Books (Recommended Reading)

[beastovjudgement]

With the publication of Doctor Sleep, I had to reread The Shining, which I had not read since sixth grade. I had forgotten how vastly the movie differed from the book, and also how much was given away in early foreshadowing. It still holds up well, though, and I can easily understand King's opposition to Nicholson's portrayal of Jack Torrance. On its own, the movie is excellent, but as an adaptation of the novel, it is lacking.

[beastovjudgement]

I finished Doctor Sleep. It was good; very different of course from The Shining after the length of time and changes in King's style. One really cool aspect was the almost complete reversal of the traditional dynamic of the story. There were aspects of a plan, at one point, kept secret but easily figured out. It was written well enough that the execution was still effective. I recommend the book for anyone not put off by the style of King's newer work. One of the better books of the year, although his son's most recent book is well ahead.

[secondwhiteline]

Huh, I hadn't even heard that King even wrote a sequel to The Shining. I must be out of the loop.

I just finished Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon (Bias Alert! He's a former teacher of mine) and loved it. It's a quiet, introspective novel about dislocation with clear, thoughtful prose, and ultimately it's really moving. It also relates the lead's backstory in some surprising ways. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a quiet, winter sort of book.

[beastovjudgement]

I finished my signed copy of Jack Ketchum's Only Child. Holy crap, that book is ruthless. Arthur Danse may very well be the most heinous character in all of fiction. Only Child, like all of Ketchum's work, is recommended only for those who can accept horror which is truly horrifying. I need to decompress after one of his books, so I have started Cold City, the first of F. Paul Wilson's prequel trilogy to his excellent Repairman Jack series. It is, like all the RJ stuff, very fast-paced and does a great job of hooking in the reader. Repairman Jack (along with Joe R. Lansdale's Hap Collins and Leonard Pine) is among the very best recurring "action" protagonists in contemporary fiction.

[secondwhiteline]

I just finished Satyrday by Steven Bauer, about an ancient, evil owl who commands a legion of ravens to steal the moon. Attempting to rescue her are a satyr, the boy he's raised (the last of his kind), a snow fox who can transform into a nymph, and a defector raven. The characters are compelling, their struggles and journeys persuasive, and the prose vivid and tense and beautiful.

Apparently Don Bluth had the rights to do a movie in the 80s, but it just never happened. And it turns out that Steven Bauer was a writing teacher for one of my graduate writing teachers, Bret Anthony Johnston. The book's out of print, but it's definitely worth watching out for.

[OneNineSix]

Hey this looks cool, secondwhiteline. I can score a copy off Amazon for cheap too. Looks like it would have made for a fun movie. It's a quirk of mine where I happily take reading recommendations. Once I ended up buying a book trilogy because I overheard a guy talking about it when I visited somebody at the hospital and thought it was a pretty interesting series of books. You never know what you might find. Heh.