title: i am america [and so can you!]
author: stephen colbert
purpose for reading: fun
copyright: 2007
pages: 227
chapters: 14
review: hilarious! the chapter on religion was one of my favourites, especially the chart on different "trains" in comparison to the jesus train like the crazy train [via ozzy osbourne], the night train, and the midnight train to georgia. if you are a fan of "the colbert report" on comedy central, you'll love this book. if you've ever seen the show and are familiar with "the word" section of the program, you'll understand all his notes in the margins of the book. the book reads the same way as "the word" plays on t.v. and it's funny as hell.
rating: 4.5/5
title: lightning
author: dean koontz
purpose: fun
copyright: 1988
pages: 351
chapters: ?
review: this book is very intriguing and catches the reader's attention very quickly after beginning. it's very suspenseful while still being emotional at times. the story focuses around laura shane who has had a "guardian" looking over her ever since birth. we meet laura on the night of her birth after her mother died during labour. from then on, we see her grow up and dodge serious harm to herself, but not without tragedy. the death of her father at age 12 makes her an orphan who's life is anything but easy. as time goes on, laura is finally able to talk to the guardian who has saved her from harm on numerous occasions and ask him who he is and why he cares so much about her. there's a bit of a twist here that i don't want to give away, but i will say this: this is a work of fiction so obviously some imagination has to be used. i think the twist in this book could make a lot of people say "okay this is just stupid" but koontz's writing is good enough that if you stick with the book and give yourself up to imagination, you'll start to think that this twist is actually a feasible thing. beyond that, laura's life is very interesting and her character development was done very well.
rating: 3.5/5
recommendation: odd thomas by dean koontz
title: emma
author: jane austen
purpose: book club
copyright: 1815
pages: 495
chapters: ?
review: i had no idea that the movie "clueless" starring alicia silverstone was based on emma but there were a lot of similarities between the book and the film that were impossible to ignore. sometimes this would help me when situations got confusing in the book because i have seen "clueless" too many times to count and could sort of expect what was coming. other times, the fact that i had seen the movie so many times hindered the book because it made certain scenarios boring because i already knew what the outcome would be. all in all, it is a classic book and my first austen. like any classic, i think you have to really try to transport yourself back to that time and think about how life was when the author was writing it. on the other hand, it's also interesting to examine the ways that our society has changed or stayed the same since 1815. for example, the book heavily focuses on different people marrying someone that is on the same "level" that they are in terms of money, power, and breeding. i think this still exists somewhat today. if we see some rich man marrying a middle income woman, we always think that she's just after his money and social standing. or sometimes if someone is very popular and good looking and they are with someone not so great looking, people will say that the former could do better than the latter. that's just my opinion and if you have a different one, i encourage you to let me hear it! : )
rating: 3/5
title: black hole
author: charles burns
purpose: book club
copyright: 2005
pages: ?
chapters: ?
review: black hole is a graphic novel that looks daunting because it is so thick, but truly, you could finish this book in a few hours. i thought the artwork was really cool, but the writing was terrible, even for a graphic novel. if you've ever read a graphic novel or a comic book, you know [if you will admit it to yourself], that sometimes the writing isn't all that great. it can be very descriptive, by which i mean someone will say "i am angry and now i will punch you." maybe that's not a great example and i might be exaggerating a bit, but in my opinion, what graphic novels add for imagery and visuals, they usually lose in writing. once again, only my opinion and if you're an avid reader of graphic novels/comic books and think differently, feel free to let me know. i admit that i just recently got into graphic novels and maybe i'm just reading the wrong ones! feel free to recommend some titles to us less-informed readers! : )
anyways, back to black hole. set in the 70's, the story is that a disease has struck a community that affects the teenagers. the disease is sexually transmitted and carriers of the disease develop deformities. for example, one girl grows a tail, another girl sheds her skin like a snake, someone else grows a second mouth on his neck. i really felt like burns romanticized not only drug use [which is to be expected whenever a text is about the 70's i guess], but more so, i felt that he romanticized STDs. for example, in the story, a non-infected guy ends up losing his virginity to the girl who has grown a tail. during sex, she tells him to pull on her tail and he ends up becoming aroused by her deformity. obviously, he now gets the disease and it manifests as scales on his body. these teenagers seem to be turned on by the deformities that the others have and in almost every sexual encounter that someone has with a diseased person, their deformity, whatever it may be, is involved.
