An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?
Isolated …
Review of 'Born to Run' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Not merely inspiring. I was inspired, say, by Three Cups Of Tea, but I'm not going to go build a school in Afghanistan tomorrow.
Not merely inspiring, but damn motivating. I've logged about fifteen miles since putting this book down.
Putting this book down, incidentally, is something I was unable to do after picking it up. I tore through it in about two and a half days.
McDougall's constant struggle for the "AND YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT" hook is constant throughout the book and is annoying, but it doesn't detract from the story or lessen its impact.
The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring …
Review of 'The strain' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Neat! Vampire-ism is caused by a transmittable parasite, and is spreading through New York City. This novel covers the first four days of the epidemic, and was entertaining enough. I just might pick up the next installments of the series.
Del Toro did some interesting imagineering on vampire biology by the way. Never seen (or, read about) a vampire quite like the ones he describes.
Review of "Clive Barker's The Thief Of Always" on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This is the graphic adaptation of Barker's The Thief Of Always, a childhood favorite of mine. It was interesting to see how the artist's visions matched up to mine.
Review of "I Don't Believe in Atheists" on 'Goodreads'
1 star
This book was rubbish. It was nothing but an opportunity for the author to air out some personal grievances he has with a couple of prominent atheists he happened to debate.
His main argument is that atheists are similar to Abrahamic fundamentalists in that they --
1. Use their belief in Utopia to justify all manners of violent atrocities. 2. Are inherently racist towards Muslims. 3. Are unwilling to entertain opinions and viewpoints that differ from their own.
I read about half of the book before I was overwhelmed by how much it all smacks of personal, petty vendetta.
L'Anthony summarizes it thusly:
"This is a transparent, ultra-personal mishmash of ad hominem attacks. Saying that "the new atheism" is bad because some new atheists are racists is like saying that football is bad because some players are bad students."
This kid came into the library the other day and started ordering zombie books.
He was like, "I'm really into zombies. It's kind of my thing. I read tons of zombie fiction."
So then he recommended this novel, citing it as a gem of the genre.
And if that's the case, it's a sad sad thing for the genre, because this book was pretty awful.
First of all, I know that Moody published this himself, but there were all kinds of typos littered throughout the book. That's a shame. And it's distracting.
The dialog is as lifeless as the walking corpses.
Here's almost every conversation in the book:
"You alright?"
"I guess."
"What should we do?"
"Dunno."
The characters are very flat, developing little or not at all.
The novel really plods along at first too. Despite the epidemic hitting during the first couple of paragraphs and creating millions of …
This kid came into the library the other day and started ordering zombie books.
He was like, "I'm really into zombies. It's kind of my thing. I read tons of zombie fiction."
So then he recommended this novel, citing it as a gem of the genre.
And if that's the case, it's a sad sad thing for the genre, because this book was pretty awful.
First of all, I know that Moody published this himself, but there were all kinds of typos littered throughout the book. That's a shame. And it's distracting.
The dialog is as lifeless as the walking corpses.
Here's almost every conversation in the book:
"You alright?"
"I guess."
"What should we do?"
"Dunno."
The characters are very flat, developing little or not at all.
The novel really plods along at first too. Despite the epidemic hitting during the first couple of paragraphs and creating millions of corpses, they don't reanimate until almost a third of the way through the book, and they don't start attacking until almost two-thirds of the way through the book.
I was frequently frustrated by the initial lack of zombies in this book!
Review of 'The man who rode his 10-speed bicycle to the moon' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Originally read 1991 I read this book in the fifth grade. Can't remember much about it other than it being pretty surreal, but I still remember being able to completely escape into it.
Re-read August 2008 So, I just got this book from the library today, and read it this afternoon. Having just rekindled a love affair with my bicycle, this book has a superficial appeal for me. It is also just as mysterious to me now as it was when I was eleven years old.
It seems to be about a hollow, dead-inside kind of fella, a fella who doesn't really show or feel much emotion when he leaves his wife and then when his dog dies, and a fella who fears he is invisible.
He does, though, have a 10 speed bicycle which he got for his birthday. One day, almost a year later, on a whim, he …
Originally read 1991 I read this book in the fifth grade. Can't remember much about it other than it being pretty surreal, but I still remember being able to completely escape into it.
Re-read August 2008 So, I just got this book from the library today, and read it this afternoon. Having just rekindled a love affair with my bicycle, this book has a superficial appeal for me. It is also just as mysterious to me now as it was when I was eleven years old.
It seems to be about a hollow, dead-inside kind of fella, a fella who doesn't really show or feel much emotion when he leaves his wife and then when his dog dies, and a fella who fears he is invisible.
He does, though, have a 10 speed bicycle which he got for his birthday. One day, almost a year later, on a whim, he takes it out for a spin, and his life is promptly changed.
He is amazed by the freedom and mobility provided by the bike, and through it he begins to rediscover his love of himself and his love for life.
At the climax of the book, he is reunited with his dead dog on the moon, to which he rode on his bicycle. I kind of expected the climax to involve his being reunited with his estranged wife, but it is his dog that is his salvation.
He's on the moon, with his bicycle and his dog. This book is all about being alone, it seems. And in fact, the story ends with our hero being alone, but he is no longer saddened by that.
The bike is, at various points in the story, a metaphor for isolation and belonging, confinement and freedom, worry and liberation, and, at one point, sex.
I'm going to read this one two or three more times before I send it back, and I will continue to wonder why this book was in an elementary school library when I was a kid.
Like many Americans, Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well …
Review of 'Farewell, my Subaru' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Awesome. Splendid. Spectacular.
Really left me feeling fired up and ready to go. I want to go live on a ranch in New Mexico, grow my own food, and fuel my cars with vegetable oil. I want to create a water reclamation system, and I want to install solar panels. I want to raise livestock. I want to be off the grid.
Thank you, Doug Fine. Thank you for being such an inspiration.
I began a bit of a love affair with maps and cartography and projections after watching an episode of The West Wing in which, during the show's second Big Block Of Cheese Day, CJ Craig met with representatives from the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality.
Anyway, it piqued the hell out of my interest, and this book will do the same for you. I recommend it highly.
In Christopher Moore's ingenious debut novel, we meet one of the most memorably mismatched pairs …
Review of 'Practical Demonkeeping' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
This was Christopher Moore's first book and it largely establishes the location and characters for his subsequent books. Big on characters, little on plot. Kinda entertaining, but I wouldn't recommend it. Lamb is still his best.
