Book # 157 - Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Well it has now been 10 years since we started this blog and this will be the 312th book that I've read in that time. I've finished the initial task of reading 100 of the greatest novels of all time but there are still so many books out there! Anyway....

So yeah, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I was looking forward to reading this since I enjoyed The Road so long ago, but this book is pretty brutal. When I had read that it was considered "unfilmable" because it was so violent I thought "really, is that possible?" and now I see that yeah, it kind of is. I see the merit in the book and what I'm guessing is a commentary on America's past but at some point it is all just too much. B

Horror Book # 3 - It by Stephen King

 Somehow I had never gotten around to reading It. Probably because it is such a long book. So long. And so heavy too. Probably the best way to sum it up is that it is pretty much the ultimate Stephen King book. It is the most "Stephen King" of Stephen King books. Most every element in the book has appeared in other King works. A group of kids on a mission, neighborhood bullies, people possessed, an otherworldly entity, lots of movie/music/literature references, way too long for its own good, small town setting, a main character that is a novelist, etc... Still I enjoyed it. My main complaint is the length. It could easily have been 600 pages shorter. It got a bit repetitive with seven main characters all having a similar story - they each individually encounter It/Pennywise, get scared, and run away and escape. With this repeating again with them as adults. A-

Also I'll mention that maybe some enjoyment of the book was tempered by recent current events. When what's going on in the world is worse than the events in a horror novel it probably says something about America. Yeah Pennywise gets a dozen kids but in real life anyone can easily get a gun and do far worse. And when the evil in the world is visibly worse than the evil in a fantasy horror book it is quite sad.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino

You know, I enjoyed reading Once Upon a Time in Hollywood more than I thought I would. I'm not sure if there's another example of a movie director writing the novelization of his own movie. It follows the broad story from the movie but takes some interesting detours and mixes up how the story is presented. In fact, the events from the ending of the movie are just mentioned off hand early on in the novel and never shown in any detail. It kind of changes what the story is really about.... less Manson family stuff and more about Rick Dalton turning his life around. A-

The Marvelous Land of Oz (Oz #2) by L. Frank Baum

 It literally took a few months of semi-regular nightly readings for me to read The Marvelous Land of Oz to Becky. I don't think either of us was really into it. We should have stopped after the first one. C+

Gwendy's Final Task (The Button Box #3) by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

 

You know, for a Stephen King book that is never particularly scary Gwendy's Final Task is pretty decent.  It doesn't over stay its welcome and nicely wraps up the trilogy while bringing in some story elements from The Dark Tower series and It. Maybe it doesn't offer much if you aren't already a King fan but I enjoyed it. B+

Mystery Book # 92- Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

 Devil in a Blue Dress gets right in that perfect spot of being a familiar type of story that I enjoy (a typical detective noir story complete with femme fatales, shady businessmen, a Los Angeles setting, etc) with enough of a twist to inject some new life into the genre. For what it is, I'll give it an A.

Sci-Fi Book # 39- Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

I first read Rendezvous with Rama when I was probably 14 or 15 and I'm now realizing that I probably have the thought "why can't this book/film be more like Rendezvous with Rama" fairly often when I'm consuming some type of science fiction. Some 30+ years later I still enjoyed it, and I know I'll be wishing more science fiction was like it. Maybe this all explains why Ringworld was such a disappointment for me. It was a similar idea with a totally different approach that just didn't work for me. Do I need to read the sequels now? Maybe, but there are a lot of them. It is a bit of a Catch-22 - I want to know some answers about Rama but I have the feeling that any answers will feel anti-climactic. And if I read three more books to get some answers and there aren't any, I'll be a tad frustrated. Anyway, this one gets an A.