I'm on page 80-something of Titus Alone, and 90-something of The Deadly Streets. Oh, and page 9 of Web of the City but I'm pretty sure that I'm just gonna start over with it when I'm done with at least one other book. Oh yeah, and then I'm up to The Blue Carbuncle the in the intermittent reading of the Sherlock Holmes canon. So in one way, I'm reading a lot of things, but I'm not reading any of them with a great deal of persistence.

On the other hand, I almost went to the comic store on Sunday, since I was at the Trader Joe's across the street, but upon realizing how much of a reading backlog I already had, I didn't. Plus, I've spent more than enough money on books this month. But it's almost next month now! Phew.

I didn't really say anything about any of the books I'm reading, did I? Well, I just feel obliged to do an end-of-the-month status report, and I might not be in the mood to do it tomorrow. So there.

The rest of the books I'd ordered from Alibris have arrived: Gormenghast and The Deadly Streets. The copy of Gormenghast turned out to be a standard-sized paperback, so it's Titus Groan that will be the odd one when out when they all sit together on my bookshelf. Oh well. I reconciled myself to that upon realizing that, in the normal paperbacks, the illustrations are full-page size. Which is nice.

The Deadly Streets is a collection of short stories by Harlan Ellison, which are inspired by the same stint in gang-land that he used for Web of the City. And for Notes from Purgatory, I believe, although that's the one I haven't read yet. I've read one or two of the stories in The Deadly Streets in other anthologies, but that's okay, since I don't remember them very well. I'm a little disturbed by the fact that I now have three Ellison books in progress at the same time. The short stories will go first, because, well, they're short stories. I'm already halfway done with it.

I've been in one of my non-reading periods lately. Not that I'm not reading anything, but as you can see from looking over these entries, I seem to alternate between periods when I'm devouring a novel every day or two, and then periods where it's maybe one book a week. Tomorrow I have no plans at all, except that I need to buy groceries, so I will probably make some major progress in Titus Groan.

I think I may start a set of pages like this, but for movies. Because we watched about half of Bad Girls Go to Hell tonight, and I really need to babble about how funny it is somewhere. But not here, and not now, because gosh, I'm tired.

Feh. I gave up on Callahan's Key. When I got to page 140 without any sign of plot, and with all the gratuitous PSAs and interventions and "golly gee whiz this is neat" stuff, I threw the book down and quit. Yuck.

I skimmed through Hollywood vs. America (when my friend Kelly saw it on the coffee table, she asked, "Who's winning?" Heh.). It's bonkers, and I can't bother paying attention to it. Originally I thought it would be irritating enough that I could rant about for a page or so, but it's irritating and nonsensical, and I can't bother refuting it when it goes at great lengths to talk about all the "bad words" in movies, without ever explaining why those words are bad. Sorry, I've heard too much George Carlin. It's all like that. "Here's a bunch of movies that make fun of religion!" Uh huh, and that's bad because...? I'd be willing to listen if Medved could somehow explain why it was bad, but he assumes that we all agree religion is good, so I'm lost.

I finished A Guide to Western Civilization, or, My Story and was amused. It's nothing amazing that you need to seek out, but there are parts that are fun. Plus, Joe Bob manages to drag out the "dirt farming" jokes for longer than I'd think possible.

And I spent a while reading Callahan's Key. Actually, I was skimming. For pages at a time. The shtick, it is tired. At some point, I'm sure a plot will happen. I have such mixed feelings, because there was a time when I loved Spider Robinson, and I don't want to dismiss him now just because I liked him in my teens, but I also don't want to give him more credit than he's due just because I liked him in my teens. I'm not hating the book, but if I hadn't read his other books I don't think I'd keep reading this one. To be fair, I'm also trying to get through with it because it's a library book, and when I'm done I can get back to Titus Groan.

No books yesterday... two books today! Titus Alone -- which turned out to be a teeny little thing, although the illustrations are full-page, but this means the three books won't look all purty lined up on my bookcase. Sniff. And, at long last, A Guide to Western Civilization, or, My story, by Joe Bob Briggs. Dreamy sigh. Can I just mention that my last name keeps turning up in his books? Our love is Meant To Be. Ahem.

