Book Review: On The Road

Yes, I know I recently alluded to a review of Les Misérables (which my wife went to see together around a week ago), but I haven't quite had time to polish my notes into a final draft yet.  Sorry.  So you are stuck with this review of On The Road.

Oh, and did you notice all the snow?  I love how pretty the world gets under a blanket of the stuff.  Not so crazy about people who don't know how to drive in it. 

Source: Amazon.com

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac

From the book’s cover:

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance.

Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago.

Book Review: Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion

I'm afraid that I'm the one who feels like a zombie as I sit here doing the prep work to finish off this blog post and publish to the greater World Wide Web.  I could say it has something to do with the book being reviewed below, but to be honest, I wrote this review nearly a month ago, and was simply waiting to post until I was off the holiday break in December.  No, the problem is more localized than just a rather... ahem... obtuse book.  More like my battery is run low right now.

Still looking for either part-time day work to supplement my night job, or in lieu of that, full-time daytime work that pays well enough to replace what I have now.  Money is still incredibly tight, but we're hanging in there. 

Played checkers with my six-year old for the first time on Thursday afternoon.  She won the first game by a close margin, but I mauled her for the second.  And then she wanted to play a Barbie matching game.  Good fun, overall.

And hey - now it's Friday!  That's always a good thing.  Hope your day is going well.

Source: Amazon.com

Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion, by Alan Goldsher

From the book’s cover:

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT'S TIME TO REALLY MEET THE BEATLES.

For John Lennon, a young, idealistic zombie guitarist with dreams of global domination, Liverpool seems the ideal place to form a band that could take over the world. In an inspired act, Lennon kills and reanimates local rocker Paul McCartney, kicking off an unstoppable partnership. With the addition of newly zombified guitarist George Harrison and drummer/Seventh Level Ninja Lord Ringo Starr, the Beatles soon cut a swath of bloody good music and bloody violent mayhem across Europe, America, and the entire planet.

In this searing oral history, discover how the Fab Four climbed to the Toppermost of the Poppermost while stealing the hearts, ears, and brains of smitten teenage girls. Learn the tale behind a spiritual journey that resulted in the dismemberment of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Marvel at the seemingly indestructible quartet’s survival of a fierce attack by Eighth Level Ninja Lord Yoko Ono. And find out how the boys escaped eternal death at the hands of England’s greatest zombie hunter, Mick Jagger.

Through all this, one mystery remains: Can the Beatles sublimate their hunger for gray matter, remain on top of the charts, and stay together for all eternity? After all, three of the Fab Four are zombies, and zombies live forever. . .

Book Review: Gone With The Wind

It's officially 2013, so I can start writing in earnest again.  Then again, we'll see how busy school and a second job (or a full time position, depending on what comes my way) and the rest makes life.  Luckily for you (the ever-diligent reader that you are, that is), I have some backlog of reviews to post over the coming weeks.  Even some stuff that I was reading back at the end of Fall 2012 semester and postponed so I could take a break over the winter holidays.  Such as the review below.

Enjoy.

Source: Amazon.com

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

From the book’s cover:

Margaret Mitchell's epic novel of love and war won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to give rise to two authorized sequels and one of the most popular and celebrated movies of all time.

Many novels have been written about the Civil War and its aftermath. None take us into the burning fields and cities of the American South as Gone With the Wind does, creating haunting scenes and thrilling portraits of characters so vivid that we remember their words and feel their fear and hunger for the rest of our lives.

In the two main characters, the white-shouldered, irresistible Scarlett and the flashy, contemptuous Rhett, Margaret Mitchell not only conveyed a timeless story of survival under the harshest of circumstances, she also created two of the most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet.