Fiction time

So I thought you should know. I am fairly certain there will be a cat1 or higher storm in the Gulf of Mexico round the 29th of Sept. I'm telling you now, so you can plan!

In other fronts, I finished my Andre Agassi book. As an 80s tennis fan, that book was a complete riot! One of my biggest idols, Ivan Lendl...now I know he liked to walk around butt naked in the locker room with just tennis shoes on. It's creepy and hilarious simultaneously. There are lots of great stories about other players. I remember a lot of the matches talked about and to know what was in his head during them is really eye opening. And yet with all the tennis stuff, the stories about his his brother, best friend, trainer Gil,and relationship with Brad Gilbert were excellent- touching and memorable. I could go on and on, but suffice to say I'm damn happy I read it, because I was so close to saying..meeeh do I really want to 'read' about tennis.

So again the search will be on for the next book. I'm becoming a full on book nerd. Here are the books I've read in the last year or so.

Nor Crystal Tears - Alan Dean Foster
Sentenced To Prism - Alan Dean Foster
Les Stroud's Survive - Les Stroud
Extreme Outdoor Adventures- Larry Mueller and Marguerite Reiss
Take This Job And Ship It - Byron L. Dorgan
Mountain Madness - Robert Birkby
Born To Run - Chistopher McDougall
Principles of Running - Amby Burfoot
The Shack - William P. Young
Animals In Translation - Temple Grandin
With The Old Breed - EB Sledge
The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge
The Power Of Serving Others - Gary Morsch and Dean Nelson
Where Men Win Glory - Jon Krakauer
Open - Andre Agassi

After reading Open, I really want to read Nelson Mandela's autobiography. But the one thing that is apparent in reviewing my book list is that only 3 books are fiction. Nor Crystal Tears was a book I read many years ago and through an old friend it found its way back to me. I actually had bought another copy a few years before since I didn't recall where my original book went. When I got it back , I had to read it again! So 3 times.

Sentenced To Prism is the first ADF book I ever read, and I think I bought it just because I liked the cover when I was young teen. I've read that book several times since. I will pass out if I ever see a preview for it in the theater, so long as it's got a good director.

I read The Shack since Liz had read it, and told me of the horrors of the book. Now that we have a young girl, the story of a 6 yr old girl being taken and killed by a stranger was hard to read about. The book's main character eventually has discussions with the Holy Trinity and comes to a greater understanding of how life works. I don't have a lot of hardline or preset beliefs about God, so I found the book's ideas to be quite fascinating. I often picture God as a loving Aunt Jemima now after reading this book.

So I think it's time to read another fiction book. I'm pretty sure what book I'm going to get also.
The key word for this book is dystopian which means -

a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding

But when Sarah Silverman's newest book comes out on paperback, it's on! Here are some book covers. I love the old sci fi art!


A snippet from Prism: Do you have an individuality or are you just part of a composite?

I beg your pardon? I mean , I don't understand.

Among my kind each individual is identified by a descriptive term appropriate to the individual alone. I, for example, am A Surface of Fine Azure-Tinted Reflection With Pyroxin Dendritic Inclusions.



A snippet from Tears : and it did not take long to figure out that they employed air from their lungs, or at least from inside their bodies. Modulation probably came from movements of their flexible mandibles and the peculiar fleshy organ soft creatures sometimes possessed inside their mouths. They did not communicate by making word tones with their mandibles.



A snippet from The Shack : The colors moving within Sarayu were darkening as she spoke, blacks and greys merging and shadowing the rainbow hues. "And if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you have lost any basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for the word evil."