I’m not listening. I’m not listening. Robert B. Parker is a god. I’m not listening.
In my 20s I got into Sue Grafton and her 'alphabet mysteries." I loved that the protagonist was hell-on-wheels and could take care of herself, didn’t need a man to make her life complete and was, overall, a complete and total anti girlie type. She was a slob and owned only one dress (which she kept in her purse for special occasions) and had an a warped employment history backed up smart assness in spades. To catch up, I read every single new book with abandon until I quickly caught up and then had to… w a i t forever for each subsequent offering.
Now days though, although I still keep up out of loyalty, Kinsey grates on my nerves. She doesn’t seem to grow much or learn from past human-related-relationship mistakes. Someday Henry’ll die and then where will she be for a surrogate father figure? Even if she eats what Rosie tells her to, it’s not like they’re really >close<. If she honestly doesn’t need a love interest (getting laid is a whole other thing – when that happens, I see it as all good!), why is she falling into bad situations, like with the married cop? Plus, despite the fact that I still like her general attitude, she’s as equally judgmental around the edges as those she lambasts for thinking poorly of her choices.
C’mon Milhone, do more than solve crime, stare at the stars through your sky light and hate exercise but jog anyway. I’d like to continue to follow you if you head on out further, but only if you become more genuine and less stuck in angry punk chick mode. It’s not like you’ve got to own a dust ruffle or watch Steel Magnolias. Just don’t pretend ya ain’t got feelings ever. 'Tis all.
Huh. I suppose I’m somewhat passionate about this subject. I had no idea. 
It wasn’t intentional, but yeah, that sounds about right.
RR
Two things, faithfool. First, the good news is, the series will have to end pretty soon, anyway, so maybe Grafton has a plan for bringing it all together. Second, this line
Is the first thing I’ve read in 20 years that has made me actually consider reading these books. Thanks!
I had a feeling I’d see Ayn Rand in here, given past CS threads. 
But I did want to say that for me, it was the opposite. I chewed on Karl Marx and other far left writers in my youth, and gravitated much later to their opposites. When I read the Manifesto now, I can only shake my head as I marvel at the sheer spookiness of it all.
Hi Jack! ahead:
Oh, I certainly hope so! However, I just know that once it does (in whichever manner she sees fit), that I’ll gloss over my irritation with them and miss every last little bit like crazy. Besides, her depictions of the fictional Santa Theresa (standing in for Santa Barbara) make me want to become a travel agent and hype it as The Destination to Check Out!!
Yeah, KM is a pretty fascinating character, if you discount what all I’ve already groused about. 
How could you not like a chick that cuts her own hair, replaces one old trashed VW with another and has no qualms about doing anything by herself? Actually, she not only prefers it, but sometimes actually discourages company. My kinda woman.
Oh, and just to be clear on the slob issue… I didn’t mean in the classical sense. She’s tidy in general and a neat freak when she needs to think, but compared to what most consider typically female (IE: that Bug could be a breeding ground for testing unknown virus strains and although you could probably eat off of her floor – with what little snack food type items she has – the order has more to do with few possessions and an austere surrounding than with normal fastidiousness), she ain’t. Which is just another thing I’ve loved her for all this time. Or since the early '90s anyway.
So, I do highly recommend Grafton. She carries her plot well and doesn’t get bogged down in minutiae. The characters are fleshed out just the appropriate amount for a short mystery and the who-done-it aspect isn’t anything to sneeze at either. The supporting cast is good and they progress at a real-life pace. For example, Kinsey’s lost her favorite previous boss / mentor. Finally, this is feminism at it’s best. It shows equality, instead of preaching it, juxtaposed alongside the very realistic aspect of humanity. Yummy stuff, with some subtle wink-and-nod humor thrown in around the edges too.
Hope you like it. 
Bye Jack!
If Ellison wrote crazed drug trips, they were somebody else’s; he’s always been clean as a whistle when it comes to intoxicants. I think he just gets high on rage.
Mine’s pretty recent. About ten years ago, I picked up the paperback of the novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire. For some reason, I really liked it, and even thought it was somehow daring and impressive to write your own version of an earlier author’s beloved fantasy world (in this case, Oz). Maybe I just liked finding that somebody else thought that the eponymous “Wonderful Wizard” in Baum’s original book was the villain of the piece. And I actually liked the prose style.
