I'm on a roll this year

2013 is shaping up to be a heavy reading year.  Not only have I been reading a ton of comic books and prose novels, but my list of books is growing quickly with 4 novels waiting in the wings for me which i hope to complete before month-end.
This post will update my progress along with a brief recap, rating and an aside as to how it came to pass that I read that book  The numbering system starts at 5 because that is the fifth book I have read this year on my goal to 52 (which seems possible, but unlikely)

5.  This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life - David Foster Wallace (137 Pages) - B

This is simply a publication of a graduation speech the author David Foster Wallace gave in 2005 at Kenyan College (which I have no idea where that is).  To be honest, I picked this book up as a cheat in my 52 books contest.  It was a speech with a few sentences on each page.  Having only read some Wallace articles in the past and enjoying them, but never reading a novel I wanted to try some more of his work out.   This was one of those speeches that tells you to enjoy life and stop and smell the roses a times.  Don't get stressed out by the guy that cut you off on the highway, because you don't know their situation.  Maybe that guy's wife is at the surgery and he's trying his hardest to get there.  It's a great way of looking at the world and worth a read.  Anyone can read the speech here.

Something interesting happened later:  I had the book on my desk at work and a coworker came over and looked it over.  She asked what it was and I gave a brief synopsis, then she asked if she could read it.  Obviously, I obliged and she took it.  Five minutes later she frantically ran over to me to inquire about something that was stamped on the title page of the book. Someone had stamped in red ink "THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK COMMITTED SUICIDE".  I don't know if the library did that or a patron, and although it is true I'm curious as to why it was there.  This bothered my coworker very much, since the theme of the speech is to not get carried away by life and to be compassionate.  It's obviously a "Do as I say, not as I do" book since Wallace couldn't handle it. It's pretty obvious that this must have been something that the author had a problem with in his entire life which he eventually succumbed to
My question to my loyal reader is: Does the an author's ideas or his actions matter more?  

6. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story - Sean Howe (432 Pages) - B+

Newsflash:  I like comic books.  There are two type of people in the world DC people and Marvel people, and I've been a Marvel Zombie since I was 10 years old.  This heavily researched, in depth book tells the true accounts of the stories behind the story-tellers.  All of the drug use, backstabbing, power plays and disputes in who created what, and ownership rights.  Ownership of property is the largest issue in this book and going back to Ayn Rand's theory that if you create it, you should fully own it vs. what the US government says of contracts how one can create a character (like Spider-Man), but not own that character because you signed a contract that says anything you write belongs to Marvel Comics as an institution.  It's a question I go back and forth on myself because I like to think if I was to create something that resonated with millions of people, then I would reap the benefits for my ideas and my hard work.  But because I work for a popular company, the only reason anyone ever heard my ideas was because they published my book that had a built-in audience who were able to find my idea because they published hundreds of thousands of copies of my idea without me putting up any money.  It's a very difficult concept and I'm not sure there is a 100% correct answer.  It really is a collaboration, and until we get a fair compensation policy for all, it will always be a problem.  In every industry.

6a.  Fables - Cubs in Toyland 

I will continue reading Fables until it goes ends its run.  The characters are always wonderfully written and I care about them all.  The last few books, however feel like the story is treading water a little.  It seems to have become just another comic book where the characters get into situations, fight back and prevail.  What keeps Fables apart is that there are often casualties since the cast of characters is so large, losing one or even 10 characters is not a problem.
This story was more of a horror tale than anything else, like a classic Borthers Grimm story.  It was an enjoyable read, but in the end it was forgettable.

6b. The Unwritten: Volumes 1-4

I had read The Unwritten volumes 1 and 2 when they came out about 2 years ago and enjoyed it.  While I was feeding my friend Jason's cat while he was away, I noticed that Jason had volumes 1-4.  I leafed through volume 1 and realized I barely remembered it and didn't remember volume 2 at all.  I stole all 4 of his books and read them in a few days.  What a fantastic, imaginative story this is turning out to be.  Tommy Taylor (think Harry Potter) was a beloved children's book.  The author of the books had a son, named Thomas Taylor, and he makes a living going around as "The Real Tommy" but as a 20 something young man, he hates this life.  

What the book eventually reveals is that the characters in all popular novels are real.  Or at least have their own world where you can go.  Tommy begins his adventure through stories that leads to him meeting Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, Frankenstein's monster and a slew of other characters.   Tommy is pursued throughout popular fiction because his father may have hidden some secrets of the universe in him that an occult group is trying to protect or get for themselves.  

Since it is an ongoing series, I am not sure where they are going yet, but this is becoming a great book about the nature of stories and what they mean.  Also, people have to be more well-read than me in order to catch all of the literary references in any given issue.  This is one of those comic books that you give to an English
teacher if they are against comic books, and to ask them if this is not literature itself.

7. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut (326 Pages) - B+

The more Vonnegut I read, the more I like him.  The best thing about Kurt Vonnegut is that while you are reading one of his books, you are aware that you are reading a Vonnegut book because no one else writes like him.  The imagination, humor, and big ideas that he had were uncontested.  The structure of his books are almost like a joke.  He sets up the characters normally, starts throwing some strange situations at them, and he ends his books perfectly with a punchline that makes you laugh, and makes you think.
This novel (his second written in 1959) was chosen by the previously mentioned Jason as our latest book club endeavor.  The concepts in the book are small-scale: It only tells the story of why human civilization exists and was orchestrated by external forces.  (Oh yeah, for religious nuts and people that think humanity is the point of the universe, you won't be happy with this reasoning)
There is nothing I can write here that will make any difference to anyone. If you want to read a book that is funny and odd and imaginative read this book or any of his others.  If not, go read James Patterson.




8. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross - James Patterson (323 Pages) - C-

"My name is Mitch, and I have a reading problem".  That's the only defense I have for continuing to read the Alex Cross books by James Patterson.  While reading them, I recognize the terrible writing.  I can see the twists coming from a mile away.  I know Alex Cross is going to catch the bad guy and go home to his ever-growing family, but when I see it on the library rack I also know I'm going to knock out a 300 page book in 2 days and there is something about that that makes me happy.
I will continue to read the awful adventures of Alex Cross until they stop being published.  And since the newest one was just published again, I know there will be another Alex Cross book on this list before the year's over.
Oh yeah: In this one, Alex Cross solves TWO cases, not just one.  That's why it's different.









9.  In The Miso Soup - Ryu Murakami (180 Pages) - C

Whenever I go to the library I always pass by to see if there are any books by Haruki Murakami whose writing I love.  A few years ago, I picked up Pierced by Ryu Murakami.  It was basically Japanese torture-porn, but as a horror fan, I enjoyed it.  I picked up this one too (as a short novel, it helps padding my 52 books as well) and it was more of the same.
This story is really not very good and I'm not sure the point the author is trying to make.  The violence comes out of nowhere and although he tries to explain why the characters behave like they do, I never felt he succeeded.  Murakami wanted to write a book about violence and about the Japanese sex industry in the mid 90s, so he combined those two things.  He brought in a crazy American for the violence (probably saying something about violence in America) and having an innocent travel agent to the brothels of Tokyo act as the pie-eyed innocent.  It never fully worked for me.   But we need to have bad books in the world to truly appreciate the good ones.






10. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (387 Pages) - A

While reading this book the only word that continued to pop into my head was "Beautiful".  This book was just that.  The writing, the mystery, the love of the story is just dripping off the page.  A few people (all women) have told me to read this book, and I pretty much dismissed them.  Not knowing anything about it, I figured it was a "chick-book", and maybe I'd get around to it.  Thankfully the library had it one day and on a whim I picked it up.
I cannot even describe what it is that I loved so much about it.  In the end, it just comes down to the writing style.  This book was written in such a way that I couldn't help but continue reading.  Who are all these characters? How do they come together? What is the mysterious contest about?  All of that is great, but in the end it is the way the tale is told that is the true main character.  The only other book that gave off an aura like this book while being read is Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
There is nothing I want to write about this book out of fear that someone could stumble upon this blog and have any of it ruined.  Just go in and know that I was hooked by page 10 when a character finds out he has an 4 year old daughter and he gains custody after the mother died.  He looks at this little 4 year old and says to her "You're going to be interesting" and I was hooked.  It set the tone of the entire novel, and  it never was a disappointment.

10a - For the sake of completion: I have also read a bunch of other comic books this year, but not much to write about on these: The New Avengers: Book 1; Essential X-Men Volume 10, Anya's Ghost, Thor/IronMan - God Complex, Thor - Vissionaries Walter Simonson Volume 1

It's Oscar Night

As I sit here watching the newest Oscars, I figure now is as good a time as any to update this blog not with my continue collection of books that I have been reading, but instead of my first love: The Movies.

I don't really post much about movies much these days, mostly because I have been less into them then in the past, but there was a time when that was all I cared about.  Confession: I always hoped to work in the movies, but the lack of talent, determination and guts pretty much put a stop into that.  But I applied to Miramax and Lions Gate out of school and didn't get the gig.  Although it's never too late, the chances seem less and less likely as I get older.

But I must say in the past month, I have been on quite a streak of watching a ton of movies.  Some good, many bad.   This is going to be a quick checklist and update of all movies I've seen in no real order since I don't have a list like I do my books.

Turner Classic Movies have been playing the Oscar movies as they do every year and I have been DVRing them as they catch my interest.  I woke up this morning and watched the 1980 movie The Stunt Man.  I have always heard this was a great satire and a quirky, fun movie.  After watching it, I think it doesn't hold up.  It seems to be a satire/commentary on the Vietnam War as well as Hollywood, but either the jokes were lost on me or they simply were lost in time.  I found it terribly acted and more boring than anything else.   I was shocked that Barbara Hershey used to be cute though.  That was a pleasant surprise.

Last night I threw on the movie Looper.  The premise is actually much better than the movie turned out to be.  Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a younger Bruce Willis that is assigned to kill himself and other criminals from the future.  Everything seemed like it was going to be really cool, but the movie took a left turn at Alburquerque and changed directions.
Where it went was still a fun movie, it just seemed like a different movie than the one that was marketed and that I signed up for.  

Another classic movie that I had never seen before this weekend.  Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was a great movie, made even better by the behind the scenes trivia about how Spencer Tracy dies just 17 days after filming this movie and how Katharine Hepburn never watched this.
Honestly, I understand the history that comes with this movie and 100% admit that Sidney Poitier killed it in this role.  He was powerful and amazing and although he never showed any humor, the integrity his character has is inspiring.  Even though I don't think it's in my nature to ever be that serious and "manly" about anything, it was an amazing performance.

I watched Singin' In The Rain last week during a movie marathon with Aubrey.  It was my first time watching this ever.  I was shocked at how much fun and how many of the songs I had already known.  It was definitely a fun movie to watch and much funnier than I expected it to be.
On top of that, I have an awful habit of going to the TRIVIA section of IMDB after every movie that I watch.  This one had some of the best trivia about how much the cast and crew hated Gene Kelly.  Feel free to read them all here.

Also, who knew how cute Princess Leia's mother was?

 

I will probably always be a sucker for good High School movies and The Perks f Being A Wallflower is one of the better ones I've seen in some time.  It perfectly captures the alienation that everyone feels as a teenager and the solace that we all turn to in our friends and into music.  No outcast ever looks like the actors in this movie, but you have to take that bit with a slight grain of salt, (after all it is still a Hollywood movie) but the content is 100% accurate.
There was a slight twist in the movie that, having never read the book, completely surprised me but was impressed by how a first-time director perfectly made the tonal shift and looking back at the film, even gave hints of the twist throughout the first three-quarters.
And the soundtrack was virtually perfect.

This movie may have hit a little too close to home considering what I've been up to the past oh... 8 years or so.  But this was mostly a cute movie with some likable actors.
Although the movie did go on a little too long, I guess it kind of makes sense in a movie called The Five Year Engagement, and the point is these two characters found every excuse possible to prolong or just not get married that there was bound to be some treading of water.

