that it‘s a culling song that can be used to kill just by thinking it. Since Carl has a few anger problems, this leads to a lot of deaths of people who annoy him as he tries to get control. Streator seeks help from Helen Hoover Boyle a realtor who specializes in flipping haunted houses and who also knows the culling song. He convinces her that they should take a road trip to destroy all the copies of the book, but her secretary Mona, a witch wannabe, and her animal rights activist and all around asshole of a boyfriend Oyster end up coming along for the ride. Mona also convinces them that the culling song probably came from a powerful spell book they should try to locate. The culling song is a nifty hook for the story and Streator’s tendency to off anyone who’s pissing him off provides some dark hilarity. My biggest problem with this one is that Streator is a complete moron. He instantly realizes the chaos that would occur if anyone else figured out the culling song and how to use it, but then he promptly blabs about it to Mona and a disgusting EMT with a penchant for corpse sex. He often can't control himself with the culling song and kills people for offenses like having their TV’s too loud or bumping into him on the street, yet somehow he manages not to whack the ultra-annoying Oyster. Then he invites Oyster and Mona on the road to destroy the book. So you’re trying to destroy a dangerous spell that can kill people and you bring along a guy who spends every waking moment telling you all the crimes people have committed against animals. Guess how well that turns out?(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| May 07, 2012
| not set
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May 07, 2012
| Paperback
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| 0316176729
| 9780316176729
| 3.40
| 767
| Sep 28, 2011
| Sep 28, 2011
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“I haven’t taken the time-mower out for a spin lately. I’ll just fire it up and ….Hey, who are you? How did you get in my garage? And why are you poin...more
“I haven’t taken the time-mower out for a spin lately. I’ll just fire it up and ….Hey, who are you? How did you get in my garage? And why are you pointing that gun at me? If you need a weed-eater that bad, just take it.” “Don’t play dumb with me, hag.” “Hag? Why are you calling me a female witch?” “You’re going to pretend that you belong in this timeline with your time machine sitting right there, hag?” “Again with the hag? Look, my name is Kemper and this is my timeline. I’ve got a time-mower because of a freak accident involving a lightning strike fusing my laptop to my lawn mower.” “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, hag.” “I can’t disagree with you there, but it’s true. I got his time machine by accident and sometimes I go traveling like a half-assed version of Doctor Who.” “Hmmmmm.. My files are telling me that there is indeed a Kemper from this time in this area so I guess you’re not a hag after all.” “Why are you acting like you've checked some files? You’re just standing there with a gun. And I‘m guessing you‘re a time traveler, too? And what’s with this ‘hag’ business? You can tell me because I think we’re part of the same club.” “Very well. My name is Zed, but I’m operating under the name Troy Jones in this time. I’m from the future, and I’ve been sent back into the past by my government to prevent historical agitators, that we call ‘hags’, from changing events in our past.” “Wow. So these hags are back here causing a bunch of trouble and you’re like some kind of time-cop that stops them?” “Not exactly. You see, there are some dark times ahead for the world during a period we call the Great Conflagration.” “Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun. These hags cause it?” “No, the hags are trying to stop it. I’m here to make sure it happens by killing the hags before they can change events.” “Uh….you’re not really sounding like the good guy in this story, Zed.” “The world does suffer mightily in the Great Conflagration, but eventually humanity rebuilds and forms the Perfect Present that I come from. We’ve eliminated war, hunger, racism and all the other problems that have caused conflicts in the past.” “Damn, how did they manage that?” “Mainly by wiping out the historical records. With no history, there are no old grudges of one group against another. Plus, all the different ethnic groups that you have today will eventually breed into one homogenous people.” “If it’s so awesome in the Perfect Present, why do the hags come back to the past to destroy it?” “They think of all the death and destruction as preventable with no regard as to what it would do to the future. So they’ll come back and try to stop an event like 9/11 because they think that saving those lives will somehow build a better future. Plus, they are delusional and think that our government is somehow restrictive.” “And what are you doing in this timeline now?” “I was in the Washington DC area. Events are occurring that are critical to the Great Conflagration. There’s a disgraced former CIA officer who now works for one of the private intelligence firms that have become so prevalent during America’s war on terror. He’s trying to help an Indonesian maid who is essentially a slave to a South Korean diplomat as well as use her to get intelligence. I’ve also met a young woman whose brother was recently killed in Iraq, and she is conflicted about spending her days as a lawyer for companies profiting from the war. All of these people seem to have some kind of role to play in events. However, I received a blow to the head while stopping a hag plot and the files and hardware loaded into me seem to be malfunctioning so I’m having a hard time sorting it out. There seems to be a great deal of confusion among these people about American society and the roles they play in it. Then I got a reading that someone was prepping a time machine of some kind so I came here.” “Yeah, that was me.” “Mr. Kemper, I must insist that you do nothing to stop the coming Great Conflagration.” Oh, you don’t have to worry about me, Zed. I just like playing tourist in history. I got no interest in changing it. Thinking about that stuff gives me a headache. But now that you’ve told me all this, I think I’ve met some of these hags during my time travels.” “You think you know of some hag activity? When and where did his happen?” “It was London during the Blitz in World War II. I bumped into these three asshats….er.. I mean suspicious people who admitted to being time travelers from the future.” “World War II is an era when the hags like to disrupt the timeline. This sounds like a real threat. I should check it out and deal with them immediately.” “Yeah, you do that, Zed. They seemed pretty dangerous so you should probably just whack them as soon as you get the chance.” “Thank you for your concern and the information. I hope your upcoming death in the Great Conflagration isn’t too painful.” “Me too. Good luck.” “Goodbye, Mr. Kemper.” “Goodbye, Zed.” Thank goodness, he’s gone. That guy was a crazy as a shithouse rat. Or at least I hope he was. This Great Conflagration sounds pretty grim. On the other hand, if he really was a time traveler, I might have just settled up with those three nitwits in London. That would almost be worth the destruction of society.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Feb 26, 2013
| Mar 10, 2013
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Apr 28, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0671739026
| 9780671739027
| 3.47
| 780
| 1982
| Dec 01, 1990
