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The Beav wrote:Just finished Liberty by Garrison Keillor (cross-post under Guilty Pleasures if you must) and started Things The Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Everett of Eels fame.

Since it takes me months to read any book by someone other than Jim Harrison or J.K. Rowling, I'll report back in a few.

I was walking around the New Center and WSU campus on Friday and decided to go into the library and look for a book my brother was talking about. In the main area just outside the popular biography section they had a bunch of books propped up to gain attention. You've probably seen how they'll do this with new arrivals or volumes of special merit. A compilation of Robert Crumb comics caught my eye and I took it home.

Holy fuck, this is straight up porn of the most perverted and twisted kind. I'm familiar with Crumb's work and I know he's capable of some pretty twisted stuff but whoever edited this, well, I lost count of the scenes of forced fellatio and sodomy. One story is about a man out camping with his family whose kids run off in search of Bigfoot and when he goes after them a real bigfoot abducts him and takes him into the mountains where he is forced to be a husband to a yeti daughter. Although he's initially distraught at being separated from his family and civilization, he soon learns that sex with a yeti is like nothing he's ever experienced. His attempt to take her back to the city to live goes awry but they eventually escape back to the woods and (spoiler alert) live happily ever after while fucking the shit out of each other.

I can't believe they just put this thing out there like that for kids to pick up. "Look, Mommy, the man is eating the Yeti's pussy." I'm going to finish this and get it back to the library as soon as possible. There was a time when this kind of thing was kept safely under the counter and produced only when a customer said some kind of code word but this is something that needs to be shared. Children need to know about these things.

I give it two thumbs up. It's not the kind of thing that would raise a third thumb, if you know what I'm getting at here...

I found the book I was looking for too. An Amazon reviewer wrote "probably the worst book I've read all year". That's a pretty good recommendation in my mind. I'm about eighty pages in and it hasn't disappointed.

So, what are the rest of you reading?

Just picked up B is for Beer by Tom Robbins. Its a children's book about a kindergarten aged girl who goes on a magicalk journey to learn all about beer. Gets her in toruble at Sunday School.

A Robbin's read is always fun.

Well, not exactly reading but ...

I hate the bumping club music at the gym, so I have noise-canceling headphones and I listen to audio books while performing my half-assed workouts. The current selection is Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. I'm about a third of the way through, and 19th century St. Petersburg seems about as sunny and uplifting as 21st century Detroit.

Oh, and the headphones (audio-technica quietpoint) were fairly expensive but they don't seem to cancel out a lot of noise. I really wish I could get that Hot N Cold song out of my head.

I highly recommend the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" trilogy for anyone out there who has kids 10 on up. Or for adults, too.

I'm reading a biography of James Polk because I'm just that much of a dork. The Power and The Glory is my next read.

Woodwards Friend wrote:I'm reading a biography of James Polk because I'm just that much of a dork. The Power and The Glory is my next read.

I read Power and the Glory of Few months ago when I was flying a lot.

Better than I remembered it in high school.

I also re-read The Fixer by Malamud, and Asher Lev by Potak - both of which I really found fascinating.

Not sure what a 16-17 year old white-bred suburbanite is supposed to get by reading that stuff - it certainly makes a lot more sense now.

People see comic books and think they're for kids. Not so.

Just finished Lazarus Project: Journalist travels Eastern Europe looking to fill in the long ago murder of a Jewish immigrant by the Chicago chief of police who took him for an anarchist. Along the way, the journalist also learns more about the seige of Sarajevo.

On to White Tiger. The narrator is obviously a psychopath but I'm not sure what kind of psychopath he is.

I was obligated to attend a discussion of Water for Elephants the other week. The book was entertaining but I wouldn't have mistaken it for high art. I discovered I'm allergic to talking about books in terms of "the great characters" and "the wonderful use of language." I'd never been to a book discussion before, haven't seen what Oprah does on her show, but I was disappointed.

I'm probably HFD Late to the Party....but Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes" has easily become one of the best books I've ever read.

Anxiously awaiting The English Major by Michigan ex-pat Jim Harrison to arrive from Amazon.

Almost finished with Things The Grandchildren Should Know. I now realize exactly why Mark Everett's music is the way it is.

Just started Native Son. Feel like I should have read it already.

The Beav wrote:I highly recommend the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" trilogy for anyone out there who has kids 10 on up. Or for adults, too.

my six year old thinks that these books are great...so i started reading them too....very very funny...makes me think that I could write a book.....sort of the way I thought that I could be an artist after seeing some of Jackson Pollack's work.

This past summer I came across an old copy of The Letters of the Empress Frederick (edited by Sir Frederick Ponsonby, 1930) which I'm currently reading. She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria and the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. It's a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Europe in the last half of the 19th century. If anyone is interested in that period, I'd recommend this book.

Just finished Black Flies by Shannon Burke. It's a good, fast read about a paramedic in Harlem in the early 90s, and it reminds me of a certain platypus's blog.

I'm also reading Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. It's chewy, dark.

Anyone read 2666? I keep starting it and only get so far before I get distracted. . . .

Reducing Stress-Related Behaviours in Persons with Dementia. Does that count?

At first I was going to post: I have a pillow. Do I need to read the book?

But then I thought better of it.