We drove down to Berkeley for a day trip of visiting book stores on Veterans Day.
Dorothea loves Berkeley and would like to move down there but I don’t think so for me. Too many people.
Right now, especially, my mental filters are tuned too highly for walking down the busy streets.
My brain was broadcasting orange alerts constantly. So many people that, for whatever reason, set off some sort of mental pattern recognition in my head which tried to demand my attention and point out a possible threat.
And the beggars along the street. Not used to that many. Reached the point of just ignoring their pleas rather quickly.
There was one though, a very old and filthy man, with raggedy long hair, who was sitting on the ground near an intersection, and as people passed he’d say ‘hello’ and look at them with these eyes of his. They looked like the eyes of somebody that wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Almost a child’s eyes.
We walked past him several times and each time he managed to bust through my walls and stab me with those eyes and that plaintive ‘hello’ but I kept walking, even though part of me was trying to get me to stop and give him some money or just ask him if he needed some help.
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I bought many books.
When I was younger I had tried to read some P.K. Dick book but it just didn’t appeal to me and I never tried him again. Recently I got the notion, for some reason, of giving him another try.
In one of the stores I found a paperback copy of Radio Free Albemuth, a book that was basically found after Dick died.
I opened it up and read the first page. The first page was about a guy who lived in Berkeley. And after reading that first page I wanted to keep reading, so I bought the book, thinking that it was an odd synchronicity that I had this hankering for reading this author and the first book of his I pick up, while in Berkeley, is about Berkeley.
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Later in the car, I am waiting for Doro and I pull out the book again to read a little more. I see that it has a prologue that I had missed when I looked at it in the bookstore.
This is the prologue:
In 1932 in April a small boy and his mother and father waited on an Oakland, California pier for the San Francisco ferry. The boy, who was almost four years old, noticed a blind beggar, huge with white hair and beard, standing with a tin cup. The little boy asked his father for a nickel, which the boy took over to the beggar and gave him. The beggar, in a surprisingly hearty voice, thanked him and gave him back a piece of paper, which the boy took to his father to see what it was.
“It tells about God,” his father said.
The little boy did not know that the beggar was not actually a beggar but a supernatural entity visiting Earth to check up on people. Years later the little boy grew up and became a man. In the year 1974 that man found himself in terrible difficulties facing disgrace, imprisonment, and possible death. There was no way for him to extricate himself. At that point the supernatural entity returned to Earth, loaned the man a part of his spirit, and saved him from his difficulties. The man never guessed why the supernatural entity came to rescue him. He had long ago forgotten the great bearded beggar and the nickel he had given him.
I now speak of these matters.
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I wish I had stopped to help that old beggar in Berkeley.
This is book two of the Acacia Trilogy. I enjoyed the first one both times I read it and this one is good too.
The world he creates is pretty original but it’s still comfortable to visit and read about, if that makes sense. Sometimes an author goes so far out into left field that they lose me along the way, but Durham keeps his creation accessible to me without following the well worn path that so much fantasy fiction travels along these days.
My only problem with the book is that I gotta wait for the third book to end the story 😛
According to Wikipedia, Jennings wrote this book based on a film treatment he had sold, which was made into a movie with the same name, starring John Wayne. That happens to be one of my favorite movies, I’ve watched it many times and the book follows the movie pretty closely (or vice versa).
Also on wikipedia it says the book “caused a lot of controversy among publishers due to its glimmers of homoeroticism”. I’d say those few glimmers are the main things that pop out as not being in the movie. And they aren’t major things, just glimmers, like the article says.
If you are a big fan of the movie, you’ll probably enjoy reading the book too.
The Final Solution – Michael Chabon A short little book about a certain famous British detective, in his twilight years, investigating a mystery during WWII involving a young Jewish boy, a parrot and strange numbers. I liked it, but I’ve been a Holmes fan for a long time.
Bust – Ken Bruen & Jason Starr A book from the Hard Case Crime publishers. A rich guy hires a dude to knock off his wife so he can marry his hot secretary. Things go very wrong all over the place. I don’t think there is a sympathetic character in this book, but I still liked it for some reason.
Mammoth – John Varley It’s been a while since I read a Varley book but I seem to recall them being better than this one. Not that this book sucks, it’s just I was expecting better. Mammoth is basically about the richest guy in the world and his efforts to clone a mammoth. It’s got time travel too, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, avoid it.
Acacia – David Anthony Durham A reread because the second book in this trilogy had just come out and my memory isn’t good enough on it’s own. I liked this book the second time too. 🙂
Dancing Aztecs – Donald E. Westlake Another funny crime book by the master. This one was published in 1076 and it has a definite 70’s vibe to it. I don’t remember watching the movie It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but this book reminded me of it. If you’ve read and enjoyed other Westlake books, you’ll like this one.
The Walking Drum – Louis L’Amour A non-Western by L’Amour. This was also a reread, but it’s been a lot longer since I read this one the last time. We had a thread going on the jakedog forums about books and L’Amour came up and made me nostalgic. I don’t know that I’ve read every book he’s written, but I certainly have read most of them. This one is set in the 12th Century and involves a fellow named Kerbouchard and his adventures across Europe and into Asia. I liked this book a lot more when I was younger, but it’s still a fun read.
The Man Who Never Missed – Steve Perry A science fiction book about a single guy trying to bring about a revolution against a ‘Galactic Confederation’. I’d never heard of it before, which is kind of odd, but it’s actually pretty good. I picked up the sequel recently and will start on it soon.
Cold In July – Joe R. Lansdale Another gritty crime book by Lansdale. A guy shoots and kills a burglar in his house and soon after, the dead burglar’s father is released from prison and comes visiting. Shit happens. Lansdale has a special way with writing redneck badass characters 🙂 This is a another good one.
