Dirty Daddy // Bob Saget {Audiobook}

Oh my GOD I got Alan to read a book. Okay, listen to a book. Without internet. While trapped on an airplane. In other news: we went to Arkansas for an action-packed week of alcohol and board games with friends!

 Why I'm reading
Bob Saget, star of Full House, bastion of 90s TV.

Where I got the book
Overdrive, Greenwich Library.

Expectations
It’s called Dirty Daddy, and I’ve certainly heard how bad his stand-up can be, so… dirty.

So how was it?

And -- it wasn’t. Dirty, that is. It was a fairly clean and even motivational memoir about Sagat's life and family, and most of the crude humor seemed tacked on to keep the reader from getting bored.

Apparently, despite what we've all heard, Bob Saget actually is (a slightly ruder) Danny Tanner. And that’s actually pretty neat.

Recommendation
Fans of Full House, or Bob Saget in general. Not for people who can’t handle a few “my laptop is melting my balls” jokes, but it doesn’t go much further than that.

Feels
Heartfelt, but inexperienced in terms of writing.

Favorites
The unexpectedly heartwarming focus on the role of humor in times of tragedy.

Least favorites
Like quite a few memoirs, this one falls into the trap of talking about itself way too much -- naval gazing about the process of writing a memoir, the whys and wheres, the deadlines, how far along it is, how silly and awkward it is to be writing about oneself, etc. etc. Sagat is an actor and comedian who can write jokes, but doesn’t seem comfortable writing an actual book.

Writing style
Conversational and heartfelt, with a dirty joke tacked on every few paragraphs.

I Sing the Body Electric // Ray Bradbury {Audiobook}

I feel bad putting this in (it totally isn’t going in my Goodreads or LibraryThing) because I never finished it. It just wasn’t working for me in the car… every time I started a new short story, I had to re-invest and figure out a whole new world, plot, characters, etc. Badbury is definitely more “reading on a sunny bench” material, not “stay awake and entertained during your two hour commute” material. It doesn’t help that it was front-loaded with several stories I didn’t like.

"The Kilimanjaro Device"
A stranger shows up, looking for a local old man who has passed away -- an author who inspired him, and many others, but who didn't die at the right time. Enter his wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey runs-on-wanting-it-hard-enough pickup truck. I dunno, I really just did not connect with this one.

"The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place"
Drunken Irishmen plot to overthrow a local lord, because that's what all the cool kids are doing. The lord ends up quietly bamboozling them into carrying paintings around. Another one I didn't really connect with.

"Tomorrow's Child"
Through the magic of Victorian technobabble, a young couple gives birth to a small blue pyramid. Weird, but interesting.

"The Women"
Wife vs. mysterious female seaweed entity. The imagery was cool, but I wasn't a huge fan of the way he characterized women/femininity. Not to mention the complete lack of communication and empathy between wife and husband. Why try to trick your husband by sending him on stupid errands for hotdogs and sunblock, instead of, oh, maybe "I don't know why, but I don't feel safe; can we go somewhere else?"

"The Inspired Chicken Motel"
A family during the Great Depression. A chicken farm. An egg with a mysterious message on it. What? I liked the family dynamics, at least.

“Downwind from Gettysburg”
A descendant of John Wilkes Booth murders an electric Abraham Lincoln. Actually pretty good, although not nearly as sci-fi as it sounds.

"Yes, We'll Gather at the River"
Inhabitants of a small town come to terms with a new highway, which will take traffic and commerce away from their community. I kept waiting for something sci-fi to happen… or, I don’t know, anything to happen.

“The Cold Wind and the Warm”
A gaggle of sweet, pretty, effervescent, attractive men descend onto a traditional Irish town. This was an insanely fun read, and not just because of the casting call going on in my head.

"Night Call, Collect"
 A man stranded for decades, alone, on the moon, is terrorized by interactive recordings he set for himself way back in his younger days. Felt like very classic scifi.

"The Haunting of the New"
An author comes back to find his raunchy, rich old flame is depressed, and her home has kicked her out. I wasn’t sure how to take this one; I liked it -- I liked her -- but the ending was very sex-negative.

"I Sing the Body Electric!"
After their mother dies, a young family brings in an electric grandma to take care of them. WONDERFUL -- reminds me of Data from Star Trek, for obvious reasons. I kept imagining Cate Blanchett playing an ageless robotic grandma.

 "The Tombling Day"
A family digs up an old graveyard to make room for new construction. One of the graves belongs to grandma’s ex-fiance, who died when they were young -- and he hasn’t aged a day. I didn’t like grandma, but the story was weird and interesting.

"Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's Is a Friend of Mine"
An anachronistic Charles Dickens rolls up into town and makes friends with a young boy. Interesting read, although it felt like it was supposed to resonate with something deep inside the reader… and whatever that something is, I don’t have it.

