#9: Gasping for Airtime by Jay Mohr

Comedian Jay Mohr spent two tumultuous years on "Saturday Night Live" and lets it all hang out in Gasping for Airtime.

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I don't remember Mohr being on the program, but part of that might have been that it was one of those up-and-down periods when I wasn't watching SNL regularly.  But you don't have to have been a regular viewer during this time period to appreciate his vivid depictions of cutthroat backstage politics and "kill or be killed" colleagues, as well as his unexpurgated views on various celebrities that passed through the doors.

Mohr doesn't let himself off the hook much either and displays his own shortcomings, warts and all.

Curiously, I came across this book shortly after reading The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman, which covers a lot of the same period in SNL history with equally hair-raising frankness.  Both books are also pretty funny and fairly slight.

I borrowed this from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond Indiana and found it very readable.  Enjoyable for fans of "Saturday Night Live" especially.

#8: The Man Who Japed by Philip K. Dick

In a post-apocalyptic future, the world has come under the rule of a rigid, moralistic system of rules and regulations; but a man who produces morality plays for television begins to act out in interesting ways in Philip K. Dick's The Man Who Japed.

This is an early, minor work of Dick's from the late 1950s, but features most of his long-running themes, including flailing marriages, dead-end jobs, and a young woman who galvanizes the main character into action.  But although it is far more straightforward (and thus less psychedelic) than his later works, I still found it enjoyable.

I am a huge fan of Philip K. Dick and, knowing that his output is finite, have been doling out reading his books a little at a time even as I am compelled to finish them all at one go.  I enjoyed this one and believe fans would as well.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond Indiana and read it at a good clip.

#7: The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

A former war photographer has isolated himself in a lighthouse on the Spanish coast, painting a giant mural; soon he is joined by a former soldier who was the subject of one of his most famous photographs and now wants to kill him.  Their conversations about life, death, war, art and love make up the center of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Painter of Battles.

Although the description makes it sound as if the novel has the barest wisp of a plot, it is a dense, cerebral novel with rewards for the patient (including a surprising, chilling ending).  I am more familiar with Perez-Reverte as the author of the swashbuckling Captain Alatriste series and the memorable, whacked-out The Club Dumas (filmed as The Ninth Gate).  This book is a departure from what I have read into a more literary bent but is quite a good read.

I borrowed this from my wife to read along with a class she is teaching and enjoyed it tremendously.  Recommended. 

#6: The Skeleton Coast Contract by Philip Atlee

Joe Gall, The Nullifier, heads off to Africa to keep a priceless stash of diamonds from Commie hands in Philip Atlee's The Skeleton Coast Contract.

I have read a handful of Atlee's Joe Gall books, featuring a swinging, politically incorrect spy protecting America's interests from the Red Menace.  Like Edward Aarons, Atlee was a prolific paperback writer who should probably receive more attention by contemporary readers.  Unlike Aarons, Atlee's Joe Gall is a little funnier and full of opinions that politely can be called a product of their time.

The Skeleton Coast Contract reads a bit more like a Men's Adventure style book than some of the other entries, with Gall left for dead in the desert and later buried up to his neck and set upon by flesh-eating ants  (though he doesn't wander so far afield that he forgets to leave time for bedding and boozing).

I had about tapped out my Joe Gall collection when I found a surprising handful at a used bookstore.  This entry is from the early 60s, from where I have mined some fresher Atlee novels, and I enjoyed this one quite a bit and read it quickly.

#5: The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman

Comedian Sarah Silverman pens The Bedwetter, a slight, scattershot autobiography full of her expected gross-out humor.

I have enjoyed Sarah Silverman's television show and was curious what she would have to say in an autobiography penned not halfway through her expected life.  I liked the sections about her career, including a very brief stint on Saturday Night Live and the "behind the scenes" of her show, as well as a long piece on her upbringing as a lone Jew among the blondes of New Hampshire.

I could have done without all of the attempts to shock and felt that, in curious contrast, despite appearances to the contrary the book was not nearly as frank as I expected (as an example, her parents divorce abruptly with no commentary, and her love life is skimmed over).  She spends a lot of time defending the various controversies she has been a part of, seeming at times remarkably thin-skinned considering her material.

