23 of 30- The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson

I'm a little tired as I write this because I was up until 3:15 last night finishing the book. I picked it up around 10 figuring I'd pass out around 11 and the next thing I know it's after 1 and I'm committed to the end. It goes without saying that I was pleased with how the series ended despite the fact that overall it was probably the least exciting and most Swedishy book of the three. By Swedishy I mean involving Swedish politics & long runs of hard to pronounce street names. Highly recommend the books for summer reading and don't want to give the impression that it wasn't a great book because it absolutely was. It just was a little slower than the previous two as a big story line was a court drama. I know I've mentioned it in my last 2 reviews of these books but Lisbeth Salander is one of the most interesting main characters I've read in a long time. She's someone who's so smart that she operates far outside of normal social lines. A quick quote fairly close to the end of the book is a small example of why I liked her so much;

"Salander gave him a long look, satisfied herself that he was an idiot, and decided that she would not waste too many seconds concerning herself with his existence."

At some point in the not too distant future I'm going to check out the Swedish movies, be incredibly disappointed with how Lisbeth won't match my image of her and still be genuinely entertained.

22 of 30: Flash Fiction Forward

Flash Fiction Forward 80 Very Short Stories, edited by James Thomas & Robert Shapard

Absolutely one of the best anthologies I've read in a while both talent wise and conceptually. Each piece was limited to 750 words or less and had to truly be a story. It's amazing to think of how much can be conveyed in such a short story. Out of the 80 stories there were only a few that I didn't really like and most I thought were fantastic. Because they're all so short I had a hard time summarizing them in any meaningful way that didn't give away too much so I decided to just list my favorites;

Jumper Down by Don Shea
Sashimi Cashmere by Carolyn Forde
Baker's Helper by Cynthia Anderson
Sleeping by Katherine Weber
Currents by Hannah Bottomy
Rose by John Biguenet
Why You Shouldn't Have Gone In The First Place by Samantha Schoech
Words by John A. McCaffrey
The Black City by Leonardo Alishan
Nicaragua by Kirk Nesset
Parrot Talk by Kit Coyne Irwin
Drawer by Rick Moody
00:02:36:58 by Bayard Godsave
The Mesmerist by Michael Knight
Toasters by Pamela Painter
Diagnostic Drift by Michael Martone

The Voices In My Head by Jack Handy was my second favorite story in the book. I always loved the deep thoughts segments from SNL and this story would have fit right in.

Accident by Dave Eggers. This story was my favorite and has the best line in the book;

"In a moment of clarity, you finally understand why boxers, who want so badly to hurt each other, can rest their heads on the shoulders of their opponents, can lean against one another like tired lovers, so thankful for a moment of peace."

21 of 30: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Two legs of the trilogy down, one to go. Considering this was the second book it took a frustratingly long time to set up the plot. I read it on my Kindle so I'm not sure how many pages it took to pick up with it was about 30% of the way through. Luckily, as soon as it got going the book was excellent and I couldn't put it down. A lot more about Lisbeth Salander's character was revealed in this installment that in my opinion makes her one of the most interesting characters in recent popular fiction. I've decided to go right on to the next book to finish the series as I want to know what happens to Lisbeth the series so far has been great summer reading.

Movie Review- Zookeeper

After suffering through a hot day at work I took Sky to see Zookeeper last night. As goofy, physical comedies go this one was pretty good. Honestly better than I thought going in and it had me laughing pretty consistently. Nothing that had me on the floor but was genuinely funny. The story is about a Zookeeper played by Kevin James who gets dumped while proposing to his girlfriend played by Leslie Bibb then tries to win her back 5 years later when he sees her again. The zoo animals all help him win her back so he'll stay at the zoo and in the process reveal to him that they can talk. Lot's of physical comedy and the animals advise Griffin to do what they would do to attract a mate in the wild. Rosario Dawson plays Kate his co worker at the zoo as the girl he should really be with. Rosario was amazing, she's strikingly beautiful yet pulls off fun and down to earth. It's a no brainer between her and Leslie, no offense to Leslie. Kim Jeong plays a small role as the zoo's reptile guy and steals every scene he's in. The animals were pretty good but Sandler was the funniest in his role as a mischievous capuchin monkey. Right after Sandler, Jon Favreau and Faizon Love were also great as a pair of bickering bears.