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Treasure of the Rubbermaids 16: YUUUP! The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stor...more Treasure of the Rubbermaids 16: YUUUP! The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths. When I was picking my next Rubbermaid Treasure to read, this one jumped out at me because Dan got me hooked on the A&E reality series Storage Wars. For those unfamiliar with the show, storage lockers with unpaid fees are auctioned off to bidders who only get a few minutes to look at the contents without going into the locker or opening any boxes. Some of these bidders are thrift store owners looking for stock and some are hustlers who make their living in the swap meet and flea market trade. While used clothing, furniture and tools make up the bread-n-butter of this second hand economy, what really gets all the bidders amped up is the possibility of finding valuables or rare collectibles that they can sell for a small fortune. Antiques, jewelry, coin collections, rare toys and other assorted bits of odd treasure are sometimes pulled out of the lockers and it’s that ‘JACKPOT!’ element that makes the show compelling. Storage Wars and its spin-off Storage Wars: Texas are part of a bigger trend that capitalizes on everyone’s fantasy that Aunt Petunia’s collection of coffee cans you inherited are really worth a fortune or that vase you picked up at a garage sale for fifty cents dates back to the Ming Dynasty. Antique Roadshow, Pawn Stars and American Pickers all capitalize on this fascination with finding treasure among junk And if someone ends up with more trash than treasure, they get to be on Hoarders. Larry McMurty’s publishers should think about re-releasing this book and doing some creative marketing to tap into this trend. Written in the mid-80s, the book’s narrator is Jack McGriff, a former rodeo cowboy from Texas turned ‘scout’ who makes his living by cruising America in his Cadillac and looking for valuables hidden in estate sales, flea markets and second hand stores. Jack loves buying objects like well made antiques or rare curiosities like the jewel encrusted hubcaps from one of Rudolph Valentino’s cars, but once he’s acquired something, he wants to flip it for a profit as quickly as possible so he doesn’t hang onto the things he buys. As a self-described superstar of the flea market circuit, Jack knows a variety of oddball traders and collectors all across the country. Jack has journeyed to Washington D.C. to unload some merchandise and visit his rich friend Boog and his wife Boss. Jack seems to have the same desire to acquire women that he does for finding objects. He’s got two ex-wives in Texas, and openly lusts after Boss to Boog’s amusement. Then Jack starts a fling with a beautiful woman who owns an art gallery named Cindy. Cindy is engaged and an unapologetic social climber who only wants a no-strings relationship, and Jack tries to keep her attention by proposing a western exhibit made up of cowboy boots that he’ll acquire, including the pair that Billy the Kid was wearing when he was killed. However, once Cindy starts making increasing demands on his time and attention, Jack becomes attracted to a single mother and antique dealer named Jean. Unwillingly sucked into D.C.’s social intrigue and batted about by strong willed women, Jack falls into a funk and begins questioning a life spent questing over oddities. McMurty created a really interesting character in Jack McGriff, but then he just didn’t seem to know what to do with him. The best stuff in the book revolves around Jack’s stories of objects he’s found and the unique people he’s met in the process. There’s a lot of funny stuff in this, and when McMurty sticks with themes about the value we put on objects, the transitory nature of ownership and the types of characters who have built their lives around this, it’s a very good book. However, far too little time is spent on those ideas and far too much is spent with Jack being a unreliable jerk to the women in his life yet somehow also putting up with far too much crap from them in the process. For a guy who supposedly spends all his time drifting around looking for stuff, he spends the first half of this book in Washington D.C. dealing with overstuffed politicians and arrogant journalists. There’s an odd subplot concerning the outlandish idea that the objects of the Smithsonian are being sold off secretly while fakes are put on display that Jack seems like he’ll get involved with, but ultimately that just drifts by with no resolution or consequence. When he finally does hit the road, it’s on a doomed quest to satisfy Cindy whose increasingly outlandish demands would make any sane man leave her at the nearest airport or bus station, yet Jack continues to play along for some reason. It’s still an entertaining read with a unique main character, but more horse trading and less romancing would have made it a better book.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Feb 13, 2012
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Feb 13, 2012
| Mass Market Paperback
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| 0812992792
| 9780812992793
| 3.92
| 8,519
| 2012
| Jan 10, 2012
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If I wasn’t glad that Kim Jong Il is dead before reading this book, I certainly am now. Pak Jun Do never knew his mother and is raised in the orphanage...more If I wasn’t glad that Kim Jong Il is dead before reading this book, I certainly am now. Pak Jun Do never knew his mother and is raised in the orphanage his father runs. Because of this, he is constantly mistaken for an orphan for the rest of his life. Eventually Jun Do winds up as one of the tunnel fighters who work in secret passages under the DMZ into South Korea, but he’s recruited to be part of a team that goes out in boats and snatches random citizens from Japanese or South Korean beaches. From there he goes to being a radio operator on fishing boat where an elaborate lie the crew is forced to cook up to save their skins turns him into an unlikely national hero and gets put on a delegation going to Texas to visit an American senator. Eventually Jun Do’s fortunes take an odd turn that will eventually bring him face to face with the greatest actress in the world (According to North Korean propaganda.) Sun-moon, and The Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. Propaganda plays a big part in this story. That fits since this is a country where the leader supposedly shot the lowest round of golf in history the first time he played and where the citizens are expected to proclaim North Korea is the greatest nation on earth even as they’re starving to death or being sent to prison mines. One of the pieces I liked most was how much of the second half is told to us via third person narration and then we get the North Korean loud speaker version of what occurred. I also liked the character of Jun Do quite a bit. From the beginning, he’s a guy who finds himself constantly trying to survive by doing terrible things while saying that he has no choice, but he still finds himself sucked into more and more trouble. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy the developments with the actress Sun-moon or the wilder plot twists late in the book. Another character, an interrogation expert, gets involved, but his first person narration didn’t do much for me. I would have preferred more stuff with Kim Jong Il because those scenes were alternately hilarious and terrifying. There was a lot to like here, but in the end I felt it was too drawn out, and the author got too cute for his own good in places. And one part really bugged me. (view spoiler)[ The wife of the American senator who has shown incredible warmth and intelligence to Jun Do on his visit to Texas insists that he take one of her puppies back to North Korea. Why would any dog lover think that sending one to goddamn North Korea of all places is a good idea? (hide spoiler)] It’s one of those books that will make almost anyone appreciate what they have, though. Like now I’m grateful that I live far from any beaches or national borders so that I don’t have to worry about being snatched by one of those secret Canadian kidnapping teams. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Feb 04, 2012
| Feb 15, 2012
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Feb 04, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0385523823
| 9780385523820
| 3.89
| 2,700
| Mar 18, 2008
| Mar 18, 2008
