Video Games, Porn, the Constitution, Nazies, and Torture, Oh My!

It's time for a brief rundown because my recent batch of books makes that demand.  The last month or so has been a strange combination.  I'm reading in a glass case of emotion and Charles Dickens is smearing it with mud while taunting me.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, by Patton Oswalt

This was like no other "comedian" book I have read. It was funny, but also artistic.  He wrote about experiences as short stories and changed his voice throughout the book.  At the end his stand-up voice came through most clear and I could hear him wailing his lines like he often does on stage.  I am still digesting it, but I really enjoyed the read.  

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Total nerd candy.  I enjoyed this one as a necessary relief from the monstrosity that will get its treatment below (I need to heed warnings more often).

It's a total 80s nostalgia book that is set in the future.  I realize how messed up that sounds, but it works when a billionaire decides to give his fortune to the first nerd who can solve his video game puzzle based on his 1980s tastes.  If conservatives ever want to know how to keep progress down, just involve video games somehow and the masses will oblige.  Too soon?

So, anyway, it is also a little too close to home because it is also a dystopia theme about people never leaving their homes or engaging in conversation.  They refer to the act of evicting a gamer who stopped paying rent as a "C-Section" and, quite frankly, I know people who may one day face such an event.  Cline describes one such incident so well you can almost see the withered nerd being forcibly unplugged from his gaming module.  It is creepy, but I can't call it outlandish.  I just give a solemn  nod.  



The video games involved were familiar.  As were the movies and television shows.  Everything was  a fun trip down memory lane.  I remember so much of the references and I found myself looking up information about long-forgotten games and shows.  It was a trip.


The only exception was the one part of the 80s I apparently missed completely:  I have no idea why so many people like the band Rush.  Nerds and non-nerds alike of my generation love that band and I will never get it.  I had to sleep-walk through the part of the book that I now know to be an obligatory 80's nerd flagellation.  I have heard some of the music and it makes me think of corncob pipes and straw hats.  I know, I know... all their concert shirts are black and red and "hard rockers" worship that band, but I DO NOT GET IT.  I think that band sucks every which way and sideways, but ... well, we can't love everything about an era.  Seriously, have you listened to that band?  Geddy Lee (corncob pipe?  Anyone named Lee has to have one right?) sounds like a little kid and they use synthesizers!  Even scary-looking rocker-dudes love that band and it's as crazy to me as any Bronie.

Snuff, by Chuck Palahniuk

It's a book about men waiting in line to screw a porn star who is trying to set a gang-bang record.  Yeah, that's right.  And, it somehow spoke to the human condition and developed those characters in an interesting way.  It was clever and fun and, yeah, a bit raunchy and nutty (to be fair... it is Chuck Palahniuk, so duh).  It was also funny.  It filled my annual "book about broken people" slot on this blog.  I have a need to read at least one book about train-wreck people and this was it.  Stop looking at me like that.   Chuck Palahniuk made this work and it was entertaining as hell.  (You can stop looking at me like that any time now... you know you'd love to read it too). 

And this book made me need to read something serious-ish, which led to...

Six Amendments, by John Paul Stevens

(The only one of these I'm using my Goodreads review for on here, but I'm not in a serious enough mood to write about this one new).

I will avoid going into detail because of the subject matter (I realize this book touches on controversial topics), but I really enjoyed it. Any reader, whether agree or disagree with the six proposals in this book, if the reader is fair, will respect his careful and thorough reasoning. Justice Stevens has been working under the hood of our constitution for the better part of 40 years. He knows the rattles, the leaky spots, and he has watched its interpretation change for better and worse through so many SCOTUS opinions.

So, whether a person agrees with his particular proposals on a subject or not, Stevens is among a very small number of people who know our governing document at the very highest levels, and a fair-minded reader will find enrichment regardless of comfort. Stevens shows his work and makes strong logical arguments, as he did so often from the bench. Unfortunately, it's going to be given mostly 1s and 5s because he dares to speak of flashpoint topics. I can say I read every word and it is a really good argument by someone with elite-level constitutional credibility. It does go into some legal depth, so be warned, but I thought he was very clear in his presentation.
 
Going Solo, by Roald Dahl

My friend Chris L. is a freaking book-whisperer.  First, he recommends the Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, and now Going Solo.  These two books are absolutely amazing, unique in all ways, and each one qualifies as diamonds in the rough that is completely off the mainstream radar.  I would never find either of these books myself and each one was a total gem.  Chris somehow recommended them both and they were his ONLY TWO RECOMMENDATIONS.  He now recommends I read an author who writes about a vampire in India.  I usually avoid vampire books, but Chris is on a roll and, quite frankly, this idea sounds like another winner.  (Side note: If that vampire has abs of steel and doesn't do a ton of sit-ups, I'm DONE).

Going Solo was amazing.  I had no idea the writer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a genuine war hero and that he writes the most witty, humble, and engrossing life story I have ever read.  This book kept me riveted to my seat.  It is short, but intense.  He states right at the start that he thinks the only things anyone wants to know about anyone else are the truly remarkable parts.  This book has zero fat on it.  Every storyline is completely engrossing and fascinating.  It is the leanest and most thrilling 200 pages I can remember reading.  He tries to save a woman dragged away by a lion in Africa, faces a few massive and poisonous snakes, tries to stop Germans from leaving an African town when war started, crash lands his fighter between two warring armies and nearly dies, becomes 1/5 of the entire surviving RAF pilot group that fought in Greece, and then fought in Haifa until his wounds and trauma forced them to send him home.

And, his trip home through bombed-out London and his eventual reunion with his mother was the absolute gut punch at the end.  Just a really great and uplifting read.  My early leader.

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

Dave told me.  He warned me.  I didn't listen. "Charles Dickens is terrible," he said. 

This book is about my profession, is listed on every top 100 list I have seen, and is widely considered one of the best works by a legendary author.  Everything pointed to me reading and loving this book. And, it is just terrible.

I am not done, but I am close.  I read that he was paid by the word and it shows.  There are moments, but they are surrounded by just so much... I don't even know what because I just don't care.  This one is a struggle.  I should have listened. 

I want to finish this book out of spite.  I want this book out of my life.  It is a really long book and I feel like I'm preparing to survive 15 rounds with in-his-prime Apollo Creed.  This clip sums up how I view getting through this one. Gonna fly now!