Reading has always been important to me. But it’s not just books I read.
I remember when I was 7 or 8 years old, sitting at the dinner table and my mom telling me to stop reading the mayonnaise jar label. That’s not to say she did not want me to read. In fact, she greatly encouraged my reading, especially when she took me to get my first public library card at age 10.
So I thought I’d take a look at the magazines I read on a regular basis and I was surprised to see how many I read, both on a weekly and monthly basis.
And here’s the best thing about them; I read them all for “free” because I get to read them online through the Libby App that my local library offers for its patrons. I put “free” in quotes because I pay taxes that my library uses to provide these services and products. Your library may also offer these services and products or ones like them.
Anyway, here’s a list of magazines I read each week or month. And if you have suggestions for magazines you enjoy, please let me know in the comments so I can take a look at those as well.
Weekly
The New Yorker New York Magazine The Week Newsweek New Scientist Tech Life News
Monthly
Popular Science The Writer Wired Macworld MacLife Rolling Stone Writer’s Digest Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Popular Mechanics Fast Company Poets and Writers Magazine Travel Magazine Empire Digital Photographer Classic Rock iPhone Life Magazine iPad & iPhone User Freelancer Booklist Booklist Reader Tech Advisor SFX Star Trek Explorer (ceased publication last month) Lightspeed-Science Fiction & Fantasy Computeractive Clarkesworld Consumer Reports Reader’s Digest The Podcast Reader
I began reading “Unconditionally MAD, Part 1 – The First Unauthorized History of MAD Magazine” by Mark Arnold shortly after the beginning of this year. It’s 472 pages in length, something I would normally finish in no more than three days. But I was taking my time because I wanted to absorb as much as I could (though that is problematic with a multi-year history such as this book) AND I was reading reading three to four other books concurrently.
My History With MAD Magazine
My exposure to MAD Magazine began when I was around 8 or 9 years old, which was the early 1960’s. I was already a huge comic book fan, so when one of my friends showed me a copy of MAD Magazine and its brand of humor, I was hooked. MAD felt more “adult” in its humor and almost rebellious in its nature. I read it every month for at least 10 years and then sporadically after that. I even bought the paperback collections of earlier features (remember, it had been in publication for a decade before I ever laid eyes on an issue) like “Spy Vs. Spy”, “The Lighter Side Of…”, and of course its movie and TV show satires.
So, this book was like a history lesson of one of the greatest humor magazines of all time (I always preferred MAD to Sick, Cracked and its other imitators, at least until National Lampoon arrived) AND a chance to re-visit the time when it was a large part of my life. Just as importantly, it gave me a “behind the scenes” look at what was happening with regard to the artists (always MY focus) such as Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Paul Coker,Jr., Frank Berg, Don Martin, Sergio Aragones, Wally Wood, Al Jaffee and others as they provided the visuals for the stories in MAD.
In other words, “The Usual Gang of Idiots.”
Here’s a look at the cover of MAD Magazine that came out on July 1955, the month and year I was born.
Comprehensive And Detailed
“Unconditionally MAD, Part 1 – The First Unauthorized History of MAD Magazine” Is both a comprehensive look at the magazine’s 70-year history and an issue-by-issue breakdown of each issue’s content. Arnold cites multiple sources for many of his informational examinations of personal relationships between the Publisher (William C. Gaines) and editors, writers and artists. He does the same for historical questions of “what happened when”within the magazine’s illustrious past.
This is good…and bad. Having such a wide variety of accounts of the same subject (when they agree) adds to the veracity of the account. But sometimes the variety of accounts do NOT agree and it can be confusing attempting to figure out which one (if any) are accurate.
I would also postulate the book might have been one-third its length if Arnold had not cited multiple (in some cases three or four) accounts that agree almost verbatim. There were many times I thought, “Wait, I just read that a few paragraphs earlier” because I indeed HAD read those same words a few paragraphs earlier. Needless to say, it felt overly repetitious.
Highly Recommended For Fans
That said, I would encourage every fan of MAD Magazine to get this book and read it. You will enjoy the trip through time and being able to relive the times you grabbed a copy of MAD Magainze off the magazine rack and read it from cover to cover. I loved it so much that I’m looking forward to reading Arnold’s sequel “Unconditionally Mad, Part B – The First Unauthorized History of Mad Magazine.”