I started reading it earlier, but then my friend Kelly dropped by so I had to be all social for a few hours. Damn her. Kidding. But I am a little concerned, because Joe Bob's cover picture makes him look a bit anxious. Well, anyway, I think this book will take top priority, because I've only read a few pages and it's funny, and I'm in the mood to be entertained.

Titus Groan arrived today! I feel like I'm in the "Book of the Day" club. Katie's also reading it, and mentioned that it's slow going because you can't just skim along lazily. So it may have to wait a few days until I get through some of this reading backlog and devote my attention to it properly. ...But I wanna read it now. I haven't pulled an all-nighter in weeks... Okay, bad idea.

I meant to mention that, so far, the "quality" descriptions given at Alibris have been dead-on. Both of the books are like new -- the covers weren't even creased. The books I ordered were around $10 each, which is cheaper than new copies would be if I could even find them. Basically, I'm saying that Amazon may not be getting my money any more. (Especially since this way I'm supporting independent bookstores, which we all know entitles me to moral superiority points.)

I did read True Faith, and was entertained. In my continuing series of ignorant comments about comic art: I liked the watercolor style coloring.

Let's see. On Saturday the first of the books I ordered from Alibris arrived. So I can now officially endorse them; they're a nifty book locator. I especially like the fact that most of the sellers describe the quality of the copy. Plus, you can drool over the $300 first editions and then calm down and order a nice $5 copy of the same thing. Largely used books, and it's taking a little while to get my order, but since I've been searching for a copy of Joe Bob Briggs' A Guide to Western Civilization, or My Story for years, I can wait a few weeks longer.

The book that arrived (first of five I ordered) was Web of the City, Harlan Ellison's first novel about gangs in NYC. So it's a teeny bit different from most of his stuff. I'm only a couple of chapters in so I can't say too much about it yet.

Then I went on my bimonthly spree at the comic shop. Rising Stars #15: eh. Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame (another Ennis collection): Glenn Fabry does do some lovely covers. I liked the whole vision of America's hell, also. Warren Ellis' Bad World #1: Well, I'll always pay to see him rant. Would've been nice if there was a hint of a point, though. And it also would've been nice if the girl on page 1 hadn't had legs that were twice as long as her torso. Ennis' True Faith, which I haven't read yet, and Johnny the Homicidial Maniac: The Director's Cut, which I also haven't read, although I have flipped through it and saw several things that made me giggle. I'd only read a few of the single issues.

And I went to the library and got Michael Medved's Hollywood vs. America, because I thought I needed something to rant about. I also picked up yet another of Spider Robinson's Callahan books, although I still don't know why. I guess the bad puns still suck me in. I did find something very odd on the for sale rack though: American Popular Entertainments. It's one volume from a series of collected plays, but this one is a lot of vaudeville sketches and monologues. I figured it would either be funny, or completely un-funny. And it's mostly the former so far. It also has pitches for sideshows, medicine shows, etc. So it's just strange. Half the jokes don't make sense any more, of course.

I got the copy of the Hound of the Baskervilles dossier that I'd mentioned ordering here. It was cute. Too many photographs, though. I understand that there were photos of the characters because one of the gimmicks was that the reader is supposed to try and figure out the mystery. But frankly, I don't think that was a good plan, either. The Sherlock Holmes stories are fun to read, but they suck as mysteries that you can try and figure out, because the point is that Holmes notices details that most people don't. So it's silly to make it seem as if anyone should be able to identify the murderer. Anyway, so there area all these photos, and all I can think while reading is, "Who took these? In 1888, who just happened to be running around with a camera when significant events occurred?" I think the story just wasn't suited to the dossier treatment that worked so well with A Study in Scarlet. I bet the one for The Sign of the Four is better, since it relies more on clues and details; this story really is mostly based on following people around and listening to what they say, and that doesn't make for fun evidence. Oh well. Still glad I got a copy.

The dossier came with a copy of The Hunting of the Snark that I'd forgotten I'd ordered, so that was a cool surprise. Even cooler: this version has annotations by Martin Gardner. Apparently this was done right after Gardner did The Annotated Alice. When I ordered it, I was just happy about getting my own copy of Snark because it's another great, silly poem by Lewis Carroll, and what's not to like about that? The only copy I'd seen was a version we had at the library. This one's much better. And of course, we all know how much I love annotations. I'm going to start digging into it before I crash for the night.

