What I’m Reading and Why

Thought some of yins out in the world wide web would like to know what I clutch on the sub­way. There’s actu­ally a lot.

The Mammoth Book of Horror Comics, Edited by Peter Normanton

This beast of a book has been fol­low­ing me around lately. It all started when I had the bright idea to make a hor­ror film, but couldn’t come u p with, ya know, plots or char­ac­ters or those things you need to get some decent writ­ing done. I don’t want to reveal my dia­bol­i­cal plans just yet, but I can tell you that I’ve been fas­ci­nated by zom­bies lately. I’d really love to get to know them bet­ter, get inside their heads (though I bet they’d want into my cra­nium more).

Anyway, killing time in the graphic novel sec­tion at B&N last week, I hap­pened upon this tome of mur­der­ous tales. So far it’s tons of fun. Most of the comics I’ve read so far have been from 1950–1955, and while none have lit­er­ally ter­ri­fied me, they cer­tainly have been quite enter­tain­ing. The one that will be tough­est to top in this book is “Hitler’s Head” by Don Heck (and co.). It tells the tale of a dec­o­rated Nazi lay­ing low in South America after the war who is haunted by the ghost of Hitler and his Army of demons. From the begin­ning right down to it’s head-scratcher of an end­ing it is truly fas­ci­nat­ing. It is griz­zly, but not grue­some. Plus, it’s easy enough to cheer on Nazi on Nazi action.

—

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

After read­ing The Yiddish Policeman’s Union and The Final Solution, I fig­ured myself not quite a Michael Chabon fan, but cer­tainly a spir­ited sup­porter of his work. I loved those two nov­els, so I fig­ured it was time for check out his mag­num opus which earned him a pulitzer prize as well as the praise of most of my reader friends. Back in January I picked it up in paper­back at The Strand and imme­di­ately dove into it. I loved it, but then I stum­bled for a few days, dur­ing which I found myself unable to get past this same damn page (I think it was 56). I had fig­ured that it might pass, but instead I went to Israel for a week, and though most of my time was spent in tran­sit, I never was able to get back on track.

But recently, I started again and found that perus­ing the same pages I had read only a few months before were even bet­ter the sec­ond time around. But my whole hor­ror kick hit me about a week later, and I’ve started try­ing to fig­ure zom­bies out in the mean­time. I’m sorry Michael, but I promise I will read your beefy award-winner some­time soon, when I’m good and ready. Now, I’m sad to say, just isn’t the time.

—

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, by Tucker Max

I know noth­ing of this book, but a friend of mine at work approached me the other other day and we had the fol­low­ing exchange:

Friend: Have you read this book? (hold­ing up a crum­pled copy of the bestseller)

Poritsky: Nope.

Friend: (Tossing it onto my desk, with pur­pose) Your turn.

And then he slinked back off into the night. I’ve heard much snig­ger­ing around the office about this book, though I pur­pose­fully have no inten­tion of find­ing out any­thing about it until I can part its sexy lit­tle pages myself. Gotta get through these damn comics first though!