Thursday, September 9, 2010

What I'm reading now

Since I think I probably unintentionally do too much complaining here, I thought I could lighten things up with periodic entries on what I'm currently reading. This will be different than the Very Bad Book Blog, because these will be "normal" books and I will try to impart some sort of literary knowledge so that you, the dear reader, will run out to your library to check out this book because I told you to. Or you will avoid it at all costs.

Currently, I'm reading The Year of Endless Sorrows by Adam Rapp. I picked it out because the book literally jumped off the shelf at me while I was trying to do some shifting, but also because the title seemed vaguely familiar and I remembered it came up as a possible match for me in NoveList. So, I'm about a third of the way through and enjoying it for the most part. The novel takes place in the 90's as a recent college grad, his brother, a friend, and a squatter take residence in the East Village. The chapters are linear, but almost like little micro-stories, which make it interesting, but also provide good stopping points, if your boss suddenly appears behind you and wants you to do some real work. The main character works a slave like position in a publishing company, but is writing his own sci-fi novel involving an injured knee and basketball. There have been several laugh out loud parts, probably more that are merely amusing, but my biggest problem is that Rapp seems to be addicted to using similies and metaphors, averaging one third sentence. It's a bit distracting, so we'll see how it goes.

What I won't be reading anymore is the effing librarian, one of my favorite library related blogs, as now it ceases to exist. Too many library blogs out there are stone cold serious and sound like they were written by boring weirdo catalogers (no offense to you personally, if you are a boring weirdo cataloger), or they are constant ragefests that get dull quickly and are depressing. The effing librarian was humorous, informative, nay might I dare say intellectual, and often chock full of made up shiz and crazy pictures. You know you loved it, but it's gone now.

3 comments:

  1. aww... your comments make me want to hold a kitten... thanks.

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  2. Well, effing said he was going to quit if ... and I can't remember what his if was, but he's gone. Too bad. I always got a little chuckle. The thing I liked about him and wish you'd do more of is post every day. I have Sushie and Miss Information on my blogs pages and neither of you post often enough. I'm thinking of taking you off because I want to read more often.

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  3. @effing - I'm imagining your avatar holding a kitten.

    @Ted - Thanks for reading, and for commenting, I'm never sure if I'm just babbling to myself on here, which is part of the reason I don't post as much (there's already too many crazy people talking to themselves at the library). The other reason is that my real job that I have to do everyday and takes me away from writing is the only one that pays!

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