I am prepared to chuck it if necessary! 
Well, I just finished The Wasp Factory. The animal abuse did ramp up quite a bit, and maybe I’m missing something but I don’t think it was all that necessary. The effect of it was to prove that a certain character was irredeemably insane and frightening. Well, it worked, but did we need that much of it? rocks in chair, muttering didn’t happen didn’t happen didn’t really happen
Now as for the rest of it, the story was very interesting, the narrator even likable. His rituals and creations were fascinating, and I was very curious to find out the secrets of his life, such as what his father was keeping so carefully hidden in the study. And now that I know…well it seems like a bit of a cheap trick. Like a silly movie twist that doesn’t really belong to the book. And I sort of don’t care about it, because regardless of the new light it sheds on events, the characters still have the same problems as before and we’ll never know how they are resolved. Another chapter would have done it.
So as I sit here with my feelings quite ruffled about the whole thing, I’m going to choose something very different to read next: Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story, by Wally Lamb. I’ve read and liked most of Lamb’s other stuff, but I’ve skipped over this one because the cover looks so glurgey. Hopefully the contents are not.
Sad, but true. One more ‘story’ to go and I’m thoroughly bored by the whole Evening Chapel of the Unseeing Whatsis Woo. Perfectly stunning book, shot in the foot. 
Yes, I liked the first two sections very much (teenaged Holly and ski vacation Hugo). Then it went steadily downhill, culminating in the last section, which I’ll spoiler since you haven’t read it yet.
It’s uninspired post-apoc, but at least there’s no more of that horological nonsense. My eyes would glaze over as soon as he started in on “psychic dum-dum” stuff.
Finished American Tabloid, by James Ellroy. The first of his Underworld USA Trilogy. This one covers five years, from November 1958 to the JFK assassination. Mob involvement in the Bay of Pigs is a highlight along with the Kennedys’ pursuit of organized crime in general and Jimmy Hoffa in particular. Very good, but I felt like I needed a shower each time I read a portion.
I’ve read the second and first parts of the trilogy now in reverse order. The second one, The Cold Six Thousand, which covers 1963-68, picks up just about the minute the first one ends. Will have to look for the third one, which I believe covers 1968-72.
Next up: The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith, a mystery set in 1965 Moscow and the second of a trilogy.
I hereby declare I’ve given up on V.S. Naipaul now and forever. People have told me that A House for Mr Biswas is his best book since it was written before he was a bitter old misogynist. After reading three and a half chapters (they’re long chapters) I’ve come to the conclusion that such a time has never existed. He has always been a bitter old misogynist and Mr Biswas is a hateful excuse for a main character. I want them all to die in a fire, but it’s a library book so I’ll return it for the next unwitting victim to pick up.
To hell with you, V.S. Naipaul, and all you stand for.
FWIW, V.S. Naipul was less than steadfastly supportive of Salman Rushdie after the Iranian fatwa was declared, according to Rushdie in Joseph Anton, his autobio of that period. I’ve never read any of Naipul’s stuff and now am not tempted to do so.
He can go to hell twice, then.
Finished Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin’. Deadly dull. It seemed to have all the ingredients but they somehow never gelled. Do not recommend.
Next up: How Not to Write a Novel: 200 classic mistakes and how to avoid them, a misstep by misstep guide by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. I’m not planning to write a novel anyway, but this is a humorous and quick read.
I finished reading Weeping May Tarry, an SF novel that was a collaboration between Raymond F. Jones (This Island Earth) and Lester Del Rey (Nerves and a great deal of other stuff, although he was more importantly as an editor. So much so that Ballantine Books renamed their SF line after him). I had no idea that they’d ever collaborated. It was the last novel for both of them, appearing in 1978. It was published as part of a new SF imprint from Pinnacle Books that doesn’t appear to have been very successful. They put out fewer books than Laser Books did.
The book has its moments, but it’s weird. The first half of the book is a conflict between an alien spaceship commander and the ship’s religious leader, who’s more like the Party Representative on a Soviet ship than like a ship’s chaplain, and is higher in rank. I found myself wondering why this was even a science fiction novel – using Ben Bova’s “Hat Test*”, it could’ve been set on a Spanish galleon with an Inquisitor aboard, or a British naval vessel carrying a particularly stern Archbishop.
I found out halfway through when they crash-land on what is clearly a post-apocalyptic Earth and find a Christian Church, with a crucifix and a Bible, just waiting to be translated. The non-technical crew, who can’t help with repairs, naturally start working on it.
I know that Jones was LDS. I don’t know anything about Del Rey’s religion. I would’ve thought they both knew about the difficulties of religious SF. I kept hoping for some clever twist or observation, but it didn’t happen – the crew converts to Christianity, including, at the end, the fundie religious leader. Disappointing. Maybe they both needed the money.
I finished Clive Cussler’s Sacred Stone on audio. It was outrageous and disappointing. Cussler evidently thinks Iridium is dangerously radioactive, and that the Black Stone is inside the Ka’aba (and is spherical). Or else they just made those the case for the purposes of the story. Or it might be the fault of Craig Dirgo, Cussler’s co-author for the second and last time with this book. Afterwards, the Oregon Files books were co-authored by Jack deBrul, who did a much better job.
I started listening to Cussler/deBrul’s Mirage, until I realized that I’d “read” that audiobook before.
