36. Black

Black - Christopher Whitcomb

Run of the mill thriller. I expected more. I read the book because of the helicopter on the front. I maintained those beautiful machines. They were never used int he book. Stupid book. LOL

I expected more of a military techno thriller from the cover and the description. It was not. It was more of a crime novel with some politics and a bit of terrorism. Whoop-de-doo.

It did not suck, but it was a waste of time compared to other books I have read.

24. The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

"The letter itself had nothing much to say, had come in response to one of her dutiful, more or less rambling, twice-a-week notes to him, in which she was not confessing to her scene with Metzger because Mucho, she felt, somehow, would know. Would then proceed at a KCUF record hop to look out again across the gleaming gym floor and there in one of the giant keyholes inscribed for basketball see, groping her vertical backstroke a little awkward opposite any boy heels might make her an inch taller than, a Sharon, Linda or Michele, seventeen and what is known as a hip one, whose velveted eyes ultimately, statistically would meet Mucho's and respond, and the thing would develop then groovy as it could when you found you couldn't get statutory rape really out of the back of your law-abiding head."

I understand it...but the author is being difficult just to be difficult?

"Either you have stumbled indeed, without the aid of LSD or other indole alkaloids, onto a secret richness and concealed density of dream; onto a network by which X number of Americans are truly communicating whilst reserving their lies, recitations of routine, arid betrayals of spiritual poverty, for the official government delivery system; maybe even onto a real alternative to the exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head to everybody American you know, and you too, sweetie."

That kind of writing occurs over and over throughout the book and it makes the flow so choppy and deliberately complex that it is agony to try and figure out what the heck is happening.

I had high hopes for this book. The further I got into it the more I hated it. I realized something. It was written in the 60s. It was about California. I was a time of social and political upheaval. The drug culture was in full swing. This was a time of major change in American society. Some change was stupid. That whole acid dropping culture was so self-destructive, yet, the participants thought they were so enlightened. That is what this book was about to me. It was Pynchon trying to fit in with the culture of the day.

It reminds me of the poop on canvas and call it art crowd. It reminds me of the people who do controversial things just to be controversial and swear they are doing it for the art. It is all a load of stupid to me. (Yes, I used stupid as a noun.)

This book was funny. The satire and imagery used was what kept me going. It has it good points. The flow and the weirdness is what makes me say this was a dookie of a book. All those literary analysts that think it is a masterpiece can eat it. There are tons of masterpieces that don't suck. Read those.

78. God's Politics

God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It

"Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and solely pro-Republican? And since when did promoting and pursuing a progressive social agenda with a concern for economic security, health care, and educational opportunity mean you had to put faith in God aside?

God's Politics offers a clari... more »on call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition -- that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays). Our biblical faith and religious traditions simply do not allow us as a nation to continue to ignore the poor and marginalized, deny racial justice, tolerate the ravages of war, or turn away from the human rights of those made in the image of God. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not. Jim Wallis inspires us to hold our political leaders and policies accountable by integrating our deepest moral convictions into our nation's public life."

The author of this book is self-proclaimed as a "progressive" and "prophetic". He discusses many subjects in this book that make total sense. He also falls into many stereotypical fallacies that perpetuate the rhetoric that makes the left-right divide deeper with every passing election.

This book was written after the 2004 Presidential election. Bush just defeated John Kerry. Needless to say, the author was definitely not a Bush fan. This book is a Bush basher from the very start. It bashes him for wars, for neglecting the poor, for trying to kill women, etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Bush fan. I voted for Kerry in the 2004 election. I just think that the piling on from all leftist fronts was ridiculous, just as the righties did to Clinton in the 90s.

So, despite my agreeing with some of Mr Wallis' suggestions and on how to find bipartisan common ground, I think this book is just a tool. I think Mr. Wallis is a tool. I think both fall into the "useful idiot" category.

Why do I think that? In a 2004 context I would be able to buy into his arguments. In a 2011 context we have seen much more from the "progressives". 2008 was a game changer. The 111th Congress and the Obama administration could have pursed any course of action they wished. They could have checked all the boxes on the progressive wish list. They could have been the progressive fairy godmother. But, they chose not to even address many of the issues discussed by Mr. Wallis in this book. Poverty, racism, and a long list of those holy grail leftist issues could have been addressed...but they were ignored. They were not truly the goals of progressives despite all the smoke blowing rhetoric they love to spew about being so caring. It was and continues to be lies...just like the right is lying.

