This is Educational.. Bitches!Today I am staying indoors and reading books all fucking day. I'm not going out and causing mischief and spreading my rash. As we know, I am a highly trained writing tutor and will soon receive my ultra-useful degree in fiction writing from Columbia College of Cool Hair and Sleaze. So when I post nerdy shit like this, you better listen. Here's what I'm reading today: In Cold Blood Truman Capote Meet Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, a pair of ex-con drifters who meander about the country, living off forged checks and other forms of theft. Why are they on the run? Well they just tied up and shot to death a family of 4. This book is completely true. Truman Capote went to Kansas, to the town the murders took place in and pieced together this true-crime narrative from the accounts given to him by local citizens and law enforcement. But it's written like a novel, with scene and dialouge and great insight into characters' pasts. It's a whydunnit mystery, rather than a whodunnit. With this book, Capote showed that journalism can be more than just the facts. DiaryChuck Palahniuk Diary is Chuck Palahniuk's worst book. Everyone says so, at least. My mission in reading it is to find out why. I've only read the first few chapters and I guess I like it so far. And not only because it involves a white trash art school girl. So what happens is Misty Kleinman, a girl who paints pictures of big houses to escape the run-down trailer she actually lives in, meets this rich guy at art school, Peter Wilmot. She marries Pater and they move out to Waytansea Island, off the coast of California. Then something goes wrong, they lose their money and Peter takes a job remodeling houses. Only, he does crazy things with the houses, like leaving threatening messages in the walls, "...the people of Waytansea Island will kill you the way they've killed everyone before..." and sealing off certain rooms with a layer of drywall. Then, he kills himself and leaves Misty alone to care for his daughter and bitch-ass mother. This book is written as a 2nd person letter (saying "you" as opposed to "I" or "he/she") to Peter, after he's killed himself. Maybe the "you" point-of-view is what bugs people so much about this book. But the structure is cool. Each short chapter is headed with a date, like a diary (hence, the title). Wake up and Smell the BeerJon Longhi I've only read the first few chapters of this one, too. It's about a bunch of fucked up people in San Francisco, but it makes the very California mistake of thinking that talking about the people is enough. Yes, they're cool and do funny things. Mr. Narrator, you are very hip for knowing them. But where's the story? So far, this book reads like a series of character sketches. Though good character sketches, mind you. Still, "the reader" anticipates more.. Wake up and Smell the Beer is a published by an independent press called Manic D Press (clever, huh?). They also publish the autobiography of bigfoot. So check them out.
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