Random notes
I haven’t posted anything substantial in a while, and I don’t know that that will change with this post, but at least I can get something down that I will perhaps elaborate on in future posts.
I’m up to 31 books read this year, which is pretty dismal but still has me on my way to my 50 book goal for the year. I have the feeling I’ve forgotten to write down at least one, but for the life of me I don’t know what it was, so oh well. Read recently are:
Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime by Robert J. Randisi :An entertaining mystery set in and around the Rat Pack. Someone’s sending Dean Martin threatening letters, Frank Sinatra hires a guy to look into it. Some people end up dead. Over all, pretty good.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: I read this one to fulfill my goal to give a book I hated the first time around another chance– except I started reading it and realized I’d never actually tried to read it, I just assumed I didn’t like it. So I have to pick a different book that I hate, which is another story all together. (Jane Eyre, I’m looking at you, lady.) But anyway, Wuthering Heights was interesting. Especially as I’d just watched The House of Yes, and there are some shared components in the two that are thought provoking. The whole issue of identifying so closely with a sibling and then leaving them to get married, and how you deal with that… interesting stuff.
Have You Seen the Horizon Lately by Jamie S. Rich: This was the final read through before the book went to print, (with me being another set of eyes checking for typos and things), making it the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time I’ve read it, but it’s proved to be a very rereadable book. (Which doesn’t surprise me.) It’s still poignant and sad and hopeful and inspiring, and I still got caught up in the story, to the detriment of my proofing concentration. I can’t wait to see it all bound and pretty.
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk: Chuck P is a really up and down author for me, but this was definitely one of his best. It’s the story of a man who may or may not have started a rabies plague that’s killing thousands and thousands of “nighttimers” (people whose daytime is at night by government mandate because there were just too many people trying to function during the day); who may or may not have created Party Crashing, a game where people purposefully crash their decorated cars into each other during regular traffic; who may or may not have inoculated himself against all poisons by letting every kind of spider and animal bite him; who may or may not have discovered a secret of the universe, and who may or may not be really pissed about that. Chuck P’s previous books have had a vagueness about them that’s caused me to wonder if he really was in control of the thematic elements he was working with, but he’s in full control with this book, and it was a pleasure to read.
That’s it for the books, I know, I’m slacking. Next up I’m reading The Bobbed Haired Bandit, the true story of a young woman who robbed banks in the 1920s. It looks really good.
Other random thoughts:
I’m incredibly late to the party, but the show Spaced is awesome and I adore it.
The finale of Studio 60 was lovely.
The fact that Cedric is still on So You Think You Can Dance makes me really mad, and the judges have no one to blame but themselves. (Not that I mind Cedric, I think he’s a very classy, sweet young man. He just in no way has the versatility to make it on the show.