“On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century” is a book I have wanted to read since the election in November. The title alone should tell most people why. I finally had the opportunity to get into it about a week ago. Even though it is a book you could easily read in one sitting, I wanted to take the time to slowly digest each of the lessons the author lays out.
The author, Timothy Snyder, is a Professor of History at Yale University, as well as a a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He understands the historical events he presents.
Most of the lessons he offers in this 127 page book come from actual events that took place during the Soviet Union rise of Communism, the German rise of Naziism and the European rise of Fascism beginning in the early 1920’s.
This is not a deep, dry, philosophical look at those events. It is a short, to the point remembrance of attitudes, words and actions that led to states of tyranny in those countries. And a warning to us that, if we do not guard against such then our fate could be the same.
Written in 2017, those with a will to see will easily observe those self-same attitudes, words and actions in the man who was president at that time and, bafflingly, at this time.
The lessons he lays out are SO important that I simply want to list them with the same small explanation that Professor Snyder uses to accompany each statement. In the book, he typically spends two to six pages offering a deeper, historical look at the reasoning behind the lesson, so please don’t let this abbreviated list make you think that is all there is to the book.
Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about—a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union—and take its side.
Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.
Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.
Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.
Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.
Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.
Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.
Contribute to good causes. Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life. Pick a charity or two and set up autopay. Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others to do good.
Learn from peers in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends in other countries. The present difficulties in the United States are an element of a larger trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.
Be a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.
Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.
Not all of these lesson are easy to follow for some of us, but all of us can follow some of them. We can certainly LEARN from all of them.
“On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century” points out the historical events that led to tyranny in other parts of the world during the twentieth century. Those events are ones that adults alive today should remember, if they were ever taught them. Even if they weren’t, they most likely have family members or know of someone who fought against those who wanted to rule in tyranny.
When laid out in such simplicity, we should all recognize and stand against those who would attempt to rise up as tyrants against us.
I was scanning through books available on Hoopla and this cover caught my eye. Though not a fan of “conversion” stories, I DID want to read about his childhood and what went on behind the curtain of his wrestling life, so I was excited to read this short book, “Wrestling With The Devil: Lex Luger” about the man billed as The Total Package.
Throughout my childhood and into adulthood I was a fan of “Professional Wrestling”, better known these days as “Sports Entertainment” and I even wrestled for a local promotion in Central Florida for a short amount of time.
So I was VERY familiar with the name Lex Luger. I was watching Florida Championship Wrestling when he made his debut and subsequently followed his career through his ascent into WCW and WWF over the years. I also followed the news of his descent into drug abuse and the tragic death of Elizabeth Hulette while she was with him in his apartment.
I happen to be the type of person who likes to know what goes on behind the scenes. How does that magic trick work? What went into that person making that decision? What caused that action to happen? So, of course, my curiosity was aroused at the prospect of reading about Lawrence Pfohl’s early life and transformation into Lex Luger. My interest lay in reading about what happened in the dressing room and on the road, because I already knew what had taken place in the ring itself.
His self-proclaimed “redemption” that was trumpeted on the cover really had no interest to me at all.
While reading this book you have to remember that everything in it is from Lawrence Pfohl’s point of view and that carries with it his own built-in survival instincts. In other words, I’m not entirely sure he is completely honest in his recollection of events. And it appears that lots of things you would expect to see in a person’s memoir are missing.
But that may also be because Pfohl, in his writing, appears to live up to the moniker of “The Narcissist” that WWE’s Vince McMahon gave him when he began wrestling for that promotion. This book is VERY self-centered and that self-centeredness oozes through every word, sentence, and paragraph. Other family members or friends are just there to prop up what Pfohl is writing about himself. There is no bigger picture here, only the spotlight he seeks.
For instance, when he writes about not being able to get into Canada because of “forgetting” to check in with his parole officer, he completely leaves out that he and other wrestlers were involved in a dispute on the plane that caused law enforcement to be summoned.
And once family members of friends have completed their “role” in his story, they are never heard from again. His father, siblings, children, fellow wrestlers he worked with are left to the ether. We never know what happened to them and I think it’s because they don’t matter to him, personally.