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I don’t know if I should consider this redneck noir or hick lit, but I like it. Per his bio, Donald Ray Pollock actually grew up in a tiny town called...more I don’t know if I should consider this redneck noir or hick lit, but I like it. Per his bio, Donald Ray Pollock actually grew up in a tiny town called Knockemstiff in southern Ohio, and he spent over thirty years working in a paper mill. It shows in the collection of short stories that are such authentic and gritty portrayals of rural poverty that you’ll feel like you just moved into a double wide with only a garbage bag full of dirty clothes and a case of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon. Each one of these are stories are about damaged, desperate people stuck so solidly in their small shabby lives that even dreaming about doing better seems beyond them. Centered around the holler of Knockemstiff and ranging from the sixties to the modern day with recurring characters, Pollack develops each tale into it’s own small tragedy. Shifting from moments of stark violence to quiet emotional desolation, this is a powerful depiction of the Americanus Redneckius in one of its natural habitats.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Mar 2012
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Jan 17, 2012
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 038553504X
| 9780385535045
| 4.03
| 4,563
| 2011
| Jul 12, 2011
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Hey, parents, having problems getting you kids to behave in church? Let them spend a Sunday with Willard Russell. Willard isn’t a preacher, and he doe...more
Hey, parents, having problems getting you kids to behave in church? Let them spend a Sunday with Willard Russell. Willard isn’t a preacher, and he doesn’t have one of those big mall-like mega churches. What Willard has is a log in the woods. That’s right, a damn log in the woods. A prayer log if you will, and he’s hung up some crosses around it, and he makes sure that his son Arvin is out there all the time praying with all he’s got. Don’t mind all that dried blood and animal bones. Willard thinks the Good Lord needs a sacrifice if you ask him for something big, like curing his wife of cancer. Send your little ones with him for a full day of log prayin’ and blood sprayin’, and I’m sure you’ll never hear another peep out of them at your regular service again. Willard and Arvin live in the area of Knockemstiff, Ohio, which should be familiar to those who read Pollock’s previous book. Some of the characters reappear here as he tells a story that extends from Willard’s return from the horrors of Pacific combat in World War II into the 1960s with multiple characters who all have blood on their hands in one form or another. We’ll meet a murderous husband and wife as well as a corrupt sheriff, and a bug eating holy man wannabe with a crippled sidekick. Pollock again depicts a rural lifestyle where dreams die quickly, and the only people with any hope are the religious who remain convinced that God will someday reward them despite all evidence to the contrary in their miserable lives. As the years pass, all the characters act in ways that put them on an eventual collision course. Another winner from Pollock who is right up there with Daniel Woodrell in depicting how harsh the rural lifestyle can be. It had a few too many coincidences in the end for my taste, but this is still a book that’s gonna be on my mind for a good long while.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Mar 04, 2012
| Mar 12, 2012
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Jan 01, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0316074233
| 9780316074230
| 3.92
| 5,191
| 2011
| Apr 15, 2011
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Upon hearing that David Foster Wallace’s unfinished last novel was going to be published, my first thought was, “How do they know it wasn‘t done?” Bec...more
Upon hearing that David Foster Wallace’s unfinished last novel was going to be published, my first thought was, “How do they know it wasn‘t done?” Because it’s not like Infinite Jest was a model of story resolution. My question was answered in the introduction of The Pale King by editor Michael Pietsch that gives a concise breakdown of what Wallace left behind and how he put it together. He makes it very clear that this is not the book that Wallace was envisioning before his suicide. As Pietsch explains, what had been completed was too good to just put in a library where only scholars would read it, and if I ever meet Mr. Pietsch, I’m going to shake his hand and buy him a drink for helping to get this published. The book is about the examiners (a/k/a wigglers) at a regional Internal Revenue Service center in Peoria, Illinois, but there’s no real overall plot to it. It comes across as a series of loosely connected short stories. Which makes sense considering that Wallace wrote chapters out of sequence and left no detailed outline, but Pietsch also states that Wallace’s notes repeatedly mentioned that he wanted the book to be ‘tornadic’ in nature. Apparently he planned it to be a swirl of people and events that would randomly bonk the reader on the head until some kind of larger pattern emerged. Without the rest of the book, we don’t get the bigger picture, just the bonks, but almost all the bonks are fascinating. No surprise then that most of what is sticking with me about the book is random, too. In no particular order: * There’s a lot here about boredom and bureaucracy, but it doesn’t go in the direction you’d expect. While Wallace repeatedly explores the soul-crushing tedium of going through tax forms and the dull inner workings of the IRS, there’s no real raging against the machine going on here. In fact, Wallace almost seems to celebrate the focus required to do the job in the face of unending boredom and make it seem noble. One could argue that his point was that the majority of us waste our time trying to avoid being bored without accomplishing much so you might as well sit down and get something done. * I am going to change my name to Diablo the Left-Handed Surrealist even though I’m right handed and can’t paint. * The early chapter featuring Leonard Stecyk as the kid who is so helpful and charitable that everyone hates him is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. Impressive how Wallace was able to make the reader want to punch Leonard in the face during this portion, but later on turned him into a more sympathetic character who gets to shine in a crisis. * Like a lot of people, I think my favorite part of the book may be the long story of how Chris went from a self-described ‘wastoid’ with father issues to a guy who actively seeks out a career in the IRS after mistakenly sitting in on a class about taxes. * Wallace wrote himself into the novel, and then went to a lot of effort trying to convince the reader that what he/she was reading was actually a memoir disguised as a fiction for legal purposes. He recounts long discussions with lawyers and having to get a bunch of releases signed by various real people at the insistence of his publisher, and I was just nodding along with this part when it suddenly hit me that since Wallace had died before finishing the book the whole thing was an elaborate ‘Gotcha!’. * I was often listening to the audio version of this at work while performing a bunch of dull tasks. So I was listening to a book about people doing boring work while doing boring work. I got so into the audible book that I took the personally unprecedented step of getting the print version from the library while in the middle of it so that I could go back and look up some points. * Another chapter I found oddly fascinating was the part where beautiful Meredith Rand is telling the strangely literal Shane Drinion about how she met her husband when she was committed to a mental institution as a teenager for being a cutter. Drinion seems like he could have Asperger’s or some other kind of social impairment, but gets very interested in her story. This leads to a weird dynamic of him be completely tuned to her with no agenda of his own, and Meredith finds this kind of attention appealing. It was like Scarlett Johansson telling her life story to Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. * Creepiest part of the book was the section about a kid who decides to kiss every square inch of his own body and embarks on a long-term campaign of freaky contortions and lip extending exercises. That whole story just made me want to lay down with a bottle of ibuprofen and a heating pad. * The notes included at the end indicate that there was a lot that Wallace planned to write didn’t get to it. I find this one particularly interesting: “Drinion is happy. Ability to pay attention. Turns out that bliss - a second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious things you can find (tax returns, televised golf) , and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Constant bliss in every atom.” I would have loved to read what Wallace could have come up with along those lines and the rest of what he had been planning. The Pale King is brilliant in a lot of ways, but it’s also a sad, sad read because most readers will be left haunted by the ghost of what could have been.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Dec 17, 2011
