Reading to Destroy

Nick Cave is the Awesomest Human Alive (or Dead)

2009-07-10T12:54:00.001-07:00

Oh my God! The Death of Bunny Munro comes out in like two and a half months or something!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!

NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri : Take Action

2009-06-29T16:20:00.001-07:00

NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri : Take Action

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American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen

2009-06-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen by Mark Millar and Peter Gross is hysterical, but not quite as outrageous as I thought it was going to be.

At least that was what I thought until I got to the last like three pages.

I’m not going to ruin the surprise.

I’m just going to tell you that you really should run out, buy this and read the fuck out of it.

Ever wonder how many cocks Satan has?

Apparently, it’s 5.

But that’s all I’m saying.

Go read this.

Tristessa by Kerouac

2009-05-18T12:03:00.001-07:00

Okay, Kerouac is one of those authors I’d never read and kept meaning to get around to, so a few weeks ago, I saw Tristessa sitting there and decided to pick it up.

My only regret is that I didn’t get it at half price books.

I won’t say it was a complete waste of time since it only took me a day and a half to get through, but it didn’t really make me wanna go out and read anything else he’s done.

It’s the story of a drifter who becomes enamored with a junkie named Tristessa, (Hence the title. Get it?)

It really isn’t a cohesive narrative, but I don’t think that was why it didn’t click with me.

Naked Lunch is one of my favorite books after all and it doesn’t even have anything really even resembling a story let alone a plot.

And maybe that was the problem is that I was trying to read Kerouac from start to finish like one would a conventional novel.

Maybe, like Naked Lunch, Tristessa is best when just meandered through.

With Burroughs, the parts are generally greater than the sum and that’s just fine.

Kerouac did seem to have the knack for calling up distinct emotional snapshots in a very few simple words.

“It’s like winning an angel in hell,” and “morphine takes all the sex out of your parts and leaves it somewhere else, in your gut.”

And the page or so when Old Bull eloquently explains to us why morphine is better than love is truly a beautiful and sad passage.

So, I guess I’m not ready to pass judgment just yet.

I’ll probably pick Tristessa up again in a few months and just casually flip through it and we’ll see if, like Burroughs, Kerouac is best enjoyed a bit at a time.

Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah

2009-05-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah by Mignola/Nixey/Dalrymple is one of the best graphic novels I’ve read this year, so why can’t I really think of much to say about it?

The artwork is amazing and the characters are fascinating and creepy as hell.

Antman

2009-05-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

The Irredeemable Ant-Man Volume 1: Low-Life Digest by Robert Kirkman & Phil Hester is not nearly as funny or outrageous as it wants to be, but it’s entertaining enough to serve as a diversion.

Not really much to say about it.

Guy gets ant suit, becomes superhero and uses his new powers to try and get laid.

The idea sounds better than the actual product.

Clever enough to finish reading it, but not enough to buy the next installment.

Hellshock

2009-05-18T11:44:00.001-07:00

Hellshock by Jae Lee is your typical girl meets boy during her internship as a doctor in a madhouse, boy is delusional, girl falls for boy, boy goes into a persistent vegetative state, girl thinks boy might be an angel, girl takes boy out on the roof, girl flies away with her new boy, girl and boy, in reality, have just jumped off a building, boy breaks his neck and dies, girl gets committed and lives out her days as a split person, half her own doctor, half her own patient story.

Actually, I really loved this book. The story is haunting, touching and remorseful and the artwork is frequently breathtaking.

God is Dead by Ron Currie

2009-05-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

It’s odd that the last book I read last year is easily in contention with The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron as the best read of 2008.

But God is Dead by Ron Currie Jr. is that rare, frenzied yet slow, angry but gentle, repudiation of naivety and faith without the drippings of cynicism you’d expect.

As we start out, God has taken the form of a Dinka woman in the northern region of Sudan. His mission to earth is twofold.

First, he wants to experience the suffering that His indifference over the centuries has caused and second, he wants to help.

He roams from village to village, from refugee camp to refugee camp carrying a bag of never-ending sorghum.

He can pass out as much as he wants to the starving masses, yet the bag never empties.

Kinda like the loaves and fishes trick, I mean miracle.

Unfortunately for the universe (and who could’ve seen this coming?) God, in the form of a Dinka woman is killed.

It takes a while for the news to spread and even longer for the world to figure out what exactly this means, but God is officially dead.

The rest of the book is really a compilation of shorts juxtaposing the extreme reactions of diverse, clashing cultures and characters.

In one chapter, we find that holy wars can take place very well without the presence of a God, thank you very much.

