This post has very little to do with cats, except that they’ve been rampant distractions while I’ve been reading lately. They attacked a box of Rice-A-Roni in the pantry, leaving little noodles all over the floor, and also shredded a volleyball with a soft foam exterior. The cardboard scratching things are still used - I think it’s just a matter of getting in there and clipping claws. But enough cat news.
I’ve finished reading a few books recently. The first book is Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore. Practical Demonkeeping is about a demon named Catch (what a preposterous name) who eats people, and his master, Travis, visiting Moore’s fictional town of Pine Cove - the setting of many of his books. There, Travis seeks out the device that would free him from the demon that “serves” him, and Catch seeks out a new master that would free him from Travis. Of course, the interaction with the townsfolk leads to much drama, which is the crux of all of Moore’s books.
I liked Practical Demonkeeping in that it was light and entertaining. It’s certainly not the best of Moore’s books. I preferred You Suck and A Dirty Job, as well as the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. Still, it was entertaining. Not as many of the characters carry over in this book, and I found myself missing Theo and Molly from The Stupidest Angel. Man, I’ve read a lot of Moore, haven’t I? Another author I’m beginning to think I’ve read plenty of is Philip Pullman.
I’ve finally finished the last book of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. It’s an interesting trilogy on the whole, and as I’ve told Berta, the first two books seem only to be an introduction for the events of the third.
In this book, Lyra and Will escape from the vile Mrs. Coulter, visit the land of the dead, and take on the forces of heaven in armed combat. I can see why people might think of these books as heretical. On one hand, there are some pretty heavy ideas here. On the other hand, you can simply toss all of them aside as a work of imaginative fiction.
While I did enjoy the story, and it’s probably one that’ll stick with me in meaning for a while after reading, unlike the effervescent books of Moore, I think there are some elements that are just silly. For example, the Mulefa. While somewhat plausible, Pullman eludes to some evolutionary cause for their appearance, and has his characters all hang lanterns like, “Gee, isn’t it strange that these creatures exist, and that all of these evolutionary events must have coincided for this to happen. I wonder how.” And then never explains how. It seems like he just wanted to add these weird creatures into the book, and didn’t have a good excuse.
An interesting thing about the book were the chapter quotations. Many of the quotes were from a poet/artist William Blake. His brief moments between plot have me interested enough to look into his work specifically.
I might consider reading some other work by Pullman, but I think I’ll put that off for a while. I’ve had William Gibson’s latest book on my shelf for far too long, and it’s about time I got to that.
I did also finish recently Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. The things I had expected to apply from Made to Stick have been utterly useless in convincing anyone in Habari of a good way to promote the software. Which is sad, since the ideas are sound but nobody will listen. Here’s an amusing thought I formed based on that whole interaction: People who are not educated are not easily swayed by educated reasoning. That’s not to say I’m more educated than others, but the noisiest folk were the people with no experience or research, and their opinions - although I thought them ineffective - were the ones settled upon. Apparently what I need is a book about convincing people of things. I’m sure I have a few of those around here in a stack.
Next weekend I’m off to PodCamp, where travel will surely yield reading time. I’ll probably fill this with podcasting reference material though, since I don’t feel like I’m not the podcasting expert that I should be.