| Dec 31, 2011
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Dec 17, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 3.99
| 42,403
| Sep 07, 2011
| Sep 07, 2011
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This novel should win some kind of award for Best Character Names. Check some of these out: Henry Skrimshander. Guert Affenlight. Pella Affenlight. Ad...more
This novel should win some kind of award for Best Character Names. Check some of these out: Henry Skrimshander. Guert Affenlight. Pella Affenlight. Adam Starblind. No John Smiths or Jane Does allowed in this one. Mike Schwartz is a hard working and ambitious student athlete at second rate Westish College in Wisconsin. At a summer league baseball game, Mike sees Henry Skrimshander play and instantly recognizes that he’s seeing the kind of fielding talent that can only be called genius. Skinny Henry has just finished high school and assumes his days in organized baseball are over because all the college scouts passed him over because of his lack of size and below average hitting ability. Where Henry excels is at playing shortstop where no ball gets past him and all of his throws are right on target. Mike arranges for Henry to get a baseball scholarship to Westish, and begins putting him through a rigorous training regimen designed to turn him from a talented fielding shortstop into a complete baseball player. As eager Henry flourishes under Mike’s guidance, the Westish baseball team starts winning for the first time, and pro scouts have started talking big money just as Henry is on the verge of breaking the record of his idol for most consecutive games without an error. Then one bad throw with disastrous consequences shatters Henry’s confidence and suddenly leaves him unable to complete the simplest toss during a game. As Henry struggles to get his mojo back, Mike is realizing that his own ambitions may be bigger than his actual talent. The school president Guert Affenlight, a Herman Melville fanatic, has fallen in love with Henry’s gay roommate Owen, and Guert’s daughter Pella has just come to the campus looking to jumpstart her life after a bad marriage. You don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this one. The author doesn’t engage in the practice of trying to sell the readers on the greatness of the game. Henry loves it because it’s what he was born to do just like a great painter was born to paint, but other characters complain that it’s boring. Even Owen, who is on the team, bitches about it and prefers to read in the dugout rather than watch the games. For the first half of this book, I was completely sucked in by the characters. Any one of these could have made a great book by themselves: Pella’s backstory about leaving high school to marry an older man and coming to Westish to finally pick up where she left off. Guert’s falling for Owen after a lifetime of heterosexuality and fearing that he was making a fool of himself. Mike’s bitterness over thinking that he’d never be truly great at anything himself while completely dismissing his own talent for motivating and getting the most out of people. All of these were excellent and the writing makes you feel for all of them. Where it really hits a next level is with Henry’s struggles. Harbach spends a lot of time in the early going telling us about Henry’s development into a top baseball prospect and his incredible grace on the field. And he’s also just a helluva nice guy, the kind of student who doesn’t like to talk in his English class because he’s worried that he’ll hurt his sensitive teacher’s feelings. He works his ass off not for fame and fortune but because he wants to be the best. Then he's helpless to keep it from falling apart just as he’s about to achieve his dream. It’s painful, particularly the way Harbach puts you into Henry’s head on the field where he’s over thinking every play to the point where I almost found myself yelling aloud, “Just throw the fucking ball to first, Henry!” That’s why I almost consider this a horror story with it’s notion that no matter how much work has gone into something, talent is such a mental thing that it can be destroyed in moments if the wrong set of circumstances cause self doubt to creep in. Unfortunately, things got a bit too drawn out in the second half of the book, and the various self-destructive cycles that some of the characters enter when things get rough almost turned them from sympathetic into tiresome whiners. Shaving about a hundred pages from this book and tightening it up would have made this a five star read. It’s still an excellent book with some great characters and very good writing. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Jan 31, 2012
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Dec 02, 2011
| ebook
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0385528078
| 9780385528078
| 3.26
| 6,867
| Oct 06, 2011
| Oct 18, 2011
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When the zombie apocalypse comes there’ll be a lot of inconveniences. The breakdown of society, lack of electrical power, no hot showers, and undead c...more
When the zombie apocalypse comes there’ll be a lot of inconveniences. The breakdown of society, lack of electrical power, no hot showers, and undead cannibals trying to eat your brains will definitely suck, but I always figured that the trade-off was that at least there’d be no more paying bills, standing in line at the DMV or having to tolerate corporate buzz words and slogans. But in Zone One not only are there plenty of zombies, there’s still silly bureaucratic rules and paperwork as well as a government more concerned with public perception than in actually accomplishing anything. It’s like the worst of everything. Mark Spitz (a nickname explained late in the book) was completely average and his only real talent seemed to be a knack for coasting through life with a minimum of fuss. Once the zombie apocalypse comes, Mark Spitz’s ability to get by served him well and allowed him to escape the initial zombie outbreak and survive in the aftermath. Now Mark Spitz is one of the sweepers assigned to clean-up Manhattan. The surviving government in Buffalo sent the Marines through to kill the most vicious zombies, but there’s a remaining element of ‘stragglers’, about 1% of the undead who just return to old homes or jobs and seem vapor locked there as they mindlessly watch blank tv screens or punch buttons on dead copy machines. Buffalo has rebranded the refugee camps of survivors with names like Happy Acres and has a plan to clear and repopulate New York. As Mark Spitz spends his days popping and dropping stragglers, he reflects on his aimless days before the zombie outbreak on Last Night and his time as a wandering refugee before he was found by Buffalo’s army. This is the first book I’m aware of that tries to do the zombie genre as Very Serious Literature. (No, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies doesn’t count.) Overall, it succeeds remarkably well. Mark