Is there anything better than going into a movie that you have no expectations of that turns out to be a damn good time?  21 Jump Street is a remake of a terrible TV show that I watched virtually every episode of.  I watched it because people told me it was fun, and I was shocked that everyone that said so was right.  I am shocked that I find Jonah Hill to be funny and he seems to make great career choices.  Between this movie and The Sitterwhich is on HBO everyday, I have to say I am becoming a fan of the guy.  Not to mention his insanely funny cameo in Django Unchained which may be the funniest scene of any movie of the year.

Another movie that may not be on anyone's radar, but is worth the 85 minutes of your time.  I found Safety Not Guaranteed to be a clever, fun movie.  I don't want to give anything away in this mini-review.  But this is currently available on Netflix Streaming and will say anyone that likes Aubrey Plaza on Parks and Recreations and quirky sci-fi comedies like Bubba Ho-Tep will probably enjoy this.  I found myself smiling throughout.

My parents saw Beasts of the Southern Wild about a year ago and couldn't stop talking about it.  Not only were they impressed with the little actress, but they were impressed by the young director as well who is from a town close to where I grew up.  He hosted a Q&A with my parents after the screening and they came away as fans to the point that my dad even made a bet on the young 9 year old actress in Vegas for her to win the Oscar at 500-1.  So I'm rooting for her tonight.

I watched the movie a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, but probably not as much as them.  I mostly loved the music and am rooting for the score of Beasts to take home Oscar gold today since that is what jumped out the most to me.

Maybe I'm a harsher critic on movies that seem to get glowing reviews from everyone, but I didn't love Argo.   Don't get me wrong, it was a well made, well acted movie about an interesting true story that I had no knowledge of before watching it.  But my biggest problem was how convenient all the close-calls the all of the hostages and Fed agents/Hollywood actors.  After the fourth time I started getting annoyed and found it played out.

My favorite part of the entire movie was the first two seconds where they showed the old Warner Brothers logo to make the movie feel more 70s:.  It made me feel like a kid going to the movies for a split second.

Probably the best movie I saw this year, I actually saw back near the end of 2012.   I've loved Tarantino since the first time I saw Reservoir Dogs when I was 15 years old.  Although this isn't his best, Django Unchained is quintessential Tarantino, showing his love for dialogue, his respect for the history of cinema, and his over-all joy that he is able to pump into his movies, no matter how difficult the topic he is presenting may be.
Tarantino gets a ton of honors and awards for his scripts, but I've been mostly impressed by his directing in his last few movies.  No one builds tension better in their movies then Tarantino.  I will never forget an old quote of his when he was talking about what he considers a great movie.  It's simple: When you're watching the movie you forget that you are living, you forget you're breathing.  You are just in the movie.
I often notice that I forget everything the first time I am watching a Tarantino movie.  Some of his scenes are so intense that nothing else matters.  Also, I'm hopeful that Christoph Waltz continues to show up in everything Tarantino does since he steals every scene he's in.

More books get read

2.  Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (419 Pages) - B

My constant reader knows that I am in a book club and joined it about 4 years ago.  We try to read about 10 books a year, but last year we hit a sort of rough patch.  The books we picked were not well liked and although we always have fun when we get together, the book aspect of the book club has sputtered a bit.
This time I decided to revitalize our book club by picking a popular age turner that I was sure I would read eventually.  I had heard that this book was getting a lot of buzz and chose this for our next read.  We met last week and my fellow readers seemed to hate this tale of a missing wife more than I expected.
I agree it was hokey at times, and virtually all of the characters were deplorable and unlikable, but I found it mostly fun, albeit mostly unbelievable.   Aubrey had the best insight to me about how since both of the main characters were writers, the author kind of cheated and used them to try and show off her writing style.  Gillian Flynn definitely was trying to showcase her ability to write such different styles and even cheated a little by offering more than two narrators, but I don't want to ruin the fun of this book here.  No matter what you may think of the book, no one can dispute that it's a fun read.

2a. Creatures of the Night - Neil Gaiman/Michael Zulli

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned how much I love Neil Gaiman (and I may say it again before this post is over).  But not only do I love Neil Gaiman's writing, but I really do.  Not only do I love his writing, but I especially love his comic book writing.  This short book took two of his short stories and had the amazing Michael Zulli illustrate it.  He is the same man that illustrated the final few issues of Sandman which made me more excited to read this.

Michael Zulli's drawings

These stories were typical Gaiman.  beautiful prose describing a typical "day in the life" that ended up really being about the battle of good and evil featuring animals (in this case a cat) and their role in protecting their human masters.  I wonder why this book struck a chord with me?






3. Inside a Dog - Alexandra Horowitz (302 Pages) - C+

Renly

My life changed forever back in April.   After 30 years of hoping and wanting one I "adopted my new best friend" and got an amazing, shelter dog who I eventually named Renly.
Anyone that has met Renly will agree that I got beyond lucky with a first dog.  He is well trained, sweet, quiet and simply of the most loving animals I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.  Granted, I am biased, but it's also a fact.
In order to better understand all of the strange things Renly does on a daily basis, I saw this book in the bookstore and decided to pick it up.  It's written by a dog psychologist who has spent years watching and studying dogs in order to better understand why they do the things they do.  My only problem with the book is that it seems the book was more written for people that have never had a dog then those that do.  Once in a while there was some insight and I especially enjoyed the history lesson of how these wolves eventually became domesticated and (d)evolved to being the dogs that we have living in our homes from the wild animals they used to be, but otherwise the book was filled with common observations that me as a dog-owner for less than a year have figured out.
I'm happy I read the book because I have a little bit of a better understanding of why my dog my lick my face until it's raw, or attempt to bury a bone I give him in the couch until his nose bleeds, but mostly I just want to enjoy the amazing base fun that Renly provides me.  (And I'll take the doggy kisses when they come, even if the book tells me he's just waiting for me to vomit up food for him like a mother of a pack).

