Yet another review for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
Like I’ve said before, it was a pretty good read. Implausible, but the author has been very clear on that from the get-go. Just the fact that he weaved a tale that could just almost be believable was a damn good piece of work.
I’m almost done with the book so this is a good interview to catch.
Seriously, I know the subject matter sounds so bizarre, but it really works.
An interview with Bill Watterson. Yay!
Wow, it has been a bad couple days for book lovers and those who value freedom and integrity.
I read this morning that J.D. Salinger has passed. Here is his obit at The New York Times and over at the BBC, plus a post over at Powell’s Books.
A really odd cat, but definitely one of our more free-spirited Americans.
Of more personal import is the death of Howard Zinn (obits at The New York Times and The Washington Post, plus the Powell’s Books entry).
I’ve enjoyed Zinn’s work on pushing the stories of real Americans to the forefront of our history. More importantly, his work has been critical in making sure we don’t whitewash our history or gloss over the hard parts, or even the bad decisions. If you have only been taught Texas conservative Talibangelical/Luddite BS, you know nothing about the history of this nation, warts and all. It is a damned shame too many of our students and only getting the sanitized version.
He didn’t report it either: he lived it, fighting during World War II (and losing the taste for war) as well as being a force for chance for change during the Civil Rights era). In this age of Tea Baggery and people proud of their stupidity, we need people like Zinn more than ever.
This was a great interview and I can’t wait to read the book. Check it out yourself.
The Talibangelicals just don’t hate science. They also hate science fiction.
In the above linked post they list the “sins” of various key sci-fi authors. I read the list, and frankly I am far more given to approving of “free love” than the vile, hateful bigotry of supposed Christians who visit websites like that.
As I have consistently said, I realize that religion serves it’s good purposes, but the way it has been twisted into a culture of hate – without ANY pushback by decent people of faith – damns them all in my eyes.
Fix your problems and earn my respect. At the moment I respect individual believers but the concept as a whole has really turned me off. In short, the Book is fine; the Church not so much.
Yes, we’re still reading. It may not always be books – frankly, most of my news and computer knowledge comes from a screen these days – but we are still a literate culture.
Sadly, those numbers include morons who read “Going Rogue” (and seriously, I doubt 80% of the people who bought that piece of crap actually read it) and the douchebags who read Bill O’Reilly and Mark Levin hatefests. So even for those anti-intellectual nitwits, reading is reading.
Now if we can all just actually try to learn and grow as a result of the act, that would be something.
