• Literature

    Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon on Sir Terry Pratchett

    This is a great interview from Neil Gaiman on his friendship with Terry Pratchett and how they collaborated for Good Omens, filmed the day after Pratchett’s death. He shares some great stories and does a short reading. One of my favourite bits happens around the twenty minute mark when Gaiman mentions Pratchett’s goal to make people understand that funny and serious are not opposites, that the opposite of funny is simply not funny. I think that’s something that really struck me when I was reading his books early on. It’s a common misconception that a story loses any insight into the human condition as soon as comedy or fantasy or…

  • Books Read

    Legion: Skin Deep

    Legion: Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson Published: 2014 Narrated by: Oliver Wyman Length: 04:23 This is the second novella in Sanderson’s Legion series. I managed to grab both as they were temporarily available as free downloads through Audible when first released, but they’re worth spending a credit or two on as well, if you’re fine with the short length. He has a third planned, but no release date announced yet. I love the premise of these stories. Stephen Leeds is a problem solver for hire. If you have a problem, he has the knowledge and the skills needed for a solution, as long as you’re fine with him conversing with…

  • Literature

    The Choice Word

    I’ve just started A Slip of the Keyboard, a collection of Terry Pratchett non-fiction that spans his entire career. I plan to take my time and just read an article here and there over the next few months, but there was a short article near the beginning of the book that I loved and thought I’d share. It’s one he wrote for a survey that was done in the UK to find the nation’s favourite word by The Word, London’s Festival of Literature. I like the fortuitous onomatopoeia of words for soundless things. Gleam, glint, glitter, glisten…they all sound exactly as the light would sound if it made a noise.…

  • Comics Read

    Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

    Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley Format: Original Graphic Novel Originally Published: 2013 Publisher: First Second Length: 176 pages I love food. I love eating. I love cooking, when I get off my ass and actually do it. I love browsing markets and discovering new and interesting ingredients. I love travel writing and documentaries but can’t stand it when the local food isn’t featured. I love cooking programs that aren’t just gimmicky game shows. I don’t understand complaints about George R.R. Martin describing meals in too much detail. I don’t understand complaints about people using Twitter or Facebook to post photos of their lunches. More lunches and…

  • Literature

    I Ain’t Miserable

    This is a bit from A Confederacy of Dunces that made me chuckle. It’s a good example of the novel’s typical dialogue and humour. “I refuse to ‘look up.’ Optimism nauseates me. It is perverse. Since man’s fall, his proper position in the universe has been one of misery.” “I ain’t miserable.” “You are.” “No, I ain’t.” “Yes, you are.” “Ignatius, I ain’t miserable. If I was, I’d tell you.” “If I had demolished private property while intoxicated and had thereby thrown my child to the wolves, I would be beating my breast and wailing. I would kneel in penance until my knees bled. By the way, what penance has…

  • Books Read

    A Confederacy of Dunces

    A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Published: 1980 (written in 1963) Narrated by: Barrett Whitener Length: 13:32 The backstory of this novel is actually quite tragic. It’s explained in the introduction by Walker Percy, who was the man instrumental in getting this published. The novel was written in 1963, after Toole’s other novel The Neon Bible, and both failed to get picked up by publishers. This drove him deeper into his existing depression, which eventually lead to his suicide in 1969. His mother later found the carbon copy of the manuscript in his house and brought it to Walker Percy after also failing to catch the interest of…

  • Literature

    R.I.P. Terry Pratchett

    Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series, died this week after struggling with Alzheimer’s for eight years. He was 66 years old, which seems so unfairly young, particularly for someone who still had so much passion for his work. In the mid-90s, before I ever picked up a Discworld novel, I played something called Discworld MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), which is a massively multiplayer online text-based computer game. The sort where you literally type ‘backstab Mike’ to stab Mike in the back with something pointy. They had built the world up from his books, filling it with his hilarious descriptions and ridiculous characters, and my friend and I were in…

  • Comics Read

    Saga, Volume 4

    Saga, Volume 4 by Brian K. Vaughan Illustrated by: Fiona Staples Published: 2014 Publisher: Image Comics Length: 144 pages Collects: issues #19-24 Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples know how to open a volume with a bang. You’re off running right from the first page with a close-up of an alien birth in action. They’re excellent at having little shocks in their books in an age where it’s difficult to shock anyone. I love that I just don’t know what I’m going to get when I open these pages. The story jumps ahead a bit here. The crew is somewhat settled now, and it turns into an odd slice of…

  • Meta

    February in Review

    Books Acquired: None. Books Read: Saga, Volume 4 by Brian K. Vaughan A Brief History of the Celts by Peter Berresford Ellis A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson This was a decent reading month, full of mostly short but quality reads. Also I finally, finally, finished A Brief History of the Celts, which if you follow me on Goodreads you may have noticed had been marked as Currently Reading since last November. Every time I nearly dropped it, something interesting would pop up and keep me reading. No books purchased! How’s that for self-control?…