Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

This is my first Vonnegut book, and I’ll definitely be picking up his others. He’s hilarious, mad, politically incorrect, and bursting with ideas. This book primarily follows Kilgore Trout, an aging writer, and Dwayne Hoover, a local hero who suffers a breakdown after reading one of Trout’s novels. Vonnegut even throws himself in the mix, in a sort of surreal dimensional shift. I love that he seems to just write what and how he wants. His writing has a certain freedom to it. His illustrations are a lot of fun too.

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell Hamilton

Jaye was hosting an ‘Adopt a Vampire’ month, in which she urged readers to pick up some vampire fiction during the month. It had been ages since I had read a vampire story, and Mike and Manda had recommended this a while back, so I decided to give it a go.

The story follows Anita Blake, a necromancer and vampire hunter. Someone in the city is killing vampires, and she’s forced to find who’s doing it. I liked the detective feel in this book, and I’m glad there wasn’t really any romance happening. I’ll check out the next few books, although I’ve heard the series eventually deteriorates into vampire porn.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

This was, by far, my least favourite of the movies. Having not read the book at the time, I found it to be confusing and disjointed in some places, while painfully obvious in other places. The book, I thought, was quite a bit better. The series has started to pick up, and I enjoyed this one.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

I just love Christopher Moore, and he keeps getting better. In this book, an average Beta Male finds himself carrying out the duties of Death. It’s dark and hilarious, and Charlie Asher, the protagonist, is probably my favourite Moore character yet. This is the sort of writing to which I aspire.

February

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time last year and loved it, so I was excited when I picked this up. I was enthralled with Incident from the first page, but it took me a little longer to get into A Spot of Bother. When I finally did, I found it to be an overall more satisfying read. It’s essentially about an uptight Englishman, who is slowly going mad, and his family, who were arguably mad already. It’s very well written and funny, with a wide range of uniquely-voiced characters. He’s definitely an author to keep an eye on.

January

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

A tale of a sex-addicted con artist trying to get a grip on life. This book is full of messed-up people doing messed-up things for messed-up reasons, and it’s great fun. I love the rambling, philosophical mind of the main character. A funny, tragic, and thought-provoking read.

I’m unfortunately still recovering from a reading drought, but I’m slowly getting back on track. This has been a very slow start to the year, but at least there’s been quality.

February

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time last year and loved it, so I was excited when I picked this up. I was enthralled with Incident from the first page, but it took me a little longer to get into A Spot of Bother. When I finally did, I found it to be an overall more satisfying read. It’s essentially about an uptight Englishman, who is slowly going mad, and his family, who were arguably mad already. It’s very well written and funny, with a wide range of uniquely-voiced characters. He’s definitely an author to keep an eye on.

January

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

A tale of a sex-addicted, con artist trying to get a grip on life. This book is full of messed-up people doing messed-up things for messed-up reasons, and it’s great fun. I love the rambling, philosophical mind of the main character. A funny, tragic, and thought-provoking read.

A friend in high school recommended I read the book, and I’ve seen it mentioned online many times since, so finally, ten years later, I decided to picked it up. If nothing else, it looks quite interesting.

The main goal of this is to get to a level where I can entertain myself with doodles during meetings. It’s maybe not the noblest artistic pursuit, but it’s worthwhile nonetheless. Right now I draw patterns and stick men. I’ve included a digital example of my skill level.

I am a little worried, however, that by studying the craft I might lose a little of the raw sincerity that exists within my pieces.

I’ve been sketching a little each day. I’ve found I’m actually not too bad at copying other people’s simple sketches, but I’m absolutely terrible at trying to draw anything from my imagination or real-life. I don’t understand how you’re supposed to draw anything in 3D without using vectors and matrices.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe jumped out at me. I remember borrowing The Chronicles of Narnia box set from my sister in grade five or six and loving the series. In fact, I still have that box set sitting on my shelf right now. I’ve always had a natural talent for pilfering books.

Before that, I remember sitting in the library in grade four with my friend Mike, devouring every Hardy Boys book they had on the shelf. We were determined to get through the series, even if every book was essentially the same. At that time I was also reading through the Fear Street series by R.L. Stine, which surprisingly aren’t on the list.

In early elementary school I was reading a mix of children’s books, but I can’t think of any specific titles right now. I remember enjoying the Mr. Men books in the early years. Oh how I loved Mr. Mischief.

But to choose the book, that single book that got me hooked on reading, I have to go back even further than that. Back to those nights before kindergarten, before I even knew how to read my own name, when I’d curl up in bed and listen to my dad read The Hobbit to me. My imagination blossomed within those pages. I could nearly feel the ground under my feet as I traveled beside Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad mimicking Gollum’s voice as he read.

I firmly believe my lifelong reading and writing habits were formed and developed those nights. My dad didn’t inspire me to go out and buy more books or to pick up a pen and start inventing tales; I was far too young for that. He did, however, shape the way I relate to stories, and that’s a gift for which I’m most thankful.

August 2007

James Bond And Philosophy edited by James B. South and Jacob M. Held

My friend Mike recommended the Popular Culture and Philosophy series to me, and I’m glad he did. It’s a great idea to open philosophical discussions, and explain the concepts, using examples from popular culture. This book contains fifteen essays on the philosophical issues surrounding 007, from what it means to have a license to kill to the objectification of women. It uses a lot of examples from the books, but everything will still make sense if you’ve seen the movies. It did prompt me to buy the first book, though, which I’ll be reading soon.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

A whimsical fairly tale for adults. Gaiman let his imagination go wild on this one, and it created a wonderful, winding story. Much better than the movie, in my opinion.

July 2007

Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist

I thought the first half, Magician: Apprentice, was better. I felt like the story spanned over too much time, and the characters changed and became masters so quickly that they almost felt like new characters. I love reading along with characters as they find and develop their new skills, but he basically skimmed over that part. I still really enjoyed it, but I felt like he tried to cover too much in one book.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

This was a great book, told from the perspective of an autistic teenager. The narrator takes a lot of interesting tangents while telling the story, and it was just a refreshing read.

June 2007

Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist

When I first started reading this, I couldn’t get over how bizarrely similar it is to Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. This book was written before Hobb’s, so maybe he inspired her. The beginning setting, the characters and their relationships with each other, the mysterious enemies – so many elements in the stories are mirrored. I almost expected the main characters to run into each other during the first 100 pages. Magician: Apprentice turned out to be a great. I plan to continue on with the series once I get a few books off my to-read list.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is quickly becoming my personal hero. I just love the way he tells a story. That said, I think this is one of his weaker pieces. I did enjoy it overall, but I felt it got lost a little in the middle. It has it’s moments, but the plot as a whole is forgettable.

Neverwhere has actually been made into a graphic novel, so I will eventually check that out. I think with some editing and cutting down, just what they’d need to do to turn it into a graphic novel, it could be a great little tale.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. Volume 1 by Warren Ellis

A hilarious and bizarre take on superheroes by the Internet Jesus himself, Warren Ellis. Silly and violent with just a dash of disturbing thrown in.

Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman

Gaman’s view of what the world would have been like if our beloved Marvel characters were born four hundred years in the past. Wicked graphic novel by a wicked author.

Travels by Michael Crichton

Fantastic book on travel and spirituality. Read the full review.

The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore

A great graphic novel for zombie lovers. Instead of trying to focus on the gore factor that most zombie stories fall into, they’re focusing more of the human reaction of seeing such a disaster. I’ll eventually be picking up the rest of the volumes in the series.