Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

After finishing Tales from Watership Down on April 8, I had a little time off from reading until my next book came from Amazon - Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore.  Sadly, our local public library didn't have this book.  I started this on April 17 and finished it on April 25.  I'm a sucker (no pun intended) for a vampire novel.  Yes, I read and liked the Twilight series (and the movies), I devoured the True Blood books by Charlaine Harris and enjoyed the HBO series, and I think I read at least one Anne Rice book way back when.  I also really liked the books Jane Bites Back, Jane Vows Vengeance, and Jane Goes Batty by Michael Thomas Ford.  I loved Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (the movie wasn't as good).  Of course I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the movie and the TV show.  So, maybe I have a thing for vampires.

A friend at work recommended Christopher Moore's series so I started with book #1 - Bloodsucking Fiends.  My work friend billed this as a funny vampire novel set in San Francisco with a group of misfits who work at the Marina Safeway on the night shift stocking groceries.  So, having lived in San Francisco for some time, I tend to enjoy reading books that are set in familiar territory.

And, if you've lived in San Francisco, you have to know the reputation of the Marina Safeway as a major pick-up place.  You know about the fog and how it rolls in, you've probably seen the Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, Chinatown, and more.  All of those places have a role in this book.

It starts with Jody, a 30-something girl working in the Pyramid, who ends up being turned into a vampire.  C. Thomas Flood is a small town kid hell bent on becoming a writer.  He drove to San Francisco from Indiana and joins the misfits at the Marina Safeway courtesy of a homeless man called the Emperor.  Jody and C. Thomas become intertwined and crazy vampire shit happens.  C. Thomas becomes obsessed with reading vampire books while Jody sleeps the day away in a bedroom with no windows.  He tests her vampire abilities time and again to figure out what kinds of "powers" she has.  Mostly, it is a bust.

Here's a funny part of the book:

There's an explanation for this, she thought, standing in the bathroom looking at the turtles.  There is a perfectly good reason why there are two huge snapping turtles in my tub.

     "Do you like them?" Tommy was standing in the doorway behind her.

     "These are for me, then?" She [Jody] tried to smile.  She really did.

     "Yeah, Simon helped me get them home.  I didn't think I could carry them on the bus.  Aren't they great?"

     Jody looked in the tub again.  The turtles were trying to crawl on top of each other.  Their claws screeched on the porcelain when they moved.  "I don't know what to say," Jody said.

     "I thought that we could feed them fish and stuff, and you'd have a blood supply right here at home.  Besides me, I mean."

     She turned and regarded Tommy.  Yes, he was serious.  He was really serious.  "You haven't..."

     "Their names are Scott and Zelda.  Zelda is missing a toe on her back foot.  That's how you tell them apart.  Do you like them?  You seem a little reticent." 

So, yes, snapping turtles named Scott and Zelda.  You'll have to read to the book to learn of their fate.  It may or may not have something to do with 2 biker-ish burly men who make bronze statues.  Or it may not have anything to do with that at all...

Strange murders are afoot in San Francisco and it looks like C. Thomas is getting framed for them.  So, Jody, C. Thomas, the Animals, 2 cops, the Emperor and his 2 dogs all band together (in a peculiar way) to solve the murders and ensure C. Thomas isn't on the hook for them.

This book was a very fast read, super funny (especially if you know San Francisco), and quite clever.  I couldn't wait to read the 2nd book in this series, You Suck: A Love Story.  

Aside from a few inaccuracies in the San Francisco setting (BART doesn't run on the Embarcadero, Muni does, and no one calls it "The Noe Valley" just "Noe Valley"), this book gets 2 fangs up from me!

Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams

So, after finishing Watership Down (still not about sunken Navy ships), I was poking around on Amazon and found that there is a sequel of sorts to Watership Down, called Tales from Watership Down, also by Richard Adams (of course).  I asked The Husband to request it from the public library for me.  I started it on March 14 and finished it on April 8.

I sort of expected this to be a continuation of happenings in the warren on Watership Down, it kind of was and kind of wasn't.  I can't give away what happens in Watership Down, but Tales didn't really pick up where the other left off, nor did it fill in any substantive holes in the story.  It really was more rabbit stories.  There were several about El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle and their adventures, exploits, and shenanigans.  These stories were told by familiar rabbits in the warren, like Dandelion.  And, we met some new rabbits that came into the warren.

