This is a combination of the past two weeks’ Library Loot actually. You may say, “That’s sad.” However, I have been sick with the flu (swine maybe) for the past few weeks and so haven’t been reading anything. Plus as I mentioned the last Library Loot I did at the end of October, I’m working on toward focusing on my own bookshelves rather than the library. (So there :P.) To that end, last night I did finish a book from my library, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, which I loved. A friend gave me and my wife the first four She’s already read all of the series (using the library for the rest), one right after another, and loved them.

So to my two pieces of loot:

1. The Professional by Robert B. Parker: I was put on the hold list for this before it even came out, and I am a big fan of Spenser, although recently, like Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, I don’t think Parker has been up to par with them. However, if nothing else, it’s a quick read with the dialogue (my favorite part of the Spenser novels) dominating the action.
2. Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, selected and edited by Joyce Carol Oates: Lovecraft came up after a discussion on Facebook about Neil Gaiman, who wrote a short story called “I, Cthulhu,” using Lovecraft’s Cthulhu from his short story, “The Call of Cthulhu.” So I decided to find some Lovecraft at the library and this is all that was on the shelf, but it included “The Call of Cthulhu.”

I also was semi-familiar with the name Cthulhu anyway as I’m a fan of Metallica, who had the song “Call of Ktulu” on their album, Ride The Lightning, because they became fans through late bass guitarist Cliff Burton. Appropriately, I’ll end with that song:

This post also can be found on my main blog, Just A (Reading) Fool.

I just tallied up the number of books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched for the year, and I’m at 50 for each. Last year I read 70 books according to this, which also lists this year’s books read, and watched 68 movies according to this list I compiled on Listography.

The list of this year’s movies can be found here. After each one, I put the number of asterisks for how I rated the movie: *- abominable, ** below fair, *** fair, **** good, and very good *****.

Here are the 12 that I rated with five *****

1. La Vie En Rose *****
2. Blade Runner: The Final Cut *****
3. Man On Wire *****
4. I’ve Loved You So Long *****
5. Rambo *****
6. Notes on a Scandal *****
7. The Visitor *****
8. The Lives of Others *****
9. Doubt *****
10. All Quiet on the Western Front *****
11. Frost/Nixon *****
12. Tell No One *****

Out of those, half are foreign movies (in bold), and out of those six, I highly recommend I’ve Loved You So Long for the performance of Kristin Scott Thomas (she also has a supporting role in Tell No One) and The Lives of Others for the performance of Ulrich Mühe.

Out of the 50 books, the five-starred reviews are a lot less with only eight books that passed muster for me. Four are by Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Murder at the Vicarage and Murder on the Orient Express. Two are by Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study In Scarlet and The Sign of Four, and one is by Donald E. Westlake, writing under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, with his first Parker novel, The Hunter.

The last one I technically gave a 4.5, but bump it up to a 5, because it is by an independent author and an online acquaintance of mine, Robert Kroese. The book is called Mercury Falls. My review is here; the book’s website, here. Out of all the books I’ve read this year, it probably was the nicest surprise, because I’ve read Kroese’s blog, Mattress Police, for a few years, and it was good to see that he could pull off such an accomplished novel. Sometimes with bloggers that you like, you’re not sure if they can pull off a novel too (I mean, you know they’re good writers, but to put together a novel is another thing entirely), but Kroese shows that it can be done and with quite good results too.

I’ll leave you with the trailer for the two movies I mentioned earlier, first, I’ve Loved You Too Long and then The Lives of Others:

This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe). If you are interested in getting a more complete picture of this unfinished person, you can subscribe to that blog, if you so choose.

Waving…

“Hey, I’m still here.”

Sorry, just been hanging out elsewhere the past week:

Tuesday: Humor Bloggers Fantasy Football League Blog where I was playing Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

Wednesday: Unfinished Rambler where I counted down The Top 10 Biblical Characters To Dress Up As At Halloween…Er…Harvest Parties.

Today: In this place (rubber ducky soap optional):

Taking Immodium. Enough said.

“See you all next week.”

…waving.

Title: Mercury Falls
Author: Robert Kroese
Publication Year: 2009
Pages: 337
Genre: Fiction
Count for Year: 48

How I discovered

It’s a wee bit complicated, but the short version is that I know Robert Kroese through a site called Humor-Blogs, where my blog Unfinished Rambler is listed. Rob, also known as “Diesel” to most people who know him, has his own humor blog, Mattress Police. Using material from that blog, he published his first book, Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police in 2007. Based on the overwhelming (positive or negative? I make no value judgments here) response he received there, he actually thought that he was qualified to write a novel, and, lo and behold, two years later, he has shown the world he can write a novel.

