Hot Fudge Book Club

[guest]

I thought "Cell" was terrible and just about the worst King book I have ever read.

I noticed that book while perusing DPL's holdings. As a hater of cell phone users, I found the premise of a zombie invasion triggered by phone pulses appealing. Thanks for the warning.

Another prolific writer who I've recently become aware of is Dean Koontz. His output makes King's bibliography pale for sheer volume, and it's good stuff: crime potboilers with healthy doses of time travel, demonic possession, genetic experiments run amock and more all mixed together in a frothy broth. I don't know why I never heard of this guy but I blame a confusion with celebrity concept artist Jeff Koons. The DPL is full of this guy's work.

Books I returned yesterday include Kilpatrick's Surrendered. I warn any readers to constantly remind themselves that the man is proven crook and liar lest they become sucked into his delusions of victimhood and spiritual redemption. Oh, and he pretty much admits that he's not comfortable around white people.

Also finished David Sedaris' Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. If I'd known what it was about I would have left it on the shelf. Dude needs to stick to writing about real experiences with people, but it had big print, pictures, and was mercifully short. On a side note, Sedaris has a weird sadistic streak which might be hepled by therapy.

Today I read the last of a book by medical examiner Hnery Lee. Apparently he's co-authored a collection of books which detail an assortment of cases he's been involved in. This volume included a chapter on the Phil Spector murder. The forensic evidence is very contradictory. I was pretty sure he did it. Now, not so much. Interestingly, I just looked at the citations for that chapter: Wikipedia, CourtTV.com and CourtTVNnews make up the bulk of that two page list. Hey, he's turned himself into a pop figure. It's only fitting that he quote pop culture sources.

Currently working on Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons and something called Reckless which is about the Spector case. While in the Monteith Branch yesterday (scheduled for closing, boo!) I found You Can Run But You Can't Hide by TV's Dog the Bounty Hunter. How bad can that be? At the very least it gets points for not making me look at the guy. I brought it home.

Shit weather continues and I'm off until Thursday. I predict I'll get some reading done.

[Doctor Detroit]

Plus One on World War Z. Written by the son of Mel Brooks, but no, it's not slapstick. Really fun read.

Re: David Sedaris, it's the perfect time of year to pick up his Holidays On Ice if you haven't read it. Dysfunctional Christmas stories will make you feel better about your own flock.

[middle aged female]

Plus One on World War Z. Written by the son of Mel Brooks, but no, it's not slapstick. Really fun read.

Re: David Sedaris, it's the perfect time of year to pick up his Holidays On Ice if you haven't read it. Dysfunctional Christmas stories will make you feel better about your own flock.

I love Holidays on Ice; especially his take on being an elf.

[guest]

I love Holidays on Ice; especially his take on being an elf.

I remember the elf story from his public radio appearances. I read When You Are Engulfed in Flames and I think something else. I'll have to look for his holiday book.

[middle aged female]

I love Holidays on Ice; especially his take on being an elf.

I remember the elf story from his public radio appearances. I read When You Are Engulfed in Flames and I think something else. I'll have to look for his holiday book.

I've read "Naked", "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and "Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim" as well as the Christmas collection. He hits a clinker now and then but as a rule, he's hilarious.

[Ya Mar]

In the middle of Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water" -- she is truly a fascinating woman. Big ideas, big vision, and a big picture of a loving and just Creator. I know most of the atheist ilk that hangs around here will find it downright stupid for somebody to read a book about the intersection of art & faith - but I find it a great read.

[Amadeus]

I'll second the poor review of "Cell." It seemed too wordy and ponderous to me.

'Fahrenheit 451' finally out as an e-book
Hillel Italie/ Associated Press
New York— At age 91, Ray Bradbury is making peace with the future he helped predict.

The science fiction/fantasy author and longtime enemy of the e-book has finally allowed his dystopian classic "Fahrenheit 451" to be published in digital format. Simon & Schuster released the electronic edition Tuesday.

Published in 1953, "Fahrenheit 451" has sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into 33 languages. It imagined a world in which the appetite for new and faster media leads to a decline in reading, and books are banned and burned. Bradbury himself has been an emphatic defender of traditional paper texts, saying that e-books "smell like burned fuel" and calling the Internet nothing but "a big distraction."

"It's meaningless; it's not real," he told the New York Times in 2009. "It's in the air somewhere."

In a statement released Tuesday, Simon & Schuster publisher Jonathan Karp said the new e-book was "a rare and wonderful opportunity to continue our relationship with this beloved and canonical author and to bring his works to new a generation of readers and in new formats."
Simon & Schuster also announced that a new paperback edition of "Fahrenheit 451" would go on sale in January. New paperbacks of two other Bradbury favorites, "The Martian Chronicles" and "Illustrated Man," will be available in March.

As the electronic market has grown to at least 20 percent of overall sales, a wave of former e-holdouts have changed their minds, notably "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling.

[The Suburban Avenger]

Picked up "Our Man in Tehran" from the library and can't put it down. The Canadian ambassador to Iran and embassy staffers hid six American diplomats during the hostage crisis and he became a valuable link to the CIA throughout. Good read so far. About halfway through.

[Roquefort Robert]

I love Holidays on Ice; especially his take on being an elf.

I remember the elf story from his public radio appearances. I read When You Are Engulfed in Flames and I think something else. I'll have to look for his holiday book.

I've read "Naked", "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and "Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim" as well as the Christmas collection. He hits a clinker now and then but as a rule, he's hilarious.

I have not gotten around to reading anything by David Sedaris, but Amy Sedaris' book on hosting parties, "I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence" is very highly recommended. Plus, she's pretty fucking hot.

[guest]

I have not gotten around to reading anything by David Sedaris, but Amy Sedaris' book on hosting parties, "I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence" is very highly recommended. Plus, she's pretty fucking hot.

I'll second that.



Heywood?

[Roquefort Robert]

Oh come on...you can't use a character of hers to judge hotness. Try these...










For being 50 years old, hell, regardless of being 50, she's pretty fucking hot.

[middle aged female]

In the middle of Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water" -- she is truly a fascinating woman. Big ideas, big vision, and a big picture of a loving and just Creator. I know most of the atheist ilk that hangs around here will find it downright stupid for somebody to read a book about the intersection of art & faith - but I find it a great read.

I've only read a couple things by her, but one of my favorite books by far is "A Wrinkle in Time"

[Ya Mar]

In the middle of Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water" -- she is truly a fascinating woman. Big ideas, big vision, and a big picture of a loving and just Creator. I know most of the atheist ilk that hangs around here will find it downright stupid for somebody to read a book about the intersection of art & faith - but I find it a great read.

I've only read a couple things by her, but one of my favorite books by far is "A Wrinkle in Time"

Pick this up. You'd like it.

[Mulligan]

I am halfway through Walter Issacson's Steve Jobs bio. My favorite quote so far comes from Jean-Louis Gassee, Apple's manager in France whom Jobs tried his bully routine on when the Mac was being launched.

I remember grabbing his lapel and telling him to stop, and then he backed down. I used to be an angry man myself. I am a recovering assaholic. So I could recognize that in Steve.

[Mulligan]

Oh, and don't believe the "Cell" haters guest. Try the book for yourself. It's been at least five years but I recall being engrossed. Now my next King book after that, Lisey's Story, that was an exercise in self-torture. I don't know why I trudged through the whole thing.