It's called a murder

I don't think I'm going to grow tired of Brian Keene. In fact, because this is the third book featuring the character Levi Stoltzfus, I'm now on the hunt for the other two -Ghost Walk and Dark Hollow.

Now I've read a few things by Keene, including Dead Sea, Darkness on the Edge of Town and a zombie short story from The New Dead, still I can tell you that the man is a genius. On the back cover of A Gathering of Crows, his latest, The Horror Review calls him "the next Stephen King," which might be going too far because Keene hasn't disappointed me yet.

Starting off with five crows gathering of five crows right outside of the small town of Brinkley Springs, the book leads you down the winding path that invokes the Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos mixed in with the wit and wisdom of Brian Keene's writing. The five crows, who serve one of the Thirteen - which Keene also invokes in Darkness on the Edge of Town - by the name of Meeble. Keene also uses his knowledge of American history by using the unsolved mystery of Roanoke Colony, explaining the origins of the shape-shifting crows.

As usual, Keene offers up the horror that we all know and love, mixing it with the human nature - both light and darkness that cloud us - and adds in a little bit of religious tolerance. It's a page turner and a good book to have in your tote during these last week of dog days. Make good use of it. Go to the beach and read away. 

J.D. Salinger in 2010

It's been over a decade - a scary thought, if I do so say so myself - that I was introduce to the late J.D. Salinger. Like many high school freshmen - I was taking a sophomore class at the time - the first book that came across my table by Salinger was none other than The Catcher in the Rye. That probably isn't the best book to introduce to a fourteen-year-old up-and-coming cynic. Holden Caulfield was my undoing.

In college, I picked up Nine Stories while reading and rereading Catcher. I avoided Franny and Zooey with every fiber of my being. Now, three years out of college and thirteen years since entering high school, I picked up the latter book and sat down to read it. 

My only problem is, I don't know whether or not to be disillusioned by the late writer. 

There is no mistake, Franny and Zooey is a Salinger book - made up of two short stories, "Franny" and "Zooey" (the latter, however, uses the term short rather loosely). And the book does involve familiar Salinger ideas: Phonies and the rich, privileged kids who hate them. The stories focus on the younger siblings of the Glass family. Franny being the youngest and Zooey being the youngest male. While little detail is revealed about her familial life in the short story named after her, Franny appears in "Zooey" to shed some light on the details of her story. I'm not impressed. I don't even know how I got around to completing the book. Determination, I suppose. 

I don't know. I'm pushing thirty now. I'm unsure if it's wise for me to be reading Salinger and expect the same outcome that he once had on me. I might have outgrown him. Which is sad. Because I can't exactly pinpoint when I stopped wanting to be Holden Caulfield. 

Until next time, keep on huntin'.

3 Value Books & A New One Impromptu Book Hunt

I'm in trouble if Jyg finds out and, believe you me, she will find out. See I'm not supposed to buy any books for a period of time because money's scarce and my temporary job's expiration date is closing in. But how can you keep a book hunter at bay, really? Especially when it was my intention of purchasing $25.90 on four books? I was just going to browse titles. Maybe pick up Body Double by Tess Gerritsen or A Gathering of Crows by Brian Keene. Perhaps both.

I did manage to find a copy of Body Double by Tess Gerritsen, but the copy was a little beaten up. I don't mind dog-eared copies if I'm buying used, but, when it comes to paying full price, I like to be the one who wear down my books. However, I do manage to find several untouched copies of Keene's A Gathering of Crows which I pick up and add to my small pile.

The first book I see is And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, which acts as a sequel to Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Value priced at $4.98, how could I pass up this find? 

Second book I found was a little on the naughty side, but I like naughty. Filthy Shakespeare by Pauline Kiernan. Also a value book, priced at $4.98. 

After picking up Keene's book, I was heading off to pay before my pile grew when my eye caught the gray spine of Kurt Vonnegut's Armageddon in Retrospect. A war was waged within me. To buy the book would me I'd be jumping in on an opportunity of paying $5.98 for a hardcover. To put it off meant that I might be losing a chance of owning it. You see, this book wasn't on the discount table like most books are at Barnes & Noble. This was in that cart. You know the one. The cart of last copies. I sucked air through my teeth and picked it up. I don't regret it either. At the checkout counter, the man clicked his tongue on his teeth and said, "This was the last copy, wasn't it?" I nodded, "Pretty sure, that's why I picked it up." "It's my own fault. I should've picked it up when I had the chance."

