Straight Up

Title: Straight Up
Author: James Lear
Published: 2015 by Cleis Press
Genre: Cocks, and there's some danger and politics and stuff, too
Pages: 289



This time, I was determined to finish reading and update before the year ticked to an end! Sequel to the sticky ending of 2014, The Hardest Thing, and a lovely xmas/bday present. This time, the SO slipped in a few screaming pink Post-It -notes with happy penises drawn on them. Only found one of them in a bus. Jolly cocks! As if the book wasn't already full of those!

Dan Stagg, ex-marine, current gym-worker, is back. Life seems to be getting somewhat better for him as he builds bridges with his parents, and sees as much of his long-distance boyfriend as they can manage. Luckily there's Skype in the modern world, 'Fucking Facebook', and specialized sites for, say, veterans to find each other and catch up. Dan has signed up to one such site, and one day, receives a message from an old comrade who is keen to meet. There is an actual plot-reason for the meeting, but there's also plenty of cock. Dan is soon elbow-deep in danger again, with old sins coming to haunt -and hurt- members of an old, secret mission.

I really want to read The Hardest Thing again, now. Plus the Mitch Mitchell Mysteries. All of them.Can't I just quit my job and read for a living?


   "On your knees, soldier. I'm coming in from behind."


And that makes 80 books in 2015, holy shit! EXCEPT that I did indeed finish the first one in 2014, so, no. Not 80, 79. Still, that's plenty of books!

Happy New Year! Wee!

Norma

Nimi: Norma
Kirjoittaja: Sofi Oksanen
Julkaistu: 2015, Like
Genre: Draamaa ja vähän fantasiaakin
Sivuluku: 304




Synttarilahja osui taas nappiin, kyllä se äiti tietää mitä ostaa kun suoraan kysyttäessä vastaa! Myönnän, halusin Norman omaksi aika pitkälti kauniin ulkonäön vuoksi. Juonesta en paljon tiennyt, mutta toki sen että Oksasesta pidän. Yritän pitää spoilerit minimissään.


Norma on aivan tavallinen Helsingissä asuva nainen: töitä on välillä vaikea pitää ja saada, äiti asuu naapurissa, miesten kanssa menee vähän niin ja näin. Hiukset tuntuvat elävän omaa elämäänsä. Ja äiti käveli juuri ilmeisesti ihan syyttä metron alle Sörnäisessä. Norma selviää hautajaisista niin ja näin, mutta kulmilla alkaa äkkiä pyöriä äidin 'kavereita', joita hän ei muista ikinä tavanneensa, mutta joilla tuntuu olevan kiire ja hätä päästä juttusille.


Kirja kaappasi mukaansa heti parin sivun jälkeen: sain sen tapaninaamuna, ja seuraavan päivän iltaan mennessä oli jo luettu. Aikaisemmin olisi jo ollut jos ei olisi tarvinnut sosiaalinen olla, niin! Sulattelen vielä loppua, mutta muuten nautin joka sivusta, auki kiertyvästä nutturasta jonka sisältä löytyi salaisuuksia ja tragedioita.




Kymmentä vaille kahdeksan äiti oli kiirehtinyt metroasemalle, vaikka hänen olisi pitänyt olla matkalla lähellä sijaitsevaan kampaamoon. Silminnäkijöiden mukaan hän oli miltei juossut, mutta aamuisin monilla oli kiire eikä se ollut herättänyt kummeksuntaa. Norma veti henkeen kahvinpaahtimon tuoksua, joka oli sama kuin äidin viimeisenä aamuna, ja ylitti matkalla Vaasanaukion, kuten äitikin. Hän ohitti vauhdilla marketin kynnyksellä kaljanmyynnin alkua odottavan porukan ja yritti nähdä jotain, mikä olisi voinut vaikuttaaa äidin päätökseen, jotain mikä olisi tehnyt siitä ymmärrettävän. Hän oli valinnut käytännölliset ballerinat, caprit ja kauluksellisen puuvillapaidan, tavanomaiset työvaatteensa, jollaisiin äitikin oli pukeutunut sinä aamuna, ja riensi liukuportaita alas laiturille, kuten äiti oli tehnyt, toisteli anteeksi pyyhältäessään maalaisten ohi, jotka eivät ymmärtäneet pysytellä oikealla, vaan tukkivat portaat koko leveydeltä, aivan kuten hekin olivat tehneet muutettuaan Helsinkiin. Laiturilla hän istui penkille, jolle äiti ei ollut istunut. Metro oli syöksynyt laiturille saman tien. Äiti oli viskannut penkin alle kengät ja käsilaukun, sitten hän oli ollut poissa. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Author: Ken Kesey
Published: 1962
Genre: Drama!
Pages: 320




I did not think I'd like this book as much as I did. I mean, I'd seen the movie at some point, and it has always haunted me a little, so once I found the book I thought it'd be worth a read, but I didn't really know I'd like it this much. Lunch breaks flew by!