I’d like to think I’m wrong and that maybe it’s just crappy writing, but…
What REALLY stuck out to me when I finished was this; once Elizabeth Hulette has died from an overdose in his company and he exclaims to a police officer, “Elizabeth’s dead??” he never mentions her again. He doesn’t attend her funeral or memorial service, if there was one, and never expresses how her death affected him. I know, I know, he was in jail and probably couldn’t attend a funeral or memorial, but to never even mention her?? Again, it seemed she was just a “walk on” character in his story about him, him, HIM.
I don’t know the man personally. He may be an absolutely wonderful human being. If he is, the book does not reflect that.
So, if you want to read about his childhood and how he got into wrestling, there may be something here for you. But the rest of it is just wasted space and time.
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Today would have been the 103rd birthday of William Maxwell “Bill” Gaines, publisher of that great literary periodical known as MAD Magazine. Gaines sadly passed away on June 3, 1992 at the age of 70.
I think I read my first issue of MAD Magazine when I was around 10 or 11 years old and it held my attention for several years as I progressed into the teenage years and twenties…maybe even my thirties. It didn’t take me long to recognize on sight the artwork of Mort Drucker, Dave Berg and others. I loved the satires they did of popular movies, TV shows, books and cultural zeitgeist of the times.
Here’s to Bill Gaines. Happy Birthday to the guy who started it all.
It was sometime in the mid-1990’s when a co-worker, knowing my love of reading, handed me a paperback edition of one of the “Discworld” books (I don’t even remember which one) by Terry Pratchett and said, “You’re gonna love this!”
But I didn’t.
I mean, I read it, but I didn’t love it. I didn’t even like it.
Twenty years later one of my best friends, upon hearing this, loaned me the first two “Discworld” books and urged me to try reading the series from the beginning to see if I liked it more than just reading one book out of order.
I did, read them I mean, but I still didn’t care for it.
The humor (British, you know) I know did not appeal to me. But more than that, it would be hard for me to point to one specific thing and say “That! That right there is the culprit causing my dis-enjoyment.” The stories and characters I read by him just held no appeal for me.
I know that to fans of the series and the author, that statement means I am now persona non-grata. But you can’t like what you don’t like.
Now, another 20 years later, I have read the biography of Sir Terence David John Pratchett in the form of “Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins” and not much has changed. And yet some has changed.
I wanted to read about the late Terry Pratchett in the hopes of understanding why I never cared for his books and also in the hopes of perhaps sparking an interest in trying to read them again. I may have succeeded in the first and I definitely failed in the second.
His life story was moderately interesting but my overall impression is that he was an irascible old man for most of his life. Even well before his very sad diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2007. I do not hold that up as a bad thing for I myself am an irascible old man. But I wonder if that seeped through to the stories I read and left that impression on me in the world he created. Something in them never spoke to me the way other fantasy stories did and do, so maybe that was it.
But reading his biography, as much as I hoped it would, never provided any spark to entice me to try reading the books again. And do not misunderstand me; I am glad for all those who found magic in his words and stories. It is one of the highest desires of a reader to find stories that you enjoy, that grab you and don’t let you go, that make you fall in love (even if for just a little while) with the people and beings who inhabit those stories and worlds. I’m glad that Sir Terry could do that for so many people. I just wasn’t one of them and apparently never will be.
Despite not caring for his books, his death in 2015 due to complications from Alzheimer’s Disease left me in a state of mourning. Reading Mr. Wilkins describe the 8 years between his diagnosis and his passing was incredibly distressing, knowing the effect it had upon his family and friends. And upon him. There are very few people any of us would wish such a thing upon.
If you were a fan of Terry Pratchett’s work, you should read this biography. If you have never read one of his books or perhaps never even heard of him until now, you should read this biography. And even if you were someone like this writer, who did not care for his books, you should read this biography.
Here are the covers (courtesy of StoryGraph) of the books that I read in 2024. I had a goal of reading 25 books but ended up with slightly more than twice that amount.
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British Intelligence has “discovered” a way to travel through time. Rather than send people back to the past or into the future, they decide to pluck people who will not be missed out of the past. People who were just about to die were taken from “historical war zones, natural disasters and epidemics.”
And the public doesn’t know.
Needless to say, these travelers from the past centuries will need to be helped to adjust to modern times in London, so the government hires top secret guides or “bridges” as they’re called to assist in acclimating their charges to the future.
The protagonist is a young woman serving as a “bridge” who is charged with guiding a young Victorian naval officer snatched from an ill-fated polar exploration expedition that saw all of his shipmates die.