Until next time, keep on huntin'.

Rizzoli & Isles: Adaptation or Mutilation?

So I decided to take a break from my short lived reading of Franny and Zooey to watch the much anticipated Rizzoli & Isles pilot - anticipated by me three weeks after its premiere on TNT. I finished The Apprentice and I was ready for it. And to be truthful, I didn't know what exactly I should expect. But deep down in my heart I was hoping for a show similar to True Blood or the first season of Dexter, where the plot of the book is used as the series story arc's jumping point. 

What TNT delivered, however, wasn't a story arc based on the second book of the Rizzoli series, but an episode adaptation instead. And, as if to add insult to injury, we are given small flashbacks from The Surgeon. Details were skewed (screwed up) and characters that were secondary or introductory in the novels are shifted to old pals or erased entirely. The pilot was enough to let me know that the TNT series that strays far from the novels might not make it past the first season. And if it somehow did, I'll probably lose interest quickly. 

Rather than getting a show with an arc villain, we're getting a case to case drama that mirrors Angie Harmon's days on Law & Order, rather than Sasha Alexander's days on NCIS. While I'm going to give the series another chance, I had to voice how utterly disappointed I am with the pilot's murder of The Apprentice. Not to mention the magic that Tess Gerritsen puts into her novels. A show that could've brought in drones of fans of the book series, instead leads us astray.  They can't all be hits.

If you are a fan for the book series and are into the show, be sure to check out the website for a weekly chapter to a Rizzoli & Isles short story, Freaks, written by Gerritsen. It's updated every Monday. TNT also has a sweepstakes in which you can win a copy of Tess Gerritsen's novel The Apprentice. Hey, a free book. How can you pass that up?

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

I know this goes against everything I believe in, but I just finished reading Tess Gerritsen's The Apprentice (the second book in the Jane Rizzoli series, and the first in the Rizzoli & Isles relationship) and I'm officially ready to take on the TNT series. 

Much like when reading The Surgeon, I was unsure how I felt about the novel. When sequels repeat villains, I become wary of the writer's ability to keep me attentive. Tess Gerritsen has a powerful gift in her prose. Not only was she able to recycle Warren Hoyt (a.k.a. The Surgeon), she also shined a new light upon him, gave him a new partner and made him more vicious than before. She made the monster come to life. 

It's hard to compare the two novels because each has its own merit. Tess Gerritsen has the ability to captivate her audience and pull in newbies from the sidelines. The Apprentice isn't just a sequel to The Surgeon, it's also a powerful glimpse of the monster that lives within each of us. Gerritsen pulls back the blind, the masks we hide behind only to reveal the deepest, darkest desires that linger within. Despite our denying our true nature, we cannot help but to acknowledge that each of us could be capable of becoming a Warren Hoyt, or something far worse - given the right (or wrong) circumstances. 

We're also a glimpse into what we fear the most: Despite all our efforts of keeping a facade, we are all prone to vulnerability brought on by fear. It's what we do with the fear that molds us; that separates us from those who lie down to die and those who have the gall to fight back. 

The copy I have happens to be the series tie-cover. The book also contains an excerpt from the current novel in the series, Ice Cold, which I'll probably avoid and the first six pages of the pilot script - which I don't need but will read anyway. 

And while The Sinner is next on the list, I think it's time that I break from the Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles world and take some time to read something less human. Which, looking at my stack of novels sitting on my desk, might not be as easy. 

Until next time, keep on huntin'.

Anyone Can Do Philosophy Now: 10 "and Philosophy" titles.

Once upon the time, Monica and I had this game going for the best For Dummies titles - this soon included Idiot's Guide titles. From Pregnancy for Dummies to Idiot's Guide to the Paranormal, we had a blast with those titles. Each time we found one, we'd text or pic messaged the title in order to procure the invisible crown.

