For The Moment…
…I’ve put All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen on hold, and started reading Personal Days by Ed Park. I haven’t taken to Gessen’s novel the way I hoped it would, and I discovered Personal Days listed in my book recommendations from Amazon. The book tells the story of a nameless Manhattan office. I suspected I would like it since I enjoyed Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came To End.
I’m probably about a quarter of the way through now, I hope to finish it in the next week.
Recently Bought
Browsing through a local Barnes & Noble I picked out a few books that I felt i wanted to read:
Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution, by Jerome Charyn
I’ve never read Jerome Charyn or historical fiction before… but I thought I would give it a shot with this new novel. I look forward, not only to the story line, but to the depictions of life during the Revolutionary War.
The Scandal Plan: Or: How to Win the Presidency by Cheating on Your Wife, by Bill Folman
As someone who likes politics and fiction, and who wrote a book corruption, I anticipated enjoying this story, about a Senator and presidential candidate who creates a phony sex scandal to spice up his candidacy. This is Folman’s first novel.
Another debut novel, this one from Joe Dunthorne. I don’t know if I will like it or not, but since I enjoyed Nick Hornby’s Slam, which also has a teenage male for the main character, I figured it was worth a shot.
World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler
I’m not sure if I’ll like this one. It depicts a future “when the oil wells start to run dry, the world economy will collapse and society as we know it will cease.” But it takes place in upstate New York, where I’ve recently moved to,
Still working on a couple other books, but I hope to get started on these soon.
James Patterson Redeems Himself With ‘7th Heaven’
As big a fan of James Patterson as I am, I’ve been quite disappointed with some of his latest efforts. The past few installments of the Alex Cross series have failed to impress me. The Maximum Ride series has gotten progressively worse. But, thankfully, the Women’s Murder Club series has managed to stay strong. I finished ‘7th Heaven‘ earlier today and I have to say I was pleased. While the Alex Cross series has been fading away, the Women’s Murder Club series has remained consistent. While some twists were anticipated, the story overall kept its suspense. I hope Patterson can keep it up.
Maximum Ride: The Final Warning
James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series certainly had promise. I enjoyed the first installment, The Angel Experiment. Unfortunately, each installment got progressively worse… The latest of the series, The Final Warning, is by far the most disappointing.
The novels have followed the story of 14-year-old Maximum Ride, a human-bird hybrid girl and four others just like her, who are on the run after escaping from “The School” where they were created. It was established in the first novel that Max had been created for a purpose: to save the world. A cryptic voice in her head has guided her and her flock along the way as they fight for their lives in their quest to fulfill that mission. Until The Final Warning, what that mission was exactly, they did not know. Quite frankly, I don’t think James Patterson knew until he started writing The Final Warning, because the mission seems entirely anti-climactic. The series has had human-wolf hybrids and robots out to kill Max and flock, and hints of a decades-long global conspiracy involving genetic research with recombinant life forms. Sounds exciting and thrilling doesn’t it So what is Maximum Ride’s mission really about?
Global warming.
That’s right. The Final Warning takes Max and her flock to Antarctica to study penguins, and ultimately to Capitol Hill, where Max gives a speech to Congress, urging them to heed the alleged warning signs and to do something to slow down global warming.
Instead of tying up all the loose ends from the previous books of the series, Patterson seems to have gone on a tangent by making global warming the focus of the latest novel of the series. Patterson may think he’s doing a service by using his popular series to “educate” kids about global warming — but ultimately the story has suffered.
The Maximum Ride series seems to be suffering from premature burnout. Patterson’s Alex Cross series started off very strong but started really going downhill with The Big Bad Wolf. After ready the most recent of the Alex Cross series, Double Cross, I felt that Patterson had taken the Alex Cross character as far as he could. Well, with Maximum Ride, he’s taken the series in the wrong direction and should stop. Unfortunately, despite the implication of the title, the ending implied there’s more coming.
And yes, I’m sure I’ll read it, but I can’t say I have high expectations for it.
Starbucks Brings Pike Place Roast To The Masses
This week, Starbucks made its exclusive Pike Place Roast available in all its locations. Starbucks is promoting the widespread availability of Pike Place Roast with rebranded cups featuring (temporarily, I assume) the original siren logo.
The original siren logo is slightly modified, however. The siren’s hair covers more than the true original logo, but, more importantly the circular band says “Fresh Roasted Coffee” instead of “Coffee • Tea • Spices.” Considering recently publicized problems Starbucks has had, the new emphasis on their coffee selection process and freshness is undoubtedly intended to address those issues. Starbucks suffers largely from an image problem. People who aren’t Starbucks regulars associate the coffee-chain with high-priced espresso drinks or coffee that is “too strong” for them. Starbucks is now attracting attention to their commitment to quality, fresh coffee by posting the “roasted on” date with with daily brews.
I’ve had the Pike Place Roast every day since it became available. And I have say it is one of my favorite roasts. I think Starbucks is on the right track to fixing it’s overall image problem. In fact, I would suggest they continue to not only emphasize their coffee selection processes and commitment to freshness, but also keep showcasing the original siren logo. Another aspect of their image is problem is the bleeding heart objections to big corporations, and the old logo doesn’t have the corporate look that the current logo does. Renewed attention to their roots can’t hurt and reminds consumers that Starbucks started small, and grew into something larger because it has a quality product.
Then We Came To The End
Today I finished reading ‘Then We Came To The End‘ the debut novel from Joshua Ferris. It is the story of the employees at a Chicago ad agency in the late 1990’s when the economic bubble burst. Ferris ’s diverse cast of characters bring a realistic humor to the everyday mundanity of the office setting.
The most interesting aspect of the story is that it is told in the first person plural… an extremely effective way of making the omnipresent narrator feel as one of the characters in the book.
At times it is hard to follow all the stories (comedic and tragic) and idiosyncrasies of all the individual characters, but they all are important parts of the novel, as they demonstrate that people are more than what they are when they are on the job.
‘Then We Came To The End‘ is a clever novel anyone who has worked in an office can relate to, and anyone hasn’t should read anyway.