What are you reading?

[Roman]

I'm halfway The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn. I like it a lot so far. Crisp but evocative writing and two interesting interlinked stories with a very cool character.

[OSJ]

Originally in the Southern Gothic thread, I felt the need to drag this over here...

 

 For a little detour from the novels I thought Tom Franklin's collection Poachers might make for a nice break. And so it was until I got to the titular novella... Holy Mother of God!!! How does this not have some sort of warning label attached? Fuck, just fuck!!! This is just maybe the darkest, nastiest shit I've ever read and Ed Lee and I did the scary rednecks thing for over a decade. I knew Tom Franklin could bring the darkness and the ultra-violence when he wanted to, but nothing like this. Simply an incredible read, you'll probably want several showers after finishing it, but it's well worth your time. Jesus, what a fucked up world we live in...

 

Yeah, highest rec, but not for the squeamish. The cockfighting scene is probably the most pleasant thing in the story.

[Reed]

Amy, 27 by Howard Sounes. This is a look at Amy Winehouse and all the others stars in the 27 Club. Unsurprisingly, he comes to the conclusion the "27 Curse" is mostly BS (statistically, it's actually 39 that's the most dangerous age for musicians.)

 

Other than that, it's a decent enough look at Joplin, Cobain, Morrison, Jones, etc. But there's nothing that new to be said about them. The stuff about Winehouse is quite interesting. Similar to the Amy documentary, her dad doesn't come off too well.  Sounes also compares Blake Fielder Civil to Courtney Love a lot, which seems unfair to Courtney (um, she actually has talent.)

 

Sounes brings up a very good point when he says that, because she got a record deal out of school, she never learned to value or appreciate anything she got. Maybe things would have been different if she'd had to struggle a few more years before getting her break, I don't know.  It's still a bit crazy, and sad, that this 27 year old woman had hit records, millions in the bank, could feasibly do anything she wanted, but resorted to going on drinking binges because she was "bored." 

[Jingus]

I know I still gotta get around to that copy of Family Traditions you so generously sent me, OSJ. Well, after Goon, I'm still a bit squeamish; but that book was required by the plot to stay within some confines of civilized society. Imagining the same attitude, COMPLETELY removed from civilization and running amuck in the deepest and darkest woods... (shudder) And oh yeah, opening it and immediately being confronted with cock-cannibalism was just like "aw MAN, Chuck Palahniuk starts his newest book with a rape on the very first page!" sort of feeling where I like the author, I like the work, but I'm still stalling on actually READING it cuz I'm still a bit of a pussy in that regard. And thanks for the recommendation with Poachers, it looks like the sort of thing I'd be interested in.

[bobholly138]

 

Old School John found my pic of the other John Farris novel I own.  Got it cause it was 50 cents and that cover is great. 

[bobholly138]

 

Had an almost 2 hour wait the other day at the doc's. So read this Chuck Dixon 2009 G I Joe revamp. Reprints issues 0 thru 6 from IDW. Decent read,decent art. Worth the penny plus couple of bucks shipping I spent.

[OSJ]

"Boy, you been fucking them worms again?" That my friend is what we in the biz call a narrative hook. ;-)

 

 

I know I still gotta get around to that copy of Family Traditions you so generously sent me, OSJ. Well, after Goon, I'm still a bit squeamish; but that book was required by the plot to stay within some confines of civilized society. Imagining the same attitude, COMPLETELY removed from civilization and running amuck in the deepest and darkest woods... (shudder) And oh yeah, opening it and immediately being confronted with cock-cannibalism was just like "aw MAN, Chuck Palahniuk starts his newest book with a rape on the very first page!" sort of feeling where I like the author, I like the work, but I'm still stalling on actually READING it cuz I'm still a bit of a pussy in that regard. And thanks for the recommendation with Poachers, it looks like the sort of thing I'd be interested in.

[Reed]

Needful Things by Stephen King: OKish, I guess. But the protagonists are as boring as hell. 

[Randy]

I just finished reading All Our Names by Dinaw Mengetsu.  There are two connected stories that alernate throughout.  The connection is one of the main characters, but he is not the narrator in either setting.  It is narrated by his closest relationship in both situations.  The first setting is in Kampala, Uganda around 1968, after/during the series of revolutions; and the second setting is in a small city in a midwestern American state around 1972.  He travels to America on a student visa, and while there he falls in love with his (white) social worker.  Aside from the racial aspect of the relationship, it is interesting because they are both lonely people and they were able to create a connection with each other, and save one another.

 

I just started reading Long Man by Amy Greene.  It is set in a small river-side community in 1936 Tennessee.  One of the main characters is a social worker whose job is to convince families to sell their property, so the government can build a dam.