I wish this were more about the adventures of the familiar rabbits in the warren and less about the "stories" of past adventures.  I was dying to know how the rabbits got on after the big war with General Woundwort.  I was also curious about if General Woundwort would make an appearance.

It was nice to see that a female rabbit became chief and it was kind of annoying that it was controversial among the male rabbits.

     "I'd imagine she'd be a very good Chief Rabbit," said Silver, "as long as she had a male partner to - well, you know - to balancer her when she needed it."

And the doe who accepted the co-position said:

     "I promise to be the biggest nuisance he's ever met in his life, and to disagree with him about everything." 

As I was reading this, I was kind of gagging and rolling my eyes.  OK - so I genuinely thought this was written in yesteryear, the olden days, long ago.  I had to check the publication date as I write this blog - this was published in 1996.  That makes me gag even more.  What's wrong with female leaders and why do they need a male to "balance them out" - ick, blech, gag.  I guess sexism exists in the imaginary animal realm too.  That's a discussion for another time.

All in all, this was a decent read.  I wish it was more about the warren rabbits and not about the mythical El-ahrairah.

On a separate note, I've become a fan of Teespring and get regular emails from them.  Usually, I just hit the delete button (sorry, Teespring), but one caught my eye because they have a Watership Down shop!!!  I couldn't resist, and got shirts for The Husband and me.
🐰❤️

Watership Down by Richard Adams

So, I started Watership Down by Richard Adams on January 15th, paused on February 13th, picked it back up on February 25th and finally finished it on March 9th.  What a journey.  The pause was due to The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly - library books wait for no other.  When I heard the name of this book, who knows how long ago, I seriously thought it was a book about a Navy ship that sunk.  I mean, Watership Down - totally a Navy ship that sunk, right?  Well, no.  I never read the book before now, and I firmly believe the universe wanted me to read the book - there were several signs pointing me to it.  First - last August when The Husband and I were on vacation, we were in a class on harnessing your intuition and sitting next to a man who was holding a book.  One of the exercises we had to do in the class was to exchange an item we had with us with the person sitting next to us and then try to intuit why the item was held in high esteem (or not) by the other person.  Well, the man, his name was Quantrell, gave me his book, and when I opened my eyes after trying to intuit why it was important to him, I noticed the book was Watership Down.  So I asked him about it.

Turns out it is absolutely NOT about a Navy ship that sank.  It is about rabbits!!  Yes, rabbits!!  I'm a little obsessed with animals, so was kind of shocked to see this manly man reading a book about rabbits and not sunken Navy ships.  I was intrigued more after Quantrell told me a little about the book.  I made a mental note to pick it up soon to read.  Around the holidays last year, I was with my Step-Mother getting a massage at Burke Williams.  We were waiting in the quiet room for our appointments and a lady sat down next to me and pulled out a book to read while she was waiting for her appointment.  The book was.... wait for it....  Watership Down.  When I was gathering my things and packing for my trip home after Christmas, I took a look at the bookshelf in the room I was in at my parents' house.  And, right there in plain sight at my eye level was none other than...  wait for it....  Watership Down.  So, I took it from the bookshelf and brought it home with me and started reading it on January 15th.  The day before I started reading it, I was shopping at Anthropologie and everywhere I looked, I saw rabbits - rabbit mugs, rabbit hooks, rabbit tie backs, rabbit everything.  I mean, if this isn't the universe talking to me trying to get me to read this book, I don't know what it is.  Too much of a coincidence.

The book from my parents' bookshelf is old - printed in 1975, I think, and the print is miniscule.  I powered through it, but it was slow going.  I know I've heard references to Hazel and Fiver before, but had no context.  Well, now I do!  They are brothers, and rabbits, who live on the periphery of a warren in England.  Fiver is an odd lot, and has premonitions.  He has a premonition that something bad is going to happen to the warren.  He and Hazel go to the chief rabbit to tell him about Fiver's vision.  They are ostracized by the chief and kind of shuttled out of his audience.  Some other rabbits on the periphery come to learn about Fiver's premonition and a small group of rag-tag rabbits leave the warren.