(As a side-note, this naval officer character is a real-life person that the authoress discovered in researching polar expeditions and who, in real life, vanished during the expedition).
The story is a “slow burn” for the first ¾ of the book. There are a few hints of spy thriller actions, some romance, some comedy. But it doesn’t really pick up until the last quarter of the book and then it’s like an uncontrolled downhill ride in a vehicle with wooden tires and no shock absorbers.
Needless to say, all was not what it seemed.
I have vacillated back and forth on whether I liked the story or not. The end leaves open the possibility of a sequel and my feeling that I would like to read that sequel forced me to land on the answer that, yes, I did like the story.
In September of 2018, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward to state that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had physically and sexually assaulted her when she was 15 and he was 17 at a house party in the Summer of 1982.
Despite the consensus from Senate Judiciary Committee members of both parties that Dr. Ford was being truthful, the Senate ultimately confirmed Mr. Kavanaugh’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 50-48. Political cravenness at its best…or worst, I suppose, depending on where you stand.
One Way Back, a memoir from Dr. Ford recounts her life, the night of that assault and the effect her testimony had on her, her husband and two sons.
After reading her book, my impression of Dr. Ford is that she had a boringly normal life and, as evidenced by both her words and the observation of her mother, was NOT the type who enjoyed or sought the spotlight. It puts the lie to statements that women who dare to accuse their assailants are “out for attention” or “asked for it” in their dress or behavior.
It is a testament to her strength that following her sexual assault, she still managed to persevere through life despite the effects of that assault. Sadly, I think that is probably true of most young women who have had to endure such a personal attack.
I watched part of her testimony six years ago and, like the Senators who grilled her and the media who covered her, found Dr. Ford to be a poised, reliable witness to what had happened to her that night. Her book gives the same impression.
Her balanced, calm (outwardly, as you’ll see when you read the book) demeanor and testimony stood in stark contrast to the angry, spitting, loud and ugly “testimonial response” of Brett Kavanaugh.
After Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony of sexual harassment by then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas you would think that 27 years later members of the U.S. Senate would have grown up and expanded their consciousness of the reality of sexual harassment and assault. Despairingly, they have not, as evidenced by their confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh in spite of the testimony against him.
I long for the day when accusations of this type are taken seriously by law enforcement, the public, and those charged with governing us. I long for the day when moral and ethical reasoning is put above political goals. I long for the day when the default response is to believe women when they stand against their accusers, instead of dismissing their testimony or trying to put the blame on them.
This book is NOT a blockbuster piece of writing, nor should it be. They are the words of a woman who knew her conscience would not let her have peace if she let such a person ascend to one of the highest positions in our land without letting it be known that he had physically and sexually assaulted her. She showed strength of character that neither the man who assaulted her or the Senators who approved him possessed.
I had a two-fold interest in reading this book/series;
I had seen the Netflix film series advertised, but I like reading the book version first before watching the film version of ANY story, so I obtained the first book in the series to read.
I have begun exploring international writers and thought a book by a Chinese author would be interesting and provide different perspectives from American authors.
Here’s the blurb for the first book:
“Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.”
I had high hopes, based on the description above, for “The Three-Body Problem” but those hopes were dashed on the rocks of a very disappointing piece of writing. The plot is one that should work, but the characters and dialog doom this work.
The characters are like cardboard cutouts with no real depth to them. They are all simply there to fill a space and they are all nothing more than placeholders. Flat and uninteresting. Even the most interesting character, Da Shi, is still just a caricature of his role.
The dialog is, for the most part, stilted and empty. It sounds like a child wrote it. At first I thought it might be the effects of the translation from Chinese to English…that something was lost in the translation. But after plodding through this mess I’m convinced the original author simply does not know how real people speak to each other. There is never anything that shines through as authentic dialog.
I really wanted to like this book and went into it with positive expectations. When I reached about a third of the way through the book I was ready to stop the torture of reading it, but I decided to keep going so I could say with a clear conscience that I gave it a complete effort. And I hoped it might improve in its delivery. Now I wish that I had not bothered.
This is the first book of a trilogy. Needless to say, I won’t be finishing the series and gave this book one star.
I might still give the Netflix production a try in the hopes that they are able to take this dross and turn it into something worthwhile.
