Sci-Fi Book # 36 - Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

It feels a bit weird that Cat's Cradle is included on the Sci-Fi list. It doesn't really feel like science fiction but I guess technically it is because it deals with a new invention that pretty much ends up destroying the planet. Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors and this is one his best book, so of course I loved it. Like most Vonnegut books the story is a bit absurd... it is narrated by a man that is writing a book about one of the (fictional) inventors of the atom bomb. However he gets sidetracked and after learning about the peculiarities of the man's family he ends up visiting a small island nation where the inventor's children are all at. Through a series of unfortunate events this ends up leading to the destruction of most life on Earth. I feel like that description barely scratches the surface of what the book is about... I'd just recommend that you read it. I didn't even mention Bokononism which is a major part of the book... It gets an A.

Book # 50 Harry Potter (Book 7 of 7) - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

I can't believe it took me almost two years to reread all of the Harry Potter books... For such a long series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wraps up everything pretty nicely and is a satisfying conclusion. Some thoughts after rereading it  - I had completely forgotten that Lupin and Tonks die in the final battle; it is still sad when Dobby gets killed; and the epilogue remains a bit cheesy. I enjoyed the book, it was definitely better than the previous book but not quite as good as books 4 and 5. At times it seems as if Rowling was rushed to finish the book since it lacks the charm and whimsical descriptions that are in the previous books. This time the plot is the main reason to keep reading it. I'll give this one an A-. 

Horror Book # 22 Books of Blood Clive Barker Volume 2 of 6

Maybe reading the first volume of Books of Blood desensitized me a bit, but it seemed like the second volume was a bit less shocking. Overall I still enjoyed the collection and each of the stories was interesting but not quite as memorable as the ones from the first volume... except for the last story - New Murders in the Rue Morgue... which was every bit as crazy and unexpected as one could hope for. It basically adds on to Poe's classic story as a sorta sequel and adds a new layer to it. I'll give volume 2 of  Clive Barker's Books of Blood a B.

Mystery Book # 7 - The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, is one of the first real "mystery" novels of its time. It has a bunch of the things that show up in the mystery genre -  someone playing detective, a bunch of suspects, and an explanation at the end of how the crime was committed. The mystery here is the disappearance of a giant diamond that a young English woman receives as an inheritance on her 18th birthday. Is it one of her two possible suitors? A maid? A visiting doctor? Or even a group of Indians that worship the stone?

The story is told from different points of view, so having different narrators as the story went along kept it interesting. Overall I really enjoyed it and was surprised how modern of a book it felt for something over 160 years old. My only minor quibble is that it is a bit longer than it really needs to be. I highly recommend it for anyone that likes nineteenth century English literature or a good mystery. A.

Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt

So I think I'm going to try something slightly different with the entries for this blog.... I'm going to keep myself to a five minute time limit for the first draft and then maybe three minutes to clean it up and add a picture. When I first started the blog I could spend almost an hour on an entry and eventually I took less and less time... And it isn't like anyone is really even reading this, I'm just finding it a useful tool to keep track of the books I've read and what I briefly thought of them at the time. So, that now leaves me with two minutes on the clock to say something about Silver Screen Fiend.... I thought it was okay. I wanted to read it because the author talks about how he became addicted to seeing movies at the New Beverly Cinema... which is a pretty cool place to see movies. His stories were funny but the book also had a lot about his early career as a comedian which really wasn't all that interesting and I'd have liked more thoughts about the movies themselves. Anyway, time's up, I'll give it a B-.

Horror Book # 22 Books of Blood Clive Barker Volume 1 of 6

When I was a kid I vaguely remember someone having a volume of Books of Blood and saying that it was super scary and they couldn't even sleep with the book in the same room. I'm thinking it was this book but maybe not... anyway that was what I went into thinking before reading the first volume. And for the most part it is a scary book... even more so than the Stephen King I've read. I really enjoyed the stories... they were all pretty varied and had different types of scares. Three of the stories stick out as being the best... one was about a serial killer on the subway, another about a demon that tries to destroy a normal guy (it is actually played for laughs and is comedic) and one that ended up being about a possessed pig that does horrible stuff. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the volumes, this one gets an A-.

Book # 148 & Mystery Book # 8 - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Ahhh.... The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler  - one of my favorite books. Rereading it was so much fun. This is the first book in the Phillip Marlowe series and it is the defining classic of the hard boiled detective genre. Chandler describes things like no one else... here's a link to some of the best lines from the book https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1222673-the-big-sleep.  There are some classic lines in there...

The plot involves Marlowe investigating a blackmail case which quickly escalates to multiple murder cases involving a whole bunch of criminals all around Los Angeles. What I hadn't noticed the first time I had read it is that one of the murders is actually never solved and Marlowe seems to forget all about it by the end. Apparently Chandler was asked about this when they were preparing the script for the movie and Chandler hadn't realized his mistake! So who killed the chauffeur? We'll never know.  It is the kind of book where the details of the plot aren't the most important thing to keep track of...

This book stays in my top 50 of all time... I highly recommend it even if you really aren't all that into mystery books. A+.