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November 21st, 2009
06:00 am - How to Make a Journal of Your Life, Daniel Price
A little book about journal keeping, this is pretty neat.
I think it's my curiosity about how other people do things that keeps me reading this type of book. Also, I am always looking for new things to write about--my life is so dull.
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05:57 am - An Illustrated Life
This is a collection of excerpts from different artists' sketchbooks, along with essays about how and why they keep them. The whole thing is pretty neat to look at, and I found some artists I definitely need to check out.
Also, it was so neat when I finally realized who Christian Slade was, and that I'd get to look at his sketchbook!
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05:52 am - The Diary of Victor Frankenstein, Roscoe Cooper & Timothy Basil Ering
This is a really neat-looking book which thankfully is based on the Frankenstein novel rather than any of the movies. The art is really cool. The only problem is that sometimes it's impossible to read--which turns out to be okay because there's a transcription of the entire thing in the back.
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05:47 am - Change Your Underwear Twice A Week, Danny Gregory
This book is about filmstrips, which were a big part of my school life. I don't know if they're still using them today. Anyway, the author explores a bunch of them here, highlighting the art, the strange messages and the propaganda.
The whole thing is pretty fascinating.
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November 17th, 2009
05:34 am - The Gates, John Connolly
A kid trying to get a head start on trick-or-treating is the first to find out that four foolish people (and the large hadron collider) have opened a gate to hell. Now hell wants out.
This is an entertaining and funny book. Actually, I kept wondering why they didn't ask Connolly to write the new Hitchhiker's Guide book instead of the Artemis Fowl dude.
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05:30 am - The worst-Case Scenario Almanac: Politics, David Borgenicht and Turk Regan
This book is very entertaining, with great stories, some interesting charts, and instructions on everything from how to kiss a drooly baby to how to avoid an oddly specific ninja attack.
Thankfully, most of the information is from the past, so it didn't depress me the way politics usually does.
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November 6th, 2009
05:35 am - When She was Bad, Jonathan Nasaw
Dr. Corder has a new and controversial treatment for multiple personalities: he destroys most of the personas with electric shocks. Unfortunately, one of his most famous patients--a particularly nasty serial killer--is hiding the fact that his worst personality is still hanging around.
Pretty fucked up story, hard to put down. Also pretty much debunks Dr. Corder's solution. I thought the ending was a bit too neat, given the chaos of the rest of the novel. Maybe Nasaw gets too fond of his characters.
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November 5th, 2009
09:26 pm - John Dies at the End, David Wong
Fuck that. Fuck that idea like the fucking captain of the Thai Fuck Team fucking at the fucking Tour de Fuck.
[Reread.. sorta]
A few years ago, my brother loaned me a cheap cafepress paperback. It was, weird, funny, gross, and a little bit creepy.
Shortly after that, the book was picked up by a small press, and came out in a slightly better-quality paperback. My brother gave it to me for my birthday that year. It was still all it had been before, just slightly different.
Then the novel got picked up by a major publisher. The paperbacks became unavailable. Copies went up over a hundred dollars. Apparently the Phantasm dude is going to turn it into a movie.
And now it's out in hardback, and I borrowed it from my brother again. His name's in the back.
This novel about two guys thrown into very fucked up situations and being incredibly funny about it sort of grows on you. Which, if you've read the damn thing, is creepy in and of itself.
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09:21 pm - Safe House, Jenny Carroll
While Jess was on vacation, a girl in her class was kidnapped and murdered. Since Jess has the power to find lost people(though the story is her power is gone), everyone is school is acting like Jess is a murderer. Then the murdered girl's boyfriend seems to be taking an interest in Jess.
Kind of obvious, but still pretty good.
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08:49 pm - Wreck This Journal, Keri Smith
Here is a book you are supposed to beat the crap out of. I had a lot of fun with it. I had so much fun, in fact, that I've given or am planning to give a copy to just about everyone I love.
The book is filled with assignments or prompts, ways to fuck the thing up. You are also encouraged to come up with your own ideas. Sometimes the whole thing seems a little bit too.. ummm.. pleased with itself ("YOU, TOO, CAN BE AN EXPLORER OF THE WORLD."), but mostly you can deal with it.
If you are having a problem deliberately damaging something you just spent ten to thirteen bucks on, it helps to think of the book as a toy. A toy you're supposed to take in the shower and drag around on a string. I can't be the only person who used to do that kind of crap.
This is a fun project for people who love books, people who love messes, perhaps for people too uptight about damaging things. It can also be a fun thing for people like my brother, who has decided to try to keep the book as pristine as possible while still following directions. This isn't too hard, as sometimes the directions are maddeningly vague.
( Would you like to know more? )
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November 1st, 2009
10:05 pm - Our House, Pam Conrad
A story per decade, from the 1940s to the 1990s about kids living in Levittown, New York. Good stuff.
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October 29th, 2009
11:04 pm - The Tarantula in My Purse, Jean Craighead George
The author tells about all the wild animals her family has kept as pets over the years, including crows, frogs, skunks and vultures. The book is really interesting, but I thought the stories were skeletal. Then again, it is aimed at kids.
The illustrations are great, some are completely adorable.
