BOOKS THREAD

Just finished "In 50 years, we'll all be chicks" by Adam Carolla.

He had a pretty humorous take on a number of issues in society. Surprisingly enough, a lot of what he had to say made some sense.

 

Just finished "Swamplandia" by Karen Russell. Expected something light as it's about a family of alligator wrestlers with their own theme park in Florida (hence the title). It turned out be a beautiful and often sad story about love, loss, family and grief. Highly recommended.

 

In the middle of "The Heavens and the Earth - A political history of the Space Race." Interesting stuff. Really kind of fills in some gaps in my knowledge of the era, some things that still reverberate today.
But I've also figured I'd finish off the Robert B. Parker bibliography, reading his last Sunny Randall, Jesse Stone and Spenser novels. Great fast-food. I had to force myself to lay off them for a few years, because you would read one (usually in a day or two) and have to wait a year for another one. Figure since Parker is dead now (RIP) I won't have to worry about that (though I haven't read anywhere that his next (Sixkill) is the final one. Maybe instead of retirement planning, he just wrote 20 extra books to take care of his wife after he was gone.

 

I know I'm a couple years late on this, but I polished off "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" today. I wasn't sure what to expect after reading "How to Survive a Horror Movie" by the same author, but I was pleasantly surprised. The parts that held to the original work didn't drag too much (memories of reading "Wuthering Heights" in 11th grade still haunt me), and there was enough zombie goodness to liven up the proceedings without dominating the story.

I think I'll steer clear of "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" and "Android Karenina," but I did pick up Seth Grahame-Smith's "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." Should be good fun.

 

Finally finished Franzen's "Freedom," and the last one-fourth of the book was my favorite. The death that occurred stunned me and I walked away with the notions to love the one you're with (no matter what) and that life comes around full circle at some point in time.

Has anyone read any novels by Matthew Dick? Curious what y'all think of his writing?

 

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now by David Sirota - I was thinking this was going to be a light-hearted look at how certain entertainment in the 80s shaped our modern worldview. Hell no. This is very dark and a very good read.

 

Looks like a good one. I'm just hoping Michael J. Fox isn't on the cover. Although false advertising is so 1980s ...

 

An emphatic recommendation, here -- hook the AUDIO version. An absolute laugh riot.

 

I read last week that "Sixkill" the last Spenser novel (and last book period written by Robert Parker) is out this month - but that the character and the Jesse Stone series will be continued in new books written by people who worked with Parker writing the TV movies done with the Spenser and Stone characters.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.html

 

Haven't read a Spenser book in ages but I doubt whoever they bring in to replace Parker could do a better job than Moddy and PC Load Letter did on here a while back.