4. Stardust - Neil Gaiman (285 Pages) B-

Remember when I said there would be more Gaiman in this list?  Well, I've read almost all of his books, but I had not read this novel although I had seen the movie.  I don't know why it had taken me so long to read this.  Maybe it was the Faerie aspect that kept me away since that was always the part of Sandman that I didn't love.  And even after watching and enjoying the movie, I still never got around to reading the book.  Now that the novel has reached its 20th anniversary, a new version was released, so I just bought it.
This was not his finest story, but still had all of the classic Gaiman elements.  This is a very simple fairy tale quite similar in tone and content to The Princess Bride.
It's a sweet story, but since this was originally published as a graphic novel, I think it reads better in that style than in the classic prose that this version came in.  This seemed like it was forced into more description that I'm sure came across better with Charles Vess' drawings in the original.    One day I will update with my comparison of the two versions.  Until then, I'm off to the library to pick up more books.

It Gets Better: Reading in 2013

After a lackluster end of the year I am hoping that 2013 will be filled with more enjoyable reads.  It's not like everything has to be amazing, after all, how can one appreciate all the great reads if there aren't a few clunkers from time to time.  I find that bad reads go in phases, as do good ones.  In order to gear up to some good reads, I went back to what my mainstays: Comic Books.

1) Prelude to Schism - Paul Jenkins - C

I love the X-Men.  They are the books that stuck with me as a child they sucked me into the world of comic books which led to a life-long love (and a depletion of my back account).  I can't fully explain what it is that I love, but after years of not reading comics, they seem to be the books that excite me and bring me back to the fold.  Keeping up with the industry, I know some huge storylines have come and gone that I have missed out on due to not reading monthly books anymore (otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford.....anything else so I quit cold turkey about 8 years ago). On Christmas morning, I was feeling nostalgic and wanting to catch up with my old friends.  I went on Amazon and found out all the books that have come out since I last read these.  When I tallied up how much the books would cost, it was about $140 on Amazon.  To the NY Public Library Website I went instead and reserved these books.  The first was the Prelude to the Schism storyline.  After reading it, I'm very happy I didn't plop down $8 on this book. It was a great character study on the main power players: Cyclops, Professor X, Wolverine and Magneto, but absolutely nothing happened in the book.  It was a prelude to the story that will shake up the X-Universe, but that is all.  I'm glad I read it, but more glad I read it for free.

2) Powers: The Definitive Hardcover Volume 2: Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming - B+

While in the library picking up X-Men, I saw this on the shelf. I've read this book when it came out in single issues back in 2002-2003 since this is a collection of about 12 issues (or a year's worth of books).
Powers is a fantastic story, told by a great writer.  The series follows a police partnership made up of an ex-superhero (think Superman if Superman lost his powers and was human and became a cop) who investigate homicides involving Superheroes in a world where there are tons (much like a world in the popular movie The Incredibles).
Having read this book in a different format 10 years ago, this was a quick re-read and made me remember how much I love Bendis and his writing as well as this book.  I am very behind in what is going in in this world, and would love to catch up since these books are still being released and I have faith that they continue to come out at the same quality.







3) Science Dog - Robert Kirkman & Cory Walker - B+

This was also on the shelf and seeing the name Robert Kirkman made me remember that Science Dog was the comic book read by the comic book character Invincible in Kirkman's superhero book.  I decided to read the one-shot book and it was one of the best written out time-travel tales that I've read since The Time Traveler's Wife.  Kirkman perfectly explained the idea of paradoxes and parallel universes by making Science Dog continue to go further back in time in order to fix his mistakes.  The tragedy of him doing all this to save his friends and one aspect of himself, while putting himself into exile was told so perfectly and this book reminded me of how amazing the medium of comic books can tell a story that is difficult to tell in any other version.  Kirkman continues to write some of the most tragic books with a ton of heart.  I'm sticking with Invincible for the long haul and will check out the side-stories like this when they come to me.

4) The Walking Dead Volume 17: Something To Fear -  Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard & Cliff Rathburn - A-

I've been reading The Walking Dead since issue 50 came out about 3 years ago.  I heard "the guy that directed Shawshank Redemption" was adapting a comic book for TV that was written by Robert Kirkman.  I had already been a fan of Invincible, but hadn't read The Walking Dead since I wasn't the biggest fan of the zombie genre.  But when I heard the TV should would be coming out, I bought the Compendium of the first 48 issues collected in one book and devoured it in a very short time.  I even wrote a post about it here.

Since I read those 48 issues so quickly, I couldn't wait 4 years until the next compendium came out, and instead started buying the paperbacks that bundle up story arcs of 6 issues every 6 months.  

That means I have read volumes 9-17 now on their own and this one was by far the most difficult.  The series (TV and book) is known for ensuring that no one is safe and main characters (or who we perceive to be the main characters) are often killed off in some of the most disturbing fashions I've ever read.  This book took the cake.  The intensity and sadness I felt while reading this book on the subway one morning was intense.  During the climactic scene, I literally went cold and paused before turning the page to find out what was going to happen.   I actually felt like I was going to throw up, it disturbed me that much.  (And if you know me, that's saying a lot.  NOTHING bothers me - to a fault).  

The fact that a book and a (black and white) comic book at that can cause such a physical reaction in someone impressed me as a reader, but bothered me as a fan.  I wasn't happy about what happened in the book, but at the same time it has made me filled with more anticipation for the next issue in June or so.  If you like horror (and more psychological horror than gore, although there is plenty of that too), read this book!  You may not thank me because you may have nightmares, but you won't be able to stop reading.

5) Freedom - Jonathan Franzen (562 Pages) - A

I hate validating Oprah, but damn was this book fantastic.  

I read Franzen's more famous novel The Corrections years ago, and liked it, but at this point only remember it was "about a dysfunctional family".  I had heard mixed reviews about this book and thought I'd get to it when I get to it.  