Even when everyone realizes that God is dead, they kill each other over the right way to put this knowledge into a pragmatic context. In another chapter (my favorite) a group of friends, weary after weeks of hedonism because what are you gonna do when God dies, enter a suicide/murder pact.

The way it plays out is funny, disturbing, heartbreaking and revolting in turns.

We also get to meet the dogs who, after feasting on the corpse of the Creator, have not only human, but godlike intelligence.

They’re not quite omniscient, but they’re close.

From the title and description on the cover, I hoped this book would be thought-provoking and it is.

Actually, I’m not sure if Currie is criticizing the stringency of religion or the potential chaos that can go with a godless worldview.

Maybe it’s both.

But what was wonderfully surprising was the humor. And not all of the laughs come from dark places.

Even in a universe where humanity is the highest power, a terrifying thought, Currie seems to believe that there is room for hope nevertheless.

1602

2009-05-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

1602 by Neil Gaiman is an intriguing concept.

What if there were superheroes during the Spanish Inquisition?

Of course, they’re burned, drawn, quartered, beheaded, sodomized, etc.

(sodomized figuratively, not literally)

(I’m not really sure what I mean by that.)

Magneto and some of the X-Men make the transition into historical allegory naturally, but alas, even Neil Gaiman can’t make the Fantastic Four interesting.

Not a bad read, but nothing memorable.

American Gods

2009-05-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, sat in my ‘to-read’ pile for like a year. First, before Evil Darien starts calling for my head, let me say that I loved this book.

It’s now on the very short list of book I’m likely to read more than three times before I die. I had the thought when I read Coraline, with its many elements of The Thief of Always that Clive Barker had to be a huge influence on Gaiman, which is odd since they’re contemporaries, give or take a decade or so.

Reading American Gods, with so many ideas lifted straight out of The Great and Secret Show, (easily one of my ten favorite novels of all time) cemented the notion.

Ever since I first read Imajica, I’ve insisted that Barker is much more than a genre writer and I’m confident that I’ll be proven correct when he’s still being read after most of his peers are forgotten.

So, here’s the deal. Gaiman is brilliant. But so many aspects of his universe have been explored/created by Barker that I wonder just how good he really is.

I plan to read more Sandman to figure that out.

Odder than Ever by Bruce Coville

2009-05-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Every once in a great while, I’ll read a book and just wonder, ‘where the fuck has this author been this whole time?’

Imagine my surprise when I searched for Bruce Coville and found hundreds of results.

Odder than Ever is one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve encountered in a long while.

I wasn’t expecting much because first, I bought this book because I liked the cover and when I do that I’m pretty much always disappointed.

Second, short story collections, even from the greatest authors, are usually hit and miss.

And lastly, it’s children’s fiction and while some of the greatest literature ever written falls under this category, there are at least a thousand shitty kids books for every one profound work of art.

Odder than Ever is one of those rare works. There are nine stories in this collection and not a single misfire.

Coville approaches the universe he has created as if the world were a carnival and each protagonist had his own little booth in a side freak show.

Some of the stories are truly unsettling, (There’s Nothing Under the Bed & The Japanese Mirror) while others are hysterical (The Giant’s Tooth & Am I Blue) while others are filled with simple wonder (The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones & I, Earthling)

As far as children’s literature goes, this belongs up there with the best works of Carroll and Dahl.

And it ranks up there with Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkeyhouse & Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes when it comes to short fiction anthologies.

So run, run to Half Price Books and you might still find this on an endcap for only $6.

Go on.

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

2009-05-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

Fu.

King.

Wow.

I don’t even know where to start. If you’ve read anything by Palahniuk you already know that there really is no quick summary I can give.

I still haven’t decided if Palahniuk is a very dark comedy writer or a very funny gloomy Gus.

I do know that Choke might no longer be my favorite of his works.

Thanks to Evil Darien, I’m in the middle of an experiment. He burned me a copy of Rant the audio book.

So, I’ve been listening in my car as I’ve been reading this, always keeping about a hundred pages or so behind.

Um, this was the first time I had ever listened to an audio book, much less listening to it as I read the book.

Turns out, this is the perfect book to try this with.

The way Palahniuk slowly reveals his characters, listening to the audio books behind reading the book, everything takes on new meaning, things you haven’t caught before.

So now that I’ve finished the book, I can listen to the rest of the CDs.

I’m kind of anxious to see what I hadn’t noticed or realized the significance of the first time I read it.

This will most likely be one of those rare books that I actually revisit within the year.

Therefore Repent

2009-05-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

Therefore Repent by Jim Munroe& Salgood Sam is a really good idea that’s executed with a perfect blend of humor, philosophy, social criticism, and just flat-out sickness.

Apparently, after the rapture, those who are left behind develop powers.

