Well folks, this is the one blog I utterly and miserably failed at updating this year. I blame this entirely on a large stretch of time at which the only book I read was:
Book 5: Learn Chinese
Which, if you haven't guessed from the title, was a Chinese language book. The grammar part was terrific, it wasn't a good vocabulary book, just had a few vocab pages stuck in for good measure. It came with two CDs that went WAY too fast. I only listened to them once. I found in the long run more success with the Pimsleur CDs, Chinese Pod podcast (until they started charging), and The Rosetta Stone software, which was by far the best.
After I got to China, I started reading again (on the plane over), but hadn't updated this blog in so long that I basically gave up on it. However, I'm feeling the need for closure on it now, so here are the books I've read in that time:
Book 6: Assassination Vacation
By Sarah Vowell
This is a cute little non-fiction book by the friendly kid-voiced NPR contributor, one of my favorite people to listen to on This American Life. I think I would have preferred to have listened to this book than read it because half of the enjoyment in her stories is the way she says things, but there are some really REALLY interesting and strange facts in this book, like the fact that the brother of John Wilkes' Booth actually saved Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln from a Train accident.
Book 7: Kafka on the Shore
By Haruki Murakami
Great book, very similar in style and theme to The Windup Bird Chronicles. It is quite apparent that Murakami has a thing for alternate worlds, incest, and missing cats.
Book 8: The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
By Stephen King
So I finally decided to read this series that I started when I was sixteen and still in high school (half of my life ago!). Back then, I got almost to the end of this book, and it had bored me into not finishing it, especially because in the preface, King said that the scope of his story was too large and he'd probably never finish it in his lifetime. Well, he finished it after all (in 2004), so I started reading it again (from the second book, the first one I re-listened to on audiobook download during my commute to Huntington at the beginning of the year).
This book wasn't as boring as I remember it, but it wasn't great either. In this book, Roland, the Gunslinger gets his posse together by stealing them from different worlds.
Book 9: The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
By Stephen King
Roland's Posse is almost complete, although he has to spend about 500 pages fixing something that he screwed up in the first book. Then there's some demon sex, and a kid gets kidnapped before the Gunslingin' gang can start on their quest proper. In the end, they get a ticket to ride a train. A bad, bad train.
Book 10: The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
By Stephen King
This book is basically a prequel to The Gunslinger, and was just a long way of explaining why Roland is the way he is, and give a little more background on the strange world they're traveling through. Meh.
Book 11: The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
By Stephen King
I didn't have much hope for this book since the blurb on the back made it sound like this was yet another 700 page diversion from the main quest (which is simply to reach the f*ing dark tower). It ended up being much better, and the series really picked up at this point. King starts bringing in this sort of postmodern twisting of reality as characters and things that you don't expect to ever show up in a book like this, suddenly do.
Book 12: The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
By Stephen King
This was a strange book because its much shorter than the others, and basically reads like the transition between the middle of the story and the end. Basically, Susannah has a baby, and the rest of the posse tries to keep the universe from exploding.
Book 13: The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
By Stephen King
Not a very creative name is it? Not a very creative book either. The first half of the book is pretty good actually, very exciting, very tragic, and everything comes together at last. Then he has to get on to writing the ending, because roland had to reach the tower at some point, otherwise it would have been a very poorly named series indeed. I won't write any real spoilers, but this is what happens when he gets there: King basically admits in the end that he didn't really have an ending in mind for the series and the one that he chastises you for reading is pretty lame. I'm not kidding. He actually TELLS you not to read it, and tries to shame you for turning the page to the final chapter. I've read some stinkin' endings in books before, and it doesn't always ruin the book, but I've never had an author make me feel bad for reading it. The fact that he tries to shift the responsibility for the bad ending onto the reader is really the reason that this is the worst ending that was ever written.
Well, i've just started
Book 14: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
By Haruki Murakami
to get the bad taste of the end of Dark Tower out of my mind. Even though Murakami's endings haven't yet been as interesting as the mysteries that lead there, at least he has enough respect for his readers to own them.
I didn't quite make it to my own dark tower (50 books), but I didn't really expect to. I do feel quite accomplished for steamrollin' through the 4000+ pages of the Dark Tower though. The journey was fun despite the ending.
Kinda like this blog. Thanks for reading.
2006 is over.
Print is Dead.
Long Live Print!
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3 comments:
Hey, great list and good luck with the Chinese.
I had almost given up on you! Meezly was the one who told me you had started catching up again. Nice job with the Dark Tower. I actually really appreciate your precis of each one. I always wondered what was the deal with the Dark Tower, but never had the energy to actually make an effort to find out. Now I know. Thanks and good work! Learning chinese is a reasonable excuse and you still ended up with over a baker's dozen under your belt.
Thanks guys!
Yeah, the Dark Tower was a good read, but the ending really burned me. I think if you go in to the experience not expecting much from the last conclusion, you might actually enjoy it more. Not the best series ever, but it does have a unique environment (sort of LOTR meets The Good, Bad and the Ugly) and an epic quality.
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