Book : Bram Stoker's Dracula

I was supposed to read this book in high school, but I didn't. 15 years later, however, I found the novel to be a total treat. I read it at night, in the dark, on my Kindle, with a spooky blue LED book light as illumination, and the experience was complete.

Recommend? Yeah, after 100 years or so, it's one of the spookier stories I've read in a long time. Plus, everyone in the story is so polite!

Book: The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown

Hey Dan Brown, I have some symbol trivia for you. What comes next in this list of symbols:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, ???

Did you guess 'H'?? Did you guess 'H' because, when you go in an order that everyone knows, you can easily predict what comes next? Do you see where I am going Dan Brown?? Can you read between these lines and see where I am going Dan Brown?!?!?

Recommend? No. Decipher this code, Dan Brown: "F.U."

Book : Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

This is the first Vonnegut novel I have read.   I enjoyed it very much.  It is also my first e-book, read on an Amazon Kindle.  It was a very nice experience.

It's a story about World War Two, and time travel, and aliens, and death.  So it goes.

Recommend: I do.

Book : The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I finally got around to reading this thing. It was pretty good. I would describe the story as a Discovery Channel special on Mary Magdalene wrapped in a cute mystery. It wasn't as action-packed as I was told it might be, and there were plenty of sappy cliche parts, but overall it was a good read.

Recommend? I give this story 9 gold disciples!

Book : "V." by Thomas Pynchon

I did it. I finished this book. It took some work to do. Rereading sentences. Making a list of words to look up, references to research. I still mean to read about the Peking to Paris auto race. But I got through. For at least half of the book, I had no idea what, really, I was supposed to be getting out of this. "What is going on?" I would ask myself. But I made it to the end.

Recommend? Quotes on the back of this book: "This work may well stand as one of the very best works of the century," and "Leaves the imagination spent and the mind reeling." I agree with both. I'd put it in my top five, if I had a top five. Maybe I do...

Book: Parasites Like Us

By Adam Johnson. A novel. So- I'm reading this book, and I'm thinking, ok - this is funny at times, some good writing in here, but otherwise, it just feels like I dunno, pop fiction or an empty shell of an attempt at literary fiction. There's, well, lots of useless stuff in this book. Several characters who serve no purpose. One major character whose presence is absurdly coincidental and absolutely unessential. A shitload of stuff on the Clovis people who migrated to North America over the Bering Strait land bridge that just doesn't really seem to pay off. I was sorely disappointed by the novel by such a great short story writer.

However- that being said, the ending of this book makes it all worthwhile. Okay- so you know what the ending is if you read the back of the book (the description on the back of the book tells WAY TOO MUCH because it actually kind of misleads you about the kind of book you are about to read), but the execution of the ending rocks totally.

Recommend: yes, if you have any empathy for pigs.

Book : The captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over

The book is a fucking laugh riot, it's the journal of an old curmudgin. I laughed so hard at some of the parts of the book cause hey I have thought some of these things at one point an time. One of the many funny parts is where he began the sentance by " I should clip my toe nails but I just don't have the time gottta get to the track. Damn they hurt and I know I gotta clip them....."I probably did some ad libing there but hey. On the bonus side it has some illustraitions by R. Crumb.

Final note The book is really good and also I heard that theirs a song about the author Charles Burkowski( not to sure on the spelling)

P.S. I know this is off of the intent of this site but you guys should check out youtube and search robot chicken cause the made fun of ff7 and lots of other things.... just a great friggin show from the guys who do family guy.

The R. Crumb Hand Book

First a big shout to Murf for inviting me onto here!!!
Well I was a bit unsure what to post about but this is a great thing I think everyone should know about. This little book was a great find for anyone has a one point an time been into collecting comics. Robert Crumb is considered the grand father of the indie comic.
First cool feature the book comes with a free sample cd of his band that he has, the band plays a lot of traditional tunes e.g. in the pines' and some other old timey song mixed in with some of their own.
The book is mainly about his thoughts and telling about his influences which span from his older brother to some of the old school comic artist and pop culture. He also talks about his perversions and what he thinks about his over all life. A cool thing is the book has some samples of the various comics that he did. His work is fairly deep in subject matter and also some of it really pushes the boundaries for being shocking back during the time it came out in.