Spitz’s reflections on pre and post zombie life are intriguing and his melancholy drifting through his days cleaning out Manhattan have the feel of a guy eulogizing an entire world. My only complaint is that the memories and current events sometimes get so tangled that it made it a tad confusing at times to figure out where we were in the story of Mark Spitz. On the zombie front, Whitehead delivers some tense and horrific action in the encounters with the undead. (In fact, Whitehead delivered more zombie fightin’ action and detailed descriptions of the walking dead in 240 pages than Mira Grant has in her two 500+ page horror genre novels. Read this and take notes, Mira.) I especially liked the idea that the government in Buffalo has started doing asinine things like issuing orders against the sweepers doing more property damage than necessary while clearing buildings and prohibiting looting while also issuing pamphlets about the dangers of zombie post-traumatic stress disorder. It seems kind of insane at first but after thinking about it a while, I came to the conclusion that it was highly likely that the political image consultants and corporate marketing whizzes would probably, like cockroaches, be the ones to survive a zombie apocalypse and promptly start trying to rebuild the world the only way they know how, conning people into doing shit even if it flies in the face of common sense. Great book that elevates the entire horror genre. It doesn’t take the #1 spot from my favorite zombie novel, World War Z but I think it’s got a lock on the #2 spot for now. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Oct 31, 2011
| Nov 04, 2011
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Oct 31, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0241141826
| 9780241141823
| 3.70
| 9,386
| Feb 01, 2010
| unknown
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Talk about truth in advertising…. As promised in the title, Skippy dies. In fact, he dies in the first few pages when he falls off his stool in a dough...more Talk about truth in advertising…. As promised in the title, Skippy dies. In fact, he dies in the first few pages when he falls off his stool in a doughnut shop. Who was this kid and what happened? Well, that’s what the rest of the book is for. Skippy was Daniel Juster, a shy and nerdy boy at a Catholic boy’s school in Ireland. In the time before his death, we meet a variety of characters that are unknowingly part of the chain of events that lead to his untimely demise. There’s Skippy’s roommate, an overweight student named Ruprecht who is fascinated by the promise of multiple dimensions hypothesized in M-theory and who makes bizarre inventions that never work. Lorelai is a girl from a neighboring school that Skippy has developed a crush on, but she’s also the object of a creepy obsession of one of his fellow students who is also a pyschopath and novice drug dealer. Howard ‘The Coward’ Fallon is Skippy’s history teacher with his own complicated history at the school and who hopes to cure his dissatisfaction with his life by sleeping with a beautiful substitute geography teacher. Greg Costigan is the acting principal who cares so much about the school that looking out for its students has slipped far down his priority list. What becomes apparent before Skippy’s death is that something is seriously troubling him, but all the characters are so wrapped up in the details of their own lives that no one takes the time to really help the young man. The resulting guilt causes a wave of bizarre repercussions. I’ve seen this book compared to Infinite Jest and Jonathan Franzen. Those are apt, and I’d also say that it reminded me a bit of the film Donnie Darko. However, this is also a unique and moving book that had me at times laughing, angry, sad wistful, depressed and hopeful. The characters are incredibly well drawn and believable. Greg Costigan in particular is such a son-of-a-bitch that I wished he was real so I could get on a plane to Ireland just so I could kick him in the junk. The teen characters are also very well done, and Murray absolutely nailed that weird contradiction where kids that age have well-honed instincts about some things like the hypocrisy of adults but are still naive enough to think that you can get pregnant from oral sex. Also, I listened to the audio version of this and it was done with a full cast doing all the different dialogue. It was one of the best listening experiences I’ve had yet with an audible book. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Oct 05, 2011
| Oct 16, 2011
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Oct 05, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0312380429
| 9780312380427
| 3.94
| 3,967
| Dec 29, 2009
| Jan 05, 2010
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How many times have I seen or read about a character picking a lock? I’m a crime/mystery fan so it’s gotta be in the hundreds. Maybe even over a thous...more
How many times have I seen or read about a character picking a lock? I’m a crime/mystery fan so it’s gotta be in the hundreds. Maybe even over a thousand. It’s such a common cliché we don’t even think about anymore. A door is locked, and a character pulls out their little case with their tools and picks it . Yet this is the first story I’ve ever read that actually explains what it takes to pick a lock or open a safe. Surprise! It’s not as easy as it is in the movies, but it makes for a helluva good crime novel. The book is narrated by Michael who quickly explains that he’s been in prison for years and has not spoken a word in longer than that. As a child, he survived some kind of traumatic experience that left him unable to speak even though there’s no physical reason for it. Taken in and raised by his liquor store owning uncle, Michael grows up alienated and lonely, but he gets interested in locks after playing around with a discarded one and teaches himself how to pick it. The story skips around to show us that Michael got mixed up with criminals who contact him to open safes during robberies. Eventually we learn how Michael went from a mute boy who liked to play with locks to a professional safecracker and the terrible event that left him mute. Like Mystic River or Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter this is a character based crime novel that transcends the genre. Michael has unique voice despite being speechless, and Hamilton has created a character with the best of intentions who gets in over his head with extremely bad people. It sounds silly but there’s also an incredible amount of tension built around the lock picking and safe cracking scenes where Michael is explaining his process and getting lost in mental space where all that exists is the lock he’s trying to open. This is both a great crime novel and an excellent story about a young man struggling to come to terms with his past.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Jul 16, 2011
| Jul 20, 2011
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Jul 16, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0060594667
| 9780060594664
| 3.79
| 15,319
| 2010
| Oct 05, 2010
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The geeks may have seized a nice chunk of pop culture these days, but it’s too easy to forget that it wasn’t that long ago when reading and collecting...more
