holy guacamole!
i started reading the stand the other day by Stephen King. it is about a million pages long and may take me till 2020 to finish. i am determined to read it even though i find big books big which can induce laziness which leads to abandonment and that could then lead to guilt.
basically david told me that my new favourite can’t miss, want to know everything there is to know about show LOST is loosely based, pays homage to, has similar themes, characters and what have you to the stand. being the kick ass friend he is he dropped it off for me on the same day the conversation came up. reading borrowed books is hard for me. i am a book snob. i HAVE to own my books. i know it sounds stupid but i just have to. so if i borrow one and i like it, i then have to buy it or put it on the list for other jerks to buy me and/or buy it used if i find one on the list and it passes my inspection.
until recently one thing i have never been into is reading more than one book at a time. but while reading shake hands with the devil i branched out and read a couple of books at the same time. shake hands with the devil was heavy, not just because it chronicles the failure of the world to come to the aid of the Rwandans while they hacked each other to death, which evoked feelings of anger, disgust and helplessness while reading but because it is written with military and political lingo and i am no expert on politics in general and especially Rwandan politics. i learned a fuck load reading that book. i can’t stop talking about it. i have read a lot of books on war, the holocaust, terrorism, the UN but nothing as touching as Dallaire�s novel. maybe it�s because he isn’t a writer and parts are painfully repetitive but this man although still living gave himself to that country and you can just feel him all the way through the book. we rented the documentary of the same name that was filmed during Romeo Dallaire’s return to Rwanda for the ten year anniversary of the genocide. it was awe inspiring.
(recently Canada had this greatest Canadian contest thing and i just can not for the life of me figure out how this guy did not win, granted i don’t even know if he was nominated, but regardless i call for a re-vote)
adam said thank you to me for renting it saying he would never have seen it otherwise. which was awesome because i felt like i got to share the book with him, so he understood why while i was reading i would get mad, scoff constantly and eventually put the book down and did not touch it again until i had read another book and then returned to it.
the only other Stephen King book i have read is Carrie. i really loved it but for some reason i have just never been a horror/scary novel reader. ture crime and non fiction induced fear are more my game. it is definitely a branch out of sorts but LOST it just such a fucking kick ass show i have to read it. normally i watch tv for the escape, for the mindlessness of it i sure as hell don�t take it seriously. LOST is different it is deep but still totally far fetched and WAY out there, not in a 24 - Jack Bauer kind of way though.
anyway this book better be good. i don’t know why but i have always wanted to be one of those readers who can read more than one at a time, so with this book being just short of a million pages maybe i will try reading a couple at a time again.

September 27th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
thanks for the book recommendations. okay, now i wish i had seen LOST. i don’t like to jump in either. i should have seen some reruns. i feel left out!!
you are special too
September 27th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
open sesame!!
it is decided….. we must now mull over our nominations for [b]werst[/b] canucks everever. how about rick campinella??
can he even read?
September 27th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
OOOhh. The Stand is the best. I won’t ruin it for ya.
September 28th, 2005 at 6:37 am
Loreena, buy the DVD, the whole season can be watched that way, and its a good way to do it!!! Too bad, they had just shown (a couple of times now) a recap episode of LOST covering the whole season
September 28th, 2005 at 6:49 am
I read it years and years ago, and although Stephen King mostly just pisses me off, I really liked that book.
September 28th, 2005 at 8:10 am
I hope you give [i]The Stand[/i] a fair chance. Don’t think of it as a 1000 page book, think of it as five 200 page books. I think you’re going to like it.
September 28th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
i loved THE STAND. good shit. go read, gus.
September 29th, 2005 at 4:08 am
dude! stephen king did 4 stories under the alias of richard bachman.you can get all 4 in one book and its called,’quater past midnight’(or something like that).fucking awesome.one of the stories is the origional ‘running man’(arnie) movie and it pisses all over the movie which was in essence…….cock.
September 29th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
I’m reading zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, lemony snicket’s a series of unfortunate events and a book about icelandic society… I think it’s because I get greedy and I can’t wait to read whatever it is that I need to read.
I read a book recently which talked about the Rwandan civil war in some detail, so it would be really interesting to read shake hands with the devil. Particularly since the book I read only summarised events.
I love Stephen King books, but I’ve only read a few. Sometimes they’re just too darn scary!
September 30th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
lost is fun for me because it’s like all the things i’ve been doing all my life only on a tropical island. doesn’t everyone wish their lives were so simple as just finding food, water and shelter? i know i do. i’m just not ballsy enough to do anything about it yet. maybe in a bit. i’ve always idolized this couple in moab,utah, in a way. they work during the summer to pay for all of their food for the rest of the year and then just go live and enjoy themselves. it’s a very attractive idea to me.
adn right now i’m reading three books. same idea, one’s really really heavy ang the other is slightly less heavy with the third being the fun one.
good luck on the reading thing, though, with all the knitting that you need to learn to do!
October 2nd, 2005 at 12:39 pm
The Stand is one of my All Time Favourite books, and it’s not a real horror story, not in the classical sense. I’ve re-read it a few times.
Let us know how you’re getting on!! I don’t know about other folks, but I always found Trashcan Man really funny.