Some try to kiss God’s ass in the hopes that Christ will return yet again to collect these most recent faithful while others start what is essentially a guerilla army to resist the powers of Heaven.

I just fucking loved this book.

From the depiction of angels as an invading force to the mutations those ‘left behind’ go through to the absolutely perfect and hysterical ending that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

2009-05-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

I have said before that my favorite author is the Japanese surrealist Haruki Murakami, but until recently, I had not ready any of his shorts, just his novels.

I didn’t even realize that Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman was a collection of his short stories when I bought it and I don’t mind telling you, I was just a little disappointed.

I had set my mind on losing myself inside the peculiar, nightmarish world of a so-ordinary-it’s-abnormal protagonist. Each of Murakami’s novels, most notably Dance Dance Dance, Kafka on the Shore and, my favorite book of all time, The Wind Up Bird Chronicles has a way of enveloping you in a world that you don’t think you could possibly recognize, but feels somehow familiar, even comforting just the same.

My disappointment melted quickly after I started.

In fact, this collection reads very much like one of his novels, structured very similarly to Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting (a novel striking in its episodic nature) in that it weaves carefully in and out of realism, changing protagonists without ever breaking the story’s thread.

In Murakami’s work, the protagonists are often interchangeable because the focus of his work is not how a character reacts to the events taking place around and to him but rather on how minor characters and even the world these strange creatures inhabit react to the protagonist.

How Murakami can take traditional narrative structure and completely invert it the way he does and still manage to create a universe as beautiful as it is mystifying and often even cruel is a testament to how, after all these centuries and millennia, art still has the capacity to surprise us.

It’s been said that there is nothing new under the sun.

Bullshit and fuck you.

In this collection, we encounter men who may or may not be made of ice, crabmeat with worms, staircases in which you can disappear and be spit out across the country for no apparent reason, crows tearing each other apart, ripping out the intestines of their fellow birds in the quest for tasty snack cakes, an absolutely goddamn terrifying mirror, nausea that strikes as if it were a villain with its own mind, a one-legged surfer ghost and my favorite, an employee of the Public Works Department who just can’t wait for an excuse to beat up, kill and/or torture a talking monkey.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

2009-05-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe I hadn’t gotten around to reading The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie until now.

People are trying to kill a guy for writing this and I haven’t read it yet? What the hell is wrong with me?

Plus, once again, big fan of Satan. Satan in the title.

How could I go wrong? I gotta tell you, this book is easily one of the ten best novels I have ever read.

There is so much in here that I really need to digest it and maybe even reread it in the coming months before I can get a handle on it. I think that if most authors were to attempt something on this scale, it would end up being a mess, but Rushdie is up for the task.

Verses is congested with all kinds of crazy ideas and jumps from theme to theme, from story to story, from protagonist to protagonist.

We start with two fellows falling out of a plane that has just blown up. It doesn’t sound like it should be a funny chapter, but it really is. We follow them all the way down to earth as they miraculously land, unharmed.

We travel alongside them as they learn that maybe survival isn’t in and of itself the prize.

There is something more.

Then, Rushdie takes us back to the brothel where twelve prostitutes pretend to be the twelve wives of Mahound, the prophet.

Such sacrilege.

Then, it’s on to a disastrous pilgrimage with a delusional, leader who claims to be taking orders from the Archangel Gibreel. Is the prophet sadistic or foolish? Not only am I not sure, I’m convinced that Rushdie himself doesn’t know..

Rushdie juggles so many characters, so many stories, so many story arcs yet he weaves them together with such credibility that it really doesn’t feel as experimental as it really is.

It’s a rare novel that really experiments with theme, character, and story and is simple and accessible at the same time.

When it comes down to it, while Verses deals chiefly with religion, transformation, (one of our protagonists changes from a man to a faun to Satan himself and back again only to find that he really hadn’t changed much at all.) deception and death, on a broader level, it’s really about how we react to the unknown.

Rushdie studies both the insanity of belief and the stubborn arrogance of disbelief.

Goddamn, this book was good.

Rushdie’s style is so simple and lovely.

When he states that, “Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy,” it just really impacts the entire book with a very short, simple sentence.

I really need more time to digest and then I may post more thoughts on it in the coming weeks/months/years.

The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

2009-05-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates is quite simply a horrifying, heartbreaking story.

It actually recalls the underhanded sadism that was in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, which just so happened to be my introduction to Oates.

This story will in turns surprise, repulse and touch you.

Early in the book, we are introduced to a character, Dmitri the waiter, who doesn’t seem like a bad guy at first, and then, as Oates gradually and methodically peels back his layers, we are shocked to find that he is truly a frightening and evil fuck.