*Bova’s “Hat Test” was to mentally change the venue of any prospective SF story that he read. If he could “switch hats” to Stetsons and make it indistinguishable from a Western, then it wasn’t really science fiction, and he dismissed it. The first half of this book could switch hats with a Naval Officer and be a Hornblower novel.
I needed that laugh. Thanks. 
Man, I haven’t checked in in a while, so I have quite a few updates.
I read Be A Better Runner by Sally Edwards and was really impressed with the book. It went into a lot of detail about how to structure your workouts in such a way to improve your running, by varying the running surface, varying the distance, varying the intensity, etc. It talked about picking out the proper running shoes, proper gear, proper nutrition, proper target heart rate zones – it even had actual workout plans written out on how to train for everything from a 10k to a marathon! I was impressed, and whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to be a better runner.
I also read Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. It takes place in the rural south in the 1940s, and it’s mainly about race relations. Nothing ground-breaking, but I found it enjoyable and it held my interest.
I read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of French *Elle *who was afflicted with Locked-In Syndrome. I was disappointed. I had somehow gotten it in my head that this book was inspirational and lovely, showing how a man who lost control of his body had the fortitude to persevere and enjoy life. Well, it wasn’t. It was essentially the disjointed thoughts of an utterly depressed man. I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone who enjoyed or found inspiration from this book. I don’t recommend it.
I am currently reading Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger, the sequel to her bestselling Etiquette and Espionage. I adored the first book, about a young lady who goes off to finishing school and discovers that the school not only teaches her how to be a lady, but also how to be a spy. It has werewolves and vampires, robots and “mechanimals,” and I found it wonderfully inventive and entertaining. The sequel is okay, but I don’t find it nearly as lovable and endearing as the first installment. But I suspect that eventually I’ll go on to read the third book in the series.
Just finished The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage yesterday. Until I read it, I didn’t have a clear picture of what, precisely, Lovelace and Babbage had done to prefigure modern software and computers, and now I do. I enjoyed the playful illustrations, although the author’s extreme use of footnotes did drive me a bit mad at times. I’d heartily recommend it to anyone even a little interested in computing history, Lovelace & Babbage, or just clever graphic novels.
Started The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie over the weekend. I love Abercrombie’s writing: the moral ambiguity, reluctant heroes / cowards, and realistic universe-building. A treat so far.
Also began Madam Bovary. How I got to the age of 44, particularly as a college French / English major, without reading this novel, I cannot comprehend. Trying to remedy the gaps in my education, and this is a real pleasure though I’m only about 40 pages in.
I cannot believe I didn’t know that Mitchell also writes novels, I only knew about his comedy!
I recently finished …
*The Slight Edge *by Jeff Olsen
Put It In the Book!: A Half-Century of Mets Mania by Howie Rose
The Yankees Baseball Reader: A Collection of Writings on the Game’s Greatest Dynasty by Adam Brunner and Josh Leventhal
Dropping the Ball by Dave Winfield
Sluggers! History’s Heaviest Hitters by Paul Adomites
Baseball is My Life by Tom Seaver
*The Glory of their Times *by Lawrence Ritter
The House that Ruth Built by some guy I don’t remember
Men at Work by George Will
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
I’m currently working on …
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
We Played the Game by Danny Peary
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
I NEED to read that!
I finished Sacred Clowns by Tony Hillerman. It was a bit slow to start, though I admit to be distracted last week by preparations for the local anime con. I did enjoy all the character development in it.
I just finished re-reading The Phantom Tollbooth, and am now starting on the Hunger Games trilogy again.
Uh, different David Mitchells. David Mitchell - Wikipedia
Comedian Mitchell has even joked about being mistaken for novelist Mitchell.
I’m going camping tomorrow, so loading up the kindle with whatever sounds good. Just paid $14 (grumble grumble) for the new Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord, about King David. You know, from the Bible. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Brooks’ work before, so I’m confident about this investment!
I’m well over halfway through Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, a novel about a young African woman stolen into slavery, and I’m still enjoying it. The American Revolution went by in a flash (too fast, actually), and now she’s in 1783 NYC as the Brits are preparing to evacuate with their Tory friends and any blacks who served His Majesty for at least a year.
Finally finished TS Hottle’s sf novella The First One’s Free, which was… meh. Some good ideas (including nanotattoos and a cult which worships Marilyn Monroe), but the writing and editing were nothing special.
Picked up a graphic novel of Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow at the library, adapted and illustrated by I.N.J. Culbard, which is interestingly drawn and nicely unsettling. Just finished the first of four stories in it.
I’ve also begun an audiobook of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, an at-the-gallop anthropological overview of how humanity became the dominant species on Earth. So far it’s all right.
I finished reading The Egoist by George Meredith. The idea was interesting (the women who are attracted to the most eligible man in the county gradually realise that he’s a narcissist who won’t take no for an answer), but I felt that it dragged on too long; it could easily have been cut by a third without losing anything, in my opinion. Also, some of the prose was so tortured that it was often a chore to figure out what he was talking about.
Still, it had some interest value as an early example of a novel that really digs into the psychological motivation of the characters and some parts were pretty funny. I doubt I’ll pick up any more books by Meredith, though. (I previously read The Shaving of Shagpat as well.)