Thursday, April 20, 2006

Five more books

Continuing a trend, and since I can't fucking concentrate at the moment...Here are the last five books I've read.

1. Count Zero, by William Gibson: I guess by now everyone's figured out that I've been playing catch-up with Gibson's work, and this is the best writing of his I've read to date. Hypocritically -- considering I'm going to be asking the public to purchase my book -- I've been using the library to get all my reading material lately. I have too many books, and don't want to continue spending money on stuff I have no space for. Because of this, I haven't read Gibson's body of work in any kind of coherent chronological order. This hasn't done anything to lessen my appreciation for his talents, but, as with any author -- and this is how I normally like to do it -- I'd suggest starting from the beginning and working forward. If I had it to do over, I would have avoided the random approach with Gibson.

2. Burning Chrome, by William Gibson: Not a big fan of anthologies, but this one's worth it if you're as into Gibson's sense of atmosphere as I am. I don't even read Gibson for the narratives anymore. I just want to lurk in the places he creates.

3. Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds is a Fat Fucking Juicehead, by Mark Williams and Lance Fainaru-Wada: Fine. That's not the title of the book, but it should be. Barry Bonds is an asshole. Three hundred fifty-two pages about what an asshole Barry Bonds is. I already knew Barry Bonds was an asshole, but this pretty much puts it in a neat little package in case you get into an argument with a Barry Bonds fan. Which is about as likely as me getting a good night's sleep.

4. Marley and Me, by John Grogan: Hey, we have the same editor! And I have an autographed copy! And dogs are phat.

5. Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak: Because I hadn't yet read it, and I found a copy at my parents' house. I was more interested in what the book was actually doing there than in the book itself, which should tell you something. In case you're wondering, we still haven't figured this out.