It's a toss-up right now whether I can actually write a full blog post or fall asleep first. While watching Lost I was also eating lunch. Dinner does not put me out, but lunch almost always makes me very sleepy. I should have been born Mexican I guess.
I've been making myself read a lot more lately. Reading is something I've always enjoyed, and when I was a teenager I could spend hours a day reading. I've gotten out of the habit as an adult, just reading here and there. I'm trying to re-cultivate the habit of spending more time reading. A few weeks ago I re-started Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy of space opera books. I read the first book almost ten years ago when it was new in paperback, but I never finished the series afterwards. About five years ago, I re-read half that first book with the intention of finishing the series. When I bought my kindle, there was a kindle-friendly version of the entire trilogy for $7 so I bought that immediately. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the first book again and determined to finish this time.
However, last week my friend Pat loaned me two books to check out. The first I read within 24 hours of him loaning it to me. It was a Hard Case book. The Hard Case books are a publisher's line of crime novels. Some of the books are reprints of earlier pulp-style crime novels, and some of the books are new, written in that style. There is quite a recognizable list of authors in series, and the number of books has grown to over 50. If you've any interest at all in this sort of thing, I recommend the books. They can be found here: Hard Case. If you're really into them, you can subscribe to the book line through the publisher at: Dorchester. Were I in a better position financially, I would consider subscribing.
The novel that I just read was titled Money Shot. It opens with a woman locked in the trunk of a car. She has been mistaken for dead after being shot a few times. She is quickly revealed to be an ex-porn star who now runs a talent agency for strippers, dancers, and porn actresses. It's written completely in the first person, and is very much in the 'hard-boiled' school of crime writing. The lead character's voice is strong throughout the book, and the author has a knack for hard-boiled metaphors that delight the reader. From the very first page I was swept up in the book, and it held my attention all the way to the end. It's not a perfect book by any standards, and there were many things I found fault with, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Immediately after finishing that book, I started the second book that Pat loaned me: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. This book was announced several months ago, and as soon as I heard about it, I pre-ordered the book of Amazon for Pat. I knew it was the sort of thing he should read. Me, I'm not a big zombie reader, but I find the idea fascinating, and, since he'd finished it, Pat loaned it to me so we could compare notes afterwards. If you've not heard of the book— which has been well publicized on NPR— the author took the original text of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and inserted a zombie storyline as well. It's a brilliant idea in its simplicity, and, as a lazy writer myself, it must have been delightful to have the majority of the text pre-written! I'm about half way through the book now, and I'll save a full review for when I'm finished, but so far I find the book fun and funny to read.
The author of that book, Seth Grahame-Smith, has already announced that his next book will be a tale of Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter, which I look forward to.
That'll be it for me today. Back soon!
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."— Desiderius Erasmus
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