more book reviews for books no one but me would be interested in

i grabbed a couple books when i was home in massachusetts; at the very barnes and noble i used to work at after i graduated from college! i had wanted to pick up one of stephen fry's novels and a book by bernard cromwell that an intellectual, currently studying english at oxford friend of mine suggested. however, the B&N didn't have the particular cromwell book (the winter king) and had NOTHING by stephen fry, which i took as a personal affront. i also saw a girl working who had been there when i worked there, and who i am pretty sure was my age. i felt all sad for her, and then like a jerk for pitying her (maybe she LIKES working a steady job in a nice town and didn't want to be working as a 'comedian' in new york, eh!?) and ultimately fled away from her, and towards the fantasy section.

WHERE i happened to see that 'son of a witch' had finally come out in mass market paperback (it first came out over 3 years ago, so it took awhile) so i decided to grab it. it is the sequel to 'Wicked' by gregory maguire, which still stands as one of the most intensely epic novels i have ever read. i am sure that makes me sounds like a prattling idiot; 'omg they made a musical out of it so sexy i love singing omg LOL OLOLLll'. well, the book manages to be about civil rights, the gold standard, genocide, love, family, aids, and the process of growing up. not to mention trauma and friendship and magic and 1930's middle america. and all those themes are in one, generally cohesive story. i've never seen the musical, and i understand it's WAY simplified, but it's an instance of the source material being GREAT so i am not surprised it's been fucking huge. anyway, i haven't read it since 2005, in part because it's an intense and emotional book for me. i definitely cried in public while reading at least one part. not as much as i cried during the last 1/5 of 'the dark tower' though. and i was on a chinatown bus. and i am pretty sure some girl i went to college was sitting across the aisle from me. sigh.

ANYWAY, i just started 'son of a witch' and i am looking forward to finishing. i am kind of regretting not rereading wicked before starting it, but i think i've remembered most of it now.

the other book i got was 'the alchemyst' by michael scott (lulz). i'd seen the damn things every where for the past year or so, but had avoided picking it up because on suspicion of it sucking balls. unfortunately for me, it was, indeed, pretty terrible. similar to 'twilight' in that it's a GREAT idea hacked to death by a sub-par writer. it's like if harry potter was written by whatever abortion wrote the babysitter's club. i was hoping that the young adult / children's authors coalition would realize, once and for all, after harry potter that they don't need to write as if they expect their audience to be mentally handicapped guppies with 3 second attention spans. i was wrong, it seems. the author's irish too...disappointing. i don't really feel like describing the plot, but it's kind of like... american gods written by the babysitter's club in 2008. yeah, that's pretty much it.

Reading! It's FUN-damental!

notes from underground

that title doesn't really have anything to do with anything. i've never even gotten into any russian literature really, but that doesn't stop me from being obsessed with the idea that there are no articles in russian. HOW!?! i do not understand how that's possible. it sounds impossibly awkward and non-specific to my 'only english with a dash of the smallest amount possible of a romance language' - ear. i dunno. for some reason the notion of lacking 'a' and 'the' baffles me even more than gendered words, WHICH IS TOTALLY INSANE. i remember my language teacher in 6th grade telling us just to accept that there were male and female words and get over it, because there wasn't any good 'why' that we'd understand or that would be useful to us.

FAIR WARNING: the rest of this posting will be all about writing and magic and other nerdy stuff like that.

anyway, moving on. finished the first of my purchased books for research; alanna by tamora pierce. UGH. not particularly enjoyable, even for me. maybe it was just the audience she thought she was writing for, but it's really dumb. the language (and dialogue) is an awkward mix of "medieval"-speke and modern english slang usage. fyi, ma'am, no girl-disguised-as-a-boy page training to be a knight says 'I don't get it!'. yuck. it was written in 1983 so i guess that's an excuse. i dunno, it just really reminded me how fucking revolutionary the harry potter books popularity is going to to be on popular children's literature. rowling NEVER talked down to her audience, except maybe a little in the first book, but that was (imo) the editors / americanizer's doing. i dunno. i would never cut corners in a story anyway, i am far too long-winded and detail oriented for that, but i do need to learn to find a balance between exposition and moving through an important three month period of a character's life in HALF A SENTENCE.
[GOB] COME ON![/GOB]

i've decided on first person. i think i'm most comfortable with that. telling myself telling a story.