But the question is this: Is it worth the $12 you have to pay on Amazon for the paperback or even the $5 for the Kindle version? Damned if I know, since (note to Federal Trade Commission: disclosure notice) I got a free copy as a financial supporter of Humor-Blogs…however, you may be wondering for yourself, and by the end of this review, I may give you an answer to that very question whether it’s worth actually purchasing and worth me keeping on my shelf for future re-reading. As is my nature, though, I may just ramble on and on and on and not get to an answer at all. Stick around and see, though. It still might be a fun ride.

The setup

The world is ending. Again.

Years of covering the antics of End Times cults for a religious news magazine have left Christine Temeri not only jaded but seriously questioning her career choice.

That is until she meets Mercury, an anti-establishment angel who’s frittering his time away whipping up batches of Rice Krispy Treats and perfecting this ping-pong backhand instead of doing his job:  helping to orchestrate Armageddon. With the end near and angels and demons debating the finer political points of the Apocalypse, Christine and Mercury accidentally foil an attempt to assassinate one Karl Grissom, a thirty-seven-year-old film school dropout about to make his big break as the Antichrist.

Now to save the world, she must negotiate the byzantine bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell and convince the apathetic Mercury to take a stand, all the while putting up with the obnoxious mouth-breathing Antichrist.

– from the back of the book

The novel begins twenty miles outside of Elko, Nevada on a plateau with Temeri covering the story of the Reverend Jonas Bitters, First Prophet of the Church of the Bridegroom, and a small group of his followers who believe that the Second Coming of Christ will occur April 29 shortly before dawn. Not surprisingly, Christ doesn’t return, with the blame falling on Ten Virgins who aren’t…well, all they seem to be. For Christine, it is just another story of a religious crackpot who thinks he knows the future but doesn’t, the same kind of story she’s done for years.

And now her publisher, Harry, wants her to interview the next crackpot, Galileo Mercury until she says that she can’t take much more of covering the “Apocalypse circuit.” Then Harry gives her the ultimate interview, with General David Isaakson of the Israeli Army, also known as “the Architect of the Apocalypse” in the middle of a conflict between Israel and Syria (and as Harry says: “Maybe the Iranians too.”). Even though ostensibly it’s about the Apocalypse, it also is the chance to get her name known on the international front. So she goes…

…and ends up coming back to Mercury in a roundabout way — and then to Grissom, the Antichrist selected in a contest by an author promoting the last book of her series about a boy named Charlie Nix, which seems more than vaguely reminiscent of another famous series by another famous author. But could he be the real Antichrist? And what does a metallic attache case that Isaakson gave to her to take to Mercury have to do with anything?

I’m not telling you. You’ll have to read it. However, I can tell you that it is a fun ride with Christine along the way as she crosses paths with fallen angels and archangels alike and travels through portals to the basements of Heaven and the attics of Hells trying to answer those very questions. How much fun? Let me give you a few samples, starting with a footnote (yes, there are footnotes) about the Antichrist:

The identity of the Antichrist is, of course, less important than the fact that there is an Antichrist. No one cares much what the Antichrist says or does, but they feel better knowing he’s around. In this way, he is much like the Pope or the United Nations.

It is probably not entirely coincidental that both the Pope and the United Nations have often been accused of being the Antichrist. Other individuals and organizations have also made the short list, of course. Nero was an early favorite, and dictators like Napoleon and Hitler were strong contenders. Even the affable U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan — who had the distinction of having six letters in each of his three names– was named a potential Antichrist. Later, the name of vaunted Israeli General David Isaakson also tended to crop up among people who discussed such things.

Yet, on some level, most people seemed to sense that someone like Hitler was too obvious a choice. Once you make it clear that your intention is global conquest, the mystery is gone and people start to look for someone with less pedestrian aims. Start talking about a Brotherhood of Man or a New World Order, though, and ears perk up.

People also seem to intuitively understand that Antichrist is really more of a figurehead position. They expect the Antichrist to make ominous pronouncements that can be disassembled and slotted into a prefabricated eschatological framework, not impose martial law or orchestrate mass killings. It is safe to say, however, that nobody expected the Antichrist to look quite like Karl Grissom.

Then this:

There were thirty-eight Charlie’s Grills on I-5 in between Yreka, California and Los Angeles, spaced so that on a road trip from one end of the state to the other one could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner– not to mention brunch, linner and several other meals to be named later– from a completely standarized menu of entrees that ranged in quality from passable to mediocre.

This proliferation of family restaurants was not, despite the protestations of anti-sprawl advocates and concerned cardiologists, part of any kind of diabolical plan. This isn’t to say that there was no plan, or that there weren’t demonic entities involved in its inception, but the actual marketing strategy and franchise agreements were more intrinsically Satanic than was the norm for the hospitality industry. Charlie’s Grill was only evil to the extent that it concealed the unremarkable character of its food with a facade constructed of faux brick walls and artificially weathered signs promoting no-longer-existent brands of soda and/or motor oil with slogans like “The smoothest yet!” That is to say, it was about as evil as Applebee’s.

