First we have The Game: Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists by Neil Strauss. This was recommended to me by Susan, who thought it was brilliant. Me, not so much. I got 98 pages into it before putting it down for good. I figure if I'm going to read about some guy learning how to pick up women for quick one night stands, I at least want him to be funny, sympathetic, and/or sincere. This guy is none of the above. I didn't care about him, any of the other people in the book, or what they were doing. I guess Susan might have liked it because it was all about salesmanship, but I just felt vaguely icked out and bored. I suppose the one good thing about the book is that looks exactly like a bible. Faux black leather cover, gold trimmed pages, red ribbon bookmark. I felt very religious reading it. Ironic, really.
Secondly, my friend Dave's wife's brother bought a copy of Spin by Robert Charles Wilson for his father for Christmas. He showed it to me when I visited baby Zaara (and Dave and Gaia, of course). This science fiction novel begins when all of a sudden all the stars in the sky disappear. The flyleaf description sounded fascinating, and I made a note to pick it up from the library. I finally got it and read it this week. This is one of those books that you want to just keep reading. I resented anything that took me away from my book - work, going out, sleep. And to make the already interesting book even more fun, it had a subplot about fundamentaist Christians trying to breed a red heifer. A couple of months ago Mark explained the religious thought behind the whole red heifer thing, and we've been joking about it ever since. I really liked this book, which had interesting science, big ideas, and great character development. Thanks, Dave's wife's brother (whose name I'm blanking on, but for some reason I think it might start with an N)!
No comments:
Post a Comment