This book tells the tale of that group.  Man, they overcome some serious shit.  Like snares, bad humans, rats, owls, dogs, cats, foxes, stoats (I learned that a stoat is like a weasel), birds, and more.  And, man, wait until you meet General Woundwort and the rabbits of Efrafa.  Talk about a despotic, evil lunatic and a crazy lot of rabbits.  This book was a page turner, especially toward the end, but since the words were so small, it took me a while to flip those pages.  I stayed up too late a few nights to "see what happened" in the book.  And, some shit happened, that's for sure.  You know what they say about cats - they have 9 lives - some of these rabbits did too.  I LOVED THIS BOOK!

I learned that it was made into an animated movie.  After a little search on the Google, I found THIS recent article that the BBC and Netflix are remaking it into a less violent version than the original because the original scars kids.  I couldn't find an original movie trailer, but found a few 3-minute "trailers" on YouTube.  It looks like an older cartoon - circa 1978 - but seems like it will be good.  And, yes, it looks violent.  This picture is from the article about the remake - that rabbit on the right sure looks scary and evil.  I mean, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth and body?  Yikes - wouldn't want to meet that scary rabid rabbit in a dark alley, or any alley for that matter.

I do want to watch the original movie, but have been advised to do it when I'm in a good mood...  Yikes!  I loved the book though - great writing, wonderful rabbit characters, enthralling, endearing.  And most decidedly not about a sunken Navy ship.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly

So, after finishing The Revolving Door of Life on January 14, I picked up another book, but had to hit the pause button on that one when The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly came into the library.  I started this one on February 13 and finished it on the 24th.  Like every Michael Connelly / Harry Bosch book, this one was a very quick read.

Connelly has a tried and true recipe for success with his Bosch books, and this one is no different.  This book opens with Harry taking on a private investigation case for a reclusive billionaire searching for a possible heir to his fortune.  Harry is also a volunteer detective working unsolved cases for the San Fernando Police Department which fell victim to budget cuts and has a bare-bones budget and staff of public servants.  Why is Harry a volunteer detective?  Of course it's because he's Harry and sued the LAPD for making him retire.  So, of course, he's black-balled by the LAPD and the vast majority of officers there.

San Fernando needed detectives and Harry still wanted to work - a match made in heaven.  He's so passionate about the work that he seems to do anything he can to keep doing it.  He picks up an unsolved case that he thinks is part of a series of crimes in the area.  As he investigates this case with the San Fernando PD, he is also working a private case trying to locate the billionaire's heir.  Both cases preoccupy him and compete, at times, for his attention.  Harry is Harry and finds a way to tackle both cases, not without hiccups on the way.  Both cases resolve satisfactorily.

I really liked this book - it kept me wanting more - a real page turner, especially at the end.  I definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly, or detective books.  I do recommend reading these books in order, but it is not 100% necessary.  I think I missed one or 2 before this, and was puzzled about Bosch's retirement, and some of the happenings with his daughter.  But my puzzlement didn't detract from my enjoyment and understanding in this book.

While we are on the subject of Harry Bosch - I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the series Bosch on Amazon Prime.  After doing a little search for this on the Google, I see that there will be a 3rd season (YEAY!).  Each season covers a few different Bosch books worked and melded together, and of course with a few liberties.  Click HERE for season 1 (based on Echo Park, City of Bones, and The Concrete Blonde), click HERE for season 2 (based on Trunk Music, The Drop, and The Last Coyote), and a trailer for season 3 is HERE.  OMG - the trailer for season 3 looks AMAZING!  Titus Welliver makes a fantastic Bosch.  The series is gritty, feels real, and is way better than if it was on network TV.

If you are a fan of the Harry Bosch books, you should like the series on Amazon Prime.  And, if you like the books, The Wrong Side of Goodbye is a slam dunk.  Two thumbs up for the book and the series.

The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

So, after finishing The Speed of Sound by Thomas Dolby, I returned to The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith.  I grabbed this book from the up for grabs book table at my parents' house the week before Thanksgiving.  I started this one back in November, read a little, then picked up the Angel of History and then The Speed of Sound, and then came back to this one.  I finished it last night, January 14.