My friend Ed had said that he had just read it and was enjoying it and then it just happened to be sitting there in the library staring at me.  As you know from my last post, I was reading some horrible books and wanted to start off 2013 with at least something more engaging so this book got checked out.  Immediately, I was sucked in.

The first chapter tells almost then entire history of this family in a very quick synopsis about a mother, father and two children and how they lived in this small town in Minnesota while hinting that there was potentially something wrong under their perfect exterior.  

The next chapter now jumps to a first person "autobiography" of the mother of that family, Patty.  She writes about her childhood and going to college and her boyfriends.  Most of what she writes about is very normal. A young girl learning about herself and love and meeting her eventual husband.  And I could not get enough.  When a writer is a good, you can't help but keep turning the pages, and Franzen is better than good.  He tells a story in such an even, simple tone that it is easy to follow even when he is throwing out some big ideas (like the real problem with the Environment that no one really wants to talk about).

From there on out, each chapter is told from a different character's perspective: Patty's son Joey (a strong individual trying not to live in his father's shadow), her husband Walter (a liberal lawyer and stronger feminist than most women), her husband's best friend Richard Katz (a wannabe Rock star/anti-feminist).  The scope of the book is really Patty's entire life since she is the main character of this novel and shows the achievements and mistakes she makes in this life.   

Thinking now about the title of the book, I think the entire thought is about what Freedom means to any one person on an individual basis.  Freedom is really the thing we all want the most in life, freedom to love who you want, to live in a country where everyone and everything is free to live its life to their utmost happiness, and how each person's idea of freedom may actually be the opposite of someone else (especially those they love the most).  

Lastly, the thing I realized about myself while reading this book is I may be the world's biggest voyeur.  I wish I could explain why the lives of this family was so entertaining to me, but I can't.  This is the type of book I feel I could have kept reading forever.  It's not that these characters were so likable or interesting.  In fact, it may be the exact opposite.  But they were real people.  I found myself able to relate to all of them on different levels, but enjoy each of their stories equally.  

2013 is starting off right.  This book in the annals, along with a series of books lines up and waiting for me to read.  I hope to keep this blog updated more often and potentially hit my goal of 52 books in 52 weeks once again.  I'm already behind the curve, but I'll give up quantity for quality every single time.

End of 2012 Book Post - Warning: It got ugly

After 2011's amazing year of reading 55 books throughout the year (not counting comic books) I thought 2012 would just keep rolling and I would read some more great books.  However, with some misjudgements and some questionable book club choices, it ended up being just a mediocre year of books.  Of course there were some great books that were read like 1Q84 and learning about Ann Pratchet but overall I was a little disappointed with my choices in 2012.  None more so than the final month...

1) Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stephenson (92 Pages) - C

For my constant reader, you will remember that while walking my dog Renly a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon someone throwing away a ton of books.  Since I had never read Dr. Jekyll and remembering how much I enjoyed Frankenstein earlier in the year, I thought I should read more classics.  

The book was very short and only took two days to read so it wasn't totally bad.  The biggest problem(s) I had was that it was just forgettable.  

I was stricken by how different the book was then I expected it to be.  I know the basic story (as most people that are aware of any pop-culture), but the actual book was more boring that what I expected.   I remember reading that The Hulk was based on the concept of this book, so was surprised to read that the evil embodiment that was Mr. Hyde was SMALLER than the normal, good-natured Dr. Jeckyll.  I thought it was a smart concept that the reason for Hyde being smaller was because he represented the evil side of Jekyll, and since the doctor was not a bad man, only the smaller, evil side of him remained behind to become Mr. Hyde.  I also thought it was funny, given the time the book was written, that people seemed to be scared of science and what they don't understand.  The science of the book seemed laughable at times, but again that was a product of the times.

2) Breed - Chase Novak (310 Pages) - D

Wow!  Don't trust the blurbs!

I have been jonesing for a Stephen King book.  More specifically I have wanted to reread his vampire novel Salem's Lot since I didn't like it much when I read it, but since his son Joe Hill appears to have a vampire novel coming out soon, I wanted to compare/contrast them in my head.  But I don't have that book, and instead was in the library and came across this book with a blurb on the cover from Mr. King saying how much he loved it.  In my mind, if it's good enough for Stevie, it's good enough for me, so I rented the book. Oops!

The story focused on a married couple that was having difficulty getting pregnant so they go to Slovakia (or Slovenia) for an experimental procedure and long story short: something supernatural happens to them and their children. 

Jump ahead 10 years, and now they twins that were born from this procedure are scared of their parents and run away from home, but the parents use their preternatural abilities to try and find their children.

I may even be making this book sound better than it even was, and I know I'm doing nothing.  I researched the author after and found out this is a pseudonym of some guy that actually writes romance books and he was trying to branch out into horror and knew his audience shouldn't be reading this.  In my mind, no one should!  The only bits I enjoyed was a since most of the book takes place in New York City, I enjoyed the local flashes.  The biggest problem as a New Yorker was that it felt like it was written by someone that had never lived in New York, but instead just wrote it while looking at a google map of Manhattan.  

I read this book, so you don't have to.  You're welcome.

3) Damned - Chuck Palahniuk (247) - D+

I've read almost every book Chuck Palahniuk has written, and with Damned, I may have read my final book of his.  It's not that the book was bad, in fact by the time I got to the end I was actually smiling and giggling a little at it, but for the first 200 pages or so I found myself asking myself "what's the point of this book?"

It was a comedy that wasn't funny.  It was an homage to Are You There God, It's me Margaret while being the story about a 13 year old girl living in hell by opening every chapter with "Are you there Satan, it's me Madison..."

There were some parts of the book that I understood his social commentary: Since hell is the invention of Christians, only the truly devout Christians go to Heaven and are bored.  Otherwise, everyone else is stuck in Hell including Ghandi and Socrates.   I also laughed at the realization that everyone in Hell has to have a job and Madison gets the job as a telemarketer that only calls people during dinner was funny, until I thought about how outdated the concept of telemarketing is in the cell-phone age.