Verdict: The book was a great read for anyone wanting to learn about R. Crumb and get a chance to look at some of his work. I believe that his work really influenced a lot of the way people viewed what you could make a comic book about. I can see his influences in Jthm, squee, south park, and lots of modern cartoons and comics.
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Book: Underground

by Haruki Murakami. Full title = Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Incredibly interesting examination of a terrorist attack. Murakami includes 60 interviews converted into narratives of survivors of the gas attack, ranging from those who nearly died, to those who stopped to help, to some of the family members of the deceased. The second part includes about a dozen interviews with the Aum cult, the cult who orchestrated the attack, though none of the members interviewed were involved with the attack. Interspersed are critical analyses of the larger themes present in the accounts.

Recommend: Rather disturbing, at times greatly depressing, but a fascinating view of both psychology and perspective. Murakami hits dead on with non fiction.

Book: South of the Border West of the Sun

By Haruki Murakami. A good read, outstanding in many respects, but ultimately it felt a little unfulfilling. The relationship we get is like your typical Murakami relationship, except that he doesn't pursue what lies behind the terrible secret. And that terrible secret is usually what forms the quintessential foundation of what makes a Murakami book Murakami.

Also, the translation is a bit spotty - Alfred Birbuam (or whatever his name is) is much smoother than Phillip Gabriel.

Recommend: Well, it is a Murakami book, thus making it better than most other books out there, but it is also not the best Murakami book by any stretch. Perhaps better than Sputnik Sweetheart though.

Book: Dance Dance Dance

You know, for a sequel, this really isn't much of a sequel. Which is why it kicks so much totally sweet ass over and over until its raw and purple. This book was great. It had everything that rocked from Wild Sheep Chase (except a sheep with a star on its back) AND Wind Up Bird Chronicle (except Boris the Man Skinner) except that it was longer and better told than Wild Sheep Chase and shorter and better told than Wind Up Bird Chronicle.

Recommend: oh yeah, unless you want to see lots of The Sheep Man.

Comics : JTHM

Fun to re-read after not having read them in about eight years. Who besides Nny would drill into your skull, and then, since it's taking longer than expected, offer to make you a sandwich? He's such a nice homicidal maniac.

Recommend: Yes. Especially if you are in a mood.

Book: Willful Creatures

by Aimee Bender. This book is so totally sweet, I don't even know where to begin. The big man buys the cage with the little man in it and tortures him until they both learn a little something about life. Ten guys are all told simultaneously that they will die in two weeks. A fruit stand sells gases and emotions shaped into words. Two people with pumpkins for heads give birth to a little boy with an iron for a head. This book rules. Totally. Sweet.

Recommend: If you don't buy this book or at least borrow it and read it before the next time I run into you, I will break a guitar over your neck and back. Not in the good way.

Book: Kangaroo Notebook

by Kobo Abe. As everyone can tell, I've been reading an awful lot of books these last couple of weeks, but I must say that Kangaroo Notebook is the single strangest thing I've read in a loooooong time. The morning after being offered a raise for coming up with the vague idea of marketing a "kangaroo notebook," the narrator wakes up with radish sprouts growing out of his legs. The narrator goes to a dermitologist who immediately sends him into surgery. When surgery (or whatever happens during that time) is over, the narrator is pushed out onto the street on his gurney with a prescription to go soak in a sulfur hot spring. The narrator, still attached to his IV and catheter, is towed to a canal where he sent afloat into the underworld where he meets a woman who LOVES drawing blood, almost gets into a fist fight with his dead mother, develops a creepy attraction to a demon child whose elementary school troop builds towers out of stone.