Next thing...if Mr. Wallis is looking to include faith into the political conversation coming from the left...as he says numerous times (prophetic politics)...then why is the left making efforts at every possible opportunity to eliminate all references to religion, faith, or God from anything public? This contradiction is blatant. Don't tell me. Show me! The progressives do show me, despite what this book is touting as truth.

The next issue...Mr. Wallis likes to say things like the right-GOP-conservatives (whatever) do not care about the poor. I hear this kind of BS a lot. It is stupid. The reason they say this is because the right does not support government programs to care for every aspect of people's lives. That does not mean they want to starve everyones grandmothers. Government is not the solution to everything. Especially when this book is trying to say that Jesus himself would want us to make government programs that care for everyone...and we should do that by following a party of progressives that are openly hostile toward Jesus? Do what Jesus would do, but don't do it BECAUSE Jesus would do it? Do it because it is right, but don't give God the glory...or even a mention. That makes no sense and is nothing more than manipulation.

So, for those reasons, despite my agreement with some of the writer's goals, I think this book SUCKED. It is just more political pandering and manipulation from a different angle. I would not have known that in 2005. Today it is glaringly obvious. Have a nice day.

Armageddon's Children

Armageddon's Children: Genesis of Shannara - Terry Brooks

I hate this book. I hate it so much I can't continue. I made it about a third of the way in and just can't go on. I usually like dystopian stuff. This fits that category in some way. It is a future world that has fallen apart. I like that part. It is all the other junk that makes me want to puke.

For instance...what future world that has cars, flying machines, guns and all kinds of cool gadgets...yet also has magical staffs that can put up a force field type shield that makes you bulletproof? Stupid!

The mixture of future technologies, old world mysticism and native American earth worshipping naturalist crap made me want to puke.

If you ever need to find the direction you need to travel throw these human finger bones on the ground. All five will point to your destiny every time you need them to show the way...blah blah. Hate it!

58. The Lords Of Flatbush

The Lords Of Flatbush - Leonore Fleischer

Remind me not to read novels that were adapted from the screenplay for a movie. Novels make good movies. I have not read a book yet that was a movie first and was any good.

It is a coming of age story about four friends in the 1950's who live in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. What is it really? It was a way for Sylvester Stallone to capitalize on the popularity of Henry Winkler in the mid to late 1970s and to get his own career jump started. It worked, but not as a novel.

42. 43. & 44. Cowboy Bebop Vol 1, 2 and 3

Cowboy Bebop Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - Yutaka Nanten

Manga.

Intergalactic bounty hunters.

Stupid.

Comic books with curses and skimpy clothing. Wow! Who cares?

Why do I even try to give this junk another shot?

34. The Journals of Eleanor Druse

The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident - Eleanor Druse

This book is a tie in with a TV show called Kingdom Hospital that was produced by Stephen King.

I found the book boring. It lacked spark. It had nothing but an endless wait to find out who was the bad guy and why was he doing bad stuff. I did not care by the time it got there.

I did not dislike the charachters. They were fine. It was the story that I found wanting.

Yawn.

33. Dear American Airlines

Dear American Airlines - Jonathan Miles

I did not like it. It bored me and only had a few moments where I was mildly interested in the story. Oh well. Maybe I had too many other things going on. I don't know.

20. Running With Scissors

Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs

HATED IT!

OK, maybe that is a little strong. It had a few humorous moments, but for the most part I felt like I was recounting the whinnings of a bratty little boy.

Go sit on Mommy's lap and suck your thumb you cry-baby.

Didn't get it. Didn't enjoy reading it. Don't understand what the good reviews are about. Don't care what I am missing.

OK, Yes... I hated it! Whatever.

15. Gunslinger Girl (Vol 1)

Gunslinger Girl (Volume 1) - Hiroshi Aida

A dude gave me a pile of manga books last year. I ditched most of them. I kept this one because it was volume one in a series. I also kept the first five or six in the Chobits and Cowboy Bebop series books. I finally picked one up to give them a try.

I read what was supposed to be manga two years ago and hated it. I later found out that it was not truly manga but was more of a graphic novel. There is no doubt this one is manga. It is written by a Japanese guy. It uses anime looking art. It reads back to front. My kids even said it was manga and they are some kind of experts in the field, or think they are at least.

So, this series is about a secret government agency that takes crippled children and turns them into cyborgs that are controlled through ingestion of some kind of chemicals. Each child is assigned a "trainer" or fratello (brother) whom they will protect with their lives.

The cyborg kids are super strong and fast and big time weapons experts.

