Things have been busy lately and writing here has taken a low priority. There seems to have been wedding planning stuff going on every weekend for the past month (both for our wedding and our relatives), but that is finally winding down. Then there has been the Cleveland Cavs battling through the NBA playoffs to the Finals. I'm excited to finally see them on TV again, since the Finals are on "free" TV, though we did get to catch the last game against Detroit at a local bar with a couple hundred other screaming fans. And of course there are my beloved Indians who I try to listen to at least part of their game each night.

In addition to all of that, I've tried to take up reading again. I had lofty goals to read more last year, but I think in the end I only made it through a single book. Well, I've already doubled that total this year, having recently finished two books. The first one was "Heart-Shaped Box" by Joe Hill. I won't deny that I was interested in this book because the author (whose full name is actually Joe Hillstrom King) is the son of one of my favorite writers, Stephen King (a fact that slowly came out after the book's publishing). The book itself was quite good, and not much different than one might expect from a King family member, which includes being well written and a page turner. The basic premise is that aging rock star, Judas Coyne, buys a suit over the internet that is "haunted" by the ghost of it's former owner, who is out to get revenge against Judas. The book moves along at a good pace as we follow Judas's efforts to rid himself of this ghost. This book gets my recommendation.

My second read of the year was "The Raw Shark Texts" by Steven Hall, another literary newcomer. This book is a little out there and borders on being science-fiction (a dreaded label unless you're nerdy like me). The narrator, Eric Sanderson, awakens one day with no memories, just a note referring him to a doctor who informs him of his recurring bouts of memory loss, an aftereffect of losing his girlfriend during a vacation in Greece years earlier. The story follows his efforts to stop his memory loss cycle and regain his life, though it turns out to involve teaming up with a mad doctor and fighting off a seemingly otherworldly creature. This book has generated a lot of buzz, and both very positive and very negative reviews, and the movie rights were sold after a brief bidding war. Ultimately I found the story pretty good, though quite confusing at times.

The next book up for me is "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, which is my first taste of atheist literature. Should be interesting. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

Labels: books

This entry was posted by Brad, on Thursday, June 07, 2007. You can leave your response.