Sunday, November 28, 2010

War for Late Night; Born to Run; Stolen Away; The Phone Book; Don't Vote it Just Encourages the Bastards

Back in the early 90s Bill Carter wrote a book about how NBC screwed up by giving the "Tonight Show" to Jay Leno rather than the obvious heir apparent, David Letterman, called "The Late Shift". I read that book many years ago and loved it, being a big Letterman fan, I felt he got screwed. So did Conan O'Brien, and Carter's back with "The War for Late Night", about how NBC screwed up AGAIN.
A little backstory here: the first late night program I watched was Johnny Carson's final episode of the "Tonight Show" when I was 14. My dad was a big Carson fan, and told me I should stay up and watch history being made, so I did. I remember asking my dad why he was retiring. I liked Carson, he seemed witty and funny and a genuinely nice guy, the kind of guy I wouldn't mind staying up until 11:35 to watch. Dad said he'd been doing it for 30 years and was tired. I could understand that.
My sister and I were probably the only two people in the world who refused to miss "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" when it debuted. We *loved* Conan. We recorded every show (I'm sure my sis still has those VHS tapes somewhere...). I thought everyone loved Conan, and it kind of surprised me when I was discussing this book with my dad last week and he said how glad he was Leno was back because he never found Conan funny. That surprised me, since I always thought my dad had a fairly decent sense of humor. Oh, well, I guess Leno really is a generational thing. I never liked him and when NBC gave Letterman the shaft I followed him to CBS. I haven't watched late night in a dozen years, since I got a real job and was expected to show up early in the mornings :)
The point of all this rambling? Well, Carter does a beautiful job showing how the evil villain in this whole late night mess (and it *is* a mess) is NBC and their greed. They snatched the "Tonight Show" away from Leno before he was ready to give it up just because they thought they were going to lose Conan to a rival network and they realized just how brilliant and funny Conan was and didn't want to lose him. Boy they made a mess out of the whole deal. I feel bad for Conan, but if I'm ever up until 11 o' clock at night (which I very, very rarely am) I'll tune into Letterman.
Climbing off my soapbox now..."Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall was a fascinating look into long distance runners and what motivates them as well as if it's better for you to run barefoot. I like running, although I'm not terribly good at it (my aforementioned sister has convinced me to run in the OC half-marathon this next May. We'll see how that turns out!). These people who run 100 miles in one stretch have such an enviable passion for it. It was a great read.
"Stolen Away" by Max Allan Collins is a fictionalized account of the Lindbergh kidnapping, one of my true crime favorites, up there with Lizzie Borden. I try to read everything I can get my hands on about both subjects. Collins puts forth a very plausible account of how the kidnapping could have gone down, with Al Capone masterminding the whole thing from behind bars in an attempt to get out of prison. I never thought Hauptmann, who was electrocuted for the crime, was guilty, so I liked Collin's premise. It makes me want to reread Scaduto's brilliant "Scapegoat", which is sitting on my bookshelf, beckoning me :)
Ammon Shea wrote the dry and witty history of the phone book in "The Phone Book: the book everyone uses but no one reads". It was one of those books that, when you're done reading it, you go "I could have written that!". I liked it, though, it was short and quick but reminded me that I'm not the only weirdo out there who looks at things like phone books as a trip down memory lane.
And finally, humorist P.J. O'Rourke's look at what's wrong with American politics "Don't Vote it Just Encourages the Bastards". It was funny, but not as funny as I was expecting, based on his previous works I'd read. I enjoyed it, though, and he makes a lot of great points.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Frank the Voice; Walking Dead Vols. 5 and 6; Love, Lust, and Faking It; Full Dark, No Stars

So after the lovely pictorial on Frank's movies, I read the awesome new bio by James Kaplan "Frank the Voice". It was very in depth and detailed and beautifully written, and I enjoyed it, but he chose to end, after 700 pages, after he won his Oscar for "From Here to Eternity". It just seemed like an odd stopping place.
Robert Kirkman's graphic novel continues, and I burned through the "Walking Dead Vols. 5 and 6" in an afternoon. It felt a little like we were going in circles and repeating previous storylines, especially how they ended up in their new supposedly safe community, but I did like the introduction in the beginning of Vol 6 of a religious nut. Just what an apocalyptic series needs!
I was looking forward to "Love, Lust, and Faking It" by Jenny McCarthy because I've enjoyed all of her books on autism but I've never read any of her more humorous books. I was disappointed. I didn't think it was funny and she contradicted her stories a lot, which is a sticking point with me.
And finally, Stephen King's latest collection of four novellas in the vein of "Different Seasons" and "Four Past Midnight", "Full Dark, No Stars". Aw, what can I say? This is SK of yore: gross and graphic and perfect in every way. I enjoyed all four of the stories immensely, although the third and shortest, "Fair Extension", had a bit of a "Thinner" vibe to it that I wasn't digging too much. But "Good Marriage", about a woman with a seemingly normal and unexceptional life, finds out her husband is hiding a terrible secret, was brilliant. "Big Driver", about a woman who is raped after being stranded on the side of the road, had of course the expected revenge angle but it also had an interesting identity twist I wasn't expecting. "1922", about a Nebraska farmer desperate to keep his wife from selling her 100 acre inheritance, had some graphically disturbing scenes that literally turned my stomach. I loved it :)

Friday, November 5, 2010

Secret Eleanor; Why Shoot a Butler; Sinatra: Hollywood His Way; Hellboy: Seed of Destruction; Hellboy: Wake the Devil

"Secret Eleanor" by Cecelia Holland was a lukewarm fiction title based very, very loosely on Eleanor of Aquataine. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the woman was so incredibly fascinating, why make stuff up about her out of wholecloth? Honestly. In this book Holland imagines that Eleanor gets pregnant by Henry II before their marriage (and before he's Henry II tee hee) and her sister has to step in and pretend to be her in public so that her divorce from the French King Louie won't be threatened. It was pretty dull.
"Why Shoot a Butler?" is a mystery by Georgette Heyer, set in the 1920s England. It reminded me a lot of Agatha Christie, only with Heyer's fun twist on words and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A butler is murdered on the side of the road with a young female in the car with him, protesting her innocence. The ending was somewhat predictable, but it was happy, and it made me happy.
"Sinatra: Hollywood His Way" by Timothy Knight was a beautiful pictorial work on the movie career of the great man himself. While Sinatra is rightly remembered as a fantastic musician, he was also an amazing actor. Yes, I am biased :)
Two volumes of "Hellboy" for our upcoming Graphic Novel Book Club meeting: "Seed of Destruction" and "Wake the Devil", by Mike Mignola. One of my coworkers in the club absolutely loves these books and can't stop raving about them, but I'm not 100% sure I'm getting them. They're interesting, just not like how he raves. Maybe I'm missing something he's seeing. At any rate the drawings are pretty good and Hellboy is quite scary looking but he's a good guy, so that's always a fun twist. I have one more volume to read before our meeting so maybe I'll figure out some of the appeal.