His brutality is truly sickening and through his character, Oates manages to do the impossible.

As I was reading one passage, I felt ashamed of myself.

Not because I had done anything even close to that, but because I was a man.

Or rather because I was human.

The characters in this book are more than dysfunctional; they are simply broken.

It’s odd but strangely touching how two people, so fucked up they could hardly pass for rational develop this kind of affection, friendship, love and then complete dependency.

This book is filled with surprises and I’m not talking about show-offy twists in the vein of Shyamalan or Palahniuk, (although I do think Palahniuk is the exception to the rule as far as dramatic surprises go. He is one of the few that can pull it off and make it feel organic.)

Oates amazes us with how quickly the hatred of her characters can turn to love and vice versa.

She offers insight into why some people love monsters unconditionally.

Another surprise is the tender romance that blossoms between Joshua Siegl and Sondra Blumenthal, who is pretty much the only functional character in this story.

What sets Oates apart is that most writers feel a need to define their characters whereas Oates realizes that this is not always possible since most people don’t know who they are themselves.

This is an incredible, devastating novel and seriously, whether you’ve read Oates or not, whether you’ve liked her before or not, give this one a shot because not only does Oates understand the craft of writing better than most writers, she understand what it means to be human more than most people.

30 Days of Night & Dark Days by Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

2009-05-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

30 Days of Night & Dark Days is a collection of the first two series from 30 Days.

I really fucking loved it. It is a very simple, very familiar story.

There's not as much to talk about as with other graphic novels like Watchmen, the Sin City series or Wanted, but that's not to say that it wasn't memorable.

The artwork especially sticks with me. It’s not realistic at all, but it’s brutal and very disturbing. Ben Templesmith is truly a genius of the horrific.

Highly recommended.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: A Study in Freedom and Irreverence

2009-05-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, if The Shadow of the Wind is the most elegant and graceful book I’ve read in a long time, The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is certainly the most irreverent.

And yes, that really is a compliment, especially when you see how her criticism of authority and general sarcasm never turns cynical.

Satrapi retains her respect and affection for all her characters, even the ‘bad guys.’ She refuses to paint them as caricatures or monsters, never letting them off the hook by constantly reminding us that these are thinking individuals who make choices.

After all, a monster can’t be held responsible for behaving like a monster and she does insist on holding the people who've oppressed her country to account.

Satrapi doesn’t spare herself either.

At one point, I found myself thinking, ‘wow, what a selfish bitch’ only to find a couple of pages later that her grandma tells her that she’s a selfish bitch and Satrapi openly and apologetically admits that she found herself behaving in an unconscionable way.

I have no doubt that when you read this, you’ll know exactly which part I’m talking about.

We see Satrapi growing up under the Shah, going through the revolution and then experience the disillusionment that comes when the people of Iran find themselves just as repressed as they were before they overthrew the Shah.

What we see here is the end result of too many revolutions in which the ‘liberators’ turn out to be as or more oppressive than the tyrant they fought to overthrow in the first place.

This book also serves as a caution against painting an entire nation of people with a broad brush. Doing so isn’t only naïve, it’s dangerous.

But what stands out is that Satrapi never comes off as sanctimonious or preachy. Any political point of view rests comfortably in this bed of humor and sarcastic irreverence.

Seriously, read this book.

The Hard Goodbye by Frank Miller

2009-05-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

For those of you who’ve seen Sin City, The Hard Goodbye is the one with Mickey Rourke.

It’s my favorite of the film's three segments.

Marv is just such a compelling character. He is sympathetic and terrifying at the same time.

I absolutely love the guy, but he scares the fuck out of me.

We’ve all heard about the hooker with the heart of gold, well, here we have the sadistic killer with the heart of gold.

Miller’s work, all of it, the story, the dialogue, the characters, the artwork all comes together so beautifully.

Best line: "I love hit men. No matter what you do to them, you don't feel bad."

Christ, Marv is so bad-ass.

The Hard Goodbye is the rare occasion where the perfect story finds its perfect medium.

For those of you who’ve seen Sin City but as of yet haven’t read any of the books, The Hard Goodbye is a great jumping off point.

300 by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley

2009-05-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

There isn't a whole fuck of a lot to say about this book.

If you’ve seen the movie, you pretty much get the point.

I actually enjoyed the graphic novel more than I enjoyed the film which I thought was entertaining, if over hyped and more or less forgettable.

If you liked the movie, you’d probably enjoy reading the book. If not, I’m not sure it’s going to win over any new converts.

Buffy the Vampire Season 8: The Long Way Home.

2009-05-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Lord, if you do in fact exist, what the hell is up with you?

Sex and the City gets a movie but not Buffy? What the fuck, dude? Not cool.

