Howling Frog Books

Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon I've been sort of trying to read my way through Pynchon's novels in order of publication, based on the fact that I really like The Crying of Lot 49 .  So I read V. last year and that was OK, and over the summer I started Gravity's Rainbow , and at first I liked that pretty well, but I got about 70 pages in and had to quit.  Just, no.  But Vineland was next and I thought, hey, it's another of the 'three California novels' like Lot 49 and maybe I'll do better.  I started Vineland while sitting on Avila Beach and decided that this one was probably a keeper. ....I'm coming up pretty blank on how to describe this, though.  It's pretty weird and surreal (and funny!).  So I'm going to do something I do not do and give you some of the back-cover blurb: Aging hippie freak Zoyd Wheeler is revving up for his annual act of televised insanity when news reaches that his old nemesis, sinister federal agent Brock Vond, has

It's that time of year again, when bloggers everywhere look forward to the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge!  I only joined last year, so this is my second time around.  This year, Carl, inventor of the RIP Challenge, decided to change things up a little, so the ladies at Estella Society are hosting.   The venue has changed but the rules have not: Without further ado, pick your poison, won’t you? September 1st is here, and we’re ready to begin! Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. Dark Fantasy. Gothic. Horror. Supernatural. Or anything sufficiently moody that shares a kinship with the above. That is what embodies the stories, written and visual, that we celebrate with the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril event. As time has wound on, we’ve discovered that simple rules are best: 1. Have fun reading (and watching). 2. Share that fun with others.   R.I.P. X officially runs from September 1st through October 31st .  Multiple perils await you. You can particip

So You've Been Publicly Shamed , by Jon Ronson I dare you to resist this title.  Bet you can't! Jon Ronson starts off with his own experience with public shaming.  In a bizarre exercise in online postmodernism, three academics lifted his name and photo and made a spambot (oh wait no, infomorph ) that tweeted random stuff all the time.  They wouldn't take it down!  So he got them together for an interview, and when he posted it on Youtube , people criticized the academics until they finally took it down.  Hooray for the voice of the people!  Justice prevails!  But wow, some of those comments were kind of skeevy.... Ronson started paying attention to this whole phenomenon we've got of public shaming, especially (but certainly not only) on Twitter.  Whether it's a large or small offense, a misfired joke or a serious crime, once the Internet mob gets going it can just about ruin a life.  The mob is merciless and it never forgives.  So Ronson talks with some of

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin This is one of those books that I'm embarrassed not to have read earlier.  I think all the other lit majors I knew owned copies, and I started it at a friend's place, but promptly ran into the nursemaid being called "the quadroon" all the time.  I had no idea what that even meant--it was a nonsense word to me--but the whole story felt completely alien and I dropped it.  But I've finally done it--I've read one of the founding texts of both American feminist and Southern literature.  So there. Edna Pontellier is a beautiful and wealthy New Orleans matron, spending the summer at a resort with family and friends.  She has never thought about who she is or what she wants; she simply occupies her place in society.  But then, she falls in love and discovers physical desire and a wish to be independent, on her own.  She stops playing her role and goes into art instead.  Edna 'awakens' into an awareness of herself and a desir

5 , so I will be reading V. S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River.   Well, this should be exciting!  I've never read Naipaul before.

It's Spin time again!  I'm hoping this one will help to pull me out of my slump, which I am only slowly getting out of (but hey, I just finished Kate Chopin's The Awakening , so there's that). The rules are simple and can be found here .  Just make a list of 20 books from your classics TBR list, wait for the random number to pop up on Monday, and then you're committed to read whatever you get. All the excitement of roulette, but for free! Better for your waistline, too. Since it's getting towards fall, I'm going to load my list up with anything remotely scary that I can find, either because of the story or because it's long, or difficult, or unknown.  Hurry up, fall!  I'm tired of being too hot, and this smoke is the worst. Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum Edgar Allen Poe, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Rilke, Malte Laurids Brigge Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie   VS Naipul, Trinidad, 1979. A Bend in the River Carl Sandbur

The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones , by Alfred Watkins Hi everybody!  I'm back.  I took my kids (and mom) down to the Central Coast for about a week, and we had a really nice time.  When I get around to getting the pictures off my camera I'll show you some.  Once we were home, it was time to get serious about preparing for the school year.  Today was our first day of school, and I now have a 7th grader and a sophomore, which seems a bit preposterous but it's true.  As you may imagine, I didn't do a lot of reading while I was gone (I read my friend's daughter's Nancy Drew story, and not much else!) and so far it's been a little difficult to get back into my groove.  I've got two or three huge tomes going and I'm being reeeeally slow with them, oh! and I started Thomas Pynchon's Vineland while I was sitting on the beach, and I like that, and I tried Lev Grossman's The Magicians --because I liked the s