This one could've gone either way. I LOVE Dan Wells for his John Cleaver books- the ones he's written and the ones he has yet to write. His supernatural/psychological thriller The Hollow City was also killer. But I did not at all care for his Partials trilogy. That one started strong and just petered out. It had the misfortune of coming out in a time where us humans are already completely burned out on futuristic YA dystopia fiction. Especially in trilogy form.
So how's Bluescreen, his first cyberpunk book? Not good. It's a pale shadow of the 80's cyberpunk books it's riffing on, plus it's aimed squarely at teens. The dialogue and writing left me totally cold. A few cool moments here and there, but weak overall. This is allegedly the first book in a series. Dan Wells just left my "must-read" list.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
The author of Eat, Pray, Love riffs on creativity and overcoming fear and anxiety. Like a short book-length pep talk to get you to open up and tell the story you want to tell. Funny and uplifting, even if it goes a little wonky with her New Age notions about ideas being literally alive.
I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich
Not a zombie love story. Actually a 1940's crime novel. A well-told tale of mistaken identity and a woman in trouble during the Great Depression. The writing is smooth and the emotional intensity is high, but I didn't really care for it. The ending is a bit klunky, too. But this was an important influence on crime fiction and film noir, so it's worth a look for historical value.
Honky-Tonk Samurai by Joe R. Lansdale
Joe R. Lansdale is a genre-hopping powerhouse of story. Mystery, western, horror, bizarro, thriller, fantasy, retro-pulp, you name it. This one is the latest in his long-running Hap & Leonard series. The pair of lovable job-hopping, conflict-prone Texan losers- one a straight white dude and one a gay Black dude- find themselves up against an organized crime ring and chaos ensues. After almost three decades of writing these characters, Lansdale STILL isn't phoning it in. It's hilarious and entertaining and disturbing, often at the same time. Bonus- they just recently adapted these characters to TV.
This is a cookbook by one of the witches in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. But it's more than that- it's also an advice and etiquette guide to help you be a proper lady or gentleman in the Discworld. Some of the recipes are tedious, but the laughs-per-page rate is just as high here as in any of Terry Pratchett's narrative books. Lots of fun for Pratchett fans.
A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi
Joshi gives a nice overview of all things Lovecraft. Lots of interesting tidbits about Lovecraft's sheltered life and personal and artistic development. He also puts every one of the author's stories in context, artistically and personally. Joshi is also a SNOB! He's super-snooty and dismissive of any work that riffs on Lovecraft and he nitpicks the flaws in almost all of the author's work. Don't get me wrong- Lovecraft is a flawed human being and a flawed writer. But Joshi takes the guy a bit too seriously and frequently sucks the fun out of his work.
Nightmare Alley by William Gresham
Not a horror story about an alley. Actually a 1940's crime novel. Surprisingly brutal and hard-edged for its time, this unflinching look at carny life still packs a punch today. The bits about geeks and the botched back-alley abortion are skin-crawling. Also interesting- its structure is based on tarot cards. If you want to dive into the dark underbelly of carnival life in the 40's, this Alley's for you!
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
I tried. Twice. I hit a wall after 100 pages both times, just couldn't get any farther into it. I love me some Dickens- Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Christmas Carol, even Hard Times. But I just could not with this book. The characters suck and not one note rings true. And this is one of his really popular and famous ones, it's not like I'm trashing The Old Curiosity Shop here (which also kind of sucked, but at least it was short!). So I apologize. But no.
An anti-greatest hits collection by some of the world's greatest chefs and some other people who I presume also cook food. The premise: each writer describes their most disastrous kitchen experience. Some of them are funnier than others, but this is a great peek behind the scenes at the vital, tense, foul-mouthed heart of the restaurant business.
Psycho II by Robert Bloch
The most fun thing about this book is its origin story. The author- who wrote the original Psycho- found out Hollywood was making a Psycho sequel. So he wrote this book to deliberately annoy the studio. It's about Norman Bates killing a nun and using her clothes to escape his asylum and then travel to Hollywood to kill the people making a movie about him.
