books
I've been reading a lot lately. I thought I should write up a bit about some of the stuff I've been going through.
The Punisher series..
A guy at work who reads tons of comics told me to read this after I was complaining that a lot of the Xmen comics are too annoyingly PG13 (tame). He kept saying I would like the Punisher even though I told him I always thought it was a dumb character (angry lone white man, vietnam vet, family killed by the mafia,on an endless bloody revenge w/ huge guns). He said it didn't matter and that I wouldn't regret reading them.
I found the first one I read to be really bad. But some of the other ones were actually good, although they have really offensively violent segments. One of the series was about a Moldovan sex slavery ring operating out of NYC, I thought it was actually pretty well written, although pointlessly violent/ "gritty".
The whole series reminded me too much of Godfather-imitation movies that appeal to some hideous underworld where everyone lives by the gun and dies by the gun. I dunno what to say..they are quite long and drawn incredibly well, but I just can't really "get behind" them.
Mafiaboy autobiography (co-authored by Craig Silverman!)
I got this as an express book when I was working at the main library last week. It seemed like an interesting topic and it came out recently. Plus, it's local, the guy lived in West Montreal only about 1h30 from here. I can't really remember much about him being in the press, but I guess he was the subject of a huge manhunt and he shut down CNN,Ebay,Yahoo,etc. But, to be honest, his story was pretty boring! The whole thing was alternately cynical and resentful, or repentant and goodie-two-shoes. The only part I found interesting was when he was retelling his brief time trying to impress all these mysterious chatroom hackers by escalating ruinous activities. The rest of the book (especially the latter 1/3rd) are essentially pretty boring, either going on about a "Regular kid gone wrong" or about how bad he feels and how he just wanted a regular life again.
I've been waiting for my copy of "Stupid to the Last Drop" for almost a year at the library! It's a book written by a journalist about how ridiculously damaging and absurd Canada's "Oilsands" projects are and how Alberta seems to by happy to destroy half of its geography in a sort of uncaring Stalinist type of way in order to get rich off the resources. Anyways, there are lots of books on this topic right now but this one seemed to stand out as one of the better ones. I'm about half through it, and it's pretty interesting, I also like how the author takes a wider view, comparing history and similar projects in different countries, not just taking a narrow current-day-Canadian perspective like lots of other authors.
Landlording on Autopilot.
I'm not reading this book , but a guy was taking it out of the library recently and it appalled me in a sense. I wonder if some of my past landlords have read it. Probably not, it just appeals to their sense of profiteering/laziness I suppose. It really doesn't give me hope for the world.. it's like those books I saw a few years ago excitedly explaining how to profit from the collapse of the US economy.
The Punisher series..
A guy at work who reads tons of comics told me to read this after I was complaining that a lot of the Xmen comics are too annoyingly PG13 (tame). He kept saying I would like the Punisher even though I told him I always thought it was a dumb character (angry lone white man, vietnam vet, family killed by the mafia,on an endless bloody revenge w/ huge guns). He said it didn't matter and that I wouldn't regret reading them.
I found the first one I read to be really bad. But some of the other ones were actually good, although they have really offensively violent segments. One of the series was about a Moldovan sex slavery ring operating out of NYC, I thought it was actually pretty well written, although pointlessly violent/ "gritty".
The whole series reminded me too much of Godfather-imitation movies that appeal to some hideous underworld where everyone lives by the gun and dies by the gun. I dunno what to say..they are quite long and drawn incredibly well, but I just can't really "get behind" them.
Mafiaboy autobiography (co-authored by Craig Silverman!)
I got this as an express book when I was working at the main library last week. It seemed like an interesting topic and it came out recently. Plus, it's local, the guy lived in West Montreal only about 1h30 from here. I can't really remember much about him being in the press, but I guess he was the subject of a huge manhunt and he shut down CNN,Ebay,Yahoo,etc. But, to be honest, his story was pretty boring! The whole thing was alternately cynical and resentful, or repentant and goodie-two-shoes. The only part I found interesting was when he was retelling his brief time trying to impress all these mysterious chatroom hackers by escalating ruinous activities. The rest of the book (especially the latter 1/3rd) are essentially pretty boring, either going on about a "Regular kid gone wrong" or about how bad he feels and how he just wanted a regular life again.
I've been waiting for my copy of "Stupid to the Last Drop" for almost a year at the library! It's a book written by a journalist about how ridiculously damaging and absurd Canada's "Oilsands" projects are and how Alberta seems to by happy to destroy half of its geography in a sort of uncaring Stalinist type of way in order to get rich off the resources. Anyways, there are lots of books on this topic right now but this one seemed to stand out as one of the better ones. I'm about half through it, and it's pretty interesting, I also like how the author takes a wider view, comparing history and similar projects in different countries, not just taking a narrow current-day-Canadian perspective like lots of other authors.
Landlording on Autopilot.
I'm not reading this book , but a guy was taking it out of the library recently and it appalled me in a sense. I wonder if some of my past landlords have read it. Probably not, it just appeals to their sense of profiteering/laziness I suppose. It really doesn't give me hope for the world.. it's like those books I saw a few years ago excitedly explaining how to profit from the collapse of the US economy.