Wednesday, October 1, 2014

September in Review Or, the month I DNF every book in existence and dressed up as Wonder Woman


September was not my month guys. Between travelling for my best friend's wedding, my birthday and the ever present life-destroyer that is a PhD I barely read anything. I mean I tried, but god damn if I didn't pick a bunch of crappy books. So since my list of read books is going to be like 2 items long and I haven't really got any films or tv shows to discuss, I thought I'd introduce a new little section called "Books I DNF and why they suck". My time is precious, so, so precious.

Take us away Paul
Books I DNF and why they suck

Wild by Cheryl Strayed (60% completed)

While I wasn't particularly enjoying this book the main reason I decided to DNF this biatch was the awful quality of the digital copy I downloaded onto my phone. I nixxed the kindle option after a sample because it was an "Oprah Book Club" pick which basically means anything even vaguely inspiration was underlined. And I do not need that shit. I enjoy marginalia when I borrow a friend's book but seriously, it was absurd how by the book the underlining was. PASS. So I downloaded one of the Android reader app and it was even worse. It was obviously made an e-book without a proper editing sweep as every comma was removed and the space between the word before and after the comma (or where it would have been) was stuck together. So it made reading a very inorganic experience. Not to mention I did not think her story was inspirational nor did I enjoy her writing. But the editing (or lack of it) definitely didn't help the matter.

GIF rating*:



Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell (71% completed)

This might actually be the worst book I've ever read. After the case was apparently solved a month ago (again) I decided to finally grab this book off my shelf and give it a read. If you've ever wanted to read a perfect example for how not to conduct research, write a book or structure an argument then this is the book for you. Cornwell is convinced she knows who the killer is and so that none of her readers gives any other theory weight she discredits them all as flimsy and weak and unlikely while then going on to set her scenes by saying things like "while there's no proof he was in London at this time, there also isn't proof he wasn't" and started every sentence with "I imagine" "It could be presumed" "it may have happened like". Because her argument is literally "this guy did it because I find his paintings squicky" there are huge chunks of the book that have nothing to do with the case. Either she's discussing the state of  medicine and police strategy at the time (which was actually quite interesting) or she's randomly waffling on about the autopsy procedures in modern day USA. Yes, that happens. I was going to try and finish this so I could write a detailed review about all the inaccuracies, biases and padding but once I put it down I could not motivate myself to pick it back up. I shifted from laughing hysterically to actually clenching my fists in rage. This book is awful, absolutely the worst.

GIF rating:



BOOKS:

What I Read:

*Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory McGuire
*Wonder Woman: Iron by Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang (my review)
*Wonder Woman: War by Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang
*The Maze Runner by James Dashner (my review)
*1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert
*Guardians of the Galaxy: Angela by Brian Michael Bendis, Sarah Pichelli, Francesco Francavilla (my review)
*Captain America: Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting

Book Stats:

100% male / 0% female (ooof)
100% American / 0% International
86% ebook / 0% audiobook / 14% physical
100% fiction / 0% non-fiction
72% graphic novels / 28% novels

Well this was a bit of a rubbish month for books wasn't it! But while I haven't finished much (other than lots and lots of graphic novels) I have started a whole lot of other books. I am currently juggling Haruki Murakami's new book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage with Gregory Maguire's Wicked. I'm also still slowly slogging away with Cheryl Strayed's Wild. Note to anyone interested in reading it, do not download either the Kindle or Google play editions. The Kindle version is an Oprah edition which basically means every second line is underlined because it's supposedly inspirational (ugh) and the Google play book has removed every comma as well as the space between the words that bracketed the comma. Shame on the editors or whatever the digital equivalent is, it's ridiculous and makes a book that I'm not particularly enjoying even harder to read.

PERSONAL:

Like I said above, this month was pretty busy. I had my best friend's wedding (which was beautiful), my birthday (which was relaxing), my birthday dinner (which was delicious) and my birthday party (which rocked). And snice my friend's wedding was back home in Cairns on a Friday and since my birthday was on the following Monday Tom and I decided to spend a week in Cairns enjoying the beautiful weather and pretty outdoors. We spent a lot of time next to water, without actually ever going swimming. So yeah. Busy. I figured I might share a couple of photos from the month for those of you who don't follow me on Instagram or aren't friends with me on facebook. I wish I'd gotten a proper picture of my costume for my birthday party (I was punk/rocker Wonder Woman) but alas all I have to share are 3am battle photos between me and sell-out Superman.

Morning of the big day. How is that for a wedding location!
Bridesmaids
Taking in the sights
Port Douglas - How's the serenity?
Wonder Woman V Superman: Late night brawls 
Kicking ass and taking names




* Stealing this from you Alley! SORRY NOT SORRY

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