These noise-aholics, these quiet-ophobics
I liked that statement, it is mentioned many times throughout the book with some variation. There is a great part where the protagonist, Carl Streaton, talks about his apartment tenets “sound wars”. Where its not about the music anymore, but the volume. As much as I dislike loud noises and chaos, I was able to relate very well to the main character.
The book isn’t about noise-aholics, peace-ophobics, but about a childrens lullaby that kills anyone who hears it. Carl, a reported, is doing a piece on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and discovers that a poem in a book is responsible. He is not the only one who knows about this poem though, and what it can do, so he works with these three other people to destroy any remaining copies of this book.
I liked this book, it had a few nice twists, I’ll probably pick up another one of his books soon.
mike Books
A fantastic novel. This type of book makes re-examine yourself, which can be good and bad I guess.
The book is essential about two cousins, Sam Klayman (or Sam Clay) and Joseph Kavalier, who decided to pitch a new line of comic book characters during the 1940’s “Golden Age” of comic books. They both bring their own ideals and messages to their fictional characters. What I found interesting is this isn’t about a particular event, but the two characters lives in whole. Sam spends a good portion of his life avoiding who he really is, while Joe relentlessly tries to bring his family back from war-torn Prague and eventually gets involved with WWII himself.
This wasn’t the kind of book I would have picked up on my own. I was apprehensive even after reading the back cover, but since James had highly recommended it, I went for it. All the dialog is great, its hard to imagine one person coming up with all of that, especially since all the characters are frustratingly human.
mike Books
It is hard to say that I’ve enjoyed a novel that was sad and depressing. It was a great read, and I really liked how the dialog was arranged, it was very sparse but not at all wasteful.
The book is about a father and son traveling to the pacific coast in a very dreary post-apocalyptic south western. I guess this is all supposed to be after a comet hits the Earth. They are both constantly scrounging for food, trying to stay warm, and hiding from marauders, cannibals, thieves… lots of nasty things. I couldn’t put it down though, and I was always looking for the little happy bit here and there, which are few and far between.
The book left me with such an impression that I immediately wanted to share it, so I gave it to Summer, and by Sunday her only comment was “Mike, you need to read happier books…”
I also found out, as the cover of my edition states, it is currently being made into a movie that will probably premier this year at the Cannes Film Festival. The authors ( Cormac McCarthy) previous book, No Country for Old Men, gained a lot of buzz (from me too, I thought that movie was great) last year. Don’t, you know, take your grandma to see it when it comes out.
mike Books