Catching up on my reading

I bet you thought I'd forgotten about this little project of mine to read 50 books this year. Admittedly, I seem to have fallen behind, what with switching jobs and house hunting and general laziness, but in fact I have not fallen behind on the reading part (at least not much) just on the reporting-what-I've-read part. So here is the latest list:

21. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

If you are over 40, this YA sensation is better than you think it will be. If you are under 30, this book is not as good as you think it is. Still, it is better than the movie. Girl who likes to hunt meets boy who likes to hunt. Girl gets sent to arena by fascist government, meets other gladiator boy. Girl kills just about everybody. Author cashes fat cheque.

22. Fraud by David Rakoff

A collection of various stuff that appeared elsewhere, most of it very funny in a New Yorker/This American Life/McSweeny's kind of way. I was about three quarters of the way through this when David Rakoff died, which kinda freaked me out, as the last time that happened was when I was rereading Great Shark Hunt for the umpteenth time and Hunter Thompson checked out. It made me a bit nervous for Neil Gaiman

23. Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

A great anthology of spooky stories by a bunch of authors including a good one by @Neilhimself. Other standouts: Walter Mosely's vampire tale, Roddy Doyle story about actual bloodlust and Joyce Carol Friggin' Oates! 

24. On a Cold Road by Dave Bidini

Having always enjoyed Bidini newspaper stuff  and his great work with the Rheostatics, I figured a collection of anecdotes about rock bands touring Canada would be a natural. I figured right. I read this in pretty much a single sitting, but it also a great book for just picking up and reading a few pages at random since most of the stories from various rockers great and small are quite short.

25. Gulliver's Travels by John Swift

One of the most famous satires ever written and for good reason. The damn thing is about 300 years old now and still stands up as topical, which is a pretty damn good trick. I envy anyone who has never read it, because that means they get to read it for the first time, something I don't to do, though it was pretty damn good for a book I've now read four times.

26. My Boring Ass Life by Kevin Smith

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous,  the utter profane director of Clerks put out a a book of his blog/diary entries. It's about four hundred pages of him shitting, picking up fast food and watching DVDs, so at least it is accurately titled. There are flashes of brilliant writing though, like the thirty or so pages of his describing Jason Mewes battles with drug addiction, which is absolutely gripping. If you hate his movies, you won't be reading this. I like his movies and his podcasts are often funny. The book is kinda meh, but does have its moments.

27. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Second book of the Hunger Games trilogy. Girl survives fascist government gladiator games, girl gets confused about which boy she likes, girl gets sent back for more gladitorial games. Girl kills almost everybody. The movie will not be as good and teenage fan purists will complain about the casting.

28. Callahan's Legacy by Spider Robinson

No reading list of mine would ever be complete without Spider Robinson. Not his best book, not even the best Callahan's book, but as Woody Allen once said about orgasms, the worst one I ever had was right on the money. I just picked this up off the shelf one day and reread it while procrastinating doing some freelance projects. I love Spider's style so much, I think I'd enjoy reading his shopping lists. He also used to do some great podcasts. If anyone at CBC had a brain in their head, they would throw a bale of money at him to fill in when Stuart Maclean is on holidays. Go buy two of all his books, right now. 

29. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Third book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Girl joins revolution. Girl is reunited with boy who likes to hunt. Girl rescues other boy. Girl learns about PTSD. This will be the worst movie of the three, unless it saved by Donald Sutherland chewing the scenery as the fascist dictator. Not the worst YA scifi I've ever read, but not nearly as good as Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

30. Side Jobs by Jim Butcher

A collection of short stories from the universe of the Dresden Files - Jim Butcher's Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a sort of cross between a fledgling Gandalf and Philip Marlowe. It isn't often you find a hard-boiled fantasy novel, but Butcher's series is great geeky fun. It's well written and original enough to avoid being overly cheesy while still paying homage to the fantasy and noir canon. 

31. Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

The latest novel in the Dresden Files series, of which I have read all of them in the last two years and I think he's at 13 and counting. The next one is due out next year AFAIK. These thing are like potato chips, I tend to devour them by the bag-full.

So there you have it, an update on my progress. I have a couple or three more books on the go at the moment and when I finish them, I'll do another update. I still have three months to get in another 20 books so stay tuned to see if I can make my goal of 50 for the year....

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Reading list update

An update on my Read 50 Books This Year project:

17. Another Day Another Dungeon by Greg Constikyan
A lighthearted comic fantasy novel that reads like a session of Dungeons and Dragons among a reasonably intelligent group of friends with decent senses of humour. Not as over the top as Robert Aspirin's now-nearly-unreadable MYTH series, but not exactly canonical either. You can judge this one by the cover. Moderately entertaining, but I won't be searching the used bookstore for the rest of the series.

