"But using a monster created by a god to murder another god as a metaphor
for the animals that humanity slowly drives to extinction is not effective. It is described as literally willing to murder everything in the world."

Damn that cover looks tight. And yeah, I suppose section breaks makes sense. I'm always up for more Cooke art, something in me just recoils at adding extras to these pared-down books.

OMG Lush Life is so fucking good. Clockers is good too, maybe better, but Lush Life is so panoramic. And how about the hipster funeral? Brutal stuff.

That hospital scene didn't do it for you? Shit would've driven me right around the bend, I will not pretend otherwise.

That is all well and good but you and I and the rest of us know: No Bowie as the Gentleman, no sale.

Twain himself would smack you upside the head for not recognizing the doucheyness of Natty Bumppo.

I don't think the Hall an arbiter of legitimacy but I'd like it to have credibility as a museum. If you go to the dinosaur museum and there's no T Rex skeleton, something is wrong.

Hey, I just finished the Earthsea trilogy/quartet/quintet/sextet. You are in for a treat, her prose (the clarity and directness of which is its own style) is great throughout and the books get deeper and darker and more complicated thematically while remaining on the same reading level.

Wait, what? Illustrated hardback copies? That is — shit, I don't know what that is. Covers would be awesome but why the hell do they need illustrations (although that device was used nicely in Cooke's Outfit adaptation).

Damn — I've never read AGP but I read Pym and liked it quite a bit. Darkly (ho ho) funny stuff.

I liked the ending more than the rest of the book, although I think that was mainly my fault — it has a reputation of being beyond the pale and I did not find that at all, just a mostly cold and darkly humorous study of a psychopath. The ending re-ordered that, so I liked it.

King's collections all have different vibes. Nightmares is the most scattershot in style, which the title reflects and I like quite a bit (also, I really like the long Little League article). If you haven't read Night Shift, get on that immediately. Nothing but flat terror and horror with no fucking around, chock full…

Seconded on the ending, he absolutely nailed in a way he rarely does.

Heh, more WUIB stuff! I'd second the caution on Little, Big, for the Strange/Norrell fan, they have very little in common to my eyes.

I had problems with Blind Assassin but they're the right problems to have with a book that prods at you and pushes back against your ideas. It's pretty good, and there's an excellent discussion of it here in the WUIB archives.

I need to reread Huck Finn. I remember reading it in junior year, when I hated a lot of stuff and especially mandated reading, but I loved the book and consequently despised Sawyer crashing the ending for the most frivolous of reasons. Twain's doing it for a reason but I wanted to reach in to the book and throttle…

Oh cool, where did you find the Westlake/Coe?

Instead of plaques, everyone gets a personalized Billy Bass.

If the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame can't deal with a giant picture of Nazi Dick Clark holding a carrot then they don't deserve the classification of "rock and roll."

Man, what the hell people. Checking the log, I can guess why the no-deleted comment got moderated but come on, it is classic A7X fan.