Fun enough premise. But the book lost me right off the bat. First, Bates' escape is totally glossed over. And then he violates the corpse of his first new victim. Peace out. Well-written, but it feels like Bloch was being deliberately ugly to punish anyone who came to the book expecting it to be a novelization of the movie Psycho II.
Hatching Twitter by Nick Hilton
A cool behind-the-scenes look at how a handful of jokers came up with a website that we all use to complain and snark on. The interpersonal drama is compelling and it's neat to see their mistakes and how they bounced back and modified their approach constantly.
The Shift by Theresa Brown
An inside look at the life of a hospital nurse. Dry-witted and informative, this puts you in her shoes and gives you a newfound respect for the work and the people who work in the industry.
This is a delightful tale of the making of a geek girl. Her home-schooled childhood and quirky parents are a lot of fun and her insights into gaming- pros and cons- are superb. She's funny throughout, with witty asides and great self-deprecating humor.
Possessions by James A. Moore
Shockingly bad considering how much I've enjoyed Moore's other books, Deeper and Fireworks. Just a turgid mess of a supernatural tale with lousy characters and one non-starter of a scene after another.
Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
Even tougher to understand than the author's other recent hit, The Big Short. But equally rewarding- and disturbing- once you figure it out. Short version: Wall Street douchebags use software to rig stock trades and a group of heroes catches and busts them. A great cast of characters permeates this caper, though it ends on a sad note with a feeling that evil always finds a way to get one over on the system.
The Terror by Dan Simmons
A great 19th century historical fiction epic. Not a horror story. The title is "Terror" because that's the name of the ship that got caught in the Arctic. This is the tale of the crew that got stranded in the ice and gradually succumbed to exposure, starvation, madness, and a giant mutant polar bear. The amount of research Simmons must have conducted is staggering. But at times one wishes he would have been more concise and more entertaining. 800 pages is a long slog for such a simple story.
A professor takes up cage fighting so he can do an elegant job telling us all about it in this here book. Ironically, his descriptions of his fights are the least interesting parts. (I don't really care about martial arts, so they disengaged me.) The author is at his strongest when he makes connections to violence throughout history and what drives it. Lots of great thoughts about organized sports, too.
Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
I dig McCammon's horror novels and thrillers and fantasies, but I wasn't feeling this coming-of-age story at all. Some great prose and lines in here, but the overall effect is a pedantic and preachy one. It's so weighed down with all the works of art it's homaging and referencing, it never really comes to life as its own thing.
The Man Who Japed by Philip K. Dick
This is a misfire. ("Japed" means "joked," by the way.) There's just not much to it. In the future, an overly moralistic government bans all fun, so a prominent government employee gets fed up and chops the head off a statue. That's the "man" and that's his "jape." People argue about how fun is cool and how oppression is bad. And not much happens. This is an early Dick work, so he hadn't yet started jamming every paragraph full of wild ideas yet. Or maybe he wasn't on methamphetamines yet. I don't endorse drug abuse, but Dick wrote his best stuff under the influence. I'm a huge fan of the guy, but I'd say skip this one. No jape.
Tarr, by Wyndham Lewis
Hard to describe. Basically- two guys wander around Paris and get into shenanigans. It's a novel about nothing. A literary Seinfeld, beating Jerry to the punch by decades. First written in 1909, it's notable for rambling about sex and phalluses in the first chapter. Wasting no time getting to the stuff that'll make the reader with refined sensibilities blush. The writing style is bizarre and one-of-a-kind. It has sentences like this: "I don't believe he was in love with anybody, I think that it was however a sex-tumult of course." I guess its claim to fame is that it's got some literary flair, but was never embraced by Academia and thus isn't as renowned as other Modernist books of the time. So if any of this sounds cool to you, enjoy this sex-tumult of a book.
The is the bible of improv comedy. And it's a pleasantly short bible- all killer and no filler! The principles of Second City- the foundation of all comedy as we know it- are explained clearly and humorously. If you ever wanted to know how comedians forge their craft, or if you want to learn how to be more clever and creative, this book provides some great guidelines.
Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos by Various Authors
This is another one of those Lovecraft-inspired collections that's more enjoyable than actual Lovecraft collections. (In case we haven't discussed Lovecraft- he's great, he's groundbreaking, he's amazing...except when he's not. When he's good, he's GREAT. When he's not, he's very much not.) I back almost every story in this collection, all delightfully creepy. Also well worth a look and in the same vein: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos and The New Lovecraft Circle.
Details the origins of bundling mortgages together into securities and selling those to customers, thus making it the unintentional origin story for the 2008 housing market crisis. A warts-and-all look at the bond market and the horrible behavior among the white men in suspenders that ruled the floors there in the heady mid-80's. The author's constant sense of irony and whimsy makes his insider perspective more goofy than biting.
Gormenghast Trilogy (Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone) by Mervyn Peake
I got this because it was referenced on the cover of an Elric collection. I can see its influence, but it's pretty dry. A Chosen One is born in a fallen kingdom, he realizes his fallen kingdom sucks, so he leaves and wanders around. That's the whole trilogy in one sentence. The decadent lyrical epic fantasy stylings were probably pretty amazing when it was written in the 40's, but it hasn't aged well. The language is arcane and off-putting. Stuff like "Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia." It's Gormen-ghastly!
An absorbing look into the human mind and how we make decisions and how we change our behaviors. Even offers a step-by-step methodology for reprogramming our brains. That's a generous thing for a book to do.
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
An improvement on Fellowship because stuff actually happens in here. But it's told in a bungled, fragmented way. Action/ fight sequences are delivered in a dry after-the-fact way that dulls any impact. Gollum's great, though.
(UPDATE: I listened to Return of the King, as well. The multiple endings work better in the book than the movie, especially with the Scouring of the Shire. But the final battle was better in the movie.)
Mr. X by Peter Straub
This one's a puzzler. I'm a Straub fan. Shadowlands was pure gold, a near-perfect horror-fantasy. Ghost Story was so intense and creepy, I dropped it halfway through because I was getting too uneasy. And A Dark Matter was a great mind-bender. But this one, I dunno. Mr. X is the tale of a guy who believes the works of H.P. Lovecraft are real and has some other mental health issues, too. Also there's a young man trying to figure out his family history. (Family history work is good, so good for him!) But instead of building to a horrific or striking conclusion, events and characters just kind of tapdance around each other and then it just ends. Most of it's unclear, but some of it you can infer. It's not much fun. It's not scary. It's just not very interesting despite having a lot of interesting stuff happen in it.
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
I don't really care about baseball- I go to games mostly to hang out, eat junk, and goof off- so most of this book bored me. The story itself- statistics trumping tradition- is fascinating, but the movie adaptation hits all the main points and does a nice job turning it into a more compelling narrative. The book goes all over the place. This is rare: I'd recommend a movie version over the book it adapts.
Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow
This is a collection of interviews conducted by funny person Judd Apatow. Makes for a kaleidoscopic view into the creative mind and what makes someone funny and how funny people see the world.
I owe this book a huge debt. (See here for the reason.) But it's also a wild ride by any standard as we see centuries pass with dogs growing sentient and inheriting the Earth while humans grow increasingly isolated, abandoning cities due to cheap and easy personal atomic-powered helicopters. Humans grow so isolated- living far from each other out in the country- that their hearts fail them and they give up on human society. And eventually voluntarily mutate themselves so they can survive life on Jupiter and then move there. Makes sense.
Fools' Gold by Gilliam Tett
Another behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 2008 financial collapse, detailing the invention of CDOs and how they evolved. This one's a more forgiving look at the players on Wall Street, showing that they were human beings who made mistakes and not devious and nefarious monsters bent on breaking the world.
Shakespeare Saved My Life by Laura Bates
An English teacher details her experiences teaching Shakespeare to prisoners. It focuses on one hard-case prisoner who proves to be the most responsive to her methods. Inspiring and uplifting.
-Phony McFakename
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ReplyDeleteI'm so pleased that 5 books I've mentioned made it on!
ReplyDeleteYou are a book-recommending champion!
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