It is all very predictable. The characters are emotionless. The story is pointless. I still don't get it.

Oh, wait, the point is to have cute little school girls drawn wearing cute little uniforms, make them subservient to some dude give them guns and make them fight bad guys a lot... ahhh... yet again... fodder for a teen age boy's wet dream. That is all this garbage is for.

Maybe in Japan manga is used on a broader scale, but here in America it seems to be the sole reason for it's popularity. Perhaps I will find that to be incorrect eventually.

Still not a manga fan.

Fanny Hill

Fanny Hill - John Cleland

What a waste of time. This is a classic? This is such a great story that movies and sequels were based on it? I quit shortly after starting this book.

What happened? The parents of a naive fifteen year old girl from the English countryside die and leave her with no family or caregivers. A woman from London takes her to the big city and leaves her to fend for herself. A predatory woman lures her into working for her as a "servant". She is then molested by a 25 year old woman....and that is where I am done.

Let's see...we have child molestation...human trafficking...abuse of an orphaned girl...and so much more. All of this within the first chapter.

I am assuming this gets worse and do not wish to waste my time reading this book.

Also, I will never take the recommendations of my coworker again. This is the third book he has mentioned and the third one that I hated. Three strikes- you are out. I read some stupid books, but dude, come on. The things you recommend are just junk.

96. Don of the Dead

Don of the Dead - Casey Daniels

OK, so, like,  this young woman, Pepper Martin, works as a tour guide at a creepy old cemetery in Cleveland. One day she falls and smacks her head at the mauseleum of the Don of a Mafia family. He was killed about thirty years earlier. After the head trauma event she is now able to see and hear the ghost of this Don, Augustine "Gus" Scarpetti. He tells her he needs her to find out who killed him. She decides to investigate and gets herself into lots of trouble. He was the Don...and the family still exists...and they don't like people investigating...but she can't tell them that Gus wants her to do it because she will look insane...and she can't stop because Gus won't go away...and it is just ridiculous.

This is total chic literature. Who in their right mind would care that the mafia goon frisking them at the door is not wearing the proper color shoes with his suit? Who would look at the way a person decorates thier office and make judgements about their character? Who cares about what color highlights someone has or what perfume they are wearing? Totally chic!

I will not be reading any more of the Pepper Martin Mystery series. I don't care if she is going to solve more decades old crimes for folks who can't seem to move on from the world. Whatever!

I finished it just to say I did it.

79. Flesh Gothic

Flesh Gothic - Edward Lee


Horor today is definately not what horror was twenty years ago. It used to be scary. It used to get into my head and keep me awake at night. Now, it is more gross than scary. It invokes wretching rather than shivering. It makes me feel nauseous rather than afraid to open a door.
 
I have read a few "modern" horror novels now. Some of the others have been a bit better. This one is supposed to be written by the new leader of the pack. I read the blurbs and thought it may actually be something special.
 
"Edward Lee's writing is fast and mean as a chain saw revved to full-tilt boogie."
"The hardest of the hardcore horror writers."
"A true master of the horror novel."
"The living legend of literary mayhem. Read him if you dare!"
 
I dared! I think Edward Lee just took old ideas that were scary stories, infused them with lots of deviant sexual practices and satanic ritual stuff, and then churned it together to make it much more disgusting and revolting than horrific.
 
Don't waste your time.

73. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball

Rules of the Red Rubber Ball: Find and Sustain Your Life's Work - Kevin Carroll

Blah blah blah motivational sports junk.

If you really want to be superman then don't let anyone or anything get in your way.

Just Do It!

Yeah yeah, sure. Whatever dude.

53. Kristin Breaks Loose!

Kristin Breaks Loose - Kristin Andersen with Linda DuBreuil

If you care about the exploits of a hooker turned madam in 1974 you might like this better than I did.

Kristin travels all over America looking for the sex scene in the places she goes. Swingers, pedophiles, beastiality, necrophelia, slavery, bondage, cheaters, conventioneers, massage parlors, etc etc. She travels all over the place looking at what she says is real.

So, she ends up finding people all over the place that do lots of things that are not main stream or that they would be ostracized for if the neighbors knew.

Whatever. Like it is a big shock that people were felt free to do whatever made them feel good in 1974. The 60s free love era was coming to an end.

This book was a waste of my time.

41. Wild Animus

Wild Animus - Rich Shapero

This was a very strange book. I knew that going in. That is why I wanted to read it. I had heard a little about it and thought it would be different. It WAS different, though not in the way I was hoping.

