Books

I've been reading a lot lately.  I got a Nook last year.  That model is mine by the way.  Nothing fancy, no apps or movie capabilities, just a small device that's easy to carry.  I used it for awhile then it set collecting dust for another while.  I picked up a book I had been wanting to read for a some time now and started it.  Turns out it was a terrible, terrible book.  The Ghosts of Manhattan.  I do not recommend it.  So even though I never finished the book, I decided to start reading some more.  I had a few books on the Nook and viola I was hooked (again).  I used to be one of those people that wanted to hold a book in my hand, smell it, thumb through the pages and gaze at the cover art.  For the longest time I was against eReaders.  Boy was I silly.  As much as I love to collect my favorite books and look at them I realized I was turning into a hoarder.  I would read a book but couldn't bring myself to get rid of it when I was done..  My wife has been mocking me for years about the boxes full of books I have been dragging around the country.  The Nook is great because I can store hundreds of books in a tiny package.

I do still like to go to the book store a lot.  I go, browse, take a photo of a book that looks interesting then come home and buy it through the wi-fi.  My last trip to the store though I noticed some trends I hadn't before.  First I noticed the sad state of affairs for fantasy and science fiction (mainly fantasy).  There are dozens of sub-genres, most I don't know the name of.  Urban fantasy is one, post-apocalyptic and steam punk are a few more.  I think the reason this annoys me is it tells me there are so many of these types of stories being written that they have their own catagory.  That's a lot of unoriginality.  I suppose there are a lot of good stories being told but it's generally my experience that the bad out weigh the good and I'm too lazy to weed through them.  Steam punk in particular seems to be full of bad, cliche ridden titles.

There are also currently more books based on video games than there are video games.  If this isn't true it certainly seems true.  There is a paperback book for everything including strategy board games.  I'm sure some of these are probably good and I'm assuming there is a large fan base to make this lucrative.  If you've ever read a book based on a franchise you were unfamiliar with you know that they tend to be hard to follow.

My last word on fantasy is the womanizing of the genre.  I'm not talking in a Conan the Barbarian, drinking and wenching kind of way.  I'm talking about this...

Hi, I'm a frosty haired choade.

I think I'm going to puke.  Thanks Twilight, thanks a lot.  Something I found interesting was the number of middle-aged women browsing the fantasy section these days.  I eaves dropped on two a couple of months ago and boy they were into the series they were following.  It was cute.  I really missed Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard at that moment though.  This is how you end up with that guy in the picture above.

The womanizing of fantasy may have led to the increase in historical fiction, there seems to be a run on hairy chested Vikings and Gladiators these days.  No dudes named Tristan here.

I'm not a fan of an author that is bigger than his or her book either.

Both figuratively and literally.

I like Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club anyway), but come on.  I guess when there are people that read anything a favorite author puts out it makes it easy to find on the shelf but shouldn't you at least have the title of the book on the spine? Call me old fashioned.

Sure I'm bitching, what else is new, but really it's a great time to be a reader.  I've read quite a few good books the last couple of months, including the new adventures of my old favorite super hero from when I was a kid, Doc Savage.  I've also discovered the westerns of my favorite author Elmore Leonard, who also has a huge name on the cover.  And I've found a good political book from one of my favorite writers at the National Review, Jonah Goldberg.  So I'll do what I always advise others to do when they see something they don't like, I'll ignore the frosty haired choade.

And finally, one last image to leave you with...

In case you can't see because of the glare, that is 1000!