I hadn't head of this author before, but I do remember when the movie "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" came out some years back.  I didn't see the movie, but that caught my eye when I grabbed this book from the up for grabs table.

So - this book was good, but it was also strange.  I think it would be less strange if I read the books in order - it looks like there are 9 books before this one in the series.  Regardless, this book was easy to read, and the characters seemed realistic.

This book follows several characters in Scotland who all live in the same neighborhood.  Each person / couple live their own life but they intersect periodically with others in the neighborhood.  This book focused mainly on Bertie - a young boy whose mother has "accidentally" been taken to a harem in some part of the middle east.  His father is left to care for Bertie and his little brother Ulysses.  The boys' grandmother comes to help out and we learn that the boys' mother is quite overbearing and a major thorn in Bertie's side.  His grandmother changes everything and lets Bertie be the boy he wants to be.  The most touching - she takes Bertie to get his very own kilt.

The stories of the people in this book are quite interesting and I found I really wanted to know what happened with all of them.  The ending was unremarkable and a little disappointing - it left me wanting more.

Although it took me quite a while to read this book, it was an entertaining and enjoyable read.  I would say read the books in order and it will be better than picking up a book in the middle of the series.  I think you will get a richer and deeper experience with the characters.  My guess is that you'll want to read all of the books in the series.

Now on to my next read - about bunnies! I'm kind of obsessed with animals - you can read more about that on my other blog here.

The Speed of Sound by Thomas Dolby

So, after turning in The Angel of History back in December, I got the next book The Husband requested from the library for me - The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology by Thomas Dolby.  Yes - THAT Thomas Dolby - as in She Blinded Me with Science.  I was listening to NPR on my way home or somewhere and Thomas Dolby was on talking about his new book - The Speed of Sound.

So, if you are anything like me, you know Thomas Dolby as a musician from the 80s.  What you don't know is he is so much more than just She Blinded Me with Science.  The book starts with a recollection in 1984 where Dolby is hopping off his tour bus in the middle of the Nevada desert to use some fancy not yet widely adopted machine to transmit a song over a pay phone line to none other than Michael Jackson.  Yes.  Michael Jackson.

Dolby grew up in England and used to work at a grocery / fruit stand.  He was very into music at the time, but was barely eking out a living at the grocery store.  He eventually got fired from the store and the rest is history - a fascinating, crazy history.

He writes about seeing Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, XTC, Roxy Music, Siouxie and the Banshees, and more all in the very early days of these performers.  He started helping a sound guy set up for shows, and eventually graduated to handling sound set up on his own.  He longed to be in a band making music.  He placed an ad in a local paper and eventually ended up playing with several different local bands - his first was Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club.  Eventually, though he had one record deal, but it crashed and burned.  He took off for Paris to lick his wounds.  While there, he got a call from Mutt Lange asking if he would play with Foreigner on their new album.  Off to America he went and worked with them for about a month.  Then he worked with a small label that didn't do much for him.  Then he happened upon a deal with EMI that was the best he thought he'd get.  Sadly for him, the terms of that contract said that EMI owned in perpetuity any and all music he recorded while he was working with them.  He ran into bands such as Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and others during his time with EMI.

He writes about his journey in creating more music, dabbling in music videos (and directing them), meeting Michael Jackson, who really liked She Blinded Me with Science, and gave Dolby his phone number in Los Angeles.  He details how on a trip to America, he came down with mono, played a live set on Richard Blade's (of KROQ fame) show, ended up in a limo with record execs and not wanting to go out with them, so called the only person he knew in LA - Michael Jackson.  And guess what - Dolby went to Jackson's house and hung out with him for a while.

The music portion of the book is full of crazy tales of encounters and time spent with a ton of very famous people.  In 1985 he performed on the Grammys with Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, and Howard Jones.  He was hired to produce songs for Joni Mitchell in 1985 (and was fired by her that same year), played with David Bowie for Live Aid at Wembley Stadium.  I could go on and on about his music experiences - if you want to know more, read the book.