It started at Berkley back in the 60's. The police were raiding the campus and being brutal. The protagonist was a graduate student and teacher of some sort at the University. During the melee he, Sam, met Lindy. She was younger than him by a few years. He was 24. She was 21, I think.

Sam fell in love with her immediately. She fell too. They embarked ion a 1960's style love affair that was very strange. It was fueled with LSD all the time.

Sam had this dream that he could become a ram. Yes, a real ram. A mountain goat climbing the rocks. Big curly horns. The whole deal. While on his trips he would put on this costume he made out of rams skin and an old taxidermists stuffed ram. He would dress up like a ram, take acid, and go mountain climbing. He would have these things happen to him that made him believe he really was turning into a ram and the god he imagined in his drug world he called Animus.

They both quit school and went to Washington. Sam renamed himself Ransom. Lindy supported him as he wrote a book about his becoming a ram and his god Animus.

Later they went to Alaska and Sam found a mountain in the Wrangells where he said Animus lived. He would climb there and lived in a cabin and took lots of drugs and wore his costume and did generally really weird stuff. He imagined there were wolves hunting him and he equated the wolves to Lindy trying to tie him down to a normal life with a family and kids. The wolves were trying to kill him and keep him from Animus.

Anyway...he was a whack job. Lots of people fed into the garbage he spewed. Lindy followed along for way too long. Ransom would cut himself open repeatedly trying to bleed into the mountain and connect with his god. Strange. Weird. I had a hard time following it.

Sorry, but acid trips and weird people who glamorize the felling they get from it just don't make a good book to me.

Ransom died. I didn't care. I felt sorry for Lindy at times, but she was pretty stupid for playing along with his BS anyway. I struggled through this one despite it being an audio book. The only really good thing was the reader himself. It was read by Peter Coyote. He did a great job. I especially liked the voice when Ransom became Animus and was narrating his adventures. The voice was excellent. Other than that, this was a complete waste of time.

Wait, that is not true. I learned some about the Wrangell Mountains and especially Mount Wrangell itself. It is a 14,000 foot shield volcano in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. What a cool place to visit some day…maybe.

27. The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits

The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits - Elizabeth Peters

This book stunk. It was boring. I was dying just trying to finish it.

Elizabeth Peters is actually a pseudonym for a writer of mystery novels.

The characters lacked depth. The relationships seemed shallow and not well thought out.

The one bright spot was a line early on that struck me as quite funny. "That's maturity - when you realize that you've finally arrived at a state of ignorance as profound as that of your parents."

Don't bother with this book.

9. The Story of O

The Story of O - Pauline Reage (Anne Desclos)

This was given to me by a guy at work. Yes, the same guy who gave me the Batman "graphic novel". I won't be getting any more books from him. He is obviously not into the same stuff I like.

This is a story about a woman who becomes her lover's slave. They are into a world of sado-masochism, bondage and disciplne. I just can't relate.

I read some information on-line about the book and find the history of the book and it's author a little interesting, but the book itself didn't do much for me.

1. The Learned Arts of Witches & Wizards

The Learned Arts of Witches and Wizards: History and Traditions of White Magic - Anton and Mina Adams

Stupid!

70. Batman & Dracula: Red Rain

Batman & Dracula: Red Rain - Doug Moench, Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Les Dorscheid, Todd Klein, Eric Van Lustbader

I thought I would give one of these graphic novels a shot for a change. There are 20 something year old guys at work who talk about these graphic novels and "manga" and what look to me like comic books. They are very into them for whatever reason. So, I asked about them and a few guys said this one would probably be good for me.

What did I find? Well, this is a part of a series called "Elseworlds". "Heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places- some that have existed or might have existed, and others that can't, couldn't or shouldn't exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow."

OK...that sounds wonderful...so what did I get?
Dracula comes to Gotham City with his vampire army. They feed on the homeless. Batman must fight him to save the city. Batman wins, but he becomes a good vampire who will live forever.

What did I learn?
Nothing at all. Not a single vocabulary word. Not a single thought worth mentioning.

What did I really learn?
The guys talking about these books are not very intelligent I guess. They talk like this stuff is the best writing in the world and the stories are classic. It was just a fancy stinking comic book. It was written like a comic book and felt like a comic book as I read it. OK, they added a little sexually suggestive junk with female vampires to make the horny dorks like it more I think.

Something else I noticed. The list of credits for writing a stupid "graphic novel" is ridiculously long.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.