I think I enjoyed the book more because I listened to the audiobook version, read by Silverman herself, which I felt lended more interest.  The Bedwetter was an enjoyable enough read but will undoubtedly be more warmly welcomed by fans.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond Indiana and consumed it quickly.

#4: The Devil's Star by Joe Nesbo

Harry Hole is a brilliant cop who fights alcoholism and other personal demons; Tom Waaler is his partner, the ace detective in the Oslo police force.  But Hole also believes Waaler is the murderous crime lord Prince, although nobody else believes him.  In a blazing Norwegian summer, these two cops must team up to find a serial killer in Jo Nesbo's The Devil's Star.

Nesbo's first Harry Hole novel translated into English, The Redbreast, is one of my favorites from the large spate of Scandinavian mysteries that have landed on these shores in recent years.  I thought the second in the series, Nemesis, was good but not up to the first one; but The Devil's Star is close, a dark, delirious crime drama chock full of odd characters and colorful writing.  I think Nesbo compares favorably to one of my other must-read crime novelists, Michael Connelly, although Nesbo does not have the body of work yet. 

For better or worse, Nesbo writes in a more American style with plenty of action, and doesn't often dwell in the gloom and doom of his Scandinavian brethren.  Nesbo also injects a lot of quirky humor, a welcome respite from these frequently wintry novels.

I was pleased to find Nesbo's latest at the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it at a good clip over several snowed-in days.  Recommended.

#3: Assignment Sulu Sea by Edward S. Aarons

Sam Durrell goes hunting for a missing American sub in Assignment Sulu Sea, a 1964 entry in Edward S. Aaron's stalwart "Assignment" spy series.

Sulu Sea is a sober adventure set against a colorful background as Durrell hops islands throughout the Pacific, facing off against a Chinese warlord and getting involved in regional political intrigue along the way.  Durrell is so focused on making sure the nuclear sub doesn't fall into Red Chinese hands that he doesn't even bed the several beauties that cross his path, a change from his usual method of operation.  Durrell also has a crisis of conscience at the end that speaks to the Cold War fears of the time.

Otherwise it's business as usual for Durrell, and although this wasn't my favorite of the batch of these I have read, it is still a solid outing and comparable to many better-known authors and titles of the era.

I snagged a bunch of these off of ebay some time ago and have worked through them steadily.

#2: Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason

Morose Reykjavik cop Erlendur becomes fascinated with a depressed woman's suicide as tragedies in his own past resonate, ending with him taking up an unofficial investigation that uncovers more family trauma in Arnaldur Indridason's Hypothermia, part of his long-running police procedural series set in Iceland.

This is one of my favorite authors in the spate of gloomy Scandinavian imports that have reached these shores in recent years.  Each novel features great characters that grow and change along with complex crime drama.  The philosophical underpinnings of most of the mystery novels from Scandinavia offer a welcome change of pace from American crime fare.  And it's not often you see a U.S. detective/protagonist tuck into a boiled sheep's head in jam.

The dead of winter probably wasn't the ideal time to pick up Indridason's latest, but when I see the newest one on the shelf I can't resist.  This series starts with Jar City, recently made into a movie, and all entries so far come recommended.  I thought this one was perhaps the best yet.

I borrowed this book from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana, and read it at a good clip.

#1: Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

I started 2011 with a book I wasn't quite finished with in 2010, and though I wanted to end with a bang I will start with one instead.

Prince of Thieves is a tough crime novel featuring a recovering alcoholic trying to give up his working-class Boston neighborhood and all its dangerous attractions, including a lucrative side job leading a bank robbery gang.  When he is lovestruck by a bank teller during a heist, all the threads start to come unraveled as the novel rockets to a noirish finale.

I picked this one up from www.paperbackswap.com when I heard about The Town, the Ben Affleck film based on the book, and had an eagerness to consume both.  I could quickly see why Affleck wanted to adapt the book as it features a lot of his sensibilities (as seen in Good Will Hunting and other places).  The movie is decent, but the novel is far richer as is often the case (and diverges significantly from the movie in critical places).

I had been looking for more Chuck Hogan since reading The Strain, his collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro, and enjoyed this quite a bit, recommending it to several other readers.

Favorite Reads 2008-2010

Somehow I have read over 150 books in the last three years.  As it may be my last serious attempt to read 50 books a year (which takes a lot more concentration than you might think), here is my highly subjective list of my favorites since 2008:


Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami 

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

The City and The City by China Mieville


The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin

54 Books in 2010

For three years running I have managed to make my goal of reading 50 books a year; so I guess I have that one knocked down and perhaps it's time to try some new challenge (although I will continue to keep counting on this blog).  I did vow to read a little smarter this year, though I still read a mountain of trash and pulp.  But I read some really good books, and here are my favorites:

1.  The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

2.  The Keep by Jennifer Egan

3.  The City and The City by China Mieville

4.  Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

5.  The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie


6.  Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

7.  Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby


8.  Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick

9.  Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

10.  The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

As always, happy reading!

#54: Trap for Buchanan by Jonas Ward

Buchanan, a drifter heading towards San Francisco, ends up helping an old friend protect his mine from crooks, owlhoots, Mexican bandits, Indians, and other challengers in Jonas Ward's Trap for Buchanan.

This was another book featuring an author I had never heard of that I nabbed in a big handful from a flea market and have worked through sporadically.  Jonas Ward was a pseudonym used by a handful of writers in the 60s and 70s in westerns featuring the honorable cowpoke.  There was also a good movie starring Randolph Scott as the lantern-jawed Buchanan.  Trap for Buchanan was apparently written by William R. Cox, who seemed to have penned the lion's share of the series.

It is a nicely sturdy western with a hero who doesn't like fighting but, naturally, can only be pushed so far before fighting back.  Although not outstanding, it is certainly more serviceable than many Westerns and I will look for more by the phantom Jonas Ward.

#53: The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

An evil wizard called Flagg subverts the noble Prince Peter and installs a puppet in his place, setting sinister plans in motion in Stephen King's fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon.

This unusual departure for horror master King was one I somehow missed when it came out in the 80s.  I am glad I found it as an audio book read by Bronson Pinchot, quickly becoming one of my favorite audio book readers.  It is a very credible fantasy, probably most reminiscent of William Goldman's The Princess Bride, but enjoyable in its own right.  Both share a bright, funny narration that carries the story along.

For fans of King's larger body of work, there are definitely threads and themes that appear or re-appear in other novels, probably most notably The Stand and The Dark Tower series.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

#52: The Reversal by Michael Connelly

DNA evidence seems to spring a child-killer from prison after many years, but defense attorney Mickey Haller jumps over to the prosecution to ensure that doesn't come to pass in Michael Connelly's The Reversal.

Connelly is perhaps best known for his novels featuring L.A. police detective Harry Bosch, in my mind one of the milestone mystery series of the late 20th Century.  He has sometimes branched out to feature other characters in Bosch's world, and this is I think the third featuring Haller.  At the end of the last novel Haller and Bosch were revealed to have a family relationship that ties the two characters closer together.

Connelly is equally adept at writing straight-up courtroom drama, and this one moves at a quick pace with solid plotting.  Fans of Connelly will be satisfied to see appearances from Harry Bosch, FBI profiler Rachel Walling, and other characters seen previously.

I checked this one out from the Farmland Public Library in Farmland, Indiana and would have consumed it in a single day if I had a day free to do so.

#51: Time to Prey by Frank Kane

New York P.I. Johnny Liddell meets a damsel in distress at a seedy bar; later she turns up dead, and when Liddell finds out she was actually an undercover Treasury agent, he plots vengeance in Frank Kane's Time to Prey.

Liddell is your typical wiseacre shamus with a loving secretary and a world-weary cop pal with the usual yeggs set in opposition.  What surprised me was how doggedly Liddell set about framing various bad guys without the benefit of hard evidence or due process, setting in motion a number of murders and at least one suicide, with hardly a flicker of conscience.

Frank Kane and his detective creation had a long run in their day (this entry is from the early 60s), but I had never heard of either of them until I found this paperback at a flea market for fifty cents and got interested in its pulp cover.  Frank Kane's writing was interesting enough to keep an eye out for more.

#50: Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

Bone is a teen runaway from an abusive home, a low-level drug dealer, an aspiring gang member, a small-time criminal and wannabe Rastafarian in Russell Banks' Catcher in the Rye for the contemporary set, Rule of the Bone.