While those days are setting, they are not gone. In the wake with the sudden bloom of the pop culture and philosophy books, we decided that the game needed a tune up. Mostly because during our book hunt at Barnes and Nobel, I spied with my little eye one World of Warcraft and Philosophy. I snatched it from the shelf and handed it over to her, saying, "Here, this is for you." Lately, my fellow book hunter has fallen prey to the grasps of the MMORPG world. She jokes by saying, "I'll see you there in two weeks," an inside joke about the time when she joined Second Life and had to endure my nerd jokes only for me to join the ranks two weeks later. 

What started with Seinfeld and Philosophy, for us anyway, has now bloomed into several titles - from Twilight and Philosophy to Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy, hitting everything in between. I suppose it's about time that I share my favorite titles with the world.

1. Watchmen and Philosophy - Quite frankly, this is the first and only title from the series I've read in full. Mostly because the world of Watchmen is so full of questions that left me pondering after reading the graphic novel and watching the film. If you're wondering - yes, it has a lot do with Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach. 
2. The Undead and Philosophy - Subtitled Chicken Soup for the Soulless, this book proves that even the brain eating, blood sucking undead have a set of rules they live by. And sometimes they cause us to live by a new set of rules, or return to an older set. This collection of essays on the undead was later republished under the title Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy in order to cater to the fang bangers (thank you True Blood!) that have multiplied over the last few years. To be brutally honest, only a small portion of essays piqued my interest, the zombie ones. I'm not a fan of vampire thought or the current vampire sensation - thank you Stephanie Meyer, you poor excuse of a writer. 
3. Bob Dylan and Philosophy - If any musician needs a book dedicated to the philosophy of his words, it's Bob Dylan. Metallica can go fuck themselves, those greedy talentless bastards. While I haven't read the book, I still want it for the sake of owning something else Bob Dylan. I swear, I'm  not obsessed. 
4. Batman and Philosophy - The Dark Knight indeed has his own philosophy, as does his mythos - damn, Clive Barker was right about that term being thrown around loosely. While we're on the subject of superheroes/supervillains, the collection also has a more general title, Superheroes and Philosophy. However, I prefer the counterpart, Supervillains and Philosophy.
5. Mr. Monk and Philosophy - Let's sit back on this one for a moment. Why do I want this? The question really should be is how can I live without it? 
6. House and Philosophy - Another book inspired from a TV show - there will be a couple more shortly - the only reason I want this book is for its subtitle, Everybody Lies. I know it's a poor reason for wanting a book, but this aren't exactly the best books to buy. That won't stop me, though.
7. Bullshit and Philosophy - I read the essay On Bullshit, which I stupidly bought thinking it might be worth my while (it was, but not worth my money). This book intrigues me because so many essays were sparked from a single essay. The book is much larger than its inspiration. Doesn't make it good, just makes it interesting.
8. Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - What started as a spin off has now grown into a cultural sensation. The conservative news satire is something of a guilty pleasure - one part Daily Show, two parts a bloated Bill O'Reilly attitude. If any late night fake news show deserves a philosophy book, it would have to be Stephen Colbert. 
9. Introducing Philosophy Through Pop Culture: From Socrates to South Park, Hume to House - While not exactly an "and Philosophy" title, this yet-to-be-release collection is the embodiment of what the publisher originally set off to do - give an philosophical insight to the masses through familiar territory - their television. 
10. The Simpsons and Philosophy - If you need this book, then you're not watching the show correctly. However, this book needs to be on your shelf, regardless. While I still haven't gained access to the coveted book, it is one I've wanted for a long time. If the price is right and the gratification is quick.

Now I feel I should mention one more that didn't make the list. Terminator and Philosophy doesn't really grasp my full attention, but does contain a single essay that I would like to own. If I do venture out to buy this one book, it would be solely for that essay, written by Jeff Ewing - the husband of a friend. 

The vampire sensation has birthed yet another collection of philosophical essays - True Blood and Philosophy was found at Barnes today. I don't know how long it's been around, but it does sink its teeth into the gay marriage argument - which I expected it would. 

So there, we go. The series that allows the everyman to read philosophy while avoiding the constant head scratching. My only hope that somewhere down the line the publisher decides to compile a Hellraiser and Philosophy, because if there is one pop culture reference that is chuck full of philosophy, it's the depraved world of Hellraiser.

Now that this is settled, I shall now go off and find myself some amusing titles. If only to protect my imaginary crown. 

Until next time, keep on huntin'.