Book Lists
I'm totally stealing this idea from my brother's blog, since he probably reads more books than I do. Or at least reads more interesting books.
So here's a list of the last few books I've read, the books I'm getting ready to read (whatever it means to "get ready" to read a book), and the books I'm reading now. For the benefit of your entertainment and my peace of mind, I'm excluding reference and dissertation-related books. This blog is supposed to be fun, after all.
So, then:
The Last Few Books I Read
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
(I picked this up in a Costco, of all places, for cheap. Hiaasen's like a less cynical and funnier Elmore Leonard, whose books I love. This one was pretty good by comparison.)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands by Stephen King
(Now that he's finally completed the last volume, I've started reading the series from Book One.)
Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson
(This is both the funniest and the goddamn scariest novel I've read in some time.)
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
(This book so wanted to be the next hip novel for disaffected slackers, but I think it sucked.)
Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan
(I told my friend Micah while I was still reading this that it was the best book about America since The Great Gatsby. Now that I've finished it, I can wave my hyperbole proudly.)
Old School by Tobias Wolff
(This guy is a beautifully depressing writer.)
Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice
(A strange little novella based around the narrator's love of The Smiths.)
Unlikely by Jeffrey Brown
(Fucking hilarious graphic novel)
Books I'm Reading Now
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
(This book won the Pulitzer last year. The narrator is a dying preacher writing notes to his young son.)
Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life by Geoffrey O'Brien
(Essays about the author's encounters with popular music in his life. Chunkily poetic.)
Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
(The author has just started a new trilogy with the characters from this series about the leper Thomas Covenant and his delusional visits to The Land. I haven't read this series since it came out in paperback 20 years ago, but I think I liked it better back then.)
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
(Dug this out after I saw the movie recently.)
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman
(See earlier blog entry)
Books I'm Planning to Read Soon
Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks
(A literary critic's appreciation of Dylan as poet.)
The Dream Life: Movies, Media and the Mythology of the Sixties by J. Hoberman
(I miss teaching Introduction to Film.)
Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order by Mark Crispin Miller
(from the author who brought you The Bush Dyslexicon; this will probably just raise my blood pressure to deadly extremes)
Book I Haven't Figured Out How to Read Yet
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
(Firstly, it's almost 1500 pages long. Secondly, it's more a collection of quotations than an actual book. Thirdly, most of the quotations are in Latin. Fourthly, it was written in the 1600s. Fifthly, after reading a page or two, I lose track of what Burton was talking about; on the other hand, I think he does, too. But his diversions and meanderings are funny and engaging, in a deranged kind of way.)
Stay tuned for more page-turning action each and every month here at Chazzbot!
So here's a list of the last few books I've read, the books I'm getting ready to read (whatever it means to "get ready" to read a book), and the books I'm reading now. For the benefit of your entertainment and my peace of mind, I'm excluding reference and dissertation-related books. This blog is supposed to be fun, after all.
So, then:
The Last Few Books I Read
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
(I picked this up in a Costco, of all places, for cheap. Hiaasen's like a less cynical and funnier Elmore Leonard, whose books I love. This one was pretty good by comparison.)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands by Stephen King
(Now that he's finally completed the last volume, I've started reading the series from Book One.)
Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson
(This is both the funniest and the goddamn scariest novel I've read in some time.)
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
(This book so wanted to be the next hip novel for disaffected slackers, but I think it sucked.)
Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan
(I told my friend Micah while I was still reading this that it was the best book about America since The Great Gatsby. Now that I've finished it, I can wave my hyperbole proudly.)
Old School by Tobias Wolff
(This guy is a beautifully depressing writer.)
Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice
(A strange little novella based around the narrator's love of The Smiths.)
Unlikely by Jeffrey Brown
(Fucking hilarious graphic novel)
Books I'm Reading Now
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
(This book won the Pulitzer last year. The narrator is a dying preacher writing notes to his young son.)
Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life by Geoffrey O'Brien
(Essays about the author's encounters with popular music in his life. Chunkily poetic.)
Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
(The author has just started a new trilogy with the characters from this series about the leper Thomas Covenant and his delusional visits to The Land. I haven't read this series since it came out in paperback 20 years ago, but I think I liked it better back then.)
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
(Dug this out after I saw the movie recently.)
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman
(See earlier blog entry)
Books I'm Planning to Read Soon
Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks
(A literary critic's appreciation of Dylan as poet.)
The Dream Life: Movies, Media and the Mythology of the Sixties by J. Hoberman
(I miss teaching Introduction to Film.)
Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order by Mark Crispin Miller
(from the author who brought you The Bush Dyslexicon; this will probably just raise my blood pressure to deadly extremes)
Book I Haven't Figured Out How to Read Yet
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
(Firstly, it's almost 1500 pages long. Secondly, it's more a collection of quotations than an actual book. Thirdly, most of the quotations are in Latin. Fourthly, it was written in the 1600s. Fifthly, after reading a page or two, I lose track of what Burton was talking about; on the other hand, I think he does, too. But his diversions and meanderings are funny and engaging, in a deranged kind of way.)
Stay tuned for more page-turning action each and every month here at Chazzbot!
posted by Chazzbot at 9:45 PM
2 Comments:
You've convinced me on Johnson's Parasites Like Us; I read the reviews at Amazon and most of them are similarly ebulliuent. As for Donaldson's "Thomas Covenant" novels (Lord Foul's Bane, etc.), I seem to remember thinking, even when I read those books a decade-and-a-half ago, that the main character was little more than a whining blob. I had no sympathy for him, no attraction to him, no interest in him. Perhaps if he'd done a little more than just walk around and disbelieve everything everyone said--despite all evidence to the contrary--I would have felt something. But three books' worth of little more than "I don't believe that, so it can't be true"? Not going to hold my interest. Maybe a Creationist would like it, though...
Of course, I do admit that, were I to re-read them, I might find them quite enjoyable. But it's going to take a lot to get me to go back. I obviously still have a bitter taste in my mouth.
In addition to having an unsympathetic lead character, Donaldson's prose is overdone. He likes to use 5-syllable words where 2 or 3 would do fine. Plus, I met him once at a conference and he was being a total dick to everyone. I'm not sure why I'm even reading his lousy book!
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