Please stop falling asleep on the job. Amen.

Okay, for what we got, which is a series of comic books for Buffy season 8, this compilation is very entertaining.

Joss has not lost his sense of humor or his ability to surprise us. He has an amazing ability to follow a story arc, not just through a single season, but through the entire series.

His gift for foreshadowing without disappointing in the payoff is staggering. Yes, I would rather have more episodes to watch or even a movie, but Joss is a master storyteller and at this point, we’ll take what we can get.

The story here for season 8 is very compelling, moving, frightening and funny.

Plus, bringing back Warren, the one villain we have absolutely no fascination with (Adam, the First, Gloria) or any affection for (the Mayor, Faith) sounds like a bad move, but in fact, it is a master stroke.

The only thing we have ever wanted in Buffy’s dealings with Warren is for him to die and die horribly. Whatever is in store for us, it's bound to be fun.

The Last Temptation by Neil Gaiman & Michael Zulli with inspiration & cooperation from Alice Cooper.

2009-05-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, this book is just creepy as hell. You would think that a villain who looks exactly like Alice Cooper wouldn’t be so menacing, but you’d be wrong.

Even after Wayne’s World and hanging out with Alice Cooper myself at a concert that Joia produced (one of the perks of her job) I was still scared fuckless by Cooper’s Master of Ceremonies who may or may not be Satan.

Okay, sidetracking to the funny story about hanging out with Alice Cooper.

So, we were talking about our backgrounds, and how similar they are, me being a pastor’s kid and he also being a PK.

He told me that I should seriously consider going back to church because it would provide peace and guidance.

Walking away, Joia just started laughing her ass off. When I asked what was so funny, she said, “How fucked up do you have to be for Alice Cooper to think you need Jesus?”

So, that was fun.

Back to The Last Temptation, the black and white artwork is by turns horrifying, sickening and gorgeous and the story really adds a lot to the too-often re-treaded fable of Faust.

Gaiman draws a convincing parallel between the interaction between Cooper’s Showman and the young Steven and the temptation of Christ in the wilderness by Satan himself.

Particularly haunting is the attempt to seduce Steven through Mercy, a troubled, beautiful and perhaps imaginary showgirl.

As we've come to expect from Gaiman, what we’re left with is more than just a morality tale or a horror story. The Last Temptation is a fresh, unsettling take on a familiar story. Buy this book.

Soulwind

2009-04-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is a series of 5 graphic novels, and they’re pretty short. These are not great, but not a complete waste of time. There are enough good ideas to justify the time I spent reading them, but that’s really the only good thing I can say about them.

Coraline by the great Neil Gaiman

2009-04-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

We have eyes and we have nervses
We have tails we have teeth
You’ll all get what you deservses
When we rise from underneath

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Any list of the greatest minds of the 20th century would have to include, along with people like Einstein and Hawking, Dr. Seuss and I am officially declaring Neil Gaiman to be his successor. You can see parts of Seuss, Clive Barker, E E Cummings, Lewis Carrol and Kafka in Gaiman’s work, but it is not at all derivative. His vision is fresh and full of imagination. And it’s a tightrope Gaiman walks, painting genuinely frightening images that are still suitable for children. Coraline is made from the same stuff as nightmares and beautiful fantasies alike. Yes, it’s a kids book, but suck it up and read it anyway because, like The Cat and the Hat, it is also a work of art.

Baltimore: or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

2009-04-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Baltimore: or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire maintains the charm and wonder of Anderson at his best while giving us a very affecting thriller. One of the tests of any genre piece (although squeezing this book to make it fit into some niche would be a mistake) is whether or not the story could stand on its own even if you removed the elements from it puts it into a genre and guarantees some kind of audience. And while the content of this book is not really appropriate for anyone under a certain age, it reads like a children’s book. (And yes, that is a compliment.) It follows the logic of a fairy tale. (Also a compliment.)

We start out following Captain Henry Baltimore, leading an assault against the Hessians and losing every single man in his company. As he regains consciousness, he sees the bodies of his soldiers all around, over and under him and then, to his horror, bat like creatures swoop down and start to feast. He manages to wound one of the little monsters, inadvertently starting a war between vampire and man. Most of the characters in this story are fueled by loss and revenge. The wounded bat avenges himself against Baltimore and Baltimore in turn devotes his life to hunting down the monster that destroyed everything he loved. He hammers a nail into his wooded leg for every vampire killed until it is so heavy that he has to drag it along.