But where I was blown away was learning about how Dolby eventually made his way to Silicon Valley, founded a company called Headspace (then Beatnik), was almost in on the tech IPO fever, but didn't quite make it.  Dolby's goal was to sound-ify this new thing called the internet by using the RMF digital music format he created.  He had a big deal with Netscape that crashed and burned.  Sadly for Dolby (there's a lot of "sadly for Dolby" in his book), his dream to sound-ify the internet didn't immediately catch on.  He moved on to other ways to use sound for things, and eventually changed the way these new devices called mobile phones rang.  He worked with Nokia to change their ringtone and invented their tell-tale tone (listen here).  He played poker with Chris Anderson (who created the TED conference), the San Francisco chef (Howard Bulka) who founded Howie's Artisan Pizza, and Rob Reid (of RealNetworks).

This book is full of revelations (at least to me) about Thomas Dolby - the musician, the tech geek, the entrepreneur, the CEO.  Ultimately, his main interest was music and sound and how to create and invent new and interesting ways to play and hear sound.  He was in Serra Monte mall in Daly City (I've been to this mall - in the range of malls, it is one of the more janky malls) and he had an epiphany - some girl's phone ringtone blurted out a song by Eminem.  Dolby's epiphany was - RINGTONES - that was where he could do something.  Downloadable ringtones (for a fee, of course) playable through the software he created at his company, Beatnik.  Nokia was onboard, but with a nonexclusive license to Beatnik.  Soon, Samsung, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and Panasonic were using his software and paying a royalty.  And chipmakers got in on this and licensed code to embed in their chips.

After resigning from Beatnik, Dolby founded another company called Retro Ringtones and made deals with mobile carriers to create new ringtones from Top 40 chart hits and feed them to the carriers' mobile portals for users to download (for a fee, of course).

Now, Dolby the musician, the entrepreneur, the techy nerd, the husband, the father, the inventor is a professor and spends "eight months a year in Baltimore, Maryland, where I am teaching my students some of the things I've learned in a lifetime of breaking the sound barrier."

This book was AMAZING.  Unlike Angel of History - this was a quick read, had grammar, punctuation, structure, and made sense.  I started it on 12/24 and finished it on 1/3.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes music or has experience in Silicon Valley, the tech industry, the dot-com-boom, the dot-com-bust, or is just curious about why they can play a song on their cell phone.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up from me.

The Angel of History: A Novel by Rabih Alameddine

So, a little bit after finishing Kanye West Owes Me $300 by Jensen Karp, I started reading a book by Alexander McCall Smith, and stopped mid-way through to read The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine.  I heard Alameddine on NPR and was intrigued.  The subject matter of this book seemed original, kooky, provocative, and I wanted to read it.  I asked The Husband to request it from the library - had to wait for it to come in to the library (hence the McCall Smith book).  Once it did, I cracked it open and gave it a read.

This book was STRANGE STRANGE STRANGE.  What I understood about the book - the main character, Jacob, hears the Devil and Death talking to him.  He's lost his partner to AIDS.  He talks to his dead partner.  He hears the Devil and Death.  And, then checks himself into a mental hospital for a little "vacation" to hopefully stop the voices.

The Devil and Death are interviewing 14 other Saints that have been involved with Jacob throughout his storied life about different events in his life.

The author writes in a stream of consciousness style with little punctuation and many run-on sentences.  It was very hard to follow who he was talking to and what he was talking about (present or past).  I kept reading and kept being confused and puzzled and kept waiting for it to "click" for me and make sense.  It didn't.

It pains me to say that I didn't finish this book.  It was due back at the library, The Husband and I were leaving for Southern California for the holidays, and I just couldn't get in to this book.  This is only the 2nd time that I can remember that I haven't finished a book I started (the other was a Robert Ludlum book - The Aquitaine Progression, I think).  I really wanted to know what happened in The Angel of History - but I guess it wasn't to be.  I think if something had clicked for me, I would have kept the book, paid the overdue fee, and finished it.  Or if it had really clicked for me, I'm sure I would have finished it in a week or so like I have with other books.

Sadly, I can't sing this book's praises like other reviewers on Amazon.  I wanted to like it, but, like the Rolling Stones sang, you can't always get what you want.