The Big Sky – A.B. Guthrie, Jr Published in 1947 and the first in a loose trilogy of novels set in the early West (the second book, The Way West, won the Pulitzer in 1950), the main character in this book is Boone Caudill, who runs away from his home in Kentucky and heads West to become a mountain man. I generally liked the book and plan on reading the second book at some point.
I’ve already mentioned on this blog several times that Joe R. Lansdale is possibly my favorite living author. I’ve already told you to go out and buy his books. So, I won’t say all that again.
If you have read some of his earlier books and enjoyed them you will most likely enjoy this one too. None of the characters are from his other books (that I know of) but some of them have similar characters, if you know what I mean.
What I’m sayin is, Lansdale’s characters have a certain voice and even when they aren’t the same character, they often sort of sound the same. Or at least, certain ones sound sort of like certain others. But that’s ok, cause I like that voice.
This book is about a guy how gets a nasty ear infection as a kid and ends up with an odd ability. Sounds will trigger echoes of violence or strong negative feelings and he will have visions of those events. (yes, this does sound sort of like the Charlaine Harris book I just wrote about, but they are pretty different).
Eventually in one of these echoes of past violence he sees somebody he things he recognizes doing something horrible and action ensues.
Lots of violence, humor and Texas twang. I’m still a Lansdale fan.
F. Paul Wilson wrote a few horror books that I enjoyed back in the 80’s so when I saw this book from him at the library used book sale for 50 cents, I snagged it.
I wasn’t too impressed with it. It’s not a horror book, it’s a straight up thriller. Basically the President of the United States decides to push through a bill to legalize drugs and the South American Cocaine cartels decide they can’t allow this to happen, so they kidnap the daughter of the President’s oldest and best friend. Who is also his personal doctor. They tell the doctor he has to give the President a shot of some nasty stuff or they kill the daughter.
You can pretty much guess the rest of the plot. No real surprises. I was skimming a lot.
Harris is best known for her Sookie Stackhouse vampire books, which have been made into a hit show on HBO called True Blood. This is the third book in another series of hers. The main character in this one was struck by lightning and since then she has been able to sense dead bodies and get some visions/impressions of how they died.
So she drives around the country with her step-brother and they find bodies for money, or go to graveyards and ‘sense’ a dead person for a relative, to see if that person died they way they think they did.
And of course, you do that sort of thing eventually you are gonna run into some bad people, which is what happens in this book. She is asked to help find some young men that have vanished and finds out a serial killer is working the area. Mayhem ensues.
It’s a fun and easy read. If you liked her vampire books you might like this one too. I haven’t read the first two in this series but this one seemed to stand alone ok.
I’m surprised Iain M. Banks isn’t better known in America. I think his novels set in the universe of The Culture are pretty great space opera type fiction. I don’t think he’s won any of the major SF awards though, which is a shame, cause I think he deserves some.
Matter is his latest book in The Culture universe. I liked it but I think it was a bit weaker than some of the earlier ones, mainly because of the abrupt ending. Despite that, it’s still damn fine reading. If you haven’t read any of his books and want to check him out, I’d say start with one of his others, Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games or The Use of Weapons. All three of those are fantastic.
It’s almost a year old but it’s new to me. I been listening to this a lot lately. Turns out Franti and his band were in Chico only 2 months ago and I didn’t see em. 🙁
At least I got the album to listen to a bunch. Good stuff.
This is sort of an experimental thing being done by D.C. It is a 12 issue run, one issue comes out every Wednesday. Last week was the third week. Each ‘comic’ is a newspaper sized broadsheet, 14″ x 20″. Each issue has one page devoted to a story, 15 stories total.
And they look great. I love these big ass panels and huge art. This is the way comics should be.
The Paul Pope “Strange Adventures” story is one of my favorites, because I love Pope’s art and the Adam Strange character reminds me a lot of ERB’s Mars stories, which I also love.
Actually, out of the 15 story lines, I only dislike two, the Teen Titans and the Wonder Woman. The art in both don’t do it for me. And this format is all about the art.
You can see more info about the story lines and characters here.
If you like comics, you should check em out. Hopefully you can still get the first issue. $3.99 cover price.
This is book two of the Acacia Trilogy. I enjoyed the first one both times I read it and this one is good too.
According to Wikipedia, Jennings wrote this book based on a film treatment he had sold, which was made into a movie with the same name, starring John Wayne. That happens to be one of my favorite movies, I’ve watched it many times and the book follows the movie pretty closely (or vice versa).
I’ve already mentioned on this blog several times that Joe R. Lansdale is possibly my favorite living author. I’ve already told you to go out and buy his books. So, I won’t say all that again.
F. Paul Wilson wrote a few horror books that I enjoyed back in the 80’s so when I saw this book from him at the library used book sale for 50 cents, I snagged it.
Harris is best known for her Sookie Stackhouse vampire books, which have been made into a hit show on HBO called True Blood. This is the third book in another series of hers. The main character in this one was struck by lightning and since then she has been able to sense dead bodies and get some visions/impressions of how they died.
I’m surprised Iain M. Banks isn’t better known in America. I think his novels set in the universe of The Culture are pretty great space opera type fiction. I don’t think he’s won any of the major SF awards though, which is a shame, cause I think he deserves some.
This is sort of an experimental thing being done by D.C. It is a 12 issue run, one issue comes out every Wednesday. Last week was the third week. Each ‘comic’ is a newspaper sized broadsheet, 14″ x 20″. Each issue has one page devoted to a story, 15 stories total.