The bulk of the story centers around three men who knew Baltimore and obey his summons to meet in a small city, overrun by the Red Plague. The three of them sit and swap stories about Baltimore and other implausible experiences they’ve each had. Much of the book reads almost like a collection of shorts, but they are skillfully woven together into one story arc. After following each of these men, along with Baltimore back into their bizarre past encounters with profound evil, I felt the weight of the fear and imminent loss during the final climax when everything comes together.

The only complain I had with this book (and it’s a minor one) is that the anti-war message felt a little preachy at times. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t overbearing. Mignola and Golden don’t beat you over the head, but it is there. I didn’t really mind it too much since I’m very sanctimonious and further to the left than like anyone I know. The only reason I mention this is that it came right at the climax of the book and was just a bit distracting. The message could’ve been a bit more subtle. It moves it from a 9.9 out of 10 to a 9.85 out of 10. At any rate, this is a minor complaint. Fucking read this book.

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk

2009-04-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

“Your blood is our gold.”

It seems that most writers (at least the ones I read) try their hand at channeling Shirley Jackson at some point and Diary by Chuck Palahniuk is certainly right up there with The Long Walk by Stephen King as one of the best. But Palahniuk is inventive enough to inject a copious amount of ideas of his own so it doesn’t feel borrowed at all.

Where The Lottery is a commentary on conformity, Diary is an indictment, not merely on greed, but the nature of wealth itself. Apart from the thematic elements, which I could go on and on about, this is a very funny book.

Highly recommended.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

2009-04-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, sat in my ‘to-read’ pile for like a year. First, before Evil Darien starts calling for my head, let me say that I loved this book.

It’s now on the very short list of book I’m likely to read more than three times before I die.

I had the thought when I read Coraline, with its many elements of The Thief of Always that Clive Barker had to be a huge influence on Gaiman, which is odd since they’re contemporaries, give or take a decade or so.

Reading American Gods, with so many ideas lifted straight out of The Great and Secret Show, (easily one of my ten favorite novels of all time) cemented the notion.

Ever since I first read Imajica, I’ve insisted that Barker is much more than a genre writer and I’m confident that I’ll be proven correct when he’s still being read after most of his peers are forgotten.

So, here’s the deal. Gaiman is brilliant. But so many aspects of his universe have been explored/created by Barker that I wonder just how good he really is.

I plan to read more Sandman to figure that out.

1984 by George Orwell

2009-04-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I listened to 1984 by George Orwell on one of those books on CD thingies. And by ‘books on CD thingies,’ of course, I mean audiobook. I just listened to an audiobook for the first time ever last year. It’s staggering to think just how much influence this novel has had on our collective consciousness. Apart from the art that it’s inspired, from V for Vendetta to American Psycho to I haven’t read this since the ‘90s and while I found it unsettling then, it’s just bone-chilling ball-fuck terrifying now. I’m sorry, but if they ever make another film out of this, Bill O’Reilly has to play O’Brien.

It’s just too perfect. I also think Fox News needs to change their slogan from ‘Fair and Balanced’ to ‘Your source for your two-minute hate.'

Exterminator! by William H. Burroughs

2009-04-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

If Naked Lunch is 1984 on acid, then Exterminator! is Animal Farm on PCP & crack. Seriously, Burroughs & Dr. Seuss were the premiere existentialists of the 20th century. And yes, it’s an apt comparison.

I know Burroughs is usually associated with the whole junkie culture, but that is a simple assessment at best. Yes, drugs are prevalent in all his works, but they are incidental. Junk is purely the means by which Burroughs distorts the reality of his different characters/narrators.

It’s not that dissimilar from how Dostoyevsky used religion and conscience to present the different points of view in The Brothers Karamazov. And yes, that comparison is also apt.

But aside from the snooty, philosophical, boring, pretentious, etc. reasons I could give for reasons why you should read something by Burroughs before you die, seemingly random, flung together cusses like MOTHER-LOVING STUPID-ASS BIBLE-BELT CUNTSUCKERS are just goddamn poetic

Gluttony by various

2009-04-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

I know that usually, I put the pictures of the book covers here to give you a point of reference, but I found this bad-ass picture instead and the cover of this book is really nothing special. So, enjoy.

Gluttony, is a collection of shorts, poems and essays about well, Gluttony. Hence the title. I picked it up like a couple of years ago because it was on a clearance rack (actually, it might have actually been at Deal$.) or something and one of the stories was written by Woody Allen so I figured, “Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?” Well, I’ll tell you. The worst that can happen is you can have to read a lot of tedious shit. There were a couple of pieces that were pretty entertaining, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and Notes from the Overfed by Woody Allen were pretty damn funny. And Feast by Diane Mason was surprisingly creepy. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to represent what gluttons have to look forward in Hell. On the whole, though this collection really didn’t amount to much. But if you’re in Deal$ and have a dollar, these three pieces are probably entertaining enough to justify paying 33 & ½ cents apiece for.

