June Books.

For some reason I'm always reading like 45 books all at once. I like to think of it as having my reading habits follow my moods. Like how some nights you just really crave an Adam Sandler film, other nights you are feeling a bit more Kubrick, etc.

1. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. And this image to the left looks nothing like the yellow and black cover on my copy so already I'm feeling dishonest about how this is going. I picked this up at Half Price Books probably two years ago, started reading it two years ago, and got extremely bored and pitched it into a drawer somewhere for another year. Once I started trying to read it again (unlike Walden) I was able to enjoy it more. I seem to be developing a love/hate relationship with it; being from a small town I really take offense at some elitist city bitch just thinking she can waltz right in and start overhauling everything, but being from a small town and being a city dweller now, I can very much see where she (Carol) is coming from in wanting to make things exciting.

Lewis really didn't put many positive things in about Gopher Prairie, as far as I can tell, and that bothers me. I'm almost considering writing a huge counterpoint to this whole novel in protest.


2. The Heath Introduction to Fiction, edited by John Clayton. Yes, I am reading a textbook of short stories, one I actually had for a short stories literature class at MCTC about ten years ago. True to form as a student, I read approximately 3% of what I needed to read for the class, but held onto the book for some reason, for which I'm glad because the stories are wonderful. I'll give some examples later, but I'm just going on record to say that it's a beautiful collection. Not a very affordable one, though.

3. Getting Lost, edited by Orson Scott Card. So far I've only read the introduction and part of the first article, but it seems promising. This is more along the lines of scholarly literature (ala David Lavery) and already I'm supressing my need to tell the book to get a life, but hey, it's about Lost and it's a book, what could be better, even if it's uppity? It's kind of entertaining to read how people thought they had the show pegged (after two seasons) because I NEVER DID THAT. . .

 anyway. There are a few other books out there that I finished already, David Lavery (and others') Lost's Buried Treasures and Nikki Stafford's little bubble gum book. Lavery's is pretty cool if you want a really thorough reading list/ancestor text list/link to all other media list, etc., or to read what some pretty educated people have for theories. Nikki's book is a good read for people who don't mind a book that reads like a high school blog/people who aren't really into books but like US Weekly, or people who don't really get Lost but want to be part of the in crowd. Okay, that was mean. The book is fine but it's more of an informal collection of writings.

4. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. Haven't started it yet, but I have high, high hopes for it. Richard Matheson is my man having written some pretty decent Twilight Zones (Steel, Nightmare at 20,000 feet, Little Girl Lost) and what would eventually become Steven Spielberg's Duel. Love this guy! I may just have to break down and put Stir of Echoes and I Am Legend on the old Netflix. One can never have too much Kevin Bacon in life, can one?