Recommend: The narrator snacks on himself throughout the story. His bed becomes his friend and follows him around like a dog or a horse. Of course I recommend.

Book: A Wild Sheep Chase

by Haruki Murakami. Totally sweet book. There is a man dressed as a sheep. Sheepman rocks. You get to know what it means to be "sheepless." Read this book.

recommend: Man dressed as sheep. I say again, Man dressed as sheep.

Book: Money

by Martin Amis - the last book I'll be reading right now in my Martin Amis spree since I have yet to come across "Dead Babies." I have to admit, that title is intriguing, but alas it has nothing to do with the book "Money." However, money has a lot to do with the book Money, and so do sex, alcohol, blackouts, strippers, Hollywood, London, New York, the majesty of George Orwell's Animal Farm, and a mission of self-discovery through absolute hedonism. I've got to give Amis credit. His narrator is one of the single most depraved and loathsome characters EVER written, yet he is the hero of the story. And you end up liking him. Also, some great experimentation with narrator reliability, especially since the narrator blacks out all the time.

Recommend: yeah, but it's not quite as inventive as Time's Arrow or Success.

Book: Success

By Martin Amos. Good book. Read fast. Cool use of dual first person narrators that alternate back and forth. Also, both narrators are unreliable. The coolest thing is that you get different perspectives about the same scene, and, even though you know one narrator is a bigger liar than the other, you never really know EXACTLY what happened at any given point especially since you also get versions of events through the mouths of other characters who themselves are somewhat unreliable.

Recommend: Yes. Not as stylistically sweet or funny as "Time's Arrow," but it was a really interesting, entertaining, and well written story. Also, both main characters are complete degenerates, and everyone loves reading about degenerates.

Book: Time's Arrow

By Martin Amis. Starts at the moment of the narrator's death. The narrator's awareness continues after his death, except that the narrative runs backward through the narrator's life. Literally. And not in the psuedo-backward Memento way. In order to eat, people sit on the toilet and suck the shit from the bowl. They then carefully remove the food from their mouths and reassemble them into sculpted dishes via a knife and fork. They then dismantle the scultpures and store them in boxes and cans on shelves until they sell them to supermarkets. People don't put hair gel in their hair. Their hair seems to excrete it into their hands, they bottle it up, and sell to the drug store.

Recommend: Oh, hell yeah. Read it in four hours. This is the only book I can imagine that could get away with having a narrator talk about a pimp punching the black eye off a prostitute's face. Need I say more?

Book: Rouse up O Young Men of the New Age

By Kenzaburo Oe. I was rather impressed with the bulk of this story, and the handling of the relationship between the father and his mentally handicapped son are strongly rendered. I can see why he is so popular in Japan. However, the fifty or so pages that try to explain a japanese translation of William Blake's poetry (which is, curiously translated back into English rather than returned to its original verse) grows tiresome. It works when used as a transitional device, but even though Oe's narrator is aware of his own misreadings of Blake, man, his explanations are confusing and, um, unique...

Recommend: Really a great book (overall) and a fast read. Don't expect Murakami, but he's kind of on par with Kobo Abe.

Book: Maus

For those of you who don't know, Maus is a graphic novel about a graphic novelist writing a graphic novel about his Jewish father's experiences in WWII. The big twist is that all the Jews are portrayed as mice, the nazis as cats, the Polish are pigs, a la Animal Farm. Winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize - kind of shocking for a graphic novel, Maus is an insightful and unique portrayal of the events of the holocaust OUTSIDE the concentration camps, instead focusing on the Jews who survived in hiding a la a system much scarier than the underground railroad.

Recommend: Deep, unsettling, funny, well-drawn and well-told, I highly recommend Maus to anyone, particularly if you don't normally read graphic novels - not because it doesn't compare well to other graphic novels, but because it is a highly accessible piece that packs quite a punch. And besides, look at the cover. You've got to read something with a cover like that.