The bottom line is that while I don't think it's going to crack may people's top 5 it was funny and a nice way to beat the heat for a couple of hours.

Audio Book- Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

I just finished listening to Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. I can tell he’s talented but I didn’t enjoy it much. I would compare the experience to looking at a painting by a good impressionist artist when you don't like impressionist art, you think it’s crap but it’s really not. Despite not liking his style, I really enjoyed three of the stories. The first story was about a guy with a disfigured arm who used it as an asset to manipulate women into sleeping with him. The second is a conversation between buddies, where the one telling the story seems to be a good guy but ends up showing his true colors by taking advantage of a vulnerable girl. The third was about a man who as a teen needed a ridiculously complex fantasy in order to masturbate and could never get it just right. As I said DFW was a gifted author but as a narrator he was terrible, just awful. He had a monotonous drone and an inability to pronounce any word that started with WH without sounding like a freak. The combination kept distracting me from the stories and made me wonder why he would choose to narrate some of them himself. Was he oblivious to the fact that he sucked at reading out loud or did he know and not care? Anyway, when others narrated I enjoyed the book a lot more. I REALLY hope “brief” was used ironically in the title because these hideous men could pontificate like nobody’s business. Some of the stories started off well but would go on and on trying to make their point in the imagined interviews. Another of my main problems with the book was that DFW chose to only include the interviewee’s answers without including any of the interviewers questions. The technique gave the stories a preachy rather than conversational tone. I could handle it through an individual story but hated it collectively. Again, I think this would be another nod of support for his literary genius but I just didn’t like the style. I will say this: The guy had some pretty big balls, which I respect. You’d have to in order to write not 1 but 2 stories about potential positive side effects of rape. They were brazen and, I’m sure, designed to elicit strong visceral responses from the reader. But in both cases the character telling the story drones on for so long using vocabulary scarcely used in casual conversation that the stories felt pretentious and exasperating.

Overall, if you’re a fan of DFW and audio books I’m sure you’ll enjoy the book but I’m not a fan.

20 of 30- The Best American Poetry 2010

The Best American Poetry 2010 Guest Editor, Amy Gerstler & Series Editor, David Lehman



I've been reading this book off and on for a few months. I like poetry but find it hard to sit down and read it for long periods of time. Instead I like to read a few poems and put the book down. That way I let them sink in and can give it the time to absorb. I think modern poetry is quite a bit different from classic poetry as it seems to me that the classics are mostly about the prose where modern is mostly about making you feel. I have no idea really, just what I think.

The poems that really stood out to me were;

Ugly Man- Dennis Cooper
Four "Addresses"- Peter Davis
I never went to that movie at 12:45- Dolly Lemke
Letter to the Past after Long Silence- Sarah Murphy
Q- Sharon Olds
Vectors 2.3: Fifty Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays- James Richardson
From "A Jar of Balloons or The Uncooked Rice"- Matthew Yeager

The book is worth picking up just for Four "Addreses" and I highly recommend it for anyone who's interested in reading some poetry.

Zoetrope: All-Story Summer 2011 Vol. 15 No. 2

This quarters issue includes Oceanic by Stuart Dybek a complex story that was interesting and well written, T.A.R.P. by Emily Ruskovich about a group of kids forming a club in a rural town that dealt with some tough issues, Legendary by May-Lan Tan about a break up that was fantastic and The Fly by George Langelaan that was originally published in a 1957 issue of Playboy and inspired a classic horror franchise beginning in the late 50's and remakes in the 80's. The art this issue is by Beck Hansen and was not quite as weird as I thought it would be. As you can see by the cover a lot is inspired by the 70's and he uses a lot of bold colors. Really interesting art and I enjoyed it a lot without really knowing how to give it an overarching theme unlike the other issues I've read.

As always, every story was excellent and another highly recommended issue.