Operation Book Cull

I cannot fit all the books I own on my shelves, so I am culling some by selecting ones I have never read (some of which have survived ten years and eight moves), reading the first few pages or a chapter or so, and getting rid of them if they don't grab me.

Culls to date:

Another Country, by Mary Pipher. About aging in America, with plenty of interviews with old people. This isn't bad. It just isn't very enlightening. Yes, contemporary American society is not a very good place to grow old in. (Though I think she over-romanticizes the past: polio, lynchings, women not allowed to vote, no recourse for victims of child abuse or domestic violence, child labor-- I could go on.)

The Bill From My Father, by Bernard Cooper. A memoir about a man's shaky relationship with his lawyer father, who once sent him a bill for "parental services" to the total of two million dollars. Well-written, but it didn't grab me.

She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb. An Oprah book about a fat girl in a dysfunctional family, or so the back cover tells me; I only got a couple chapters in, and she was still a small child in those. Didn't grab me.

Blood of Angels, by Michael Marshall. I really like some of his short stories (as Michael Marshall Smith) but never liked his novels enough. This one is about a super serial killer, yadda-yadda. I am fed up with serial killer books. I think I will never read another again. The first chapter of this book was not good enough to make me reconsider that vow.

Summer King, Winter Fool, by Lisa Goldstein. I really like some of her short stories, but not her novels. Like her others, this fantasy novel seemed intelligent and serious, and yet it put me to sleep.

Left Behind: The Kids: The Vanishings, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. I bought this for a quarter because I was curious about what the phenomenally popular fundamentalist Christian series about the Rapture actually said. And also I thought it might be amusingly bad. Actually, it is bad in a bland, non-amusing way. The kids' narratives don't sound like real kids, and the slang is either wrong (what modern kid would call himself "ornery") or misused (you "get wasted," you don't "feel wasted.")

Four kids (three teens and a twelve-year-old) refuse to accept Christ for ill-defined reasons, mostly a general sense of rebellion. The thing about "accepting Christ" seems to mean that you have to do some kind of ritual-- it's not enough to believe that Jesus is God, go to church, and consider yourself a Christian. It is especially not enough to merely do good deeds and live a moral life. All those people will go straight to hell unless they also do the "accept Christ" ritual. (That is my fundamental moral problem with that particular brand of Christianity right there.) When everyone is raptured away but the ones who didn't accept Christ, planes crash and one boy's mother dies in a flaming car wreck when the next car's driver vanishes. But it's all part of God's plan to give everyone one last chance to shape up and do what he wants: God as a Mafia enforcer.

Boys and Girls Together, by William Goldman. I really like some of his novels. This one is incredibly dated, about a tortured gay man who ends up a sex slave to an evil sadist (I skipped to the end) and other people in NYC. I opened it randomly and some character who seems to be an editor was describing the best manuscript he'd ever read, The Nose is For Laughing. The boy narrator's father goes deaf and becomes bitter, so to prove his love, the boy destroys his own eardrums so he's deaf too. Then it turns out that the book is autobiographical. The editor is terribly, terribly moved. It breaks his heart when the book tanks.I think this was not intended to be as hilarious as I found it.

Operation Book Cull

I cannot fit all the books I own on my shelves, so I am culling some by selecting ones I have never read (some of which have survived ten years and eight moves), reading the first few pages or a chapter or so, and getting rid of them if they don't grab me.

Culls to date:

Another Country, by Mary Pipher. About aging in America, with plenty of interviews with old people. This isn't bad. It just isn't very enlightening. Yes, contemporary American society is not a very good place to grow old in. (Though I think she over-romanticizes the past: polio, lynchings, women not allowed to vote, no recourse for victims of child abuse or domestic violence, child labor-- I could go on.)

The Bill From My Father, by Bernard Cooper. A memoir about a man's shaky relationship with his lawyer father, who once sent him a bill for "parental services" to the total of two million dollars. Well-written, but it didn't grab me.

She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb. An Oprah book about a fat girl in a dysfunctional family, or so the back cover tells me; I only got a couple chapters in, and she was still a small child in those. Didn't grab me.

Blood of Angels, by Michael Marshall. I really like some of his short stories (as Michael Marshall Smith) but never liked his novels enough. This one is about a super serial killer, yadda-yadda. I am fed up with serial killer books. I think I will never read another again. The first chapter of this book was not good enough to make me reconsider that vow.

Summer King, Winter Fool, by Lisa Goldstein. I really like some of her short stories, but not her novels. Like her others, this fantasy novel seemed intelligent and serious, and yet it put me to sleep.

Left Behind: The Kids: The Vanishings, by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. I bought this for a quarter because I was curious about what the phenomenally popular fundamentalist Christian series about the Rapture actually said. And also I thought it might be amusingly bad. Actually, it is bad in a bland, non-amusing way. The kids' narratives don't sound like real kids, and the slang is either wrong (what modern kid would call himself "ornery") or misused (you "get wasted," you don't "feel wasted.")

Four kids (three teens and a twelve-year-old) refuse to accept Christ for ill-defined reasons, mostly a general sense of rebellion. The thing about "accepting Christ" seems to mean that you have to do some kind of ritual-- it's not enough to believe that Jesus is God, go to church, and consider yourself a Christian. It is especially not enough to merely do good deeds and live a moral life. All those people will go straight to hell unless they also do the "accept Christ" ritual. (That is my fundamental moral problem with that particular brand of Christianity right there.) When everyone is raptured away but the ones who didn't accept Christ, planes crash and one boy's mother dies in a flaming car wreck when the next car's driver vanishes. But it's all part of God's plan to give everyone one last chance to shape up and do what he wants: God as a Mafia enforcer.

Boys and Girls Together, by William Goldman. I really like some of his novels. This one is incredibly dated, about a tortured gay man who ends up a sex slave to an evil sadist (I skipped to the end) and other people in NYC. I opened it randomly and some character who seems to be an editor was describing the best manuscript he'd ever read, The Nose is For Laughing. The boy narrator's father goes deaf and becomes bitter, so to prove his love, the boy destroys his own eardrums so he's deaf too. Then it turns out that the book is autobiographical. The editor is terribly, terribly moved. It breaks his heart when the book tanks.I think this was not intended to be as hilarious as I found it.