The geeks may have seized a nice chunk of pop culture these days, but it’s too easy to forget that it wasn’t that long ago when reading and collecting comic books made you a bit odd. Long before remaking ’70s slasher films with as much blood as possible was considered mainstream entertainment, liking Stephen King novels or other horror books and movies might get your folks a closed door session with your teacher. Before Lord of the Rings made a gazillion dollars and won Oscars, you probably would have gotten blank stares or called a nerd if you tried talking about hobbits and orcs to most people. Larry Ott is a geek who was born just a bit too soon, and that’s why he completely broke my heart in this excellent book. In a small Mississippi town, we meet Larry and Silas “32” Jones. Larry is a 41 year old white bachelor who lives in his parents’ house that he has preserved just like it was when they lived there, and he goes to work every day at the garage his father ran despite the fact he never has any customers. Larry lives with almost no interactions with other people and spends most of his time reading or visiting his mother in the rest home. When Larry was 16, he was a geek who read horror novels all the time and was considered a weirdo by everyone in his school. Larry finally scored a date with a hot girl, but unfortunately she was never seen again after he picked her up. He was never charged or convicted of a crime, but the entire community decided he killed her and he’s been an outcast ever since. Silas is black and the local constable of a small town that is completely owned by a lumber mill. He was a baseball star in high school before tearing up his arm in college. For a brief time before Larry went on his ill-fated date, he and Larry were friends, but Silas now does everything he can to avoid contact with him. Now that a local college girl has gone missing, Larry is a prime suspect, and the events that happen will force both men to face their pasts. I can’t say enough good things about this book. The depiction of life in a modern small town being choked out by large corporations was excellent as were the many supporting characters. It uses extensive flashbacks to set up our present day story and then fill in the blanks with the history. Even with the great setting and clever story telling, it’s the characters of Silas and Larry that really make this thing hum. Silas is a former local hero who has returned back to the site of his previous glory, but even though most people still call him ‘32’ after his old baseball number, he spends his days directing traffic, writing tickets and riding around in a decrepit old jeep because the town can’t afford anything better. But Larry has it even worse. Over two decades as a local boogeyman have left him isolated and stuck in a past that wasn’t that good to begin with. He’s the kind of guy who feels bad for the chickens in his coop for having to spend every day on the same patch of mud so he rigs up a mobile trailer and rotates them around different parts of his field so they can spend time in fresh grass. He lives in his quiet routine without complaint even after 25 years of being harassed by the police, barred from local businesses and churches, and being the target of frequent drunken teenage pranks. The saddest thing is that he doesn’t even seem to realize how achingly lonely he is. This was a terrific story about how people become trapped by the perceptions that others force on them, whether they deserve the label or not.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Jun 17, 2011
| Jun 21, 2011
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Jun 17, 2011
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1400063736
| 9781400063734
| 3.88
| 41,796
| Jun 23, 2009
| Jun 23, 2009
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A tightrope walker about to pull off one of the biggest stunts ever performed. A committed priest too busy looking out for the downtrodden to take car...more
A tightrope walker about to pull off one of the biggest stunts ever performed. A committed priest too busy looking out for the downtrodden to take care of himself. A pair of prostitutes who are also mother and daughter. A rich woman crippled by grief and her stoic judge husband. A couple of artists who fled the New York night life. Computer hackers. A brutal car wreck. Slums. Penthouses. Robbery. Charity. It’s either another day in New York, or it’s the shittiest circus ever. In 1974, a French acrobat named Philippe Petit made even jaded NewYorkers take notice when he illegally rigged a tightrope between the not-quite-finished World Trade Center towers and then spent the better part of an hour walking it over 1300 feet in the air. In fact, he didn’t just walk the tightrope, he danced, hopped and ran across it as well as laying down on the wire on his back at one point. Petit’s stunt momentarily captivated the city, and Colm McCann uses that event as the center of a web of intriguing stories about a group of people from all walks of life find themselves unknowingly impacting each other. McCann shifts to a variety of different perspectives, even switching from first person to third person. Whether the narrator is a male Irish immigrant or a black female hooker or a Hispanic single mother, all the voices seem authentic and unique and all of them offer up differing world views that still share a common theme of trying to cling to what they love. My favorite parts are the interludes where McCann describes Petit’s preparations and the walk itself. Petit was no Jackass-style daredevil. He spent over a year of careful planning and practicing for the moment when he and his crew could sneak to the top of the towers and rig the tightrope. The descriptions of the calm that fell over Petit as he stepped out on the wire and then proceeded to put on a show for the New Yorkers watching far below is almost enough to give a reader vertigo just trying to picture it. And of course, the shadow of 9/11 hangs over the book with the reader knowing that Petit practically walked on air at an incredible height between two objects that don’t even exist any more. This is some top notch writing with a powerful story of how one man’s desire for a transcendent moment can spin off into more directions than anyone can possibly imagine.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| May 24, 2011
| Jun 02, 2011
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May 24, 2011
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0679744398
| 9780679744399
| 3.91
| 37,567
| 1992
| Jun 29, 1993
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All the Pretty Horses isn’t quite as grim as other Cormac McCarthy work that I’ve read but considering that this includes The Road, Blood Meridian, No...more
All the Pretty Horses isn’t quite as grim as other Cormac McCarthy work that I’ve read but considering that this includes The Road, Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men and watching the HBO adaptation of his play The Sunset Limited, it's still so bleak that your average person will be depressed enough to be checked into a mental ward and put on suicide watch after finishing it. John Grady Cole is a sixteen year old cowboy in Texas a few years after World War II who was raised on his grandfather’s ranch after his parents split up. After his grandfather dies, the ranch is being sold off. With no where else to go, John and his best friend Lacey Rawlins ride off for Mexico. Along the way they hook up with a runaway kid who is nothing but bad news. After getting work on a large ranch, John catches the owner’s eye with his skill working with horses, but after being promoted, John falls in love with the owner’s daughter which leads to trouble for him and Rawlins. I guess you could say that this is a tragic romance or a coming-of-age story, but that’s like comparing The Road to the The Road Warrior. Or saying that Blood Meridian is just a western. Or calling No Country For Old Men a simple crime story. There’s a lot more going on than just a couple of kids running off to play cowboy. John and Rawlins get their eyes harshly opened to just how cruel and unforgiving the world can be and that pleasures like young love can’t possibly hope to endure in the face of that. As usual, McCarthy's views on life and death and good and evil won’t leave any sane person skipping down the street while whistling and looking for rainbows, but he’s so skilled that even his grim outlook has a kind of dark beauty to it.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| May 15, 2011
| May 22, 2011
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May 15, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0316097896
| 9780316097895
| 3.44
| 431
| Jan 01, 2011
| Feb 07, 2011