But it’s going to probably be a while before I get the bad taste of “The Three-Body Problem” out of my head.
Terry Maitland is a happily married man, father of two daughters, teaches English and coaches Little League Baseball in the mid-sized town of Flint City. He’s never had so much as a traffic ticket on his record.
He is also a pedophile rapist and sadist who sodomized with a tree limb and murdered a 11-year old boy. Eyewitnesses saw him give a ride to the boy, whose bike had broken, his fingerprints are all over the vehicle and his DNA is on the boy’s body.
Detective Ralph Anderson has him dead to rights, from all the evidence he has, and arrests Terry during a Little League final game so that the accused murderer has no time or chance to escape.
But Terry Maitland also has an airtight alibi. He was 70 miles away with co-workers and was videotaped at the same time he was observed with the murder victim. His fingerprints prove he was there as do the eyewitness reports from his fellow teachers.
How is that possible?
Before Detective Anderson can figure out what is going on, Maitland is shot and killed on the way to his arraignment by the distraught older brother of the murder victim. Now Anderson wonders; could he be wrong? He has all this evidence placing Maitland at the scene of the crime, but Maitland’s defense attorney has evidence as well placing him 70 miles away at the time of the crime.
What is going on?
Well, it’s a Stephen King novel so you KNOW something supernatural, otherworldly and out of the realm of the ordinary is going on, don’t you?
“The Outsider” merges the everyday normal lives of people with the unbelievable existence of an evil entity. One that feeds off of the fear, hatred and pain of normal people. As Anderson investigates the murder of the young boy and the killing of Maitland, he comes face to face with a being he cannot believe exists.
To help Anderson open his eyes to the reality of his unbelief, King brings in one of my favorite of his recurring characters; Holly Gibney. Holly is socially awkward and perhaps has a bit of OCD, but she’s dealt with this kind of evil before and knows what it involves. In addition to that, her research leads her to what they need to do to defeat what all normal thought says doesn’t exist.
But can they defeat it? It’s killed twice now and wants to kill more. Will Anderson overcome his disbelief and will Holly face her fear so they can survive, or will The Outsider continue its reign of terror?
I am always amazed at how King takes the everyday, mundane lives of people just like you and I, then infuses it with the unbelievable and somehow makes it VERY believable. This book had me on edge and I found it extremely difficult to put down until I was finished with it.
”The Outsider” rated 5 stars from me. If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s writing, I believe you’ll agree.
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You’re familiar with the old adage, “Nice guys finish last”, right? Made famous by legendary Dodgers baseball manager Leo Durocher, it posits that if you’re going to get ahead in baseball (or anything in this world) then you better not be a nice guy. You better be ready to get out there and hurt someone with your spikes, bean them with a ball or at least trash-talk them into losing their focus. Because if you’re a nice guy, you won’t be finishing in first place, you’ll be finishing in last place.
And we’re all acquainted (perhaps personally) with the term “Fair weather friend”…a person who is happy to be your friend when it is smooth sailing but disappears when you are having problems.
In Dean Koontz’s novel “The Bad Weather Friend” Benny Catspaw is the proverbial nice guy who suddenly finds his world turned upside down. His boss fires him in the morning and his girlfriend breaks up with him in the late afternoon. Even his favorite chair is destroyed. All with no reason that Benny can discern and yet he holds no enmity. Just confusion.
Then an uncle he doesn’t even know sends him an inheritance in a crate and a video that promises things will turn out right. Even stranger, the crate contains a 7-foot tall being named Spike with supernatural powers who is Benny’s bad weather friend. He informs Benny that strange forces are out to get Benny and he is there to make it right. Benny, Spike and a waitress from Benny’s favorite cafe all team up to find and stop those mysterious forces and make sure Benny is not a nice guy who finishes last.
This is a quirky tale with an off-beat plot and even quirkier dialog that may be a turn off for some of Koontz’s fans. I had to force myself to finish the book, but I’m glad I did. Sometimes I wondered if the author was just winging it on this one, but the ending was satisfactory. Your mileage may vary.
I gave this book four stars.
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My tastes in music run to 60’s – 80’s rock and pop for the most part. Ms. Spears’ career began long after that and so I have never been that familiar with her music. I remember when I was working as a graphic artist for Hard Rock Cafe’s corporate headquarters and I was assigned to edit and enhance some images of Ms. Spears. One of the other artists (who was much younger than me, lol) asked if he could do the work on them because he had a huge crush on her. I gladly said, “Go ahead, knock yourself out” and he did.
