What Next?

I just finished reading The Bride Stripped Bare. It’s the type of book that I would call bumfodder. Bumfodder is toilet reading material. Nothing in depth, nothing intellectually challenging and no vast complexity to the plot. You could quite happily pick it up every time you went to shit and put it down and walk away after the event. Clive Cussler is master of producing bumfodder. That’s not to say that I don’t like this kind of reading. It’s easy. The words flow in and out again as quickly as you turn the pages. It is time spent as an ultimate sloth – not moving, not doing, not even thinking.

What I didn’t like with this novel is the main character. I couldn’t identify with her at all. She was weak, basically. I think that not liking a main character really effects my enjoyment of the novel. If they aren’t a character who I would want to spend time with in person, why would I want to spend time reading about them? This character in The Bride Stripped Bare was not someone I would essentially dislike, but not somebody I would crave knowing at all. A person I just would not bother with.

I’m presented with the dilemma of having packed all my books into storage (where I won’t see them for at least another six months) and having a hell of a lot more spare time on my hands. That means I’ve got more time to read, but no more going back to the old faithfuls in my collection. It is time for a new author. This is a horror prospect for me, the person who can be in a movie store and waste the same amount of time it would take to watch a movie just wandering around the store trying to select one.

So I need suggestions. I love Stephen King to pieces – not for the horror aspect, though. It’s because he can make me laugh out loud while reading. Katherine Kerr’s fantasy series is fantastic and she should be jailed until she finishes it. Bret Easton Ellis is brilliant even though the characters are arseholes. That’s his point – they’re meant to be. I look upon Mills and Boon with total disdain. I loved the Da Vinci Code until the ending, which I thought was total shit.

What do I read next? Suggestions, anyone?

The Stock Pot

Decided to make a stock today after pulling apart the leftover chicken. It's part of a new attempt at less wastage. I've been living off one six-dollar chicken since wednesday night and I reckon I'll get at least half a dozen more meals out of it (in frozen bits of course).

So I've had the stock going for ages and it's all nice and tasty. I strain it and decided to kind of wring out as much as I can from the vegies that were in there. Of course, I have a munch on one of the bits of carrot when I'm done squeezing it out and am fairly surprised to find that it tastes just the same as the stock does. It lost it's carrotness and became part of the hive mind....

I've just finished reading Steven King's Cell - which I found similar in the opening doomsday thing to The Stand - but he goes into telepathy a bit in Cell, where the 'phone-people' actually share a hive mind. I love Steven King. Mostly it's good, fast reading. He does panic really well, and is one of those writers that can have me laughing aloud with his descriptions of things during a crisis.

Anyway, the hive mind. It's where there's no individuality any more. The 'phone-people' in Cell, my stockpot. I see the connection clearly.


No, I'm not still drunk blogging.