18. The Essential Ellison by Harlan Ellison
This 1000+ page tome is the main reason its been so long since I posted an update to this list as it took me a while to plow through. A collection of some of Ellison's best short stories, novellas and essays from the 50's through to the early 90's. This covers the first 35 years of his career, and I'd love to get hold of the updated version that includes the 90's and early 2000's. Say what you want about Harlan Ellison's curmudgeonliness and ego, the mofo can write circles around most of us hacks. Endlessly inventive, horrifying and captivating.

19.Watch Your Back! by Donald E. Westlake
Another day, another Dortmunder comic caper novel. I love these, but they are like eating potato chips - you can't stop until there is no more.

20. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick
Another grandmaster of science fiction, best know for his paranoia and dark, dystopian view of the future. Another guy who can write circles around us all. Highly recommended.
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Another books post

Those of you who have been following my efforts to read 50 books this year, having not seen a post about what I've been reading lately, need not worry. ( I know, I know -- it has just been eating away at you, hasn't it?) I have been keeping up with my reading, I have merely fallen behind on my posting about reading. Here is what I've been plowing through over the last month:

13. Nixonland by Rick Perlstein
As I've said to pretty much anyone who will listen for the last couple of years, this is the best book about modern politics I've ever read. It is a detailed history of Nixon's career up to the Watergate scandal and readily demonstrates where the current massive political divides of the present day got their start. I spent a couple of months picking away at this book in short chunks  and given its cinderblock proportions that is really the only way to go about it.   An absolutely fascinating read.

14.An Orgy of George by George Carlin
Another doorstop of a book, this is actually a collection of three of Carlin's books: Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty and When will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? This one has been sitting next to the toilet since New Year's day, the perfect place for it since it is funny, funny shit and you couldn't really sit and read more than a few pages at a time.

15. Stainless Steel Visions by Harry Harrison
A collection of short stories by SF author Harry Harrison. Read this in an afternoon. Several excellent little gems that read like Twilight Zone scripts, especially "Not Me, Not Amos Cabot" and a nifty little Stainless Steel Rat story. This and dinner with an old friend who is a SF/Fantasy buff got me off on a bit of a SF/Fantasy bender as subsequent entries will show.

16. Makers by Cory Doctorow
Another fascinating read. Doctorow has an ear and eye for the near future the way a good jazzman knows what the changes will be before they are played. This one looks at the impact that 3D printer technology coupled with venture capitalism and technojammers could have on society, all of which sound pretty far-fetched at first until you realize that almost all the technology (with the exception of the "Fatkins" bio-tech obesity treatments) already exists. Definitely worth a re-read and I'll be seeking out more of Doctorow's work.

Coming soon: more SF and Fantasy and then on to some stuff assigned for review at the paper.


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canadian content

More reading - this week a couple of Canuck classics

#11 Vinyl Cafe Diaries by Stuart McLean

One of the things that has surprised and delighted me in moving back to Canada is the discovery that society at large has discovered and embraced an old favourite of mine.
I can remember Stuart McLean when he was a roving reporter for CBC radio's Morningside program back in the late 80s and early 90s (it is official, I am old), and have been a fan of the Vinyl Cafe from its earliest days. When CBC started to make their programs available via the intertoobs, I was an avid listener. I was such a Peter Gzowski fan that two different people sent me tapes of the last Morningside show.
I think the Vinyl Cafe has a similar positive, upbeat outlook without being annoyingly chirpy or Pollyanna-ish, and following McLean's perambulations and the chronicles of Dave and Morley and the World's Smallest Record Store via podcast over the last several year provided a wonderful touchstone and a weekly dose of Canadiana whilst living in Tokyo. But having spent so long outside of Canada, I had no idea the show had become as popular as it has or that McLean had become such a national institution. Good for him.

This collection of stories from the radio program is pretty much what I expected and I had heard some of them when they were originally broadcast. A light, entertaining and sentimental read that will give the warm fuzzes we all need from time to time. McLean may not be big, but he is small.

#12 Three Cheers for Me, the Bandy Papers Vol. 1 by Donald Jack

While I'd often seen this series on the shelf when browsing at the library and had a sort of vague idea of the premise - the uproarious misadventures of Bartholomew Bandy, the son of an Ottawa valley clergyman who goes off to fight in World War One determined to steer clear of the temptations of liquor, women and bad language. Needless to say he fails in three of these four ambitions while giving superior officers fits and becoming a flying ace.
The first book, published in 1962, was a hit and spawned a nine-volume series, three  volumes of which won the Leacock humour prize. A wee bit dated in some ways, in the same way most things that are fifty year old might be expected to be. The first volume -I've not yet read any of the others, but I expect more of the same - reminds me very much of another favourite series of comedic historical novels - The Flashman Papers - which didn't come along for another three year. The difference being that Flashman is a rotten cad  and bully who succeeds in spite of his craven cowardice, whilst Bandy is not a coward or a cad, but simply prone to ridiculous mishaps - In his first trench raid as an infantry officer. Lt. Bandy leads his squad out into no man's land, accidentally gets drunk and then loses his bearings and stages a heroic raid on his own trenches, capturing his own regimental commander.
Like Flashman's creator George MacDonald Fraser, Jack has a very unsentimental view of the horrors of war, likely gained during his service in the RAF in the latter half of the Second World War, and doesn't dodge the realities of trench warfare or aerial combat.
In all, the first book is a good light read, well written and researched, and very very funny. I can't believe these books haven't been made into a CBC miniseries yet.

