I’m reading a thread Meade recently created.
I wish I had a meme of Meade poking his head into a murder hornet nest.
I wish if a meme existed that it actually came to existence from reality.
What are you reading?
Ankaa
#161
saf
#163
I’m reading Prince Caspian from the Chronicles of Narnia. Technically it’s a reread, but I only really loved three of them enough to read them over and over and so a handful of them, like this one, I don’t remember too well. I managed to find an Old-New Stock boxed set from the mid-nineties that was the same one my mom had bought for me, my daughter got it for Christmas and is excited about having them read to her. I’m rereading them on my Kindle.
Excowboy
#164
I was managing to get through at least a book or two a month, reading them on the daily commute. Seeing as that stopped nearly a year ago, I’ve not been doing any reading. But I picked this up, because I’m a fan of a lot of the stuff that he’s done over the years:
It’s very interesting, but some of it I’m convinced is bullshit. Can you really be that drunk that you could ride a motorbike somewhere and wake up the next day in a motel without knowing how you got there? And do this multiple times? Without dying or being pulled over? Maybe, I guess, but alternatively, it’s bullshit. A bit like Anthony Kiedis claiming in his autobiography that he did heroin and then had sex with his girlfriend for 12 hours straight. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh-kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…
saf
#166
I finally read “A Simple Plan” by Scott Smith, and I was disappointed. I had read the Ruins and found that to be a really, REALLY good book for the genre. I was locked in the whole time, very compulsive supernatural horror novel.
Scott Smith is a screenwriter/novelist, so for both books he also wrote the screenplays for the major motion pictures. So maybe you guys saw the 1998 film with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob. This book was just ill timed for me. I’m stuck in my house because it’s winter and the whole book takes place during a winter in Ohio, so like, definitely not a vacation. This one also had no supernatural elements to it, so it fell totally flat to me as realistic fiction.
The idea was supposed to be that good people will do horrible things in extreme situations, but the main character was not really a good guy to me. He was dissociative with every single person in his life… parents, sibling, wife, child, you name it, he was repulsed by all of them most of the time for no real reason. He also ends up killing a Sons of Anarchy episode’s worth of people in the sloppiest ways imaginable and is never caught or even questioned about it. I don’t know. I guess I just don’t want 4.4 million dollars that much.
I have to give Scott a pass here as this novel was written in 1993 and his follow up was easily 7x as good as this mess. I’ll definitely buy whatever he publishes next, but this was a total flop for me.
saf
#167
I just marathon read “Rules of Magic” which was a prequel to “Practical Magic” by Alice Hoffman. Very good. Moving on to “Magic Lessons.”
saf
#168
I’m on a huge rereading kick, mostly inane stuff that I vaguely remembered reading a long time ago. I finished “The Remains of the Day,” and “The Romantics” and now I’m halfway through “Look At Me.” Only “The Remains of the Day” is any good. Jeff Bezos would agree. That’s a silly sidebar actually, knowing that Bezos had gone on record saying that he enjoyed Ishiguro’s more quiet novels resulted in me having nightmares about him while I was rereading it. Sadly, no dreams about Anthony Hopkins.
saf
#171
I know, one of my favorites. I love all things inane, and I would be hard pressed to find a more lyrical rendering of men and women who do nothing all day. It’s like a Sofia Ford Coppola film.
saf
#173
I’m rereading “The House of Small Shadows” by Adam Neville. I love horror novels, but I think that Neville’s works are plagued by random awkward misogyny and pacing issues. I have to say having read several of his works, that this one is one of the most cohesive. Wickerman vibes.
John Ajvide Lindqvist is a much, MUCH better novelist… I like him better than Stephen King in the genre.
thebalvenie
#174
I just bought a new edition of Manchild in The Promised Land…i’ve not read it since i was 16 or 17 and i remember it just being one of my favorite books ever. after i get through EVERY single last of brian doyle’s books then i’m gonna read it again.
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