I was bored by the descriptions of Hell and the rivers of blood and perpetually ever-filling oceans of semen and mucus.  I just couldn't figure out the real point of the book, and since this is the 2nd or 3rd Palahniuk book that I decided to read by my own volition and have not enjoyed, or did not finish I think I've decided that I either "grew out" of his writing style or he's gotten worse. I hope it's the 2nd option, but either way, nothing can take away the enjoyment I got from Fight Club and Invisible Monsters which I remember as being great books.  But it's also possible that with all of the reading I've been doing over the past 13 years since I first read Fight Club, my tastes in writing may have changed.  Maybe I'm even *gasp* growing up!  Probably not.  But maybe.

4) Geek Love - Katherine Dunn (347 Pages) - C-

This is a difficult book for me to review.  It was our latest Book Club selection and I had a hard time ever getting into this book.  The main issue is that Aubrey and I had one copy and I worked around her (slower) reading style.  I started the book, then while at page 90 or so, I handed it to her.  She leaped in front of me before taking a break and giving it back to me.  I bypassed her and then gave it back before finishing up.

With all of these stutters, I had a hard time finding the "voice" of the novel and the narrator in an already unconventional and strange book.

The other thing was that I was surprised about how many similarities this book had stylistically to Damned and other Chuck Pahlahniuk books just with a female touch.  It had the similarities of seeming to be shocking for the sake of being shocking and having numerous quirky/strange characters.

The story of the book is even very strange.  It centers on a family of circus performers.   The parents owned the sideshow and decided to use drugs and (potentially) incest in order to create their family of freaks.  If the babies were born normal, they were immediately aborted, the ones that lived on were the freaks.  These include Siamese twins, a hunchbacked albino (our narrator), a boy with flippers instead of arms and legs with delusions of grandeur and a seemingly normal boy named Chick where something invisible makes him special.  And this is just where the oddness begins.  

Dunn also has a writing style which does not mesh well with my reading style.  In my opinion she over-wrote this book with flowery words to describe the insanity that was going on in this circus, but that was more distracting than anything else. 

That concluded my 2012 reading.  Now that that is over, I am hopeful that 2013 will be even better.  So far this year is proving to be a good one, but that is a post for another day...

Quarterly Book Post

My last post was in August and I have been too busy working at my actual job and not reading as much, but here is the update of the books I've been reading:

1) The Life of Pi - Yann Martel (318 pages) - B-

I read this book a few years ago and was completely blown away by it.  I absolutely loved it, and this book was even one of those books that was talked about so much that it helped me and a few friends to decide to start a book club.
I decided to re-read it because of the new movie version that is coming out and I had also found my copy somewhere randomly.  So, I read the book in under a week and as much as I loved it the first time I read it, the second time I was a a little underwhelmed.
Maybe it's because of knowing the ending and that not being as much of a HOLYSHIT moment the second time, but for some reason it felt much more cold on a second read-through.
I would love to discuss this with someone else, but after reading it this second time I have less excitement about seeing the movie version (also because I don't really love anything Ang Lee has ever done except The Ice Storm).
I also got Yann Martel's second novel on audio book, and reading this a second time made me decide that I probably won't be listening to it anytime soon, especially since the reviews for that book are pretty terrible.



2) The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan (782 pages) - C-

The Wheel of Time is one of the most well-loved fantasy series ever written.  People talk about it like a better version of Lord of the Rings.  Now, surprisingly, I'm not a HUGE fantasy fan.  But, when I read The Song of Ice and Fire series last year, I absolutely loved it and thought maybe I like fantasy more than I originally thought.  One thing that has kept me away from this series is that it is 15 books long, and each one being about 1,000 pages each, so it is a little intimidating. (It also doens't help things that the author died before finishing, and they had to get someone to ghost-write the ending)
I had a good friend start this series and he was on book five last I talked to him and he was enjoying it, and then while in Arizona my soon-to-be mother-in-law had the book lying around.  She gave it to me to read, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.    The book had its moments of fun, but for the most part I was disappointed.  The characters weren't that fleshed out and the story was more childish than I was expecting.  I hear the books get better, and I will probably at least try book two eventually, but so far I'm not sure if this series is for me.
I am very excited to write that last line and post it here, just in case this series becomes my favorite and I end up going to Wheel of Time conventions, this will be etched on the internets.


3) The Last Policeman - Ben H. Winters (316 Pages) - B

This was our latest Book Club book chosen by my friend Michael.  This book has become pretty popular and the best part is the author is Michael's Brother-In-Law.  Since the reviews were good, we chose to read this book.
This book has an honor of being one of the 10 or so books that I read in one day.  I had gotten the book right before we were supposed to meet for our book club and I only had a little bit of time to knock it out before and Aubrey had to read it too.  After my trip to work and reading over lunch then coming home, I was on page 180.  Aubrey was going out that night so I opened the book and just kept reading.   It's a lot of fun reading an entire book in one sitting.  It is a different experience, and this book was a very simple story, told in a conversational tone that I was able to keep reading.  Also, since it's a mystery, it makes you want to keep reading.
The story takes place in the near future and NASA has found out that there is a comet heading towards earth and will hit within the next year and they are preparing for all life on earth to be killed.  As a result, all of society has changed and broken down.  Some people are killing themselves to go out on their terms, while  others are looking to live out their last days to the fullest.
The main character is a cop who is the policeman called in on a suicide.  But he starts investigating this suicide because something doesn't add up and he thinks it may be murder.  The bigger question is: So what? Even if it is murder, who cares?  The world is ending soon anyway.  Those are the questions that plague Hank and us as readers.
The best thing about this, is the author actually Skyped into our book club meeting to join our discussion for about a half-hour since he is married to Michael's sister.  He was a super-nice guy and very personable and excited that we were reading and discussing his book.  This book is the first in a trilogy that I'm sure I'll be reading when they come out.

