You thought I was gonna make an "Electric Boogaloo" lame-o joke. Yeah.
I don't like reading outside. At all. I walk around outside, get bored, then go inside and read. If I read outside, what am I gonna do inside, walk around? Okay, back to business.
4. Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov
The first play of the marathon. A lot of fretting about and indecision, and ultimately you get to know these people and realize they act like people, not characters. I didn't think I could criticize Chekov, and I can't, but I admit I don't understand what all the fuss is about--all that means is I don't understand. I will someday, I hope, but for now this was an enjoyable comedy of manners I blew through rapidly. I'm reading a book of his stories, and they are as good as advertised. Don't really get them either.
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
I hope to read more Dickens, but since I'm trying to blast through as many slim books early on in the year to get some numbers on the board, this one got gobbled up. A century of movie and TV versions that all seem perfectly accurate made this one a bit of a drag, but it has that mix of darkness and hope against all rationality characteristic of the fat novels. Needed a sex scene.
6. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Some very funny imagery, and my favorite story is about the family that waits for the moon to drift by so this one slow brother can climb up and walk around. A weird little love story, that one. By the midway point I got the joke and it was slower going, but this one left me with plenty of imagery to carry away.
I haven't worked out the spacing on this yet, so it may get dicey. Just so you know the page isn't being stretched by a nearby wormhole.
7. The Big Kerplop! by Bertrand Brindley
The original Mad Scientist's Club adventure. The first book was one I really enjoyed as a kid. This one was aimed at an older audience, and is a YA novel, not a collection of adventures. Good deliniation of a small town, and characters who aren't nerds yet appreciate brains and intellience. The two earlier collections are superior.
8. The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard by who the hell do you think?
Now we're picking up speed. I've read Ballard novels and short stories over the years but these are the very best. Ballard's stories about giant cities (the citizens are never outside, just moving around using intra-building transportation), deserted NASA sites and the running down of things are original, bleak and thought-provoking. I suppose anything from a blob of chewed gum to an inappropriate fart is thought-provoking, but these left me with a sense of the end of life being something always there within life, and you can't mope about it, so just get on with sweeping the sand out of the hotel room.
It has to be said that when people like Ballard came along, Asimov and the like began their decline, their scifi tuff looking pretty thin and without connection to the reader's actual emotions and thoughts about life. A neat laser pistol won't help you deal with a crappy job and a bump on your crotch.
I'm never gonna finish this. I'll be typing these notes up a year after I read book #970 (my estimate of how far I'll get with this--as of today. Watch this space!).
9. The Golden Gizmo by Jim Thompson
Supposedly one of Thompson's many poor novels, written during one of those vacations from neighborliness that grew like mushrooms throughout his life. A salesman in L.A., a woman controlled by an ex-Nazi, betrayal from the one you least expect--moved at a rapid clip and ended with a bang. I liked it! Wheee! That probably made the ghost of Thompson sad, when I typed 'Wheee!" in a comment on his work.
10. The Digger's Game by George V. Higgins
More Eddie Coyle-ish fun from Mr. Boston Happiness. Wheee!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
January Books Part One
1. The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg
A political prognosticator of the future preparing to launch a new candidate meets someone who really can see the future. Has one of those diffuse endings that makes you, well, makes ME wonder if I missed something, which usually means I did. From Silverberg's most interesting period, late 60's to mid 70's. Not as good as THE BOOK OF SKULLS but kept me interested.
I guess this isn't going to be just a list of the books I've read after all. Joy!
2. The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem
What can you expect from a cranky Pole who hates America, hates science fiction, and REALLY hates American science fiction? Right, a science fiction novel that critcizes America. A convention of pretentious people flips out in a Costa Rican hotel when it's gassed by a terrorist attack. Some people go into the sewers, where there are talking rats. Not nearly as much fun as it sounds, not nearly as good as his not-that-good Solaris.
This is gonna take forever. I should have titled this The Grouchy Bastard Bitches About Shit. But I didn't.
*3. Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett
Terrific swashbuckling science fiction in the Edgar Rice Burroughs "Mars" tradition. I think Brackett does it as good and sometimes better, and her writing is more lively. She wrote movies for Howard Hawks and John Wayne, and the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back.
Three books in and I've already found a real winner. I need a way to mark these ones as special--a * before the number? How dull, but whaddaya want, this isn't Whateverbook.
A political prognosticator of the future preparing to launch a new candidate meets someone who really can see the future. Has one of those diffuse endings that makes you, well, makes ME wonder if I missed something, which usually means I did. From Silverberg's most interesting period, late 60's to mid 70's. Not as good as THE BOOK OF SKULLS but kept me interested.
I guess this isn't going to be just a list of the books I've read after all. Joy!
2. The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem
What can you expect from a cranky Pole who hates America, hates science fiction, and REALLY hates American science fiction? Right, a science fiction novel that critcizes America. A convention of pretentious people flips out in a Costa Rican hotel when it's gassed by a terrorist attack. Some people go into the sewers, where there are talking rats. Not nearly as much fun as it sounds, not nearly as good as his not-that-good Solaris.
This is gonna take forever. I should have titled this The Grouchy Bastard Bitches About Shit. But I didn't.
*3. Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett
Terrific swashbuckling science fiction in the Edgar Rice Burroughs "Mars" tradition. I think Brackett does it as good and sometimes better, and her writing is more lively. She wrote movies for Howard Hawks and John Wayne, and the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back.
Three books in and I've already found a real winner. I need a way to mark these ones as special--a * before the number? How dull, but whaddaya want, this isn't Whateverbook.
Friday, February 24, 2012
1000 Books By New Year's Day 2013
The immodest goal of this blog is to record the reading I'm doing in an effort to read through all the unread books I own.
I started on January 1. As of today, February 24, I have 115 books read, which means I have catching up to do.
I'm not worried. If I miss the mark, at least I'll have pushed myself to read hundreds of books.
Why am I doing this? I like to make reading challenges for myself, and this is an ambitious one.
Many of the books I'll read will be bad books, books I bought because I was in a mood, because they were there, because I liked the cover. You can judge me, I don't mind. Maybe I am trying to clear all this junk out of my unread archives because I don't want it messing with the good books I've read and carried with me over the decades.
It's just going to be me reading and noting the completion of a book. I may just list things, but I might be compelled to comment.
At some point I will list the books I've read up until now. Or not.
Here we go.
I started on January 1. As of today, February 24, I have 115 books read, which means I have catching up to do.
I'm not worried. If I miss the mark, at least I'll have pushed myself to read hundreds of books.
Why am I doing this? I like to make reading challenges for myself, and this is an ambitious one.
Many of the books I'll read will be bad books, books I bought because I was in a mood, because they were there, because I liked the cover. You can judge me, I don't mind. Maybe I am trying to clear all this junk out of my unread archives because I don't want it messing with the good books I've read and carried with me over the decades.
It's just going to be me reading and noting the completion of a book. I may just list things, but I might be compelled to comment.
At some point I will list the books I've read up until now. Or not.
Here we go.
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