When I am not working, drinking, playing XBox or some combination thereof, I am constantly reading books. I think it’s important for any serious writer to read regularly. What can happen sometimes is that one reads so much they start emulating a writer’s style as their own without event thinking about it.
I’m currently reading The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (no, really), so if this sounds like it was written to restore my family’s wealth as I am slowly dying of throat cancer, you’ll know why. Other times, I find myself writing 1,000 pages when really, I could have just done about 250, that’s when I’m on a Tom Clancy kick. But as much as I read, I don’t get to read as many books as I would like, and I certainly never write any reviews.
So, here now are some reviews of books I have not actually read.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson
I picked this one up because it seems like everyone’s reading it these days, and some copies have the image of a woman with a naked back and–you guessed it–a tattoo of a dragon on it. This scores points with me for a couple different reasons. First off, it’s an exposed female back, so that’s cool, amiright? (Then again, maybe it just makes the reader look like they are reading a romance novel.) The second reason is that the cover says exactly the same thing the title does. There’s a girl, she’s got a tattoo, it’s of a dragon. Only the cover lets us know that the tattoo is on her back. It’s simple and to the point. Ever seen the cover of The Great Gatsby? It’s a skyline with a woman’s face and some weird-looking pupils. How is that supposed to be about a rich guy who’s not over a recent flame? I definitely recommend this book. Author Stieg Larsson certainly has a promising career ahead of him.
“Decision Points” by George W. Bush
History always tells us that you really can’t get a good perspective on an administration until at least 50 years later (now would be a great time to mention my upcoming exposé of the Kennedy administration “He Banged Marilyn Monroe”), but let’s face it, 50 years is a long time. I want to be told what happened last decade and I want it to be told it with W’s voice. This is because I love to read aloud and am working on my impression of our last president. Among the surprises in this book are that Barbara Bush keeps an embryo in a jar, and that the White House Press Room was actually renovated so that the chairs can be easily removed for the Presidential Moon Bounce.
“Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert
The author was married, well paid, and had a successful career, but something just wasn’t right. After getting a divorce from her husband on the grounds that it is a crucial plot point, Julia Roberts takes off on a trip to Italy, Bali and Brazil, where she finds that there is so much more life to be experienced out there, and we can make the change today if we wanted to. Why was it that I didn’t read EPL, again?