Recently Read

Okay, first off, I put this up here on, like, Wednesday, and then evidently Blogger went all batshit and took it down. They promised to put it back up again but they LIED, big surpise, boohoohoo, so there it is again, except I think BNG left a comment that I can't get back because Blogger disappeared it into the ether, so BNG, please accept my apologies.

Now, a "Recently Read" that you may have seen before, if you were here on Wednesday, when it went up the first time. Skip it if you wanna.



1. Scorched Earth by David Robbins - This was a murder mystery, which I don't normally read, but Badass Nature Girl was kind enough to send it to me, and I'm glad she did, because it was a real page-turner with lots of plot twists. Good!



2. Talk to the Tail by Revilo - BNG also send me this cartoon book - cute!



3. A Separate Peace by John Knowles - Novel about boarding-school students in New England during WWII - I've got a sneaking suspicion that this is a favorite of English teachers. I found it boring, although I'm not the target audience, which I would presume to be teenage boys. Meh.



4. Hey! Let's throw a movie review in here. A Piece of Work is a doc about Joan Rivers. This was interesting. She was a ground-breaking comedian and is still a tough old broad. I just hope that when I'm her age, I'm not working that damn hard, but then again, her work seems to fulfill her, so who am I to judge.



But oh! Speaking of judging, Ms. Rivers has had so much work done, she's starting to look like Jocelyn Wildenstein, which ... why? She's in her seventies; she's supposed to look old, for Pete's sake. Maybe she thought it was the only way she could keep getting work, which is sad. Because it could be true.



5. Okay, back to books. Petal Pusher by Laurie Lindeen - Memoir about life in an indie band (Zuzu's Petals) in the eighties. Good. And she recounted getting an abortion, which a lot of women are (still) reluctant to do.



6. Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. This was so similar to "It" by Stephen King that I actually checked the dates to see which one was written first. (It was "It".) Summer of Night is about a group of kids fighting a supernatural evil power in a small town. It was kind of cliche-ridden, but still very good, and a real page-turner. I'd read it again. Oh, but you might not want to read it right before bed. Word.



7. Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott. Novel about a teenager's summer spent babysitting. I'll say one thing about Ms. McDermott - she sure can suck the life right out of a story. With both this book and Charming Billy, she takes good premises and makes them dry as dust. Her writing is almost robotic, it's so unfeeling. Blech.



8. On High Steel by Mike Cherry - This out-of-print memoir is about an ironworker learning his trade. Interesting read! My only carp that would be at one point, he talks about working on a twenty-story hospital addition in my hometown, and there ARE no twenty-story hospital additions in my hometown. Still, a good book.


9. Brothel by Alexa Albert - Study of the Mustang Ranch in Nevada - Interesting, especially the part about how a lot of legalized prostitutes still have pimps.