Despite the harrowing description, Banks' Bone comes to life through an often humorous first-person narrative and energetic prose.  Although I didn't always think the tone of Bone's voice was right for a teenage boy, and the narrrative goes up and down some steep inclines at times, I really enjoyed the book and was glad that I finished my 50 Books In 2010 Challenge on such a strong note.

Russell Banks is a popular author among a lot of people I know but this is the first time I have dipped into one of this works.  I will definitely be on the prowl for more in 2011.

I picked this up at a student club book sale at Indiana University East at goodbye prices for my wife but ended up reading it rather quickly myself first.  I recommended it to her and will to others.

#49: Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth

Since the Civil War, the President of the United States has had a vampire to do his bidding, linked to the office by a voodoo curse; in the modern era, the president's vampire takes on the immortal Doctor Frankenstein in Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath.

Rollicking, cinematic-style adventure is an enjoyable outing in what appears to be the first in a series from Farnsworth.  Undemanding as both a horror novel and a thriller but full of knowing elements for fans of both.

I picked this audio book up on a whim and ended up liking it.  I believe it was helped significantly by a very good reading by, of all people, Bronson Pinchot.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library and consumed it quickly.

#48: Fake I.D. by Jason Starr

A bouncer with a minor acting career, a middling gambling addiction, and a major sociopathic streak will do anything to buy a racehorse in Jason Starr's contemporary noir Fake I.D.

Fake I.D. is part of the highly admirable Hard Case Crime line, a mix of lost pulp novels alongside newer works in the same vein.  Jason Starr's work is a credible addition, sort of a Jim Thompson lite.  Like many Thompson protagonists, Starr's flawed narrator continues to unravel more and more, despite the banal narration, to a chilling finale.

I had never read Jason Starr but will seek out more of his work.  I thought this book was comparable to two of my favorite old-school flavored modern noirs, Scott Smith's A Simple Plan and Robert Ward's Four Kinds of Rain; good company indeed.
Had I had a single day to read this, undoubtedly I would have read it straight through. 

I nabbed this off of www.paperbackswap.com and read it quickly.

#47: The Killers by Peter McCurtin

Drifter Carmody, who drifts just this side of the law, ends up being talked into helping out his cousin as sheriff of a small town in the Old West; but he takes up law enforcement at an untimely moment, as a bandit gang and a murderous backwoods family have the town in its crosshairs.

Carmody was a Western series character of Peter McCurtin, a very busy pulp scribe of the 60s-80s and beyond who many speculated was actually a pseudonymous legion of writers.  Apparently he was a real person after all, and if this outing is any indication he was also a talented writer.

McCurtin's Carmody is a bit more tongue in cheek than the average Western hero, and McCurtin also writes in the first person, less common in Westerns than, for instance, the private eye genre.  Overall the various elements made The Killers a slight cut above.

I got a mixed batch of 50-cent paperbacks at a flea market which included a lot of authors I had not heard of before, including McCurtin, and I'm always eager to find new writers and stories.  I also found another McCurtin Western series character, Sundance, which I am sure I will dig into before long.

#46: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

A teen girl is torn between two brothers, even as zombies strain at the fences to tear them apart, in Carrie Ryan's Young Adult horror novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth.

I picked this up as a recommendation after enjoying Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games novels.  Ryan's story also features a post-apocalyptic setting, this time a few generations after a zombie uprising, where the residents of a small town deep in the forest now believe they are the last living humans on Earth.  Their village is surrounded by a lot of chain link fence that has to be constantly maintained to keep the dead at bay.

A young girl remembers her mother talking about the ocean, and yearns to set out on what seems to be a doomed quest.  In the meantime, she deals with the various heatings and coolings between herself and the brothers as well as herself and various family members.

A curious mix of teen romance and gruesome horror, sort of a version of Lois Lowry's The Giver as directed by George Romero.  It's hard to recommend for those who like a few chills with their romance, as there are some pretty grisly sequences (including a pregnant zombie and a baby zombie, of all unpalatable things), but it's even harder to recommend it to gorehounds as the teen pines away even as civilization gets torn down around her.

An interesting read, and not without its merits for the careful reader. 

I picked this up with my Books A Million gift card I got for my birthday and read it at a steady pace.

#45: Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

Ghana detective Darko Dawson from the Accra city police force heads for the countryside to look into the strange death of a medical worker in Kwei Quartey's debut Wife of the Gods.