As-yet unlistened-to :
"Heavy-Set"
"The Man in the Rorschach Shirt"
"Henry the Ninth"
"The Lost City of Mars"
“The Blue Bottle”
“One Timeless Spring”
“The Parrot who Met Papa”
“The Burning Man”
“A Piece of Wood”
“The Messiah”
“G.B.S. : mark V”
“The Utterly Perfect Murder”
“Punishment Without Crime”
“Getting Through Sunday Somehow”
“Drink Entire : Against the Madness of Crowds”
"Christus Apollo"

Ready Player One // Ernest Cline {Audiobook}

I wrote an extremely long and actually fantastic review of Ready Player One, with all sorts of insightful ramblings and meaningful commentary. It was pretty much the greatest review in the world.

This is not that review; this is just a tribute.

In a spectacular show of fail, I managed to lose that review completely. That’ll teach me to write something directly in the Blogger interface… I was lured in by the promise of cloud backup, and clearly forgot the ancient teachings of livejournal.  

Why I'm reading
I’d heard some great things about this book, but also some not-so-great things. It seems like the kind of book that’s fantastic if it’s your thing, and stupidly self-indulgent if it’s not.


Where I got the book
Greenwich library, audiobook format.

Expectations
Your classic YA Marty Stu character -- overpowered, angsty, shallow, and special -- with a nerdy 'uncool but secretly super cool' bent. And for some reason, I think I had a vague impression of Tron leotards, which is strange, since I know very little about Tron. In retrospect, this was not entirely incorrect.

So how was it?

Ready Player One is fairly easy to sum up: it’s almost Willy Wonka, but with 1980s nerd trivia instead of chocolate. A rich gaming guru dies, leaving his fortune -- and control of his massive multiplayer online virtual reality gaming company (OASIS) -- to the winner of a contest. We follow the five young frontrunners as they try to win before the employees of a faceless rival company take over and ruin OASIS for everyone.

This book was a little bit of a roller-coaster for me. The first few chapters were incredibly engaging, and then it took a rambling left turn into Self-Righteous Opinionville, for a chapter, before getting back on its feet, leveling out, ramping up to some pretty fun stuff about two-thirds in, and rolling to a gently satisfying conclusion.

Recommendation
If you like references to video games and 1980s pop culture, you’ll love this book (although you don’t need to understand the references in order to enjoy it). If that sounds irritating, this is really really really not the book for you.

Feels
Exciting, dangerous; cyberpunk post-apocalyptic, but not too gritty.

Favorites
Both side-kick characters were awesome. There’s also a major plot point with the evil rival company, but I don’t want to spoil it.

Least favorites
The book starts out well for the first chapter or so, but -- like I said -- it takes a bad turn for about a chapter. The author more or less hijacks the story to ramble on about some shallow and angry take on ecology, social responsibility, economics, etc. The worst offender is this little plot sinkhole: the economy starts to tank, with resources getting scarce, so people moved into the overcrowded city for the express purpose of finding food and work, because there was nothing to survive on in the rest of the country. You know, nothing but arable farmland.

Writing style
Engaging, with lots of focus on details and textures, which works for a story that takes place in both the real world and a virtual reality construct. I listened to the audiobook, which could not have had a better narrator (Wil Wheaton).

So what did I really think?

Click "read more"... massive spoilers ahead!

The Lays of Beleriand // J.R.R. Tolkien

Unfinished epic poems ; mainly the Ley of Leithian (following Beren and Luthien) and the the Lay of the Children of Hurin (following Turin). 

Where I got the book
A very expensive birthday and Christmas present.

Why I’m reading
I’ve loved Tolkien’s works since I read LoTR, but the Silmarillion really sealed my fate. The world he created is amazing.

Expectations
I’m halfway through this section right now. I remember expecting… well, more of the same, after finishing the BoLT. I was also expecting much more fragmentary works. 

So how was it?

The lays are… lays! They’re written as long poems. For some reason, I was not expecting that. I also wasn't expecting it to be so pleasant to read; I usually hate poetry. It reminds me of a fanfic drabble: every word chosen carefully, lots of rich details but nothing extraneous. Maybe when I have the house to myself I will read them aloud. {EDIT: I did, and it was amazing.}

"The Lay of Leithian" is the familiar story of Beren and Lúthien. The rhyming couplets are perfect for this story; I prefer it over all the other prose versions. It also has a lot more detail. "The Lay of the Children of Húrin" is in alliterative verse, and I enjoyed it, although maybe not as much. I don’t know a lot about poetry, but alliterative verse was a much better choice than rhyming couplets, since it’s a much darker story.

Favorites
Lúthien faces down Morgoth. She is brilliant as always, but it’s the characterization of Morgoth himself that gets to me: you can feel his hatred of the Valar, how convincing he can be, and how twisted his view of the world. [Lúthien faces down Morgoth. She is brilliant as always, but it’s the characterization of Morgoth himself that gets to me: you can feel his hatred of the Valar, how convincing he can be, and how twisted his view of the world. (hide spoiler)]

Least favorites
None of it is finished! Luckily we know how the stories end, but I would love to read them all the way through in verse.

Writing style
Alliterative verse and rhyming couplets.

The Book of Lost Tales // J.R.R. Tolkien

A collection of very early manuscripts, including early versions of stories later included in the Silmarillion ; edited and commentated by his son Christopher Tolkien.

Where I got the book
A very expensive birthday and Christmas present.

Why I’m reading
I’ve loved Tolkien’s works since I read LoTR, but the Silmarillion really sealed my fate. The world he created is amazing.

Expectations
I’m writing this having already started and finished the BoLT volumes, so I will try to remember my expectations going in. I did try to read a little bit of the HoME/UT as a teenager, in these awful paperback books, and just couldn’t get into it. So I expected a struggle. I also went into it with a huge preference for elves and elvish history, and wasn’t so excited to read stories about humans. In retrospect, I might have been struggling through The Children of Húrin back then...

So how was it?

First of all, what IS The Book of Lost Tales? It’s a collection of Tolkien’s unpublished and unfinished writings, brought together and annotated by his son Christopher Tolkien. It includes rejected ideas, drafts, outlines, and variations as well as comparisons and notes on the evolution of the texts. Ever wanted to know how Tolkien developed his iconic elves, what Melian was originally named, or a more detailed account of Gondolin? BoLT is your book.

No idea what I’m talking about? Check out my post on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The BoLT blew my mind, especially Part I. These are Tolkien’s very early writings, before his concept of the world was fully developed. And wow, I’m very glad that he did develop it further. His elves were once decidedly closer to fairies and gnomes. He had an entirely different framework for telling these tales, one which he eventually (and in my opinion, rightly) discarded. Some of the concepts and ideas were very whimsical and childish (like “the cottage of lost play”) and don’t seem to fit Tolkien’s high-fantasy world.

Part II and the later sections of Part I are much closer to Tolkien’s finalized world. There are all sorts of familiar stories, not always “accurate” to published canon, but often with much more detail; most of these stories were revised and shortened before being added to the Silmarillion. The tales were not yet sewn together by the story of the Silmarils; the jewels were a side-story at best, and the Sons of Fëanor were not fully realized. I don’t think I appreciated how intricately Tolkien wove the Silmarillion together until I read BoLT.

Favorites
Glorfindel! He’s a side character at best, but one of my favorites. The BoLT contains the full narrative of the Fall of Gondolin, which is only summarized in the Silmarillion. Gondolin itself, while not a “character,” is one of my favorite sections, especially Tuor and Idril. I won’t lie; I broke out the sticky notes to mark Gondolin sections. The detailed variations on the creation story, the sun and moon, the trees, etc., were also wonderful. It was fascinating to watch the Silmaril narrative develop.

Least favorites
Oh god, Ælfwine. The original framework was the story of Ælfwine, an Englishman who journeys to an elven land and hears tales of elvish history. It ties the story together and embeds it into English history… but the entire thing is just too whimsical and fairytale-like. I love the sort of nonsense whimsy you find in children’s bedtime stories, but it just isn’t right for Tolkien’s world. [ The original framework was the story of Ælfwine, an Englishman who journeys to an elven land and hears tales of elvish history. It ties the story together and embeds it into English history… but the entire thing is just too whimsical and fairytale-like. I love the sort of nonsense whimsy you find in children’s bedtime stories, but it just isn’t right for Tolkien’s world. (hide spoiler)]

Writing style
Tolkien paints a wonderfully full, detailed, high-fantasy world, full of fantastic characters and beautiful scenery. Lots of repeated themes: betrayal, greed, love, oaths, etc. Many of the stories seemed darker than in the Silmarillion, which I very much appreciated.

I recently had a friend (a reader and a fantasy fan) complain that Tolkien “interrupts” his story too often. I can see where she’s coming from; but to insist that side stories like the Entwives were interruptions and just bad writing, not world-building? This is what happens when you speed read through everything, children. ಠ_ಠ

Finally, you can’t tackle BoLT without warning: CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN IS SUPER PEDANTIC. No criticism is intended; it’s just that he has taken great pains to present and interpret his father’s drafts, notes, corrections, re-writes, name changes, etc. etc. as accurately as possible. So be prepared to read (or skip through) his analysis and explanations for every section.

Similar books

• Christopher Tolkien’s notes are similar to what you would find in a study Bible.
• Most of these stories can be found in their final form in the Silmarillion.
• The stories of Tuor and Eärendel are similar to the epic tales of Aeneas (the Aeneid) and Odysseus (the Odyssey) while Túrin’s is closer to the Oedipus tragedy.
• The story of Beren and Lúthien (Tinúviel) shares themes with Romeo and Juliet, although to me it has always felt like Baucis and Philemon. And, of course, it is similar to the love story between Arwen and Aragorn.