Glorious Smorgasbord of Kooks Makes For Fun Reading
590319
This is the non-fiction version of Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," a wild compendium of the odd (sometimes REALLY odd) beliefs that have held sway over the last few centuries.  To these add the Birthers and you have a full house of entertainingly paranoid factoid-salad.  As a book at bedside, it entertains no matter where you open it, though frequently I find myself going to the Web seeking further info on some particular group or belief-- Goldwag is good, but here's no room here for him to go into much detail.  Still, this is a "Greatest Hits" of logic-and-lunacy.  As Alfred Lawson used to say, "Unless you know these things, you are not educated!"  Read it and be enlightened.
838410
A collection of spook-licious tales that will taunt, and in a few cases, tickle the fear bone in any reader.

Throughout each story, vivid word choices paint living pictures. Well-developed settings draw the reader even deeper into each small world, while diversity breaths life and uniqueness to each. Some characters speak volumes through quick-witted and sassy dialog, while others hold their secondary positions to enhance the tales.

At points, unexpected paranormal elements mix nicely with old England or a drab forest. Each text is paced nicely, filled with action, mystery, and a bit of BOO. There's even tantalizing serenity to some prose--a calm before a storm within an ominous journey.

Lessons of love that could never, should never be, and some passions are just stronger than curses bleed throughout. Character growth takes a ride, and sometimes in unexpected ways. Intrigue is found among the stories, which are fairly quick and easy reads. A few even play on old tales, but all pull in ancient superstitions we all know.
32548
This is a hearty romp through a fantastical yet believable land, full of adventure, action, and wit. You have your proverbial elves and ogres, throw in a necromancer, a few crazed squirrels and a lot more this and that, and you have a thoroughly enjoyable read.. I found myself constantly chuckling or rolling my eyes, shaking my head or laughing uproariously. Just as soon as this author puts one of his books up on Amazon, it's next on my reading list.
1370430
Connoisseurs of obscure history and fantastic legend will delight in this collection, which gathers together the contents of Connell's twenty-year-old (and long out of print) books A Long Desire and The White Lantern, and adds two more recent pieces. The twenty essays are a mostly entertaining and fascinating bunch, touching upon all manner of historical curiosities. In every case, the topic has been previously dissected with great detail by "professional" historians - witness the 300 or so books that appear in the bibliography. Yet one should be thankful that an armchair historian and accomplished writer such as Connell has distilled many thousands of pages until only the the most potent brew remains to excite the imagination.

Ranging in length from 10-65 pages, the essays delve through the back corridors of history in wide-ranging, chatty fashion. Their topics are generally either quests of a physical or intellectual nature. The former tend to be the more engaging, as they involve feats of derring-do, greed, folly, and old-fashioned adventure. For example, in various essays Connell covers the following: hundreds of years of attempts to locate the Northwest Passage, the search for the passage to India, Norse settlement of Greenland and America, the race for the South Pole, the prodigious wanderlust of 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battutah, the mass hysteria and lunacy of the dual 13th-century Children's Crusades, the futile Spanish quest for El Dorado, the Spanish quest for the mythical Seven Cities, and Mayan gold. The intellectual quests are also generally interesting, but by their very nature more abstract. These include Atlantis, the mythical Christian King Prester John, the search for the "missing link", an overview of medieval alchemy, decoding ancient languages, interpreting the heavens, the origin of the Etruscans, the mysterious cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in New Mexico, and finally, graffiti carved into a monolith in New Mexico. Probably my favorite piece fits into neither category, "Gustav's Dreadnought" describes a 17th-century nautical folly spawned by Sweden's King Gustav.

Connell's relates everything with a natural storyteller's voice. The prose is always lively, however can be choppy at times due to his propensity for short paragraphs. And of course, not every essay will appeal to every readers - I personally skimmed two of the longer ones about linguistics and astrology. In general, the more specific the focus, the stronger the essay. The collection's one significant flaw is the absence of maps. On the whole though, this is a great book to dip into, say one essay a week, allowing the reader to revel in the mysteries and adventure of the past.
3743165
I read the "Rivers of London" books as soon as they hit the stands. Its just the perfect pleasurable read: a set of somewhat madcap romps including police work, supernatural wizardry, boy-meets-girl (or boy-meets-river?), and a lot of cultural insights into London. Oh, and of course, you also get some baseline education on various ancient and not-so-ancient London rivers....All that, plus a really sparkling and witty writing style.

As time goes on, the strict "plot" has mattered less to me, and the pleasure of Aaaronovich's turn-of-phrase and social commentary has increased. On those bases alone, I felt disappointed when i got to the end, only because its just so much fun to savor.