A few years later, I picked up the book again and it seemed painfully stupid and obvious, with a thuddingly dull prose style. It’s possibly the only case in which a novel has been improved by being made into a musical. Jesus, what was I thinking?
Pretty much all of John LeCarre’s books that don’t involve George Smiley as a main character. I used to read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold once every year, and I tried to read it again about a year ago, but it just sounded so . . . whiney. The characters were entirely unsympathetic, which might have been the point of the whole thing, but now what used to be compelling is now annoying. Leamas the spy is just a total loss, a glorified asshole who sacrifices everything just to be manipulated by his superior, and you can’t even really feel sorry for him because of his attitude.
LeCarre’s other works like A Small Town in Germany and The Russia House aren’t quite as bad, but they’re too dreary and maudlin for me now. I can’t see how even real spywork is this depressing.
I cut my teeth on John Steinbeck’s novels, and reread almost of them through the years, but nowadays I don’t care for them. His misogyny (at least for any woman that wasn’t young, sexy, and/or a prostitute) sets my teeth on edge.
I used to devour anything that Jack Higgins wrote. I always recognized that he wasn’t the deepest of authors but it didn’t matter. I outgrew that phase. I will still pick up one of his books on occasion. A fun quick read. But I won’t buy any of his books anymore.
For me it would have to be the writings of Jack Kerouac. Mostly because the man I married seems to be turning into Neal Cassady. Seriously, though, I know Kerouac’s attitude toward women was normal for the time in which he lived, but the sexism in his books grates at me now more than it used to. I’m beginning to think “Mardou Fox” in The Subterraneans had the right idea in leaving him for the Gregory Corso guy (I forgot the pseudonym Kerouac gave him.)
I read the Sven Hassel books when I was younger, though to be fair war stories from the Germans P.O.V. were a novelty at the time,I now find them rather childish,rather like listening to a drunk boasting in a pub.
Also I used to enjoy M.Moorcocks Elric of Melnibone but on attempting to re read one recently found the writing to be very simplistic and sparse in detail.
I don’t know if it counts as mature or not - but when I was 18 or so I read Richard Bach’s Illusions and I thought it was fantastic.
Reading it now, not so much. (Although there are still parts of it that I think are pretty cool.)
The comic book Preacher . I really enjoyed it when I was reading through it back in 2000 but when I tried to read it a few months ago I found myself wondering what I saw in it. The concept was interesting but too often it seemed as though the writer and artist just wanted to gross the audience out. A lot of Preacher probably could have been cut.
Marc
I’m not that old yet but Far Side used to seem hilarious to me. Now, not so much.
Out of all the responses in this thread, this one really surprises. Every time I pull out my Complete Far Side set I laugh and laugh and laugh.
Which, sadly, isn’t often because the thing weighs like 30 pounds.
Now that I have started dredging up old records from my collection for recording into the computer, I’m struck by what has or hasn’t survived the test of time.
Among the latter are several Moody Blues albums. The Moodies were always known for a certain degree of, um, pretension, but to my ear the lyrics have gotten mawkishly embarassing, even in songs I overall still like. For instance, Dear Diary, where the singer is looking out (and down) at all those people bustling by outside his window:
If they weren’t so blind
then surely they’d see
There’s a much better way
for them to be
Do tell. Actually, I think the Moody Blues were largely meant to be listened to while stoned.
Not that I ever did that, of course.
Ya’ know, this made me think of another one: Dave Barry. 137 years ago when I was a college freshman, I loved his books. I couldn’t read them in the library, because I would keep cracking up and scaring the other students. I tried to read a couple of old columns a few weeks ago, and couldn’t even raise a chuckle. His whole “Hey guys, I’m just a normal shmo who doesn’t understand math or how to work with his hands! Isn’t that HILARIOUS?!” bit is a lot funnier when you’re a confused teenager than when you’re a confused adult, I suppose.
I wouldn’t know – I never read him as a teenager. I was in grad school when my mother first sent me a column of his, and it was years before I became a regular reader. But now I’ve got all his humor books, and he still cracks me up. more than any other writer.
When I was in my teens, James P Hogan was a Sci-Fi god GOD I tells ya.
I read him now and they are just sooooo…I don’t know. Not good.