Addendum: Given the date, I would be remiss in not commenting on the anniversary of the death of one of my favourite writers and personal heroes. Thankfully RossK has done this for me already. Mahalo.


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turning pages

#9 Why Me? by Donald E. Westlake
Is there anything as pleasurable as a midweek day off (especially a Monday?) - sleeping late, getting up to strong coffee, a toasted western, and a Dortmunder novel you haven't read yet when you have no other plans for the day? I doubt it. Read this in a single three hour sitting without so much as a restroom break. Nobody does humorous caper novels like Westlake. It is odd that none of these have seemed to translate into decent movies, though its been tried again and again. For those not in the know, John Dortmunder is a professional thief who lives and works in New York City. Aided as always by an eccentric  group of accomplices, Dortmunder is the master heist planner. He is also the unluckiest crook ever born. In this instalment, he inadvertently steals the world's largest and most famous ruby and the resultant political heat has the NYPD, FBI and CIA, a variety of terrorist groups and and foreign spooks and every crook in NYC looking for the stone and the guy who stole it. Needless to say, zany hijinks ensue.

#10 The Wild Things by Dave Eggers
There is more than than zany hijinks afoot in Dave Eggers novelization of his screenplay adapted from the classic picture book Where the Wild Things Are. As in most of Eggers work, there is raw emotion, existential angst and movement, always movement. I loved Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the combination of sorrow, whimsy and affection he brings to most of his writing make this a very affecting novel. Few writers understand and can portray the mind of a nine-year-old boy this well.

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Midweek reading

Just a couple of things for your midweek read that I happened across:

• If Rob Ford's opponents on council were "two steps to the left of Joseph Stalin" as he claims, they would long ago have had him icepicked to death in Mexico or sent to starve to death in Siberia.. At the very least, he would have been sent to a re-education camp by now.
• A Scary Thought: Do We Really Need "If You See Something, Say Something?" | The National Interest Blog

And speaking of reading:

#7 Requiem for an Assassin By Barry Eisler
Fast-paced fun with freelance assassin John Rain. For those not in the know, Barry Eisler is a former CIA agent turned  thriller writer, so his take on the espionage novel is a bit different. Great action scences, authentic spycraft, thought-provoking observations on how violence occurs and how the mind deals with it.

I read and reviewed this when it first came out, back when I used to get paid to read and review books ( I reviewed an earlier Eisler book in the John Rain series "Hard Rain" but forgot to save an electronic copy for my own use, though the review is quoted at his site). I've also communicated with Barry a few times via email and bulletin boards and only narrowly missed having a drink with him in Tokyo one time.
He also wrote the introduction for the only English language book of which I can claim partial authorship. He blogs a bit and sometimes writes for Huffpo and Firedoglake. For an former spook with a fixation on knives and martial arts, he's strikes me as a pretty nice guy. His books, however - and I mean this in the nicest way -  are like potato chips: it's difficult to stop at just one.

#8 Fault Line by Barry Eisler
A non-John Rain thriller that leans heavily on the liberal elite vs conservative warhawk cultural divide in American culture. Definitely worth reading and like Eisler's other work, a thinking man's thriller with plenty of emphasis on tradecraft and the technical side of espionage.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

and I don't have a goddamn fireplace  to curl up in front of with a  good book while it drizzles outside (Rain? in January? in Canada? Are you shitting me? There ought to be a foot-and-a-half of snow outside by now at least, not this filthy mud.)

So I decided I needed a little Florida on Monday and reread this old favourite while waiting in the car for Mrs. Paperboy to go through a two hour job interview for a job for which she is massively overqualified.