This goes for the plot too; clearly we're being "set up" for the next in the series, and that's just great (at least that's hopefully a guarantee there's more coming) but i felt just a slightest bit short-sheeted, as I stared at my kindle in disbelief at the end and searched frantically for the next 50 pages...

More, please
22604
A world filled with strange mythical creatures, awful crimes, and smart alic PI's. James Mullaney's writing is nearly poetic as it flys from the pages and into your brain. His style is unique and fun as it brings forth images as vivid as any movie you'd care to waste your money on and unlike a movie the story, with all its twists and turns keeps you guessing until the bitter booze soaked end. He has created a world I truly enjoy with its ever expanding history and peoples. I find myself wanting to go beneath the surface more and more, wet shoes be damned. Anyone who enjoys a unique read should get their bathing suits ready and hold onto their dolphin, it's a helluva ride well worth the cost of admission.
4131363
This was the first collection of short pieces from Rick that I've had the pleasure to review; I dove into it immediately, eager to see to which dirty corners of the backrooms of his mind he would lead me.  And I wasn't disappointed.

I knew that Rick would excite and titallate me with this collection.  What I didn't expect was how uncomfortable some of the subject matter would make me.

Rick is very upfront in his introduction and tells us that he "wanted to write about people that were not just out, but out there, people who lived their sexual lives in ways most of us could only imagine...and for whom the flavor vanilla had absolutely no appeal."  And he covers this ground quite well, delving into topics like different sexual fetishes, the lure of the internet and thought provoking pieces that examine love,sex and monogomy in relationships.  Then there are the stories where he looks at gay men and drugs and bad judgement and HIV and it is here with these tales that I felt myself start to squirm a little.

To be sure, Rick isn't saying here that all gay men act as some of his characters have.  But the reality is those who haven't are in the minority.  Who among us hasn't seen a "sex god" and wanted to do whatever we had to to get into his pants?  Or been too high from a night of partying that we didn't think of the possible consequences of our actions?  Those consequences can be devastating as seen in "Negative. UB2", "Stranger Danger" and "Getting a Workout At The Health Club".  These stories made me shiver as I read them because the danger in them is very real.  The sexual underground indeed because we know the risks but ignore them for the more immediate gratification.

Equally chilling are "Meat Mallet" and "Craigslist", which had a cliff hanging ending that made me scream and then scream in frustration for wondering what happened next.  And there are the funny, laugh out loud tales as well: "The Truth-And The Myths-About Being A Slut", "Sick Day" and I am now waiting for Rick to collect all of the adventures of his friend Pete Thickwhistle ("Big And Sexy: A Late
Night Tale", "Glory Hole Grabber") into one volume, they are that hilarious.

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and the ride Rick took me on in its pages and would absolutely recommend it to readers of horror and gay lit.  It definitely isn't for everyone but if you proceed with caution, you will be titillated, amused, thrilled and chilled.  Open your mind (or your legs) and you will enjoy the ride, too.
4381097
These poems are FUNNY.  It's technically a book for kids but anyone with a sense of humor will find this hilarious.  From riding bikes to the meaning of existence, Mr. Pincus' love of wordplay and intellectual gymnastics saturate every page, surprising us and sometimes, unexpectedly, revealing deeper truths.
4328302
Fun for bookworms like me--interesting recommendations for good reads
2342753
Why should you buy this book?  B  R  A  I  N  S  !  And plenty of it for your enjoyment!

Witty and punny, this delicious book is teeming with smart essays on the interminable and ubiquitous cultural phenomenon of zombies.

What accounts for the never-ending interest in/popularity of zombies?  In the intro, Commentale and Jaffe provide lots of interesting reasons (because there are lots of different kinds of zombie).  First, theres our psychological fixation on the way the familiar and securely-seated past has the potential to rise up and become deeply weird.  Or on how the stuff we weve always loved and desired is actually gross and disgusting.  Beyond the personal/psychological, we also seemed to be much more freaked out these days about the larger hazards and risks that we thought were over-and-done-with, such as the soul-destroying operations of global capitalism or the long-term dangers of pollution.  Moreover, we now live in a world in which, as the editors say, nothing seems to die anymore.  We spend hours in the massive digital crypt, exposed to the strange temporality of our electronic world and its terrifyingly infinite archival power.  And finally, were living in a nightmarish condition that Mad Men tries to sketch out in lighter colors -- the endlessly regenerative nature of commodity culture, its mind-numbing sequels, and next-best-things.  This condition has an etymology that includes of course the history of Haiti, the dehumanization of slavery, and the ruined humanity in the wake of imperial conquest.