dance shawl

this week's been really weird for me so far. yesterday i was sent home while still in the midst of paying for my morning coffee, because a pipe burst in our building and most of the place was flooded. i ended up doing laundry and then wandering for most of the day. it was like having a three day weekend but instead of wasting that magical day sleeping, i actually got up early and got a lot of shit done. as opposed to my roommate, who neither emptied the trash, nor replaced the spent light bulb in the kitchen (i can't reach it). and i do get that. sometimes doing nothing begets the ability to ONLY do nothing, but at some point, even my terribly lazy ass is shaken up to do something. and half heartedly washing one dish doesn't count as something.
sigh.

today i came in to find my desk still in disarray, which meant there was plaster and semi-dried out detritus of notes i had taken and left for myself strewn all about the top of the desk and the floor. they'd pulled everything off the top of my desk and on to the floor for it to dry (better?). gross. it smells like an old basement in my corner of the office. finally, after much adventuring and fortunate sightings of the one IT guy i've met to let him know that my computer hadn't been moved up to the conference room my area is now squatting in, i was set up today at 3 pm. a side note: i rarely post much in the way of career-advice here, but the one constant i've learned in my 3 years in 'corporate' america is to always befriend the IT guy. usually they're similarly nerdy and desperate for attention, so i get the benefit of someone to discuss star trek with, and the ability to download shit. although they are not often good audiences. too self-absorbed to play along with any bit but their own.

i did get to go buy a book to amuse myself, which is awesome, and i get to 'expense' it apparently. thrilling! i bought steve martin's born standing up, i've burned through the 3/4s of it already. very worthwhile read, comedians. i'll post some pertinent excerpts soon.

now i need to go back down to my dreadful, mildewy desk area and pick up some work to do. i've almost got the hang of it here. ALMOST.

improv specific post to follow.

reading

i am going to make a list of the books i want to obtain in the near future. dc pierson wrote an entry that reminded me that i am STILL 2/3 of the way through the first neal stephenson baroque cycle book, and i started reading it BEFORE I MOVED TO THIS CITY. it's been on top of the book case in my bedroom since i moved into my apartment and got that bookcase set up. ugh. that's partly because it was an exhausting book to read up until that point, but i also really enjoyed what i read AND many of the passages are extremely vivid and i think of them pretty often. so i need to man up and finish the series. they are cheap at the strand. and i think they came out with mass market formats of them, so i won't have to pay $14 for a 3 pound book. that sounds silly, but i am still a weak little person for the most part, and i try to avoid carrying heavy things. which is one of the reasons i haven't read harry potter much since moving here. i used to read the entire series (in order) at least twice (if not 4 or 5) times a year. but i only have the big hardcovers and they are annoying to carry, especially when terry pratchett stuff is lighter, funnier and more... authentic is almost the word i am looking for.

that made me remember reading the mists of avalon some time in HS, in the waiting room for an appointment in some hospital, and i ended up waiting for like 2 hours and finishing it. weird memory.

um. on to that list of books.

2 robert heinlein books. to be chosen at point of sale.
philip roth. american pastoral and the plot against america.
michael chabon. the yiddish policeman's union.
david foster wallace. infinite jest. (thanks for the suggestion, DC)
the rest of the baroque cycle.
whatever book professor dan chambliss suggests i read.
making money. terry pratchett.
a non-dark tower stephen king novel. suggestions plz.
reader's choice - please suggest. funny science fiction prefered plz.

a final note; i actually was on the same train car as DC last night; we didn't walk on together, and didn't catch the other's eye so we sat apart and i could tell what relish he had for opening whatever he was reading and just focusing on it. i am the same way with reading. i fucking love it, and i love it for the experience of it, but i also like the triumph i feel when i finish two or three novels in a week. keeping with that, i cracked open my latest artemis fowl adventure (boo-yeah) and proceeded to be jerked around by the MTA for next HOUR. an experience that started with the smelliest homeless man in all of new york and the 5 boroughs colonizing my car and taking his shoes off, and ended with me being stuck on 2 different 6 train platforms for 50 minutes and taking a grand total of 4 different trains to get to my house. boooo mta.

books i want to read

and won't buy for full price because i am a cheap bastard.

the name of the rose by umberto eco

fragile things by neil gaiman (still in hardcover)

making money by terry pratchett (hardcover, yo)

anything by bill bryson

any social science or sociology book i've been recommended

any trendy fiction printed in the $12-$14 large format size

the watchmen
from hell
any other graphic novel i have been continually told to read

what else should i attempt to find for cheap at the strand youse guys? give me ideas!