What are you reading these days?

I recently finished My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf. It's a graphic novel written by someone who was friends with Jeffrey Dahmer in high school.

It (and the movie that was made based on it) are both great. It's definitely a unique perspective. The only other thing I can think to compare it to is The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule.

I’m reading the first Sookie Stackhouse novel (Dead Until Dark). I watched True Blood ages ago, but I’d never read the books. It’s a little cheesy, but I’m enjoying it more than I expected. The writing is decent, and the story is fun. It was cheap on the Apple Bookstore which was an added bonus since I’ve been doing all my reading on there lately. :)

I devoured the Cradle series. It wrecked my sleep schedule which is always the sign of a really great series. It was a really fun and enjoyable read at a time i needed something light and fun. I'm not sure Progression Fantasy is my thing because there was a few things i could see niggling me if i read any more of it and apparently Cradle is one of the best progfantasy series. (tbh some of it was starting to bug a bit while reading).

Highly recommend.

The Great Trespass by Nick Hayes. It's about land rights in the UK - how they were established, where the wealth and influence around land came from, who owns most of it, and what to do about it.

Hayes names each chapter after an animal, weaving stories about each animal into the history of the land, as well as his own trespasses into the vast, vast swathes of common land that have passed into private hands. "Passed" is probably too passive a word. Pheasant has so far been the most infuriating chapter, with the environmental destruction, corruption, and hypocrisy on display making my blood boil. The amount of land given over to a bullshit grouse hunting fetish is mind-boggling.

I've enjoyed it immensely, though it's taken me awhile to read. It aligns very closely with my politics, so while a lot of the particulars aren't new to me, none of it is shocking. Just a bit depressing.

I also listened to Stephen Fry narrate The Hitchhikers Guide, mostly as a palate cleanser from The Great Trespass.

I just started Eve Babitz's Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.: Tales (1977) -- which seems great so far. Babitz is often compared to Didion, so I figured I'd tuck in and go through her work.

I'm barely started, but she definitely has a way with words.

I picked up a copy of Ben Hamper's Rivethead. It's the story of how he came to work on GM's assembly line at their truck plant in Flint, Michigan circa 1977. I grew up in Flint, MI in the 1970s and 80s, so it's kind of bizarre and fascinating to read a book that takes place in that time and place. I may have actually met the author once or twice, as I believe he had a late-night radio show Friday nights at midnight on the local public radio station where he would play music from local bands. I vaguely recall him showing up at some hall shows my band played at and I know we talked about sending him a tape once or twice, but never did. Also, my father worked for GM for many years in that same time period, though as an engineer, not a shop worker. So it's also kind of funny to read another side of life at the company.

Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions - Storyteller, rebel, medicine man, Lame Deer was born almost a century ago on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A full-blooded Sioux, he was many things in the white man’s world—rodeo clown, painter, prisoner. But, above all, he was a holy man. Lame Deer’s story is one of a harsh youth and reckless manhood, a shotgun marriage and divorce, a history and folklore as rich today as when first published—and of his fierce struggle to keep his pride intact, living as a stranger in his own ancestral land.