So over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, with a little extra time off from the job that actually pays the bills (Lord knows writing doesn’t), I finally wrapped up the last pass of editing on the conclusion of Shards — or, as I am now calling it, The “Strings” Duology:
So this week I’m reading–or rather, re-reading–a book, Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout, that’s printed on actual paper. Aged, yellowing paper, even! This is the 50th anniversary edition, published in 1984, which means that if it were published now it would be the 80th anniversary edition. Does anybody else feel old?
“If I kill all the golfers, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key.”
So this week we watched “Gran Torino“, one of Clint Eastwood’s late-career movies that doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go. In this film, Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a recently-widowed Korean war veteran living in a neighborhood that has become rather dilapidated, and also largely ethnic Hmong, including a thuggish street gang whose members like to cram, clown-car style, into a rather junky little beater with an ugly spoiler and a hood that’s not the same color as the body. Walt’s prized Gran Torino catches the gang’s eye as a much more suitable ride. Hilarity does not ensue.
“You’ve gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel like getting off Walt’s lawn? Well do ya, punk?”
As some readers may recall, about a year ago we discovered “Breaking Bad” on Netflix, in which seemingly mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White transforms himself into feared crystal meth lord “Heisenberg”, and my wife promptly became addicted to it. (The show, not crystal meth.) After we ran out of “Breaking Bad” episodes, my wife charged me with finding another show that was just (or at least, almost) as good. That search did not go well … until “Happy Valley” came along:
Why does that old Winnebago have bullet holes in the door?
It was the best of times … it was the worst of times … it was time to read A Tale of Two Cities, that Dickensian classic, which I somehow never picked up until it appeared for free on the BookBub mailing list.
So having in recent weeks subjected my wife to “Snowpiercer” (“What kind of train has an aquarium and a nightclub in it?”) and “Ender’s Game” (“All I’ve figured out so far is it’s a bunch of kids playing video games.”), I decided we needed something she might actually pay attention to. Enter “Just Like Heaven“, AKA the romantic comedy where the ghost of Tracy Flick meets the Incredible Hulk, with an assist from Napoleon Dynamite. Or something like that.
So this week, having ditched two other free books — one just for being poorly written, another for having a Too Dumb To Live protagonist (seriously, after the second or third time you ignore explicit instructions to stay on the path and not to talk to the monsters, you deserve whatever you get) — I’ve picked up Lore of the Witch World, an anthology of stories plus a novelette by Andre Norton.
Despite her fur-lined boots and gloves, Babette still felt cold. She couldn’t quite figure out why.
