false 30 214 121 true 5715278 read 1 true 98842 currently-reading 92 true 98841 to-read 18 false 990928 used-at-work 9 false 1359798 never-finished 7 false 117201 to-buy http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77474013 to: Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned (Hardcover) by Alan Alda
This book is fantastic. Not only is Alda an entertaining writer, but he offers many insights into the process of both writing and acting which I found fascinating. Also a bonus is the fact that he and seem to be very similar. For example, when asked to recall what was going through his mind at a random moment, his answer was so inanely detailed that his listeners called him insane...but it was the same kind of perseverating thought process that I go through day after day. Wonderful.

A word of warning: if you're looking for a memoir about M*A*S*H, this isn't it. Alda spends a little over a chapter discussing the show, and then he mostly focuses on his own process of acting, writing, and directing. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77217083 to: Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (Audio CD) by Dayton Duncan
An excellent, entertaining little book. If you can forgive Ken Burns' disgustingly self-promoting preface and way of narrating that draws more attention to himself than the story he's reading, you will love this book.

One pet peeve: The march used as background music for Jackson's triumphant entrance into New York was the one used as the theme music for Monty Python's Flying Circus. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76535346 to: The Dark Tower (Dark Tower 7) by Stephen King
Stephen King is an amazing writer. So amazing, in fact, that he can't live up to his own good storytelling. The man wrote himself into a corner, and he couldn't figure out how to get out, so he...well...I don't want to give away the crappy, meaningless deaths of the main characters or the infantile cop-out ending.

Also, Mr. King, if you reached book 7 and suddenly realized you had about 3 book's worth of material to cover, why didn't you just write 3 books? Why pack it all into one, glossing over important parts and shooting tons of new information that was, apparently, important throughout the entire story. Blech.

However, I have no one to blame but myself. I know King can't end a story to save his life. But he sure can tell them along the way. I suppose the series was worth the journey. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76331273 to: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (Mystery Masters) by Agatha Christie
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76099085 The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express (Hardcover) by Andrew Eames
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74551055 Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times (Writers on Writing (Times Books Hardcover)) by The New York Times
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74550494 to: Death of a Poison Pen (Hamish Macbeth Mystery, Book 20) by M.C. Beaton
Forgetable, with annoying characters. I picked this up at the library, and am amazed that it is number *twenty* in a series! Yikes. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71916957 to: Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6) by Stephen King
Mostly forgettable. They don't make much progress in their quest, and a whole bunch of new stuff is thrown in that suddenly edits the "rules" of how this fictional universe works, straining the reader's ability to continue trusting in King's world. **SPOILER ALERT** I think it's ridiculous that King wrote himself into his own story. Talk about self-indulgent. And 99% of the action takes place in the "real" world, which is uninteresting - I read sci-fi to go to other worlds! What happened to the interesting universe and story we explored so much back in book 3? ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71916882 to: Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower 5) by Stephen King
Potentially my favorite book of the series so far. There were many times when I wished the characters would just get on with their quest instead of spending an entire book on just one episode of their journey, but the novel turned out to be a slow-burner that was well worth the wait.

Things I didn't like:
- **SPOILER ALERT - skip to next bullet point to avoid** Once the main characters figured out that the wolves were robots, the reader should have been told. We were in their point of view, for heaven's sake! Instead, King decides to indulge himself in the amateur writer's cheat of witholding known information from the reader just to create a fake sense of drama at "the reveal." It's a childish novice technique, and I thought King was above that.
- The townspeople are all stock characters, completely indistiguishable from one another. There are the decent average folks, the mean richer folks, the slightly weird religious folks, and the kids. I was never able to tell them apart.

All in all, though, a very decent novel. It really left you wondering what would happen next in the story - especially after the ending. This was the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68089392 to: Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4) by Stephen King
What a rip off! Instead of continuing the story from the first three books, King decides to indulge himself in a pointless flashback to events that occured prior to the first book. We learn almost nothing from this 500-page cul-de-sac that would have any relation to moving the actual story forward; the few pieces of relevant information we did receive could have been summed up in a few paragraphs, at most. Not only that, but being forced to read 500 pages of flashback caused me to forget plot elements from the REAL story, making the ending of the book confusing and flat.

The flashback itself was full of cliche and melodrama. Mushy romantic crap. The writing was so bloated that I wondered if King had bothered to proofread at all in order to slim down redundancies.

This is not at all what I expected from this incredible series. My only hope is that the next book will resume the *actual* story, and show evidence of revision. ]]>