The Dopeman...
It was once said by a man who couldn't quit,
dopeman, please, can I have another hit?
- NWA
When I was a kid, I always had my nose buried in a book, a comic or a magazine. My first serious girlfriend once told my mother that she'd never met anyone who read as much as I did. When I was seven, my mother bought me a poster from the book-mobile that had this strange little drawing of some unidentified furry thing and a quote attributed to Francis Bacon:
Some books are to be tasted, some to be swallowed, and others to be chewed up and swallowed whole.
Since then, I've not read anywhere near as much as others, but a shitload more than most, and I agree with that quote wholeheartedly.
But even so, there are a mere handful of books that have gripped me with such force that I simply could not stop reading. The ones that fall into the "to be chewed up and swallowed whole" category.
It by King was one.
Sleepers, by Lorenzo Carcaterra is another. That one.. oh man.
The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum. Oh yeah baby, right by the throat until I got to the end.
And most recently, a book pushed upon me by Brian Keene.
He was doing a signing for his latest release, Dead Sea, and after catching up a bit, he held a book up with an unassuming cover and grinned at me.
The kind of grin that a smack-pusher has on his face when they see a monkey chittering on someone's back and they're holding some heavy weight of China white in their coat pocket.
Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein is the book. It's the same Ellis that's the pen behind a shitload of graphic novels.
I started it Saturday evening, and after blowing project deadlines, hurrying my kids to bed and singing him a speed metal version of bedtime songs, I ran back to get the book and kept on going.
At times, it's by far one of the funniest things I've read. The voice of the main character is of a guy you'd want to sit at a bar. The cast of characters is flawed and imperfect, and weird and strange and damned interesting.
It's literary heroin, and I'll pick up anything else this guy puts out.
Go get it. First hit's for free baby.
dopeman, please, can I have another hit?
- NWA
When I was a kid, I always had my nose buried in a book, a comic or a magazine. My first serious girlfriend once told my mother that she'd never met anyone who read as much as I did. When I was seven, my mother bought me a poster from the book-mobile that had this strange little drawing of some unidentified furry thing and a quote attributed to Francis Bacon:
Some books are to be tasted, some to be swallowed, and others to be chewed up and swallowed whole.
Since then, I've not read anywhere near as much as others, but a shitload more than most, and I agree with that quote wholeheartedly.
But even so, there are a mere handful of books that have gripped me with such force that I simply could not stop reading. The ones that fall into the "to be chewed up and swallowed whole" category.
It by King was one.
Sleepers, by Lorenzo Carcaterra is another. That one.. oh man.
The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum. Oh yeah baby, right by the throat until I got to the end.
And most recently, a book pushed upon me by Brian Keene.
He was doing a signing for his latest release, Dead Sea, and after catching up a bit, he held a book up with an unassuming cover and grinned at me.
The kind of grin that a smack-pusher has on his face when they see a monkey chittering on someone's back and they're holding some heavy weight of China white in their coat pocket.
Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein is the book. It's the same Ellis that's the pen behind a shitload of graphic novels.
I started it Saturday evening, and after blowing project deadlines, hurrying my kids to bed and singing him a speed metal version of bedtime songs, I ran back to get the book and kept on going.
At times, it's by far one of the funniest things I've read. The voice of the main character is of a guy you'd want to sit at a bar. The cast of characters is flawed and imperfect, and weird and strange and damned interesting.
It's literary heroin, and I'll pick up anything else this guy puts out.
Go get it. First hit's for free baby.
posted by Bob at 8/21/2007
2 comments
