Greg > Recent Status Updates

Hallelujah! I start 2018 with a new Anne Rice!!! I was hoping for the third in her stupendously brilliant wolf series, but Mummy #2 will do just fine! But I wonder, WHICH Cleopatra, as there were about 5 or so?.

At the end of this book, Follett list 64 characters who are real (most of whom have dozens of biographies written about them already) Add to that about two dozen major fictional characters, several dozen other minor fictional characters, and we have over a 100 people jostling for attention. And most of them don't get it: I just basically don't much care by now, page 900.

I've been putting this one off for far too long so I thought I would get it over with. I found a stupendous, almost mint, illustrated version published in 1948 at a used book store and paid $3.00! If you're going to read this, get an edition with Dore's illustrations: horrific at times, each of the drawing sensational in detail and revelations.

So the cathedral is completed, the characters we loved in "Pillars" and "World" have given us interesting descendents. With this third in the series, the subject is: what religion will ultimately occupy the structure itself? With hotter sex and violence off-the-charts, one would think this would be setting atop bestseller lists all over the world. But I think Follett forgot to write for his fan base.

Dear Michele, I'd like to marry you. Please, oh please!

I have just one more volume of "In Search of Lost Time" and am so eager, yet reluctant, to finish it: it's one of the great reading experiences of a lifetime. So meanwhile, I'm going to slowly, very slowly indulge myself with a once-a week short story from this volume.

Oh, how I don't want this one to ever end. I'm parsing out the remaining short stories at only one a day. And even at that, it's like eating an entire bday cake at one sitting.

Stupendously violent, and the same old story: religious intolerance. Why would anyone actually burn someone at the stake for a different belief. Thankfully those days are over....right??? No???

"Silence is good for the wise, and even better for the stupid." Oh, what a relevant quote and I think the following people would do well to memorize it. They are....oh, you all know who they are.

"...we wanted this unambiguously Black family to be American's first family...It was a cathartic desire...and acknowledgement of the psychic impact this would have on America...", Damon Young writes, and wow, is that not stupendously prescient or what? The "psychic impact" drove the haters to the polls, no doubt, and still today there are those who cringe at the term "President Obama". But that will always be true!

Surely, Weir isn't going to rip off Asimov's "Nightfall". Take a look at the cover of that book right here on goodreads. If that's what Weir is up to then this book should have been, at a minimum, dedicated to Asimov. Or maybe a thanks in the authors notes? Nope, nothing.

"No idea what the ingredients are. It could be termite carcasses and Italian armpit." So, Italian armpits taste worse than other country's armpits' I don't know!!! Maybe it's all that tomato sauce. THIS IS A COMEDY!!! It's IN THE WRONG CATEGORY my friends. I think. I hope at least.

"I smashed upon the ground on my side." then, "He tumbled into the hallway", then, "Atmosphere plus low gravity equals particles taking forever to fall." Now, we KNOW that everything, no matter how big or how small, falls at the same rate, we know that from, say, 4th grade science. So...how...oh...nevermind.

So Jazz as hooker is attacked in the hotel by a man with a knife. Security shows up and says, "He had a knife. Best to let him go." Note to self: When traveling on the moon, never ever stay at a Chinese hotel.

NO Syfy lover would EVER, in a million years, vote for this book as best SYFY of the year. NO WAY!!!

So, her gay boyfriend dumper her for her best friend. She dresses up as a hooker and buys way too expensive scotch in a hotel bar cause she's just had the front desk call a guy and he didn't answer. Then she poors some scotch on the floor, for a guy that was just murdered. Is that some moon custom for prostitutes???

She, Jazz, says to her ex-boyfriend, "When I can't sleep at night because I know you're nailing the only man I ever loved, I'll remember that you feel guilty." Gotta be the most hilariously bad writing of the year. So bad, it's telenovagood.

Would any of you, my friends, risk your own death, your father's, all of your friends, your world, for about a million dollars or so? Didn't think so. But still, Weir is light and funny enough to hold my attention, but just barely.

I'm proud of my admiration for the Obama family.. I love strong, smart women! And that includes Hillary Clinton! Oh, how I'd like to be in their tribe! But I can support that tribe, certainly.

This construction is fascinating as there are stories within stories. Since one could drop a title in anywhere, I can see that it would be about impossible to come up with 1001 stories in an index. LOVED the story about the different colored fish, each representing a different religion, yet when they are caught and fried, they all react the very same way (and the good news is they don't die).

Said to McGee: "Always simplify. Peel it all down. One of the rules of McGeeism." This is my 8th McGee. and Macdonald means just what he writes with "Peel it all down." Another personal revelation about McGee!

Well, it's certainly time I read this, and I'm just getting started. I am prepared to be thrilled.

I'm two stories in and hurting. This is painful, powerful work. I should put this aside, really, I should, but I won't. There are too many tears to spill: this might do the trick.

In one of four paths, high school Ferguson finds that guys are free and available, women aren't so easy, binge drinking takes the edge off his confusion, he decides not to bother with college, and at his draft hearing tells of his sexual preferences. His other three paths aren't this edgy, but all are fascinating in this amazing, mind-boggling work.

Auster goes from light to dark so fast one can feel it. "And with the films came a whole new set of words for him to master-sprocket, for example, which turned out to be a far better word to think about than scorched." I should stop, but I can't.

"Everything solid for a time, then the sun comes up one morning and the world begins to melt." Yes, true. But Auster's world melts at just about any point in time, in the middle of a chapter, etc. Challenging. Will I read on? Absolutely! Or, at least another 100 pages.

The commenter writes: "Marriage to foreign wives was prohibited because of the danger that the women would influence their husbands and children to worship their strange gods and idols. And history has proved the wisdom of the rule." WHAT??? Whose history??? Shame on you, Mr. Smith, for adding flames to the existing xenophobic/racist fire. For shame!

"Commander Koura had done all he could for the two Hitachi sons...He had decided to take the best-looking of them, still a boy, into his own intimate service.' This all sounds Greekish to me, I'm surprised, but then again the court giants get anything they want, all the time. Oddly, there is no mention of any kind of work, other than writing poetry and peeking through shutters. I'm sure our work hours are longer.

Here, "Ever flowing on Bamboo River gave us hopes then dashed all too soon, where I learned the lesson of the treachery of life" seems to have influenced a great movie song: "Moon River, wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style some day. Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker, Wherever you're going, I'm going your way." Great literature is always a great source of inspiration.

About fiction that opens with something like, "I found this manuscript and it proves grandpa was a vampire...", Sedaris writes: "...I called the delivery service to order some pot...He asked if he could have my autograph...here he was, a big-time pot dealer, and he wanted my autograph? It was sweet of him to ask..." Hilarious? Yes! On-the-spot diary entry? Not sure, but then again maybe Sedaris always thinks funny.