4) 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami (925 pages) - A-

I was so excited to read this book and it did not disappoint.  I've read a bunch of Murakami books and they are always so strange and visceral that I get excited whenever I start a new one.  Hearing that this book was a smash in Japan and knowing it employs all his usual themes and the fact that it was about 1000 pages of insanity made me even more excited to read it, but had to find the right time.
I went to the library a week before my birthday wanting to have an awesome book ready for that time.  My only problem is I didn't anticipate not only the page count, but the weight of the book.  There were times that I wanted to read more of the book, but it was not an easy read.
Describing the plot is pretty much impossible, but the book follows two seemingly unconnected stories throughout, with two unconnected narrators: Tengo and Aomame.  These two characters are living completely separate lives and the chapters flip back and forth between what's going on with both of them.  As you keep reading, you recognize some small parallels between them and as you keep reading the lines of the stories are on a path that seem like an eventual convergence.  Both stories deal with the mundane and the weird at the exact same time.  I had times when I looked more forward to one character than the other, but in the end this entire novel was an amazing example of slow build up with great writing that I almost never wanted it to end.  There was a large section of this book where a character literally does nothing but sit in an apartment alone, and I was completely absorbed.  I love Murakmi's writing (I've probably written that a few times in these past few paragraphs, but it's true) that it takes all my will power to not run out and buy all his books and just read him.  But I still have a good amount of his books still to read, and on top of that, there is the fact that the man is still alive and writing and I'm hopeful that we can expect more of these strange dream-novels in the future.

5) Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore (403 pages) - B+

Christopher Moore is hit or miss for me, but even his bad novels have some elements of fun attached to them.  He is a fun writer that actually has some thoughts behind his idiocity.  The back of this book called Christopher Moore the "Impatient reader's Tom Robbins" and I think that is one of the best descriptions of his writing I could come up with.
This book is a little different than his normal modern day tale, but it still has his stamp of humor included.   Sacre Bleu takes place in the late 1800s Paris and it starts with the murder of Vincent Van Gogh (not the suicide).   From there we meet some of his peers including Degas, Monet, Manet and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.
The main character is a fictitious baker that wants to be a painter named Lucien.  The book is kind of all over the place, but Moore is able to take some facts and shoe-horn them into this story of the color blue and its importance in history.  It also explains why all the great impressionists died of syphilis in a very comical way.
I am not a huge art fan, but this was a fun book that even a novice like me could understand.  He also interspersed some pictures of the artwork in question which helped explain some of what was being described in the book.

6) Ransom - Jay McInerney (279 pages) - B (NOTE: this is not the version I read)

While walking my dog last week I cam upon a bunch of boxes filled with books outside someone's home.  Naturally, I stopped and went through these boxes and pulled out about five books that I decided I needed.  Besides The Cat in the Hat Comes Back,  this is the first I have read of that group.
I had read a few other Jay McInerney books and have liked most that I have read (and I still have the theory that him and Brett Easton Ellis are actually the same person, but that's besides the point).
This novel follows a 20 year oldish guy named Christopher Ransom.  Ransom lives in Japan after fleeing America and his family after having some major disagreements with his father.  He comes to Japan eventually and we learn he has a high moral code and is seriously training in Karate.  He is very dedicated and rarely does anything but train.
The story is intercut with stories of Ransom back in the states and with a character defining trip he took in Pakistan and Afghanistan before making his way to Japan around 1975.  Now it's 1977 and he's training and it seems like he's changed his life in penance for something in his past.  Along with the Yakuza and a few other Americans that Ransom is friends with along with a Vietnam refugee and his Karate class mates, this book really was strange and fun and sad all at once.  Not bad for other people's garbage.

Yet Another Book Post

It is the first week of August, and since my last post in June, I have read five really good books, one not so good and a few great comic books.  For those that care, here they are:

1) Devil In The White City - Erik Larson (396 pages) - B

This seems to be one of those books that everyone you know has read.  It is marketed as being a "Non-Fiction book that reads like a Fictional one".  That seems to be what everyone says about it.  I disagree.  For me it is a non-fiction book that reads like a pretty well-written non-fiction book.    So don't believe the people that say that.
BUT, the book is quite good.  It's not great, and there are parts that are boring as sin, but the plot of the book follows two separate trails:  1) The trials and tribulations of the city of Chicago trying to build and put on the greatest World's Fair in history with minimal time and no ideas as to how to make it as great as the previous World's Fair in Paris which introduced the Eiffel Tower.  2) While this is going on, there is a charismatic business man that has the unfortunate hobby of killing young, single women in a house that he built with specific intentions of carrying out his plan.

Parts of this book are great and hearing about the history of Chicago, and by extension America, at the turn of the Century when America was trying to claim its dominance on the world-stage are fun to read about.  The famous and influential people that went to this World's Fair seem impressive, but my biggest problem with the book is that the two story-lines only had a loose connection and didn't tie together as well as I would have preferred, or how they probably would have had this book been Fiction.
This book also had that strange sub-culture that seems to happen with some books:  I actually got stopped on the street and around the city at least six times from strangers who were very enthusiastic that I was reading this book since they seemed to love it.  This happens rarely with books, but when it does, I find it interesting that this book affects some people so much that they have to stop me and let me know they too have read that book and enjoyed it.  I wonder why that seems acceptable for some and not others.   Not that I mind, but it's an interesting phenomenon.

2) The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest - Steig Larsson (655) - B+

There have been a bunch of books on my list for a while that I hadn't gotten around to for various reasons that I was able to catch up on this month (I guess that's what summer is for) and this was one of them.  I have been excited to read the concluding book in this trilogy for a while and since I had some time I decided to finally go for it.
The first 100 pages or so, I thought I made a mistake.  Maybe it had been too long since I read the last one (almost two years), or maybe this one just wasn't as good since the author died soon after he finished writing it.
But once a pseudo-main character was shockingly (to me) killed off, the book really picked up speed.   It ended up being another great page-turner and a pretty good conclusion to this trilogy. 
I'm sad we will never get another story about Lisbeth Salander since she will truly go down in the annals along with other great literary characters/anti-heroes.  My only problem with the entire series is whenever a new woman is introduced it is really just a matter of time before they are in bed with Mikhail and it gets to be kind of stupid.