[AxB]

Reading the Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. It's... not very well written. He keeps using the exact same description - word for word - of what happens when the car you're in starts reversing, and you're pushed forwards against your seat belt. And he has a trope where someone enters a new area, and he doesn't see this detail over to his left, he doesn't see this detail over to the right, he doesn't see this detail on the back wall, all he sees is the one life-threatening cliff-hanger object right in front of him. Like fine, I get that, it's a nice bit, but you shouldn't use it too many times in a row. And if we the readers are going along with this guy, seeing things from his perspective and so on, shouldn't we see the only thing he sees... as the only thing we see?

 

The story isn't really a departure from anything we've seen in the regular version of TWD anyway, it's just happening to someone else... but he still skips straight to the post-apocalypse, without showing us the gradual erosion of society that would be the most interesting part. Have to keep reminding myself that this is the back story of the crazy Danny Trejo looking guy from the comics, not the suave politico from the TV show.

 

I'm going to finish it any way. It doesn't look that long, and I got it from the library so it's not like it's a waste of money or owt. But I've got Little Green by Walter Mosley out as well, and that's probably better.

[bobholly138]

Reading the Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. It's... not very well written. He keeps using the exact same description - word for word - of what happens when the car you're in starts reversing, and you're pushed forwards against your seat belt. And he has a trope where someone enters a new area, and he doesn't see this detail over to his left, he doesn't see this detail over to the right, he doesn't see this detail on the back wall, all he sees is the one life-threatening cliff-hanger object right in front of him. Like fine, I get that, it's a nice bit, but you shouldn't use it too many times in a row. And if we the readers are going along with this guy, seeing things from his perspective and so on, shouldn't we see the only thing he sees... as the only thing we see?

 

The story isn't really a departure from anything we've seen in the regular version of TWD anyway, it's just happening to someone else... but he still skips straight to the post-apocalypse, without showing us the gradual erosion of society that would be the most interesting part. Have to keep reminding myself that this is the back story of the crazy Danny Trejo looking guy from the comics, not the suave politico from the TV show.

 

I'm going to finish it any way. It doesn't look that long, and I got it from the library so it's not like it's a waste of money or owt. But I've got Little Green by Walter Mosley out as well, and that's probably better.

The next book in that series is even worse. 

[Matt D]

I just started Paul Boesch's war memoir.

[cwoy2j]

Just started The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker. Only through the prologue so far but it's definitely been set up as an epic and fucked up ride.

 

I finished this the other day. It was pretty good but some of the dialogue was a tad annoying and silly. These guys are in the middle of hell looking for their friend yet seemingly every page they're making some lame joke or the two gay guys are making sexual innuendos, silly gay jokes and passes at each other. It's like someone who has never heard a gay person talk saw American Dad and thought that all gay people should act like Roger. And the thing is, Clive Barker is gay so I'm surprised he'd portray those two characters like that. In any case, it was a fairly enjoyable book in spite of that.

[Shane]

Made it to part 3 of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. First two parts had hooked me completely. Part three is (so far) bogged down with description that just wasn't there earlier in the book. Still some fascinating ideas, but it's starting to drag a bit. With a few hundred pages left, I hope things get back on track.

I guess I need to dive into the Baroque Cycle.

Thinking of tackling some Larry Niven soon. I know the name, but I'm not sure that I've ever read anything by him. My tastes seem to be skewing more towards sci/fi lately. Lots of unread classics for me to go through. I only have cursory knowledge of guys like Asimov and Heinlein because science fiction was never "my thing." Beyond that, I'm a blank slate. Always preferred fantasy and/or horror, so I have a lot to catch up on.

[AxB]

OK, the Rise of the Governor is terrible. It's basically a book that betrays it's readers... if Vince Russo as imagined by the internet wrestling community wrote a book, this is the one he'd write.

 

Little Green however is great. Can't go wrong with Walter Mosley. Love books that consist of a good storyteller telling us a good story, rather than those guys who exhibitionistically waste endless pages showing us what a skillful phrase-turner they are, or how deep their research was.

[Reed]

Carrie by Stephen King. First time I've actually read this. I think there's one interesting thing that the movies never really pick up on: Carrie is already quite bitter and vindictive and has decided she's going to use her powers to fuck people up if they keep messing with her even before the prom prank goes down. She's been weak and abused for so long and she revels in the little acts where she can fight back (like knocking the kid off his bike).   

 

I think it's King insinuating that prom or not, she was gonna end up killing people, regardless. It just wouldn't have been so many. She's really not the delicate little flower who just wants to get along with everyone that both movies make her out to be. She was on her way to being a monster anyway. It was arguably the shower thing that sent her over the edge, the prom was just the horrible culmination. 