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11:01 pm - The Poison Place, Mary E. Lyons
A former slave tells about his famous owner, and how the man seemed to condemn his son to a slow death. The narrative hook has its problems, but the book is hard to put down.
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October 24th, 2009
06:48 am - Pulp Masters
Six longish stories, mostly of the detective type. I was surprised that the Mickey Spillane one didn't suck, because I read one of his novels and it was terrible. I couldn't get into the Donald E. Westlake story, but that was the only one I really had a problem with.
Aside from the fawning introductions, the biggest problem with this anthology is the lax editing. I can live with "and" when they meant "an." But I got really confused when I read that "The attendant was a two-headed man of about forty."
Since the extra head is never mentioned again, I think it was supposed to be "tow-headed."
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October 23rd, 2009
11:25 pm - Princess in Love, Meg Cabot
Mia finally has a boyfriend, but she's not attracted to him at all. And he hasn't asked her to go to the winter non-denominational dance with him. Meanwhile, she has to spend christmas in Genovia being a princess.
Funny and with a really sweet ending. The cover does steadfastly insist on being pink, however.
Excerpt:
BOOKS I HAVE READ, AND WHAT THEY MEANT TO ME
by Mia Thermopolis
Books that were good:- Jaws--I bet you didn't know that in the book version of this, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider's wife have sex. But they do.
- The Catcher in the Rye--This is totally good. It has lots of bad words.
- To Kill a Mockingbird--This is an excellent book. They should do a movie version of this with Mel Gibson as Atticus, and he should blow Mr. Ewell away with a flame thrower at the end.
- A Wrinkle in Time--Only we never find out the most important thing: whether or not Meg has breasts. I'm thinking she probably did, considering the fact that she also had glasses and braces. I mean, all of that and flat-chested too? God wouldn't be so cruel.
- Emanuelle--In the eighth grade, my best friend and I found this book on top of a trash can on East Third Street. We took turns reading it out loud. It was very, very good. At last the parts I remember. My mom caught us reading it and took it away before we'd gotten a chance to finish it.
Books that sucked*- The Scarlet Letter--You know what would have been cool?If there had been a rift in the space-time continuum, and one of those Euro-trash terrorists Bruce Willis is always chasing in the Die Hard movies dropped a nuclear bomb on the town where Arthur Dimmesdale and all those losers lived, and blew it sky high. That's about the only thing I can think of that would have made this book even remotely interesting.
- Our Town--Okay, this is a play and not a book, but they still made us read it, and all I have to say about it is that basically, you find out when you die that nobody cared about you and we're all alone forever, the end. Okay! Thanks for that! I feel much better now!
- The Mill on the Floss--I don't want to give anything away here, but midway through the book, just when things were going good and there were all these hot romances (not as hot as in Emannuelle, though, so don't get your hopes up) someone very crucial to the plot DIES, which if you ask me is just a cop-out so the author could make her deadline on time.
- Anne of Green Gables--All that blah-blah-blah about imagination. I tried to imagine some car chases or explosions that would actually make this book good, but I must be like all of Anne's drippy unimaginative friends, because I couldn't.
- Little House on the Prairie--Little yawn on the big snore. I have all ninety-seven thousand of these books, because people kept on giving them to me when I was little, and all I have to say is if Half Pint had lived in Manhattan, she'd have gotten her you-know-what-kicked from here to Avenue D.
*Mrs Spears, I believe the word sucked is transitive in this instance.
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October 21st, 2009
06:32 am - Darkfall, Stephen Laws
It's christmas eve, and everyone in an office building is at various holiday parties, except the janitor. The janitor is in the basement grumbling and getting drunk. There's a series of noises like explosions, and the janitor thinks the boilers will blow up. He runs upstairs to tell everyone to get out of the building. But there are no partiers left in the whole place--except a severed hand on the top floor.
No particularly scary, kind of silly horror novel. The most interesting part was the little notes taped under chapter headings in spots. I have to say, coming across the first one was a little unsettling.
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October 18th, 2009
09:09 pm - Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
Treasure's mum's boyfriend hit her with a belt and cut her forehead. Treasure's grandmother got her out of there.
India's parents don't pay much attention to her. And the lady who's supposed to look after India is rather distracted lately.
Treasure and India meet and become fast friends. But things get difficult when Treasure's mum wants her back.
An issue novel for kids, but very readable anyway. Of course, the whole thing is told in alternating diary entries, which is problematic when it comes to believability.
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October 15th, 2009
10:34 pm - Grendel, John Gardner
Beowulf as told by the monster. And what a monster he is! Lonely, cynical, disgusted and fascinated by man.
Weird book. Hard to get into, but quite interesting.
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October 14th, 2009
10:09 pm - The 1000 Journals Project
This guy sent out 1000 blank books to people, with instructions to pass them around. Many were never heard from again. This book contains excerpts from some that were.
There's some nonsense and some really neat stuff. I guess it depends what you're into, but the book is fun to look at. I've been wanting to get a chance at one of these things for years, but of course they're all long gone.
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October 12th, 2009
10:58 pm - Gambit, Rex Stout
A girl hires Wolfe to get her father out of jail. The case against the man seems airtight, so there's some tricky work to be done.
I figured it out like a paragraph before the reveal. Nice and tricky.
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