I just finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I'd heard rave reviews of it but it struck me as a little too Stephen King without the engaging horror.



Don't get me wrong, I like Stephen King.

This book was about a man and a boy (his son) walking through some post-apocalyptic landscape, just trying to survive. They meet various ruffians/cannibals/haz-mat-suited people along the way and they manage to find enough jarred preserved foodstuffs to keep the plot going longer than I was comfortable with.

We never find out why the world was a charred wreck covered by a patina of soot and ash, and by three quarters of the way through we stop caring.

One thing that bothered me was that the boy was born as the world was ending, and yet he seemed to be more nostalgic for what was lost (and for what he could not have known) than anyone.

Maybe that was the point? That the man's loss was so completely handed down, so successfully transferred?



At one point the boy is playing a flute that he seems to have carved while no one was paying attention and I literally said out loud: "WTF?" (The actual letters...)

Anyway, it was like Mad Max meets The Stand meets Andy Griffith meets my last nerve.

Thumbs down.

I just now read this post but I feel more nostalgic than anyone on this site about a time before this shit was posted.

I'm reading two books actually. One is called Rope Burns, by F.X. Toole. Its a bunch of different short stories about boxers. One of the short stories inspired that movie Million Dollar Baby.

The second book I am reading is called A Case for Christ. The title is self explanitory.

Imago said:

See, now you actually read my review.

karmatornado said:

A case of beer for Christ?

2the9s said:

Although the man did turn water to wine?

just started this...though i don't know if i can take much more of how the author describes people.

evenstar3 said:

2 1/2 stars on Amazon.

Ouch.

2the9s said:

damn! but i got for $3 at a bookstore's going out of business sale, so i wasn't expecting much

I got it for my birthday from my sister

2the9s said:

so I don't have to go and read it then


Phew!

evenstar3 said:

I borrowed that from a friend a while ago. Still haven't finished reading it yet I have so many books laying around that aren't mine, but I haven't completed yet...

ZombieKitten said:

From Publisher's Weekly...



Yikes.

What happened to A Suitable Boy?

This book, so far, has alot of humerous passages, and some of the author's experiences are very similar to mine from having travelled abraod.

My main beef with this book is that the author does not tell you very much about the culture of the folks she runs into at the various locales. For example, her experiences in Oktoberfest in Germany were often hilarious, but the accounts of the people she runs into seem incidental and nothing about them gives you very much of a feel for the society she finds herself in. It reads like a very humorous diary, more so than a hardcore travelogue. Still entertaining though.





A better travel book is this one:


Though it isn't as humorous as "No Touch Monkey", it paints an image of the authors travel destinations so vividly you can feel the heat of the tropical sun, and smell the food of the feasts he's been lucky enough to witness. Great read.

Protege said:

i have whole boxes of boxes that i haven't gotten around to reading yet, but can't give away

evenstar3 said:

I can definitely identify with that.

Imago said:

I've seen this book. I love travel writing, though this sounds lame. lol

2the9s said:

It's not bad at all.
But I'd recommend it as a guilty pleasure moreso than a learning experience.

what travel books do you like? Also, do you feel that we're becoming closer lately? Like, we're totally friends. I mean, I feel like I'm going to be in your uber-clique soon. Or whatever, you're calling that thing nowadays.

I'm reading -
Skeleton Crew (still in tiny bits) by Stephen King
and I will soon be reading Hannibal when I can get my hands on it Then Red Dragon, which might take a while. Sadly.

Also, I just started this last night. The first 3 pages hooked me. I used to be a total sci-fi geek when it came to books (Orson Scott Card, Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, etc.), but I stopped for some reason.

I've started reading it again starting with Arthur C. Clarke's strange and eeri "Childhood's End", and now am on this book by Baxter.

I think the reason why I like sci-fi is that aside from alarmist warnings, and the usual anti-religous rant, it's a genre that explores possibilities rather than limitations.

Imago said:

To answer your second question first: no, we are definitely NOT becoming closer.

I've been reading essays by Jan Morris lately, who is good. She traveled everywhere and her writing is good. One of my all time favorite books is Rebecca West's Black Lamb Grey Falcon. I also like Bruce Chatwin's Songlines, Robert Byron's Road to Oxiana, so many more.

Imago said:

Do you read Philip K. Dick? LleeLlee turned me on to him. Valis is just incredible.

Stanislav Lem is amazing too.

2the9s said:

NOTHING!
I am thinking of using it as a doorstop

and

Just got this but haven't yet begun reading it.

DanceWme said:

evenstar3 said:

lol



I read A divine revelation of hell before this one

Now, that one deserves a

Arkansas investigative journalist Leveritt (The Boys on the Tracks) presents an affecting account of a controversial trial in the wake of three child murders in Arkansas. In May 1993, three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, a small and tattered Arkansas town. The crime scene and forensic evidence were mishandled, but a probation officer directed the police toward Damien Echols, a youth with a troubled home life, antiauthoritarian attitudes and admiration for the "Goth" and Wiccan subcultures. Amid rumors of satanic cult activity, investigators browbeat Jesse Misskelley, a mentally challenged 16-year-old acquaintance of Echols, into providing a wildly inconsistent confession that he'd helped Echols and a third teen, Jason Baldwin, assault the boys. Leveritt meticulously reconstructs the clamorous investigation and two jury trials that followed. All three boys were convicted on the basis of Misskelley's dubious statements and such "evidence" as Echols's fondness for William Blake and Stephen King. Leveritt, who makes a strong argument that the convictions were a miscarriage of justice, also suggests an alternative suspect: one victim's stepfather, who had a history of domestic violence, yet was seemingly shielded by authorities because he was a drug informant for local investigators. Sure to be locally controversial, Leveritt's carefully researched book offers a riveting portrait of a down-at-the-heels, socially conservative rural town with more than its share of corruption and violence.

and