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“Welcome, gentlemen. I’m John Keller from the Society of Literary Hit Men. And you are?” “Grady Fisher from The Terror of Living.” “Anton Chigurh from N...more “Welcome, gentlemen. I’m John Keller from the Society of Literary Hit Men. And you are?” “Grady Fisher from The Terror of Living.” “Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men. “Thanks you for coming. We’ve got a position open with SLHM and you two were nominated as likely candidates. However, I’m afraid we only have one spot so only one of you will be invited to join. Mr. Fisher, please tell us why you think you’re qualified for the SLHM.” “I did hits for a crooked lawyer involved in heroin smuggling from Asia through Canada and into the Pacific Northwest. I’m a complete psychopath who combines my killing skills with a love of butchery so not only will I slice up any one you pay me to, I can carve up a side a beef into some first rate steaks. I carry around a bag of knives and an assault rifle while working. Recently, I got mixed up with trying to kill a guy who got on the bad side of some drug dealers and was running around with a large amount of their heroin. I was chasing him down, but he was pretty slippery, and I ended up having to threaten his wife to try and get the job done. I killed a whole lot of people along the way and PETA is probably not very happy with me either. Oh, and I also got mixed up with this cop who was trailing after the guy.” “And how about you Mr. Chigurh?” “I usually work for drug dealers in Texas along the Mexican border. I’m a complete psychopath. I like to use a cattle bolt gun and a silenced shotgun on my victims. Recently I got mixed up with trying to kill a guy who got on the bad side of some drug dealers by taking a pile of money he found in the aftermath of a shootout. I was chasing him down, but he was pretty slippery, and I ended up having to threaten his wife to try and get the job done. I also killed a whole lot of people along the way, but I don’t give a shit if PETA is happy with me or not. Oh, and my guy also had an old cop trailing him.” “I have to say that your stories are remarkably similar. Mr. Fisher, can you add anything that makes your qualifications stand out?” “Uh… Did I mention my bag of knives?” “Yes, you did. Mr.Chigurh, anything to add?” “I inspired such a sense of overwhelming dread and terror that most felt it was hopeless to confront me, and some of the people involved in my story just gave up in the face of such unrelenting nihilism and unrepentant evil.” “Very impressive indeed. Mr. Chigurh, I believe the position is yours.” “Hang on a minute! I didn’t spend years cutting up people just to get passed over for a guy with a Dorthy Hamill haircut!” “How about we flip a coin for it, friend-o?” **************************************************** This may be one of those books that suffers from unrealistic expectations. With all the raving blurbs from authors I like on the cover, and seeing it compared to No Country For Old Men, my hopes were high. Unfortunately, it didn’t come close to meeting those standards. None of the characters seemed that exceptional or interesting to me. Phil Hunt is an ex-convict and expert horsemen who has been making a living muling dope over the Canadian border. When one of his pick-ups gets ruined by Deputy Bobby Drake, Hunt finds his head on the chopping block with his employers. Drake is trying to live down the reputation of his father, a former sheriff who moonlighted as a drug smuggler and got sent to prison for it. Hilarity ensues when crazy hit man Grady is brought in. Other than not being able to get over to the similarities to No Country For Old Men, I just wasn’t that impressed with this. The author was obviously trying to take a crime story and make it into capital L- Literature, but the characters weren’t that original or groundbreaking. The writing was good, but nothing special. Even the oodles of gore and ultra-violence seemed curiously listless to me. There was one interesting idea introduced about how law enforcement should be about maintaining order and not judging morality, but even the exploration of this lacked any real depth. Sadly, the books fails to be a compelling post modern crime story or a good hard boiled crime thriller. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Mar 31, 2011
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Mar 28, 2011
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0140088911
| 9780140088915
| 3.69
| 7,685
| 1984
| Mar 04, 1986
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How about a story where the narrator is an absolute pig who spends most of the novel blind drunk as he careens from blackout to blackout while being a...more
How about a story where the narrator is an absolute pig who spends most of the novel blind drunk as he careens from blackout to blackout while being a completely self-absorbed and oblivious asshole who survives on a diet of fast food and pornography? He’s also the kind of guy who gets in bar brawls and occasionally smacks women around. Sound like fun? Actually, it is. John Self is a British director of crass TV commercials who is about to make his first movie with an American producer. John ping-pongs between New York and London as he deals with incredibly difficult actors and an increasingly demanding girl friend. Along the way, he also meets a writer named Martin Amis, and he’s hounded by threatening phone calls from someone who claims that John ruined his life. All the while he spends vast amounts of money to support his lifestyle and buy his way out of trouble. Alcoholic John is completely clueless as to what a massive asshat he is and can’t understand anyone not motivated by greed. He’s just smart enough to realize that money is the only thing that allows him to act the way he does and to feel vaguely disgruntled with his life, but he’s so committed to constant instant gratification that he can’t imagine living any other way. He’s Hunter S. Thompson without the intelligence and rage. He’s Charlie Sheen without the tiger blood and a webcast. He’s that drunken fucktard you hope doesn’t sit next to you on the plane, but if he does, you’ll have stories to tell your friends for hours. The reckless adventures that John has frequently end in humiliation for him, although he’s not always smart or sober enough to understand that he should be embarrassed. Amis does a magnificent job of making his points through John’s musings without beating the reader over the head with them. My only complaint is that there were points that seemed to get a bit repetitive with multiple blackouts and humiliations that John suffers. If you can’t stand books with unlikable characters in the lead, then stay away from this. If you’ve got the stomach to hear out a booze soaked moron in order to get a blisteringly funny take on a culture that worships money, then check this book out.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Mar 11, 2011
| Mar 19, 2011
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Mar 11, 2011
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0316066419
| 9780316066419
| 3.91
| 9,606
| Aug 07, 2006
| Jul 11, 2007
|
I grew up in a rural area with no shortage of poor rednecks so I thought I knew about country poverty, but the people I knew with their decayed farm h...more