Quartey's first novel has been compared to Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, but I think they are worlds apart.  Quartey writes straight-up crime drama, putting Dawson on the street with nothing but a cricket bat, a bag of weed, and some anger management issues between him and the criminal element.

The setting of Ghana sets the mystery apart from other crime novels as well, as Dawson contends with witchcraft and tribal beliefs as he tries to solve the killing using contemporary methods.  All the while he also struggles with buried family secrets that begin to surface as parallels between the recent murder and the long-ago disappearance of Dawson's mother surfaces.

I picked up this audiobook from Morrison-Reeves Public Library without having heard of the book or the author and enjoyed it tremendously.  I will be on the lookout for Kwei Quartey's second novel.

#44: Fargo by John Benteen

Fargo is a mercenary for hire who signs up for a seeming suicide mission bringing a load of silver out of revolution-torn Mexico in Fargo, the first in a series by prolific, pseudonymous scribe John Benteen.

Not long ago I read The Trail Ends in Hell by Benteen, aka Ben Haas, a sturdy little Western that interested me in finding more of his writing.  However, despite Fargo's trappings I would say it was more Men's Adventure than Western, not only in its time period (early 20th century) and focus on action, but also in its casual handling of women and fetish-like attachment to weapons.

Benteen again writes a solid story, and I must not have been the only one that thought so as the Fargo series went on for some time throughout the 60s and 70s.  I was able to get a handful at a flea market and I am sure I will jump on another one before long.

#43: The Super Barbarians by John Brunner

In the far-flung future, Earthmen have been subjugated by a technically advanced, but culturally backward, alien race.  Through playing on the aliens' superstitions--and their unexpected coffee addictions--humans begin to get the upper hand again in John Brunner's light, tight space opera The Super Barbarians.

Brunner was a hugely prolific and popular sci-fi author in the 60s and 70s, but I find his writing kind of mixed and have picked up and put down a lot of his books over the years.  I stuck with this one because it didn't take itself too seriously and had a brisk, tidy plot.

This one caught my fancy after seeing it on a flea market goodbye shelf and I read it at a good pace.  I continue to keep a lookout for John Brunner's work.

#42: Known to Evil by Walter Mosley

New York private eye Leonid McGill is asked by a well-connected politico to look into the whereabouts of a young beauty, unleashing a murderous chain of events in Walter Mosley's Known to Evil.

This is the second McGill mystery in a new series Mosley began recently.  Mosley's Easy Rawlins books, which takes a sort-of detective through life in L.A. from post World War II to post Watts riots and beyond, is one of my favorite contemporary mystery series and I believe will be remembered as one of the greats of the late 20th century.  I think Mosley is trying to do the same for New York, in a contemporary setting, with milder results.

McGill is a former very crooked P.I. who is somewhat bent back straight, with all the complications that ensue from that situation.  His home life, with an unfaithful wife and three kids with uncertain paternity, also weighs on his mind.  These main themes, and several other subplots, make for an overly dense narrative with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.

But a moderately successful Mosley novel is always above the average read, so I would recommend it for fans.

I listened to a very good audio book version of this, read by Mirron Willis, on loan from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#41: Red Fury by George G. Gilman

Gun-for-hire Edge, a drifter and loner with his own fractured moral code, finds himself in the middle of a bloody feud  between a small town and some only slightly settled Indians in George G. Gilman's Red Fury.

I have been reading a lot of Gold Medal paperbacks from the 60s and 70s and frequently saw Gilman's Edge series, billed as "the most violent Westerns in print," advertised in the back.  I found a handful at a flea market and grabbed this one at random.  This volume was from deep in the series and one can only surmise features an older, more reflective Edge, as it was not so much violent as rather unpleasant.  There are lots of murders, rapes, some incest and torture, and a notable scene where Edge holds a straight razor to a pregnant woman's stomach to escape.

A little googling shows that Gilman has a legion of fans, but I found his work a curiosity; the result of a British writer penning stories of the American West after apparently watching a lot of Italian Western films.  On the covers Edge looks like Charles Bronson, and on the inside pages has the mean streak of Lee Van Cleef and the dry wit of Clint Eastwood.  In fact each chapter strains to end, rather painfully at times, on some sort of pun or quip, as odd a conceit as I've seen.

I feel I should give Edge another try but won't be rushing back into my swap meet stash anytime soon.