#6 The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. MacDonald
The first in MacDonald's series of books starring Travis McGee "non-conformist, boat bum, knight in slightly tarnished armour" is, like most of MacDonald's stuff, a 'page-turner' (a cliched term I loathe, but in this case accurate without the negative connotation of something only sold in train stations and airports).
McGee's Florida is a dark and sunny place, full of bikini babes and human sharks. This first one in the long running series, most instalments of which I read before I finished high school, is a bit long on the philosophizing and has a relatively simple plot compared to later works. Some of MacDonald's riffing on sociology and psychology is a bit dated, but like Fleming's James Bond, the strength of the characters, especially the hero, carries the story along very nicely.
MacDonald was already a well established writer, having published dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories in the 50's. He had publishers begging him to write a series featuring the same character for several years before he sat down and wrote not just this first book, but six more besides between 1962 and 1964 featuring "Dallas McGee"  - the first book being written three time before he was satisfied with it. The Deep Blue Goodbye sat in the publishers' office while he wrote the rest - just to make sure he could write a series. Of the first seven books written, two were never submitted for publication as MacDonald considered them failures. (Have a look here for a more comprehensive account of the creation of the series). He wrote over a million words before allowing the publishers to go ahead and bring the first book to market. The first three were published in rapid succession with the fourth and fifth close behind. MacDonald kept writing them until his death in 1986 and they continued to top the bestsellers charts.
I don't think they rise quite as high as Chandler's best, but they certainly follow the trail he blazed and the quality of writing is pretty high for the genre, the plots and characters ring true and the philosophical insights are...uh...insightful.
If you've never read any of the 21 (or is it 22?) books featuring Travis McGee, this one is a good place to start.
I've been to the library this week and just had returned to me three big boxes of books I left behind with a friend when I took off for Japan 15 years ago, so there is plenty of grist for the mill.  Time to start turning some more pages.

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readin' readin' readin'

#5 The Sister Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
Not many reviewers can resist comparing The Sister Brothers to the Cohen Brothers' version of True Grit and not without reason. The dialogue has the same declamatory feel and both works have their own odd sense of humour. It didn't win the Governor General's award for nothing. A fine, seemingly simple style (which is always the hardest stuff to write) and a few truly memorable scenes and images.
And if the Coen Brothers don't do the film version, there is no justice in this world.
As usual, leave suggestions in the comments.

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The joy of books

A little something in honour of my 50 book project.



(for Dan and Tammy)

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Whatcha reading?

As mentioned previously, I've embarked on a little project this year to read 50 books. Partly because I found I had started to cut down on my off-line reading late last year and partly just for the hell of it. As with hard-boiled eggs, I figured 50 was a good round number for books. Nothing too arduous, just plug along at a book a week, right? Should work fine as long I don't decide to read anything more ambitious than your average airport news-stand pot-boiler, right? We will see how the system works when I tackle some meatier stuff later in the year. But for this week, a pair of quick engaging reads that the ripped through in not time.

#3 The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
Noir before there was Noir. Chandler is one of those writers of genre fiction who is so good that he rises above simple genre writing and moves on the plane of "Literature." Of course it helps that he practically invented the hard-boiled detective genre.
This is one of his later, less-known novels, and one I've had sitting on the self for a couple of years where I've saving it like a vintage wine. They aren't making any more 1990 Chateau Latour Paulliac and Chandler isn't writing any more novels, so to get to read one for the first time is always a treat.

#4 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I read this year's  big contribution to Geek Lit in a single afternoon with only a short break to fetch the daughter from school and to cook my ought-to-be-world-famous eggplant parmesan (baked, not fried, so as not to be too greasy). Great read for any and all geeks, nerds, gamers, or anyone who grew up in the 80s  or  watches Big Bang Theory and says "Pfft, those aren't real nerds,  I'll show you real nerds - come and meet my friends from the games club." The first novel from the screenwriter of the movie Fanboys. If you liked the movie or have ever spent time in Second Life or a comic store or been to an SF convention or John Hughes movie marathon, you'll like this book.
Apparently, I am not the only one to read and enjoy this recently.

Currently in the on-deck circle: more Chandler, The Sister Brothers and some early Vonnegut and some Gabriel Garcia Marquez, if I can find my copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. Please, if you have suggestions, leave them in the comments.

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a project

My plan for this year is to read at least 50 books - just about one a week, which for me shouldn't really be a stretch provided I don't get too bogged down on something long and challenging - so naturally I hope to read lots of challenging material this year without too much rereading of stuff with which I"m already familiar. I'll try to post at least once a week telling you what I'm reading and what I thought of it. I welcome your suggestions in comments.
Admittedly, the first two books of the year are not exactly "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu" but  I'm sure they won't be the trashiest thing I read this year.

#1 - The Life of Python
By George Perry
Written just after the release of  "The Meaning of Life" as a biography of the Monty Python gang, it does offer some insight into the way they worked, but is dry as the sahara. Go watch them in action instead of reading this now largely irrelevant career chronology.

#2 -  Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra
By  Richard L. Boyer
Part of a 1970's Holmes revival, recently reprinted. Reasonably workman-like prose, a few plot holes, but mostly a solid genre read. Apparently,  rewrites of this particular title, mentioned in one of the original Conan Doyle stories, has been essayed at least three times by three different authors.

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