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is narrated by Chief Bromden, an apparently deaf and mute inmate of a psychiatric hospital. The ward is run by nurse Ratched, who has the patients and the doctor firmly under her heel, kept there by her three underling orderlies. All is as orderly and serene as it can be, until a new inmate comes. McMurphy has faked insanity to escape prison and spend his sentence at the hospital, thinking it a better place. Not the best of ideas, as it turns out, but McMurphy sets out to make the best of his stay, and to give the patients some of their spines back.


I seriously loved reading this book. I had only vague memories of the movie, a general idea that it won't end well, basically, and some characters. One of my favourites this year for sure, this and the Hexslinger-books. There's just something about wild redheads, I guess.





   "Patient McMurphy" --the boy with the pipe feels he should try to defend his position and save face just a little bit-- "does not strike me as a coward."
   I expect her to get mad, but she doesn't; she just gives him that let's-wait-and-see look and says, "I didn't say he was exactly a coward, Mr. Gideon; oh, no. He's simply very fond of someone. As a psychopath, he's much too fond of a Mr. Randle Patrick McMurphy to subject him to any needless danger." She gives the boy a smile that puts his pipe out for sure this time. "If we just wait for a while, our hero will--what is it you college boys say?--give up his bit? Yes?"
   "But that may take weeks--" the boy starts.
   "We have weeks," she says. She stands up, looking more pleased with herself than I've seen her look since McMurphy came to trouble her a week ago. "We have weeks, or months, or even years if need be. Keep in mind that Mr. McMurphy is committed. The length of time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us. Now, if there is nothing else..."

Whispers Under Ground (again!)

Title: Whispers Under Ground
Author: Ben Aaronovitch
Published: 2012
Genre: Urban fantasy
Pages: 322


Woo, again already! The sixth book in the series was supposed to come out a month ago, but it was postponed to next June. Aww... but at least there's now time to re-read three, four and five before it comes out! And since it's all Christmassy and shit, I re-read Whispers Under Ground.

American art student, magical pottery, tainted lettuce, FBI, yadda yadda. Loved it possibly even more than the first time around, and now I noticed the nod or two towards the next book. Which I wanted to start straight away, but let's pace ourselves here and read something else in between.

Coincidentally, since it was me and Kindle's -sorry, Kindle and I's- anniversary, I got it new covers. With the London Tube map on them. Nice.


   "You're so boring," she said. "You'd think a copper who was a wizard would be more interesting Harry Potter wasn't this boring. I bet Gandalf could drink you under the table."
   Probably true, but I don't remember the bit where Hermione gets so wicked drunk that Harry has to pull the broomstick over on Buckingham Palace Road just so she can be sick in the gutter. Once Lesley wiped her mouth with the napkins I'd so boringly kept in the glove compartment against such an eventuality, she resumed by pointing out that Merlin probably had something to teach me about the raising of the wrist. 
   I would have been subjected to a longer list except Lesley had grown up reading Sophie Kinsella and Helen Fielding and so ran out of fictional wizards at Severus Snape, after which our journey home continued in relative quiet. 

Interesting Times

Title: Interesting Times
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1994
Genre: Humour Fantasy
Pages: 368 on the Kindle


The 17th Discworld book is named after the curse May you live in interesting times. Its 'hero' has certainly been 'blessed' by those words: the one and only Wizzard, Rincewind, who this time gets to visit the Agatean Empire. Revolution is at hand, and the Empire has requested the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork to send the Great Wizzard to help. Rincewind, finally at a place approaching happy after the events of Sourcery and Eric, isn't happy. Luckily there just happen to be some old, old friends around the Empire, and once the Great Wizzards stops running -let's face it, it's what he's best at- they might actually get something done about the revolution.

The Agatean Empire reminds the reader of China, and there are many familiar-sounding elements, such as the Red Army and tea ceremonies. (Lord Hong was watching the tea ceremony. It took three hours, but you couldn't hurry a good cuppa.) It's about countries like that, about revolutions, and about the differences between civilisation and things barbaric. And it's loads of fun, of course.  I've read it before, and to my recollection didn't enjoy it this much the last time.


   He'd never asked for an exciting life. What he really liked, what he sought on every occasion, was boredom. The trouble was that boredom tended to explode in your face. Just when he thought he'd found it he'd be suddenly involved in what he supposed other people - thoughtless, feckless people - would call an adventure. And he'd be forced to visit many strange lands and meet exotic and colourful people, although not for very long because usually he'd be running. He'd seen the creation of the universe, although not from a good seat, and had visited Hell and the afterlife. He'd been captured, imprisoned, rescued, lost and marooned. Sometimes it had all happened on the same day. 


Wow, it's already been a year -and a few days- with the Kindle! And about 30 books! It's been a good year. I celebrated by ordering a new pretty case for it. Poor thing gets dragged all around the place, squished between workplace lunches and dirty woolly socks. It needs all the protection it can get.

So here's to Kindly years and years and books and books and books to come!