Terrible Analogies

Just before we headed off on our vacation last week Karin and I exchanged presents.  I hooked her up with a new 64Gig iTouch, and she gave me a present that feeds my addiction:

My wife, the enabler

Thanks to my (*cough*) sources, I now have ready access to thousands of books.  Over the past three days I’ve torn through The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe and Life, The Universe, And Everything (warning, Douglas Adams goes off the dark twisted deep end in this book.  I think I’d rather beat myself to death with a stale marshmallow than meet Agrajag in a dark alley…those nasty teeth and broken wings give me the willies!).  My new goal is to work through the top 100 science fiction books of all time (only 84 left to go), but will need to squeeze in a few Craig Clevenger and Douglas Coupland books in as well.

So much to read, so little time…

It seems that I’ve been tearing through books at a relatively fast rate in recent days.  Thinking a bit about it, I’d have to say that I knock back, on average, fifty pages with each reading session.  This is not an alarming rate by any stretch of the imagination, but over time like notches on a gun it does manage to add up.  I now have quite a few “dead soldiers” lying about that are in desperate need of shelf space.

The books that I’ve managed to burn through over the past two months are:

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands – Stephen King
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass – Stephen King
A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Tell All – Chuck Palahniuk
Generation Kill – Evan Wright
My Revolutions – Hari Kunzru
The New Dead – Christopher Golden

I’m currently halfway through The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe by Douglas Adams, and have Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer queued up for this week.

It’s amazing the amount of bound paper I have stored in my house, neatly stacked up like seasoned cordwood, anxiously awaiting for an errant spark to set the entire structure ablaze.

Long live the written word!

Wow!

The trailer for the upcoming television show The Walking Dead really has me excited. I’m not big of TV in general, and haven’t followed a television show in many, many years (I loved Lost, but only watched it on DVD), but this trailer has me chompin’ at the bit. The acting looks solid, the production is top notch, and with big names attached I don’t see how it can fail.

It’s amazing that a studio is taking a gamble on this.  I’m happy to see that not every production company is gutless.

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Can’t wait for the 90 minute premier on October 31st!

To kill some time before the big premier, you might want to pick up a copy of World War Z by Max Brooks. This book gets behind the psychology of a global zombie invasion.  I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

In the past month I’ve managed to read three books;  one sci-fi book, another about the Iraq war, and the third book entitled A Walk In The Woods by a one Mr. Bill Bryson.  Much to my surprise, A Walk In The Woods happened to be the most entertaining book I’ve read in quite a long time.  I was honestly a bit sad to have finished it.

To say that AWitW was an “enjoyable read” would do this novel a great injustice.

To put it bluntly, A Walk In The Words is about the author’s bid to hike the Appalachian Trail.  Part journal, part historical record, and part fiction/non-fiction novel, AWitW covers everything from the pains encountered while hiking the AT, the shenanigans that go on in the National Parks Service, the history of the trail (from initial concept and construction to deaths (both natural and unnatural) on the AT), characters both famous and infamous, strange backwoods towns, day hikers and thru-hikers, how best to pack for such a trip (and how quickly your hiking partner can throw it all away on the trail), wildlife encounters, defending yourself against bear attacks with nail clippers, plant collecting, deforestation, land (mis)management, crazy cab drivers, sketchy motels, abandoned towns on fire, aggressive security guards, and the sense of longing for the trail months after having come home.

Oh, and for the record, I’d invite Katz to hike with me any time.

It’s evident that Bill Bryson did his homework on the AT.  With a thorough knowledge of the history of the AT he’s able to weave into the story great insights about the past and possible future of this 2,100+ mile trail.  His personal encounters with the people he met and the places he visited brings to life an isolated trail in the woods that is very much a world unto its own.  Even through the hardships and dangers, Bill makes hiking a trail that snakes its way through 14 different states seem like a calling.  I can’t help but find myself enamored with the thought of packing up a bag (don’t forget your waterproof outer cover), dropping out for a few months, hitching a ride to the trailhead and heading out into the unknown.

Peppered with humor and a scattershot of keen insight, A Walk In The Woods is a book that athletes and daydreamers of all levels should read.

I often wonder, as I sit hunched over the computer in a darkened room late at night, my fingers tapping away at all-to-familiar keys, mangling verbs and bastardizing adjectives to the point where I feel they might be worthy of public consumption, just whose writing style does mine emulate?

Well, my question has finally been answered, thanks to I Write Like.

Plugging in a couple entries from my blog, and a couple more from some of my other works, I apparently write like Vladimir Nabokov, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Kurt Vonnegut.  I’m not sure what sort of algorithm they use to determine this information, but I’ll take it.  I like my ego stroked.

If I Write Like thinks my stories about suicidal socialites and a television weatherman forced to hunt down his disturbed brother sound like works that Neil and Kurt would author, then I’ll just keep plugging away at ‘em.

You never know.  There’s a slight chance that they’ll be published someday (yeah, right…).

So…whose writing style does yours most emulate?