Books Read: 2007
Aug. 14th, 2007 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendi75. Crooked Little Vein, by Warren Ellis. This book starts out with Godzilla bukkake, and only gets more fucked up as the plot progresses. That plot, incidentally, is a search across America for the Lost Secret Constitution of the US, which will keep everyone in line. Along the way, down-and-out detective Michael McGill encounters the royally-fucked underbelly of America, featuring serial killers, cultists, businessmen (in ascending order of evil), and lots of sex and violence. We also get conspiracies, humor, and a heroin-addicted White House Chief of Staff. Highly recommended. Also recommended: Whatever drugs Ellis takes.
76. Your Movie Sucks, by Roger Ebert. This compendium of Ebert's negative reviews takes its title from his famous slam on Rob Schneider. Like many critics, Ebert is at his best when he's slamming a deserving target, and this book, which takes on such worthless wastes of time as Chaos, A Cinderella Story, Christmas with the Kranks, and Failure to Launch, is full of witty insults and Ebert's usually-sharp analysis. He does drop the ball at times, most notably with Josie and the Pussycats ("The movie is a would-be comedy about prefab bands and commercial sponsorship, which may mean that the movie's own plugs for Coke, Target, Starbucks, Motorola and Evian are part of the joke." Um, you think? Emphasis mine, btw), but my disagreements with him are, more often than not, a matter of degree and/or different strokes. It's a quick and fun read which reminded me of many, many reasons to hate Hollywood. Recommended.
77. Killer's Wedge, by Ed McBain. The final in the trilogy-within-the-series featuring McBain's unwilling attempt to bring in Cotton Hawes as a lead character, this one still manages to make Steve Carella the focus even as he's away from most of the action (spending his time in a b-plot solving a locked-room murder). Over in the A-plot, a widow who blames Carella for imprisoning her late husband takes the polices station hostage (thanks to some nitro her husband had left around), threatening Hawes, Meyer, and the rest of the 87th Precinct gang. As always, it's a quick and entertaining read, with some wonderful prose thrown into the otherwise-straightforward plot. Recommended.
ETA: I forgot to mention that Killer's Wedge is the book that reveals that Meyer Meyer's wife's maiden name is "Lipkin." I'm amused. :-)
76. Your Movie Sucks, by Roger Ebert. This compendium of Ebert's negative reviews takes its title from his famous slam on Rob Schneider. Like many critics, Ebert is at his best when he's slamming a deserving target, and this book, which takes on such worthless wastes of time as Chaos, A Cinderella Story, Christmas with the Kranks, and Failure to Launch, is full of witty insults and Ebert's usually-sharp analysis. He does drop the ball at times, most notably with Josie and the Pussycats ("The movie is a would-be comedy about prefab bands and commercial sponsorship, which may mean that the movie's own plugs for Coke, Target, Starbucks, Motorola and Evian are part of the joke." Um, you think? Emphasis mine, btw), but my disagreements with him are, more often than not, a matter of degree and/or different strokes. It's a quick and fun read which reminded me of many, many reasons to hate Hollywood. Recommended.
77. Killer's Wedge, by Ed McBain. The final in the trilogy-within-the-series featuring McBain's unwilling attempt to bring in Cotton Hawes as a lead character, this one still manages to make Steve Carella the focus even as he's away from most of the action (spending his time in a b-plot solving a locked-room murder). Over in the A-plot, a widow who blames Carella for imprisoning her late husband takes the polices station hostage (thanks to some nitro her husband had left around), threatening Hawes, Meyer, and the rest of the 87th Precinct gang. As always, it's a quick and entertaining read, with some wonderful prose thrown into the otherwise-straightforward plot. Recommended.
ETA: I forgot to mention that Killer's Wedge is the book that reveals that Meyer Meyer's wife's maiden name is "Lipkin." I'm amused. :-)