Sunday, July 11, 2004

multifarious fictions or summer reading list: preamble

When I go into the bookstore I encounter tables of books that are advertised as summer reading. As I understand it, these reads are meant to be lighter than yr other seasonal reads.
Tomes on the laws of physics, for instance, would not be considered beach reads.
Well, screw the nail in buddy!! Witness the first and only REGVULCAN summer reading list:

I find it absolutely delightful to carry around a bag. My fiancee thinks it's great that I carry a manpurse. I tell her it is a bag.
She tells me that all things I carry in the 'bag' can also be found in those purses you see all the ladies with. Let's look into this by way of re-imagined conversation:
NOTE: conversation content edited for length and privacy and so that it would not seem that KG has the upper hand


KG: It's a purse.
REGVULCAN: Bag. Look, I've got blank, blank, blank, blank, blank and blank, books.
KG: A lot of women have those things too.
R: It's still a bag.
KG: Manpurse.

Not only is this a fantastic example of everyday conversation, it shows that men and women both carry books around. But what kind of books do I carry around? Remember it's summer.
When I think light reading, I think genre fiction. But with so many genres to choose from, what to do? Luckily good things come in threes,look:

Max Brand The Trap at Comanche Bend
William Gibson Burning Chrome
Agatha Christie The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

If you have a bag with ample space you can carry three paperback books quite easily. This gives you more options. Let's say you're idling in your Hummer in the drive through line at the dry cleaners. What kind of mood is this? Science Fiction? Mystery? Western? You choose!!

I know you're thinking, well, that's on the road, reg, what's up yr sleeve in the home palace?

I'm sure the more astute of you noticed I did not deplete the genres with the first reading list. Let's go!

Bedside: H.P. Lovecraft (really any volume will do, thelast story I read was entitled The Think on the Doorstep!!!!!!)
This is great because you read some spookified happenings under sensory deprivation it you've got a window unit cranked up so that yr head's really really cold and you can't hear anything. But when you do.... Whoah! Spook yourselves out folks!!
I have to admit folks, I don't have any romance in the house. If you're so inclined I recommend you get some. I also suggest a little bit of erotica now and then.
Sorry to disappoint you note takers, but in the can I just grab whatever. Usually there's just no planning stage, and books left in the bathroom usually go bad.

Here are some other things to read, in no particular order or place:
Mario Batali Simple Italian Food
collections of Futurama and Simpsons comics

these are just around the house books that my be read on the couch, the toilet, or in bed. Heck, you could even take them outside to the porch if you want to chill with the dog. Hey, it's summer!!




1 Comments:

Blogger regvulcan said...

actually there's a Delany book on the bathroom shelf that I didn't finish several months ago. It's his first book, and it isn't very elaborate. Jewels of something or other. Written when he was a teenager.
Dhalgren just doesn't look to be summery.

July 11, 2004 at 10:27 PM  

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