i really didn't see the point of the book. i didn't think that it exposed much of anything. i didn't see the moral if there was one. if you've read this book and can shed some light on it, share your insight. i was pretty much the only one in the book club who really didn't like it. the other girls felt that it discussed the feeling of being an outcast in high school, but i thought that argument was kind of weak and little along the lines of grasping at straws.
rating: 2.5/5
title: judaism: a very short introduction
author: norman solomon
purpose: fun
copyright: 1996
pages: 136
chapters: 9
review: firstly, something i may or may not have mentioned before...i'm obsessed with jewish people and jewish culture. i'm not exactly sure why, but there it is. this is strange because i'm an athiest who was raised catholic. but i am fascinated by jewish customs and traditions and respect their belief in god. anyways..."very short" is right. things weren't explained very well in this book and i don't feel like i gained any insight into the jewish culture beyond things i already knew. i wouldn't recommend wasting your time reading this book if you're interested in learning about judaism.
rating: 1/5
title: i'm a lebowski, you're a lebowski: life, the big lebowski, and whathaveyou
author: bill green, ben peskoe, will russel, and scott shuffitt
purpose: fun
pages: 234
chapters: 7
review: this book is for anyone who is a die-hard fan of coen brother's cult classic "the big lebowski." this book is simply fun. it's a great fanbook written by the founders of lebowski fest, an annual festival celebrating "the big lebowski" and all its fans [look for a link to the lebowski fest website in my "check this out!" section on the left-hand side of the blog]. the book is filled with quotes and interviews with the actors of the film, as well as some celebrity fans of the movie like tony hawk and patton oswalt. there are lot of interesting facts that you might not have picked up in the movie, as well as a "by your side guide" to the movie. on top of that, after reading the book, you'll have learned about the man that inspired the lazy man's hero, the dude, as well as the three men who make up walter.
but hey, if you're going to read this book, make sure you do it before the sabbath...SHOMER FUCKIN' SHABBOS!
rating: 3.5/5
title: the rising
author: brian keene
purpose: recommended by a friend of my dad's who is big into horror and zombies
copyright: 2004
pages: 321
chapters: 23
review: this is a pretty decent zombie book which has both similarities and differences from other zombie stories. for example, along the same lines of the movie "28 days later," civilians come under military abuse of power after the zombie rising [and yes, i know "28 days later" isn't technically a zombie movie, but everyone categorizes it as that...and if you haven't seen that movie...WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE!?...see that movie now!!!!]. i have to admit that if the zombies had been like most where they are slow moving and just mindless flesh-eating machines, i wouldn't have enjoyed the book as much as i had and might have tried to quickly finish it and move on. however, the rising features a different kind of zombie: a zombie who can talk and do anything a human can, just at a slower pace, obviously. the zombies can shoot guns, drive cars, and really screw with a person's head. in this book, when a person or an animal dies [yes, there are zombie animals!], a new entity takes over the corpse after the soul of the person has left. the best way to think of this entity is as a demon. apparently, there is an infinity amount of demons waiting to take over the corpses of the recently dead and inherit the earth. when a demon takes over your body, it can see everything that you remember from your life. it will know who your kids are, what job you worked at when you were alive, and intimate and personal memories from your life. the zombies use this to really freak out their still-alive human counterparts. this new breed of zombie brought life to the genre for me [no pun intended]. altogether, a pretty enjoyable read...if you're into that kind of stuff.
rating: 3/5
title: killing yourself to live: 85% of a true story
author: chuck klosterman
purpose: fun
copyright: 2005
pages: 235
chapters: ?
review: if you've never read chuck klosterman, get on that shit now! he writes in the autobiographical first person and sometimes you read a section and sit there thinking to yourself "it must be exhausting to be him." i seriously don't even know where to start. he's so hilarious that you will literally "lol" while reading his stuff. this book is the story of him traveling cross-country going to the spots of the deaths of musicians. but more than that, it's an examination of why we're so obsessed with death and why people usually don't get recognition until they're dead. it's also about the dynamics of chuck's relationships with three women that he's either in love with or has been in love with in the past.
rating: 3.5/5
recommendation: sex, drugs and cocoa puffs by chuck klosterman
title: 1984
author: george orwell
purpose: fun
copyright: 1949
pages: 311
chapters: ?
review: i'd always wanted to read this book because it's a modern classic. it was pretty much exactly what i expected and it lived up to what i had heard about it being an unnerving story about an all-controlling government. i'm not big into politics and political parties, so i'm not sure if i 100% understand what this book meant when it was published in 1949.
rating: 3/5
recommendation: animal farm by george orwell
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