[Jingus]

Yeah, the movie adaptation had Carrie be a LOT more sympathetic than she was in the book. (I do wish that De Palma had figured out a way to make Carrie's death scene in the novel work on the screen; but it's so abstract that I understand why he changed it.) It certainly didn't hurt that you had a lovely wilting waif like Sissy Spacek replacing the book's version, who was supposed to look more like a zit-covered young Roseanne Barr.

[Reed]

I still find her sympathetic in the book (she goes through so much shit it's hard not to feel for her.)

 

But while the movies seem to say "Oh, Sue fucked up by setting the whole prom thing in motion and if it wasn't for that and Chris being a huge bitch things would have been OK" the book makes it clear: An unstable, abused, victimized young girl getting all this power was never going to end well, no matter what.

 

At the very least, she was gearing up to kill her mom. That would have happened regardless.

 

After reading the book, I definitely feel like the films missed the point of her character a bit. There's a slowly growing sadism there that's unmistakable. 

[OSJ]

Quite so. Those who behave monstrously are going to create monsters. I read Carrie when it came out and empathized a great deal with the character. I was put ahead two grades in elementary school which meant I was not only a lot smarter, but a lot smaller than my classmates for years, and got the shit kicked out of me on pretty much a daily basis. Then when I hit 14-15 I shot up several inches and quite a few pounds of muscle seemingly overnight. (It wasn't over night, and I worked pretty hard), but in less than a year's time I went from the little guy with glasses that everyone picked on to the pretty big guy with glasses that no one wanted to fuck with. I sort of credit reading Carrie with why I didn't bother seeking out and taking revenge on former tormentors. I didn't want to become what I hated. 

[Pete]

Working my way through the "Before Watchmen" collections that just popped up in the Queens library. So far I've read Comedian, Rorschach and Minutemen, with Silk Spectre still to follow. Minutemen is far and away the best of the bunch so far... Cooke does a fabulous job expanding the personalities/motivations for characters who got maybe one line of dialogue (if even that) in the original series.

EDIT:Silk Spectre is also quite good. Amanda's art is gorgeous as always.

[Jingus]

I thought a lot of Before Watchmen was kinda meh, but I really liked the Rorschach one. I marked out harder than I thought I could ever possibly mark, when TRAVIS BICKLE showed up for an extended cameo. And his dialogue was perfect, I could totally hear the voice of DeNiro '76 saying those lines.

I picked up The Shepherd's Crown... and it's just sitting there. I'm staring at it. I read the first few chapters, but then trailed off because... because... goddammit, because I AM NOT READY for Discworld to be finished, ya know? It's my favorite series of novels ever. Especially since Pratchett seems to have written the book as one whole parable about his own looming mortality and the pain that he knew his inevitably-soon death would bring to his loved ones.

[Kuetsar]

I've never read the Tiffany Aching ones, or the Nation series. I guess it was my own dumb little protest that he write anything but Discworld. Dumb, I know, and I'll get to them eventually, I'm sure. My reading queue is probably 200 books at this point, and I'm slowly making my way through a JFK run. A book on the 1960 election, A thousand Days and a Ted Sorensen memoir down, and I'm currently reading Death of a President. Its really good, though depressing, obviously given the subject matter. Its pretty much a minute by minute account of 11/21-11/24/1963, and can be gut wrenching at times. WIlliam Manchester was pretty much a one man Warren Commission, and demolishes any conspiracy theories. Oswald did it, and he lays out exactly how and why. . . . 

[Jingus]

Uh, the Aching books are indeed Discworld novels. Yeah, I know they're classified in the "young adult" section, but you can pretty much just ignore that. The first two are slightly childish, but they get MUCH better as they go along.

I also haven't gotten around to Nation or some of his more obscure stuff, like the one about the truckers and the one that sounds like a ripoff of The Littles and so forth. I might just leave them out there, unread, so I can sloooooooowly consume a "new" Pratchett book every couple of years.

[bobholly138]

Alien Legion-Piecemaker

 

Pretty sure this is reprinting part of the second Alien Legion series from Epic. I remember seeing the first series when I was younger and for some reason I never read it. Got about 10 issues cheap a few years back at a con and loved it. So threw 2 of the Checker Books trades on my wishlist. And got them both last X-mas. They got misplaced and just recently found.

 

Chuck Dixon does good military action,and Larry Stroman's art is great. I know there is a Dark Horse published Alien Legion Omnibus,but can't find what all it reprints.

[AxB]

The Shattered Sea trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is really good. Maybe better than the First Law series (which it has nothing at all to do with). When you think you've got on top of things and you know what's happening and where it's going, and then you realise that you actually knew precisely bugger all about what was happening. But it's not a twist book, like some M Night Shyamalan/ Vince Russo rubbish. It's just a really good story (three stories) that makes perfect sense in retrospect, but you don't see things coming at the time.