Charlie’s Grill was, pure and simple, a money-making operation for Lucifer, who had long ago come to terms with the fact that while spreading depravity and ruination was his true calling, it didn’t always pay the bills. Lucifer was a true believer in the adage that no one ever went broke overestimating the numbers of time that Americans can pull over for cheeseburgers. It wasn’t an exciting or particularly sinister way of making money, but it did make possible all sorts of other costly but worthwhile diabolical schemes, so Lucifer expanded the operation at every opportunity.

And finally this:

The Apocalypse Accord is a long and mind-numbingly detailed document, hashed out by seraphic lawyers over the course of several thousand years to cover every conceivable aspect of the Apocalypse. Regarding the Antichrist it reads, in part:

The Antichrist is to be the official representative of Lucifer on earth. The Antichrist must be a human being of Semitic descent (at least one sixteenth on the father’s side), and is to be selected by Lucifer (or his designated representatives) a minimum of forty days prior to the commencement of Phase One of the Apocalypse. Once selected, the Antichrist’s name must be submitted to the Senate, the Antichrist comes under legal protection of the Senate’s Committee on Persons of Apocalyptic Interest, and may not be physically harmed or coerced in any way by any parties to this agreement (See “When Are Agents of Heaven Permitted to Attempt to Kill the Antichrist?” in Appendix L). The Senate then has seven days to ratify or veto the selection. If the candidate is vetoed, the Senate must also provide a written rationale for their veto (For a detailed list of Antichrist qualifications, see Appendix F: “So You Think You’ve Got a Candidate for the Position of Antichrist?”). If the Senate does not veto or ratify the candidate’s selection within seven days, the candidate’s selection is assumed to be ratified by default. Once a candidate is ratified, the Side of Heaven has forty days to publicly denounce the candidate as the Antichrist and an agent of Lucifer. Failure to adequately denounce the candidate within forty days of his or her ratification will cause the Hosts of Heaven to be held in Breach of this Accord, and to be ascribed penalties as detailed in Appendix H (“Denunciation: Why It Matters.”). Once the candidate is denounced, he or shall be considered to be Antichrist and will be accorded various Powers and Principalities (see “Legal and Tax Ramifications of Being Classified as the Antichrist” in Appendix P).

So final answer to the question: Is it worth the $12 you have to pay on Amazon for the paperback or even the $5 for the Kindle version? And is it worth it for me to keep on my shelf for future re-reading? Yes. After all that rambling,  most of it as you might note not done by myself but Mr. Kroese, not only might it be a fun ride, but also it is a fun ride.

My final rating: a 4.5 out of 5 with the 1/2 point for my getting a free copy. :)

My rating system:

5- Classic, must read
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop

This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe). If you only are interested in getting a more complete picture of this unfinished person, you can subscribe to that blog, if you so choose. I also posted this at my blog, Unfinished Rambler, since the book is, after all, a humorous one.

Today I am returning a pile of books that I took out of the library earlier this month — unread. I write this as I sit on our couch with a bookshelf beside me. I turn 90 degrees to the right and can see in our bedroom another shelf with books, not to mention I turn another 45 degrees on the other side of the L-shaped couch and see yet another bookshelf full of books. Most of the books on the shelves are like the books I am returning — unread.

I am keeping one book from the library, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, because I am reading it as part of the Baker Street Challenge. However, two other Agatha Christie books, Poirot Loses A Client and Death On The Nile, I am returning even though I am in the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. Why? Because I know I can get to them later and also after a spree of reading several of her books in a row, I need a short break. I will return to them at the beginning of the month, with yet another spree.

Another reason for my returning the books unread is because I have become too indiscriminate in choosing books to read. Last week I just randomly chose books from the shelves. I ended up with quite a few “H” authors as a result. I have discussed this previously on this blog: why am I reading?

As I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s not that I have to be taught some grand life lesson in every book that I pick up. However, on the other side, I don’t want to read books just because they are there– or read purely for “leisure.” Yes, reading can be– and should be– fun but sometimes I have to ask myself what am I hoping to get from this book besides a good feeling.

Life, in my opinion, is too short to be wasted on all pulp fiction. That does not mean I don’t read some “pulp fiction,” because even from the “mundane,” something can be gained. However I do find value, sometimes more value, in reading books that are classics, one of the reasons I’ve joined the Really Old Classics Challenge, or as I do often on Wednesdays read spiritual books. For example, on my Wednesday reading list is a biography of St. Teresa of Avila by Rowan Williams and also a Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao Te Ching.

All this to say that I want to be more discriminate about what I choose to read. From now, I am going to work toward the goal of considering a book before picking it from the shelf — and aim toward that “shelf” being one of those already in our house before the library. Why pick up books at book sales if you’re not going to read them?

On that note, I’m off to read the biography of St. Teresa of Avila or the Tao Te Ching or who knows maybe something off one of those shelves I discussed earlier.

This post also can be found on my main blog, an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe). If you are interested in getting a more complete picture of this unfinished person, you can subscribe to that blog, if you so choose.