Hiroshima by John Hersey

2009-04-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hiroshima by John Hersey follows the stories of six survivors from about an hour before the bombing until a year after. As an aside, I’d recommend Isao Takahata’s film Grave of the Fireflies as a companion piece. It goes without saying that the accounts of what happened that day are horrific. The scale of the devastation was so great and survivors unarmed enough to help were so few that they had no choice but to ignore the countless cries for help from people who were buried alive, being slowly crushed or suffocating because they simply couldn’t get to them all. There were so many devastating moments in the story, like how after a few days, the Reverend Tanimoto became so used to the carnage and trying to move living bodies from one place to another that he had to keep repeating aloud, “these are human beings” just so he could keep going. There is another moment when Reverend Tanimoto had helped drag dozens of the injured to lie by the side of the river only to find when he had come back that the waters had risen and the wounded were so weak that they couldn’t crawl even a few feet to safety, so they had all drowned, helpless. And while the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were appalling acts, what struck me when reading this was how Hersey refuses to make any overt moral judgments or political statements. He simply lets the narrative do its work. This is a very important book. It should be read by everybody, no matter what you think about whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do or not. Even if action must be taken, no matter how justified one is in using deadly force, we should always be reminding ourselves, like Reverend Tanimoto that “these are human beings.”

Bad Blood by various writers & artists

2009-04-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

This is actually an anthology of three different graphic novels, Sweetmeats by Steve Tanner & Pete Venters, Sugar Virus by Warren Ellis, Martin Chaplin & Garry Marshall and Night Vision: Intermezzo Bette Noir by David Quinn & Hannibal King. Then, there’s some naked vampire artwork by John Bolton thrown in at the end and you know, you just can’t go wrong with that. Sweetmeats, the first in the anthology is by far the best of the bunch. We follow a young vampire from her days as a child prostitute (don’t worry, the would-be sexual predators ended up getting more than they bargained for) through her adolescence in an asylum to her liberation by a young doctor. The characters are very complicated and interesting and the story has several effective surprises.

Sugar Virus leaves a lot to be desired, from a storytelling standpoint. It’s more than a little muddied, but the artwork really makes it worth checking out. At one point, we get to see what happens when somebody tries to see just how far he can go in torturing a vampire while keeping her alive. (Okay, since we’re talking about vampires, alive really isn’t the right word. Animated probably fits better.) At any rate, the pictures of that poor, tortured vampire are the stuff that nightmares are made of. Very chilling, disturbing imagery.

The third story, Night Vision just isn’t very good at all. But, Bolton’s naked vampire art at the end is definitely worth looking at.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

2009-04-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

Reading the description, I was expecting kind of a gothic horror novel, maybe with a little mystery thrown in. And I did get some of that. It’s a story of a forensic scientist tracking down a child killer. Now, I have to say that this book was involving, if not entirely engrossing and there were a couple of chilling moments. However, it seemed to suffer from schizophrenia. At times, it was a mystery, at other times, historical fiction, at times, chick-lit. And I’m sorry, but the romance that Franklin tacks on is unnecessary, not believable and just downright annoying. It was a bit chicky for my taste but again, when it was concentrating on the basic plot of our protagonist trying to catch the killer, it was a very good read. Since most of you are women, I’m sure any of you would enjoy it even more than I did. So, to sum up, no, this was not a good book.

Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

2009-04-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve only seen the movie once, but I don’t remember it standing out quite this much. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, or maybe it loses something in its translation to film. (Still, since Michael Curtiz is who he is, I should give him the benefit of the doubt and give this film another chance.) Veda drips with an uncommon venom, Mildred is a sap, Bert is a tool and Monty is just aching to be killed in his sleep by Veda (you know it’s gonna happen.) What’s so fun about this book is the language and the tone. Words like ‘swell’ and ‘flop‘ in exchange for fuck, ‘stinking’ in place of drunk and of course, referencing tits as ‘the dairy’ punctuate the narrative and it’s just so goddamn (another word used effectively, and as frequent as a comma) fun. You can actually see the black and white photography and the dames driving taxis, wanting to fuck Humphrey Bogart in the background. The atmosphere is that thick.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

