Writer's Block: Untimely Passing

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Whoah. John Lennon died?

More seriously, I killed Senor Wences and Brion James. Both of them.

One fine day I said, "Hey, what ever happened to Senor Wences?" I looked him up. He was alive. Two days later, he died.

Same thing happened with Brion James.

Don't ever let me talk about B-list celebs again. Someone might die.

Pyat's Readin' List

For those who care, here is a list of books I have read and listened to (via Librivox.org) since January 1st. My goal was to read 52 books this year. I'm unlikely to meet that goal, unless you count in the audiobooks. I don't know, though. They seem almost like cheating.

The basics - 45 books read, 10 listened to. It takes longer to listen to them, because I only do so on the ride into work. Often, I fall asleep after a couple of chapters. The Old Curiosity Shop, for example, is 73 chapters long, and I rarely heard more than 10 a week.

The oldest was written in 1813, and the most recent in 2007.

23 were written before WWII, 16 were written before WWI, and nine were written before 1900.

The ones that suprised and gripped me most were Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.

The only book on this list I don't recommend is Weird Ontario Places, which had no photos, no detailed information, and included such amazing places as "That one house in Hamilton the author was afraid to walk by when he was 10" and "That street in Niagara Falls with the museums," as well as "Church Street in Toronto, because of the Gays."

It was written in a weirdly smug and condescending voice I find hard to quantify, but which annoyed me immensely. Imagine Corky St. Clair from Waiting for Guffman, except conscious that he's writing something corny and "safe" for the rubes and being smug about it. So, it's neither well-written nor earnest.

( Read along! )