Rate the last Book you read

Shel Silverstein wrote a bunch of childrens books and poetry (after his stint at Playboy - go figure). They're a lot of fun. Him and Judy Blume were my favorites as a kid.

Finally finished the last part of the trilogy.

I still don't understand why this was three separate books instead of one. First book was nothing more than extended introduction while books two and three were the main story. It would have worked better with little more editing and as a single volume.

Third books was slightly worse than second mostly because the biologist / Ghost Bird has too much to say (she's really boring). Rest of the narrators work fine (lighthouse keeper and director were my favorites).

I'd probably give this one 3/5 and same 3/5 for the whole trilogy.

I finally finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick. It’s been on my bucket list for years and I ultimately enjoyed it no matter how anti-climatic it really was. +

I also finished H. G Well’s The Time Machine. It was another bucket list project and exactly as great as I thought it was. A nice short and sweet story to read over about a day or so. +

I’m also diving into The Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. I haven’t read it since my first go at college and absolutely adored it. Read it and James A Garfield will be your favorite president. It’s simply too tragic what happens to him. .

Good stuff. Loved his amusing excoriations of his fellow actors.

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Did not like. Returned for refund.

Doctor Sleep (2013) by Stephen King

My wife convinced me to read this one together with her since we both loved The Shining. I've never been totally sold on King's writing style, but this story was easy to follow given our familiarity with the characters and plot already. I thought there was a thorough enough backstory given before building up to the climax, and the ending already seems well suited for a movie production.

Excellent memoir of pledging to a fraternity. Or trying to. Movie was actually better than the book, but the book is good.



Supposed to be a classic American read, but too long-winded for me. Returned for refund.

Good book. American ex-pats in Brazil. Written by a man from a woman’s perspective.

James Ellroy's White Jazz is hard-boiled, apocalyptic noir at its very best. I may have messed up starting with the last of Ellroy's "L.A. Quartet", because this seems to be the hard hitting crescendo of his noir writing (the only other book of Ellroy's I read was American Tabloid back in 2008, which, to my shame, I didn't finish). I started The Big Nowhere last week, which I like so far, but I gather that White Jazz is the only of his books told strictly from a staccato, slang ridden, first person perspective. I've been reading that Ellroy, Nick Nolte (after ripping off a ton of Ellroy for Mulholland Falls), and Joe Carnahan have, unsuccessfully, been trying to get White Jazz adapted for the screen. Carnahan churned out a script in 2007, which will probably never see production. The script is available online, and I hope to eventually read it to see how they could have adapted it.

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I don't know how to rate it. Awful, but I couldn't stop reading (and I don't want to repeat it).

Didn’t care for either of these. Returned for refund.

This book got rave reviews, but I could not finish it. Well-written, but, ultimately, confusing to follow. Returned for refund.

Excellent book.

A Finnish book about the evolution of horror movies. I read this couple of times when it was published in 1985 (I was 10) and dreamed of seeing most of the films (especially the ones that were banned in Finland at the time). Now it wasn't that great anymore and it was obvious that the writers were missing a lot, especially from Italy, Mexico and Spain.

Early parts were fine but from late sixties / early seventies more and more important stuff was left out. Also the writers couldn't usually see beyond graphic violence and mostly dismissed stuff like Fulci's zombie films as trash that has no meaning beyond showing repulsive splatter. There was nothing about giallo (except one faulted reference to Mario Bava'a Black Sunday). Also its filmography of 800 important horror films included stuff like Ghostbusters.

2/5 (including nostalgia bonus)



Another genre history and similarly the parts about early SF were good. Also I liked how the book included stuff from 18th (17th?) century (i.e. before SF was officially born). Everything up to pulp was fine.

From then on the book took heavy leftist bias and also started preaching about feminism, social justice, racial equality and all that. In short I (slightly exaggerated, of course) learned that all worthy modern SF is about the aforementioned themes while the rest is racist, misogynist and capitalistic trash not worth reading.

2/5 (good beginning tarnished by stupid latter half)

10 out of 10

The Alchemist is a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho which was first published in 1988. Originally written in Portuguese, it became an international bestseller translated into some 70 languages as of 2016.

Now I am thinking to Read Mocking Bird

Good book.

British vet in America writes a memoir. Interesting, but she’s not particularly likeable.



Memoir from a woman who is nowhere near as amusing as she thinks she is. Returned for a refund.

Quite a good book. Well-written. I found the sex scenes to be mildly titillating though it is supposed to be a highly erotic novel.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

It was OK. Very ironic and lots of exaggeratedly silly side characters. Main villain was quite diabolical but also so over the top that his threat was hard to take seriously. Olfactory emphasis in narration was well made but got little in the way of telling the story. 3+/5

IT by Stephen King - 3.6/5

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta - 2.5/5

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