Yesterday I stayed home sick from work. This gave me a good chance to lie around all day and read. I actually finished 3 books that I'd been in the middle of. Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor, Haynes Johnson's Divided We Fall, and a collection of short stories Shenanigans.

I didn't really like Survivor at the beginning and was starting to wonder why in the world so many people had gone on and on about how good it was, but then I hit the second half and actually started liking it. The main character is the last survivor of a suicide cult (that I'm pretty sure Palahniuk made up, but I had to do some google searching just to make sure I just hadn't missed news stories about it at some point). At the beginning he's just rather pathetic and repugnant (setting up a fake suicide prevention hotline and telling people to kill themselves, etc) but in the second half I started actually having sympathy for him and everything that was being done to him.

Haynes Johnson's Divided We Fall I picked up after hearing him speak one night on NPR. He's a remarkably good speaker and indeed a very good writer. Ordinarily I'm not all that interested in politics, though that's starting to change somewhat, but his book was fascinating reading. He basically wandered the country during the early years of the Clinton administration and asked people what they thought the most pressing problems facing the country were. Violence, illegal immigrants, and politicians who'd do and say anything to get elected were themes that came up frequently. I'd be curious how much people's perceptions have changed in the almost-decade since this book was published. I suspect that a lot of the same problems would be addressed.

Shenanigans(edited by Donal Scannell & Sarah Champion) I picked up because I'd liked Disco 2000 which was also edited by Sarah Champion. Shenanigans was harder for me to appreciate though since many of the stories were very much attached to the Irish club scene which just isn't me.

After finishing all of those I started Jonathan Carroll's Kissing the Beehive since one of the last two by him that I have yet to read.
posted by kristin at 11:05 AM