3) The Color Purple - Alice Walker (288) - B+

 I have always read more than the average person, but when I graduated college I specifically started reading a lot in order to continue by education on a personal basis.  This meant reading anything and everything I could get my hands on including all of the books that I didn't read in High School that most people did.  The Color Purple was always on that list of books. Side note: I remember seeing the movie version of this story in the theater when it came out with my mother.   She has a famous story that while walking to the car I told her "That's how you feel about your sister" and she started crying. (yeah, I was a damn cute kid).
While at my neice's 3rd birthday party in January, I saw this book in a "give a book-take a book library" and took it.  This summer I finally got around to reading it after having not seen the movie probably since the mid-80s and barely remembered the plot.
My initial thoughts was how graphic it was since I know many students read this book in Junior High School and I think I would not have been mature enough to deal with many of the issues of incest, bisexuality and abuse (I barely am now).
My other critique is that although I understand the writing style was done on purpose to show the differences in education between Celie and Nettie, and it was executed flawlessly, I get annoyed by writing styles that take how people talk and translate them into broken english.   I understand that this technique must be well-respected (Mark Twain did it with Huck Finn) and literary people must loe it, but I like to read good writing.
However, even with these small critiques, this was a beautiful story about strength and love.  I also have to say, I was a little surprised by the happy ending.  I haven't spoken to an English Teacher about this, but I'm wondering if the last chapter may have been made up in Celie's head in order to cope better with her sister's death and instead she made up the last chapter of Nettie eventually coming home.  But maybe I'm just jaded.

4) The Walking Dead: The Rise of The Governor - Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga (308) - D+

I'm a huge fan of the comic book The Walking Dead.  I also enjoy the TV show it is based on, although probably a little less than the average viewer since I feel the source material is so much better.  So when I was in the bookstore and saw this novel about a lost chapter in the Walking Dead universe, I thought it could be fun.  I was wrong.
The book is slow, and boring.  I saw the "twist" on page 2 and had to wait 300 pages for the pay off.  I understand that a bit of the point of this book was to show how boring this world can be at times.  There are no people and once you find shelter from the zombies you can get into a monotony that can drive you crazy.  But that doesn't make for interesting reading.

This book also was supposed to be the story of how The Governor got to where he was when we met him in the comic book as one of the most sadistic characters I've ever read about and this book did not show that at all.  Instead it was a bout a weak character and how he eventually came into his own a little bit, but this book really didn't go far enough.
I have heard there is a sequel out now to this book showing more how the Governor became "The Governor" that we know, but after reading this book and its style, I am not that excited to give it a whirl.

5) Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard (260) B-

 Another Non-Fiction book (I've read a ton this year) was selected as my latest Book Club offering.   This was an account of the president selected in the 1880 election and his assassination.
I have to say, I was not excited about reading this book at all.  I didn't care and just picked it up at the library and tried to burn through it as quickly as possible.  It ended up being a well-written, great story about a historical figure that I knew nothing about and seemed to be someone that may have been good for our country, had he had more time to make a difference.
I was mostly taken aback by all of the changes our country has gone through in 130 years (I write this as I watch Mitt Romney choose his running mate on TV).  I was mostly amazed how well-spoken and eloquent our leaders used to be while today they seem to have to dumb their speaking down in order to seem more like the masses.
There are written testaments to James Garfield's fear at being the president, his desires to make changes and differences that are better written than most novels I read.  By that, I was impressed.
This book also had a lot of similarities in tone to Devil in the White City with how famous people were a factor in his shooting and recovery.  How Alexander Graham Bell and Joseph Lister tried to help him but the common practices of the time did not make their "new" science as attractive as what was being done to him.
This is a book not only for History buffs (although it helps), but for anyone that is curious about America and how things used to be.

6) Fables: Inherit The Wind - Bill Willingham & Mark Buckingham

The latest trade paperback in the wonderful Fables comic book.  I have even gotten my friend Bridget (who has never read a comic in her life prior to this) to hunger for the next chapter.
This one is mostly a bridge book and focuses mostly on the fall-out from the death of a major character last book and who will take over that character's roll.
This is not the greatest of the Fables books out there and reads more like the calm before the newest storm to hit our lovable cast of characters.  But it is still a great book, with great characters and art.  I look forward to the next installment once again.


7) Locke and Key: Clockworks - Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez

I can't believe there is only going to be one more installment of this book after this one.  Joe Hill has created a world (and numerous keys) that I get happy to read about every time.
This chapter took us into the past to understand how and why many of the keys were made.  This told the history of Dodge and the demon.  We also got to fill in a lot of the missing pieces and got answers to some mysteries that I never really expected to learn about, mostly about the kids father, and his group of friends from when he was a kid.
It also gave explanations as to why the house and the keys seem only to reveal themselves to the youngest children.
Right when I finished reading this book I wanted to go back and start over from the first book and absorb everything that happened.  But I may wait to do that until just before reading the final chapter in six months time.



8) Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (318) B+/A-

 My co-worker gave me the book Run by this author earlier in the year and I really enjoyed it.  I did some research on Ann Pratchett and found out Bel Canto was her "best" book according to most.  It sounded interesting, so that same co-worker brought in this book for me.  I finished it yesterday and agree that it is amazing.
Again, I can't explain why this book is so good.  But it all comes down to how strong of a writer Ann Pratchett is.
The story follows a Japanese business man that gets invited to a nameless South American country that wants his business to invest in them.  To goad him into coming, the government hires his favorite opera singer to sing for him knowing he can't resist.  A bunch of militants hear about his and decide to crash the party in order to kidnap the president who is supposed to be there.  Unfortunately for the militants, the president decides not to show up because he wants to watch his favorite soap opera that night.
Instead, the militants decide to keep the entire party hostage instead of the president.
What follows is an amazing situation where hostages and kidnappers are together for months  and must learn to live and love together.  It is a beautiful story made even more beautiful by the writing.  I think I can recommend this book for virtually anyone.  But I cannot say why I enjoy it as much as I did.