Supposedly the first of the Gormenghast books was shipped out last week, so it should turn up soon. Whee! Mail is always good, packages are even better and packages containing books are the best of all.

Since I just watched Unbreakable (finally), I thought I should mention what I thought after I read my purchases from the weekend. And can I just say that Unbreakable is lovely, and there's no reason to hold two captions against an otherwise fine movie. Seriously. Gorgeous, gorgeous movie. And it had two scenes that scared/startled me so badly I gasped, and not because of gore or cats jumping out of closets or any of the usual tropes. Shyamalan is a really, really good director. So there.

Okay. I enjoyed the second Planetary collection a lot more than I thought I would -- I'm still sure I'm missing references, but at least there were a few that were obvious enough for me. And it's just fun. So now I'm committed to buying the rest of the trades when they come out, but I don't think I'll pick up the single issues. It seems better to read it all in one gulp.

Ministry of Space was also fun, although again I run into my problem with Image being too glossy for my tastes. But it's an alternate history in which England develops spaceflight first, and I think my brother would really enjoy it since he's more technically minded than I am. I guess I'm saying I thought it was good, and I'll probably give it to my brother, but it's not about something I find particularly interesting.

Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing was such a relief. No tortured metaphors. The art's still blah, but everything else was fine. The stories feel more organic -- arising from Constantine, instead of just being a useful method to get him into trouble. I dunno. I believe I was wrong and there are two other Ennis Hellblazer collections, so I'll have to track those down.

Look how timely I am! It helps that it's a weekend, of course.

To everyone's shock, I bought more comics. Specifically... Planetary: The Fourth Man, and Ministry of Space both by Warren Ellis. And Come In Alone, Ellis' collection of essays about comics and whatever else he feels like talking about. And Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing with an introduction from Ellis. Heh. But I bought it because it's the other Garth Ennis collection (as far as I know). I actually read most, if not all, of Come In Alone online, but I liked them enough to pay for a nicely bound hard copy. Partly because there are lots of book and music recommendations, and so when I'm stumped for something to read I can look at it for ideas.

Then I went to my mom's, and my brother and I rampaged through the house looking for books to steal. Well, most of the ones we took were technically ours. My own book collection seemed so puny after spending a while searching the bookcases in all three bedrooms, the living room, the wall units downstairs, and then, finally, the boxes of children's books that had been shelved to make room for, well, more important books. I was looking for handy-dandy mythological references that would help me identify more of the characters in American Gods. I also had forgotten that there were a few shelves of books that I left behind because I hadn't had room for them. I didn't take them all, because then my lovely new bookshelves would be packed tight again. So I grabbed five or six of the most tempting.

I did find a book I'd forgotten I had: The Book of Knowledge. You can't pass up a book with a title like that. Although you also can't take them all, when it's one of a ten-volume set. So I snagged one. And when I say "snagged," I mean... uh... stole. The complete set was being used as part of the decorating scheme of a bar we visited when I was in college. If it was a library or a book store I wouldn't have taken it, but it was a bar, for goodness' sake. No one had looked at the books for years, I'm sure, until a gang of drunken English majors noticed them. I rescued it! Oh, leave me alone. Anyway, it's funny, is the thing. It's not exactly an encyclopedia, although it's vaguely modeled on one. But there's no order to it. At all. It goes from glaciers to Buffalo Bill to "how to make invisible ink," to a chapter from Alice in Wonderland, and there's absolutely no way to know where something might be in the book. There's a table of contents which is as general as possible; it doesn't even mention most of the entries. You have to have the complete set to get the index, which must have been hell to compile.

Plus, it was written between 1926 and 1949. So the parts that are factual are a teeny bit outdated. "So far, cooking and heating by electricity are more expensive [than using coal]." So far, my absolute favorite entry is titled: "Ancient Rome As It Is Today." Hee! It's endlessly amusing to flip through, and I'm glad I have it again.

Okay, I'm gonna go read my comics now. I've spent well over $100 on books in the past week. Luckily, that's not normal. But it's not completely abnormal, either.