Even though I never kept up with her music, it was hard not to be bombarded with all the gossip and news about her and her relationships. I remember feeling sorry for her and the microscope she (and other performers, whether they be actors, musicians, writers…just celebrities of all stripes) found herself under. When the news broke that she was put under a conservatorship, I wondered if it was her behavior or greed on her father’s part that put her there. And I assumed we would all find out when that order was lifted by a judge in 2021.
So, a few months ago when I saw that she had a book coming out I put it on my TBR list and recently I finished her work, The Woman in Me.
I am of two minds about her life. On the one hand I see she had fame thrust upon her at an early age and it’s very rare that children or young adults survive that fame unscathed. On the other, I feel like she brought a great deal of her woes, as most of us do, on herself. Yes, it seems her parents and perhaps even her sister, were all more interested in the money she could bring than her well-being. But she also exhibits a lot of immature behavior that opened her up to that from her family and even some so-called “friends” in her life.
Be assured, this book is NOT a work of art. It’s not even well-written, though I do believe it IS written from her heart. She still seems rather immature and child-like, despite being in her 40’s with children and a career that has made her the idol of millions. I am glad that she is no longer living the life of an indentured worker under the thumb of her father. I am glad she feels like she is living her best life now. I hope she is. But other than satisfying my own curiosity about her life and where she has arrived since 2021, this book was a burden to read.
I gave it one star on Goodreads.
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I know who Rachel Maddow is and that she has a show on MSNBC, but that is about the extent of my knowledge of her. I’ve never watched one of her shows or read any of her books; this is the first.
In “Prequel” Maddow takes us back in history to an America that is watching as Adolph Hitler invades neighboring countries. There were two forces in play in our country; those who wanted to fight back against Nazi facism and those who did not. In the run up to WW II America is a divided country with those who wish to preserve democracy on one side and far-right “Christian Nationalists” who would embrace Nazi rule on the other. Having not been alive during those days, I had no idea how much like America today it was back then.
Having lived through the days of Cold War hatred of Russia, it has been difficult for me to understand the words and actions today of those who a mere 30 years ago would have opposed Russian leaders and yet today want to defend a dictator like Putin. But when you look at the parallels between what was happening in America during the rise of Hitler and what is happening today, you see that history is repeating itself.
And the point Maddow makes is that we only preserved democracy back then because there were dedicated politicians and private citizens who stood against the facism that was toppling Europe. The only way we will do so today is for the same to happen today. We need to take the lessons that history teaches us and apply them to preserving our democracy…again.
I highly recommend “Prequel” to those who, like me, were not witness to the threat our country faced before but are witness to the threat it faces today.
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Just finished “How to Hide an Empire” and it is an eye-opening look at the history of the United States of America’s colonialism around the world. Highly recommend!
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This is the first book I’ve read by Ms. Rouda and I’m pretty sure it will be the last.
This is ostensibly the story of a crooked (what other kind is there?) congressman and his wife who assumes his congressional seat when he dies and the multitude of behind the scenes shadiness that plays out. But all the characters are one-dimensional cutouts with no substance and none of them, not one, has any redeeming qualities to make you care about them.
The closest I could come to finding any interest in the story was that many of the characters reminded me of some of the corrupt congressional members and their unscrupulous staffs that I’ve had to deal with over the years. They had no redeeming qualities either. If you think that you’re disgusted by what you see of them in public or on the evening news, you would be completely overcome with loathing to see their behavior without their veneer of respectability.
(By the way, there ARE some good ones, but they are few and far between)
But I think my biggest disappointment with this book was the “style” of writing the author employs. It was not enjoyable to read and, in many instances, seemed like it had been thrown together like a word salad. In addition, the dialogue was unbelievable. I don’t know many people who actually converse in the manner that is portrayed. Point of view was constantly changing, however that POV was consistently “What can I do to screw over this person?”
But, Ms. Rouda is a bestselling author, so perhaps that is the style of the day these days. If so, I hope to avoid any such modern style in my future reading.
I’m glad I didn’t pay for this book. Even as a free book, it left me feeling like I was ripped off in terms of time and effort to complete the story.
Highly NOT recommended!
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Jeff Wetherington
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