In addition to being an expression of disapproval and critique (we are dead in the midst of life), zombies also seem to be attempts to imagine how to live in the midst of these widespread conditions.  Punk appropriations of futureless anarchy, as this book points out, are ways of inhabiting the waste land.  Even more punk is the fact that the zombie can do more than point to some well-known meaning or allegory (were all mindless consumers; AIDS is gonna get you; your most cherished self is actually a hilariously monstrous and mostly mechanical body); the zombie is the figure who kills the very fantasy of permanent and necessary meanings.  And that is so scary that we MUST try to kill the zombie first!  Last one to kill is a rotten egg!

I haven't come close to exhausting the list of topics the collection deals with.  Theres a bunch more:  the population bomb, race, biopolitics, outmoded institutions, the persistent humanities, linguistics .  I have not read every single essay yet, but Ive come across some great onesby Jaffe, Commentale, Soldat-Jaffe, and Eburne.  When I read more of this awesome collection, I may jump back on and update this review!
1471075
A really, really fun read. Hard to put down! Also, a source of super-many quotes that deserve to become memes. Korons? :-)
3018383
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is a heck of a lot of fun of a certain kind. The best way I think I can describe it is to say that reading this book allowed me to recapture the pleasure I had, at about the age of ten, of reading my father's old, old copies of books like TREASURE ISLAND and KIDNAPPED.

The sentences, from the very start, are long enough to require more than average attention. See for example, the first sentence: "For numberless years a myna had astounded travelers to the caravansary with its ability to spew indecencies in ten languages, and before the fight broke out everyone assumed the old blue-tongued devil on its perch by the fireplace was the one who maligned the giant African with such foulness and verve." If you mind sentences that take up a quarter of the page, this book will vex you. (I enjoyed them myself.)

Also, as with my experience of reading those old adventure books, I found myself confronted by an unusual number of words that I did not know the precise definitions of. This will make some people crazy. I enjoyed it, looked a few of them up, and mostly, as I did as kid, I just figured out the meanings from the context.

That is not to say that GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is some kind of dusty-feeling homage to old adventure stories. Far from it. There are a number of very grown-up pleasures in the book. I laughed out loud a number of times. I won't tell you where, to avoid spoiling the story in any way, but this is a funny, funny book. If you aren't sure it is supposed to be funny, read the chapter titles, which start with "On Discord Arising from Excessive Love of a Hat" for Chapter One.

I was also much delighted by the illustrations. Gary Gianni did a bang-up job on the art for this book. There is about one black and white drawing in each chapter, so you have fifteen fine pictures to look forward to when you start the book. I will likely look up the Wandering Star edition of CONAN OF CIMMERIA, just to enjoy more of his work. Gianni has done many other things, but reading GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD has left me in the mood for more adventure!

I should also say that I ended up loving the characters and the way they talk to each other. GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is a great road story and a great buddy story.

GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is not for everyone. If you love language and love adventure stories, though, it is a fine ride. Thumbs up!
2929539
I laughed. I cringed. I was forced to think and learn, but then seemlessly found myself in elements of 100% purely entertaining scenarios. "Jackass" incorporates all the elements of a worthwhile read whether you're a non-fiction brain-feeder or a kick-back-and-enjoy pleasure reader. It makes me want to go back to school to study "paleoanthropology" - but maybe I'll skip the used hand-me-downs from foreign roommates while in Africa! (You'll get understand if you read it.)
681296
This guy is a kook but the book is an amusing read.
4118890
If you love words and want to use them to wow or perplex your erstwhile friends or foes, this book is a hoot to read. For a writer, this is a valuable resource: a fresh set of expletives that can be used in polite company (maybe), brand-new words, seldom-heard opposites, and more. I am delighted to get this off a 15-year wish list and add this book to my personal writing resource library.
2454730
Mr. Dukk has penned an amusing and entertaining story.  It is a tongue-in-cheek chronicle of the exploits of the most inapt heroes in all of literature.  The reader is encouraged to ride along on this tale of mischief, mayhem, and merriment.  Oh, did I mention the lunatic gods who add to the characters' dysfunctional heroics?  You are definitely in for a real treat.  Be prepared to laugh out loud as inept heroes, crazy gods, and befuddled villains romp through the pages of Mr. Dukk's warped creation.
1420664
This is a truly delightful collection of adventures taken from author Lily Temmer's own life...and what fun, madcap adventures she's had!!  These short tales recount zany situations with over-the-top interesting characters (mostly real-life family members and friends).  It's more than just situational splendor, though.  It's the *way* the stories are written that brings a sense of whimsy and delight to the reader.  I laughed out loud many times - and imagined the scenes as if I were actually there.  It takes a skilled writer to experience a moment in time and capture the hilarity of it in words.  I can't wait until the next volume of stories emerges! (fingers crossed that there will be a second volume!)