I grew up in a rural area with no shortage of poor rednecks so I thought I knew about country poverty, but the people I knew with their decayed farm houses and trailers lived like Donald Trump compared to the backwoods clan of hill folk in this book. Ree Dolly is a 16-year old girl who dropped out of high school to take care of her crazy mother and two younger brothers. She lives in a remote part of the Ozarks where the only job opportunities are in crystal meth production. Ree plans on joining the army the second she’s old enough, and she’s trying to prepare her brothers to take care of themselves once she leaves. Ree’s father, Jessup, hasn’t been home in weeks, but that’s nothing new so she isn’t concerned until a deputy shows up looking for him. Ree is shocked to learn that Jessup is out on bond and used their house as collateral. If he doesn’t show for his court date in a few days, Ree and her family will be homeless during a harsh winter. Ree has no choice but to start asking her extended family if they know where her father is, but this is dangerous because the closed mouth rednecks don’t like people asking questions, even if they’re kin. The only one who even kinda helps her is her crazy Uncle Teardrop who got half his head melted in a meth lab fire, and he’s not exactly reliable. Ree will soon figure out that her daddy got himself into big trouble with the family and looking for him will bring more of the same to her. Daniel Woodrell created a stark portrait of rural poverty where shooting squirrels for supper and chopping wood for heat are still routine chores. Then he put a character you can’t help but love in the middle of it. Ree is smart and tough, but even rarer in her world, she’s managed to hang on to a sense of dignity. She has no illusions, but she isn’t cynical or cold either. She’s doing everything she can to protect her brothers and mother, and she has a touching relationship with her best friend Gail, who got pregnant and married a man she barely knows. Short, but powerful, this a terrific novel with a heroine you won’t forget.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Jan 27, 2011
| Jan 27, 2011
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Jan 27, 2011
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0316098337
| 9780316098335
| 3.95
| 207,522
| Sep 13, 2010
| Sep 13, 2010
|
“Hey, there Nick.” “Uh, hello.” “Nice day for working in the yard, isn’t it?” “Uh, yeah. Real nice.” “Say, that is a helluva shed you’re building there.” “...more “Hey, there Nick.” “Uh, hello.” “Nice day for working in the yard, isn’t it?” “Uh, yeah. Real nice.” “Say, that is a helluva shed you’re building there.” “It's nothing special.” “Oh, don’t be modest, Nick. It’s a real corker. It’s even got a skylight for some natural light. What are you going to be doing in there? A little artwork?” “Just, you know, projects…. and stuff.” “You got a central AC unit for it? Plus, I see you put some furniture and a fridge in there. If you were married, I’d think you were building a man cave to get away from the old-ball-and-chain, but since you’re single, I guess you’re just planning on spending a lot of time in that shed.” “Uh, yeah. Gonna be out here all the time. Doing…stuff.” “And just look at that steel door with the alarm pad. You’re aren’t going to have to worry about any kids breaking into that.” “Uh, yeah. I was worried about kids stealing my….stuff.” “Yep. No way, they’re getting in there. Didn’t I see you sheeting it in some kind of metal under the siding? Hell, Nick, you could probably lock someone in there like a prison cell. Ha ha!” “Uh, right. That’s a …funny idea.” “Well, see ya later, Nick. Swing by for a beer sometime.” 7 Years Later “Well, officer, he was kind of quiet. Always kept to himself. Still can’t believe what he did in that shed. Who could have known that’s what he was doing out there?” ************************************************* This seriously disturbing story is narrated by Jack and starts on his fifth birthday. Jack and his Ma share Room. He thinks of every object in Room like Rug or Plant or Meltdy Spoon as a friend to be treasured, and he and Ma spend every day doing their chores and playing games like Scream where they yell as loudly as they can. Jack loves his Ma and Room, but he’s scared of Old Nick who comes some nights and stays with Ma in Bed while Jack sleeps in Wardrobe. Jack’s Ma blows his mind by telling him that she used to live Outside, and that Old Nick stole her and brought her to Room seven years ago. She has a plan for them to get out of Room, but Jack can’t believe that the things he’s seen on the fuzzy TV screen for years are real. How can there be anything but him and Ma and Room? The premise for this book sounds like something that a Stephen King or Dean Koontz would have come up with, and it certainly works as a kind of horror novel as Jack’s innocent depiction of life inside Room shows Ma to be the victim of a horrible crime that she is trying to shield her son from. What makes this so chilling and heartbreaking is Jack’s view of the Room as the entire world, and he has so adapted to it that the very idea of real people existing outside of it is something akin to blasphemy to him. The writing here is exceptional, and Emma Donoghue makes what could be an over-the-top plot into a character based and all too plausible story. It’s creepy and chilling and terrible and intriguing and kind of sweet. Mostly, it's all kinds of messed up. Perhaps the most horrible thing about Room is that Old Nick doesn’t believe in providing books because there’s plenty of TV to watch, and poor Ma is stuck rereading a few paperbacks like Twilight and The DaVinci Code over and over. It’s a fate worse than death…. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| May 25, 2011
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Jan 06, 2011
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0307379205
| 9780307379207
| 3.37
| 5,129
| Sep 07, 2010
| Sep 07, 2010
|
If anyone is ever crazy enough to make a movie version of this, they better hire Charlie Kaufman to do the adapted screenplay. Even he would probably...more
If anyone is ever crazy enough to make a movie version of this, they better hire Charlie Kaufman to do the adapted screenplay. Even he would probably be left scratching his head and saying, “What the hell??” Trying to summarize this is going to be like trying to explain Inception to someone who has never had a dream or seen a movie. Essentially, it’s a science fictional universe where time travel is possible. Fiction and reality have blended together so that you may run into Luke Skywalker’s son or know someone who works on the Death Star, yet the Star Wars movies are still somehow movies. Confused yet? Charles Yu is a time travel technician who has spent ten years living in his own time machine set in a stasis mode. (Notice that the author’s name is also Charles Yu.) He has aged and still gets and answers service calls, but he has existed outside of the normal time flow. His only companions are TAMMY, a computer operating system that suffers from low self-esteem, and Ed, a dog he saved from being retconned out of a western. He’s like a more anti-social version of Doctor Who. Charles spends his work time assisting people who have screwed up their time machines by trying to change their own pasts. He uses his free time to brood about his lost father, an engineer who had invented his own form of time travel. When Charles makes an error, he finds himself stuck in a time loop where his only clue is a book that he is both reading and writing at the same time. The whole concept of time travel is presented as a weird form of narrative that’s based on English grammar rules. Or something like that. Hell, I think I had a mild stroke trying to figure this out. It’s original and funny at times. The stuff with Charles’ memories of his father and his preference to spend years in a time machine rather than move forward with his life are sad and touching. However, this ended up being a book that I wanted to like more than I actually liked it. My main issue is that Charles Yu arranged a big Homecoming Metafiction Parade down Metafiction Avenue, and he’s the Metafiction Parade Marshal waving to us from his big Metafiction Float just in front of the Metafiction Show Horses who will take a big steaming Metafiction Dump right in the street in front of us. I get it, Charles. You wrote a book with a bonkers sci-fi concept so you could tell us about your daddy issues in the guise of a time traveler who is creating a sci-fi book as he’s living it. I would have liked it more if he would have spent a bit more time telling us about the science fictional universe, and a little less time showing us how clever he was being. Not a bad book, but a little more story and a little less showing off would have suited me better.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Dec 14, 2010
| Dec 16, 2010
|
Dec 14, 2010
| Hardcover
|
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