2010 reads - July

July
Terrible, Horrible Edie - E. C. Spykman (reread)
The Shadows in the Street - Susan Hill
The Complaints - Ian Rankin
A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks
Where Memories Lie - Deborah Crombie
August (in progress)
Kill the Dead - Richard Kadrey (reread)
A Battle Won - S. Russell Thomas
Wings of Fire - Charles Todd

2010 Reads - June

June
Kill the Dead - Richard Kadrey
Plant Seed, Pull Weed - Geri Larkin (reread)
Kill the Dead (reread)
Oogy - Larry Levin
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter - Tom Franklin
Bad Boy - Peter Robinson

2010 Reads - May

May
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner - Elizabeth George (reread)
The Great Lover - Jill Dawson
Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny
The Queen of Patpong - Timothy Hallinan
The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld - Terry Pratchett
A Question of Belief - Donna Leon
Room - Emma Donoghue
Hamlet's Blackberry - William Powers

2010 Reads - April

April
From Dead To Worse - Charlaine Harris (reread)
The Good Fairies of New York - Martin Millar
Dead and Gone - Charlaine Harris (reread)
Going Postal - Terry Pratchett (reread)
Making Money - Terry Pratchett (reread)
Thud! - Terry Pratchett (reread)
Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett (reread)
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran - Rob Sheffield
Insignificant Others - Stephen McCauley
The Bucolic Plague - Josh Kilmer-Purcell
God of the Hive - Laurie R. King
You Had Me At Woof - Julie Klam
Dead in the Family - Charlaine Harris

2010 Reads - March

March
Payment In Blood - Elizabeth George (reread)
Well-Schooled in Murder - Elizabeth George (reread)
For The Sake of Elena - Elizabeth George (reread)
Playing for the Ashes - Elizabeth George (reread)
Pictures of Perfection - Reginald Hill (reread)

2010 Reads - February

February
This Body of Death - Elizabeth George
The Mapping of Love and Death - Jacqueline Winspear
Even the Dogs - Jon McGregor
Midnight Fugue - Reginald Hill (reread)
A Traitor to Memory - Elizabeth George (reread)
A Great Deliverance - Elizabeth George (reread)
Where We Going, Daddy? - Jean-Louis Fournier
The Godfather of Kathmandu - John Burdett
Front and Center - Catherine Murdock
Walking Papers - Francesco Clark
Shit My Dad Says - Justin Halpern
Careless In Red - Elizabeth George (reread)
This Body of Death - Elizabeth George (reread)
A Suitable Vengeance - Elizabeth George (reread)

2010 Reads - January

January
Newspaper Blackout - Austin Kleon
Switch: How To Change When Change Is Hard - Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Sandman Slim - Richard Kadrey (reread)
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith
The House of Tomorrow - Peter Bognanni
The Surrendered - Chang-Rae Lee
I Thought You Were Dead - Paul Nelson
An Education - Nick Hornby
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
Chef - Jaspreet Singh
Backseat Saints - Joshilyn Jackson
Odd and the Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman
The Dead Republic - Roddy Doyle
The Black Cat - Martha Grimes

Sandman Slim and Kill the Dead

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey (Eos) was unquestionably the most entertaining novel I read last year – smart, dark, hilarious – which actually surprised me a lot. While I like mysteries and some quirky fiction, I tend to run a mile from anything too dark or apocalyptic, but one glance into Sandman Slim and I was hooked. I wrote the following for Indie Next:

How a book this dark can be this much fun to read is just one of many things that will amaze you about Sandman Slim. After surviving eleven years in Hell – literally – Stark is ready for vengeance on the magicians who killed his girlfriend and sent him there. If he happens to avert the Apocalypse at the same time, that will be icing on the cake. Good Omens meets Raymond Chandler!

The good news is that Sandman Slim is now available in mass market paperback for only $7.99. The great news is that Kadrey has written a sequel, called Kill the Dead. The amazing news is that Kill the Dead is twice as good as Sandman Slim. The bad news is that Kill the Dead won’t be published until October. But here's what I wrote about it for Indie Next:

The most delightful novel I read last year was Richard Kadrey's amazing Sandman Slim. The only problem with a book so stunning, original, fast-paced and funny is that it's a very tough act to follow. Only a truly outstanding writer could give us a sequel twice as good as the original: action-packed from the first page, dark yet slyly hilarious, thought-provoking and impossible to put down. Fortunately, Kadrey is a master, and Kill the Dead, in which Stark, the half-angel hitman from hell, goes up against angels, devils, federal agents and a zombie apocalypse in Los Angeles, is a masterpiece.

You may also want to check out http://richardkadrey.blogspot.com/ - like his novels, it's smart, funny and interesting.

Bloomsday

June 16, Bloomsday, is the day when the action in James Joyce's novel Ulysses took place. I am one of the only people I know who read and enjoyed this novel. It took about a week to read. I read it during a heat wave and drought in the summer of 1988. I had just graduated from college with an English degree and I was working in a parking lot. That week the lot was being repaired, so I wasn't working, and I mostly lay in front of the fan reading. The scene where the crippled girl deliberately flashes her underwear at Leopold Bloom is so classic.

I'm unreasonably geeked that Harper/Eos used a review I wrote in the publicity letter they're sending out with galley copies of a book I loved, even though I personally never read those letters and I doubt if anyone else does either. I'll be writing about that book very soon. Its initials are Kill the Dead.

Is this thing on?

This was taken about 40 years ago, but some things don't change much. I still have that table, but the floor I have under it now is a lot neater.

So I thought I'd try this blog thing. Mostly it will be about books, although I reserve the right to rave about whatever seems raveworthy at the moment (I can't stop playing the new Underworld single). I'll post something real soon; this is just a "testing, testing" kind of thing.