2009-04-09T11:44:00.001-07:00

If you’ve never read anything of his, the best way I can describe his work is to tell you that I can’t imagine anyone but David Lynch translating one of his novels into film. (Okay, maybe Jodorowsky or Bunuel.) Murakami, like Lynch has a way of creating a universe that is completely contrary to everything we know, but entirely believable. This is a universe that we are drawn to on the one hand but on the other hand, wouldn’t want to come within a thousand miles of. His characters’ most mesmerizing trait is that they are just so goddamn ordinary. Like Hitchcock, Murakami paints an everyman and then throws him into the unexplainable just to see how an ordinary person would react to it. Murakami gets this pitch perfect. Their reactions are believable and the secrets about them that are slowly revealed are blasé and beguiling at the same time. I’m not sure that he’s ever going to top Noboru Wataya from The Wind Up Bird Chronicles as far as excellent villains go, but here, he comes damn close. Again, our primary villain, Shirakawa, is just so common and his motivation so simple, (he had to do it) that we’re left scratching our heads which may not sound like a compliment, but it is. So, for the uninitiated, please read something, anything of Murakami’s. For those of you who love chick stuff, Sputnik Sweetheart or Norwegian Wood may be a good introduction of his world. For those who are more bold, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles is one of those books that just might change the way you look at literature forever.

Grimm's Grimmest

2009-04-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Grimm’s Grimmest is a collection of some of the Brothers’ Grimm’s stories with an introduction by Maria Tatar and illustrated by Tracy Arah Dockray. Evidently, these fairy tales, as originally told were hardly suitable for children. I have to say, it’s been quite a while since I’ve laughed out loud this hard at a book. The scenarios are horrifying, grotesque and simply hilarious. It’s awesome how casually they are with the brutality. You’ll just be reading a nice little fairy tale and then, all of a sudden, you’re reading something like, “After this, he caught a cat and gouged his eyes out.” How can you not like that? My favorites were The Juniper Tree and The Goose Maid. Fucking hysterical.

The Books of the Abarat

2009-04-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

Books #1 & #2 of the Abarat by Clive Barker are a kind of odd mixture in tone between The Thief of Always and Imajica. Much like Thief, it has a very innocent and childlike quality, making it three books total that I can have Ethan read (Ethan is my 14 year old son, for those of you who don't know me.) but Barker also develops a rich, fascinating world like he did with Imajica.. Also, the Books of the Abarat feature some of his greatest villains and monsters to date. Christopher Carrion, who wears his nightmares, translucent eel-like creatures, around his face in a tank, breathing them in and out is both frightening and pitiful. He's kind of a mix between The Jaff & Kissoon from The Great and Secret Show, only without the shit & cum worms. (If you've read Show, you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, don't ask.)

And then there's Mater Mosley, Carrion's grandmother with her army of stitchlings, creatures sewn together, filled with mud and brought to life. When Carrion was a child, she sewed his mouth shut because he said the word 'love.' Now that's a fucking grandma.

Gimmie an 'S!'

2009-04-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I read The Comics Go To Hell: A Visual History of the Devil in Comics, which I’m not really sure how to categorize. It goes through the evolution of our perception of Satan as portrayed in comic form. He has chapters exploring several facets of Satan and how he is presented including how he comes into play in the superhero genre, how he is used humorously, how he is used to represent the evil in ourselves and how and why he is used to frighten. He even has a chapter devoted to the endless adaptations of the story of Dr. Faustus. While this is hardly a comprehensive analysis of how our civilization has come to think of the Devil and evil in general, it is a fascinating read and Stromberg even surprised me a few times at just how deep he was willing to go. One of the things that amused me so as I read this was how I was constantly reminded of how intimately I know this subject matter in comparison to the public at large. Anytime he would explain the context of something as far as how it references the Bible or just Christian popular culture, I found myself thinking, “well, duh.” Then I’d remember that most people probably weren’t aware of whatever he pointed out. I was very pleasantly surprised that Stromberg referenced the Chick gospel tracts. These comics scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. The images of Satan in these tracts are far more unsettling than any horror movie I have seen. The Satan that terrorized me the most when I was young, the one that gave me endless nightmares and caused me to accept Jesus into my heart over and over and over just in case I hadn’t done it right the first time was Satan as drawn in the last panel of Somebody Goofed. I still see this as an absolutely paralyzing image.

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

2009-04-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

After reading The Time Traveller's Wife, which is essentially Slaughterhouse 5 for chicks, I thought that next, I should reread the actual Slaughterhouse 5. I've read it four or five times, but you really can't read this book too much. There really isn't much I can say about this book that hasn't already been said except that it's one of those rare acclaimed books that really as good as you've always heard it was. One of the things that makes Vonnegut so unique is that he may be the only fatalist I can think of who is just so damn cheerful.

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

2009-04-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Joia made me read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. When she described it to me, it sounded like Slaughterhouse 5 for chicks. And that's pretty much what it was, but I'm not just going to discount this book so easily. I have to admit, I was totally drawn in by Henry and Clare. It's not very common for an author to get me to care this deeply for their characters, but I was very moved by this book.