A solid enough read and definitely sweet and touching in many parts without being sugary, Ruth Gogoll's take on The Christmas Carol didn't grab me quite the way her other novels have (Taxi To Paris, for instance.) It isn't so much that it's not a good story as it feels like something's missing and that it's much shorter than its actual length.

The love between the main characters does not have enough time to flourish, no matter how sincere, and I would have loved to see them get to know each other, truly know each other, before everything else happens. Even so, I find an "okay" Ruth Gogoll tale (most of her work is top notch!) is still better than many other titles in the lesfic genre.

One of the best...

Michael Hann, The Guardian

 

I'm listening to Pink Floyd's latest release Endless River (it's mostly instrumental and I love the "comforting sway of swelling synthesizers and the soaring Gilmour guitar that are sometimes unexpectedly moving"* ) while reading a sweet and likable novel called The Music of Mary Frances. The best therapy for when I'm down...low-key music and a good book. Pitchfork refers to the album as being "lazy" at times, but that's why I like having Endless River in the background as I read. If it were too commanding I wouldn't be able to concentrate.

* allmusic.com

I think about how much I love anything zombie and I wonder if it has something to do with the deadness inside of me that comes to my aid and surfaces during trying times. 

I see someone I like (whom I'm not supposed to) and I steel myself so well (it's taken time, but I think I've perfected it) I am almost positive the feelings are gone...even if they aren't really. With enough determination and acting, you can even convince yourself you no longer care.

The Living Dead 2 (as well as its predecessor The Living Dead) is full of high quality writing, sometimes bordering on beautiful. For me, the stories that appeal most are the ones that combine suffering with survival, even if that survival comes with the high cost of detachment. 

For more perspective on zombie fiction and The Living Dead anthology read here:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/09/zombie-round-table-what-is-the-appeal-of-zombie-fiction

Sunday stuff...

Oh my gosh! So true...from today's New York Times:

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We Now Conclude Our Broadcast Day

Recalling the Imperfect Radio and TV Reception of the Past

By DANA JENNINGSDEC. 19, 2014

Inside

Photo

Remember when you had to wait for the TV to warm up before you could watch it? Credit Getty Images

Continue reading the main story

Also from today's New York Times:

Many years ago, when I was an innocent lamb making my first appearance on a right-wing radio talk show, the host asked, “If you don’t believe in God, what’s to stop you from committing murder?” I blurted out, “It’s never actually occurred to me to murder anyone.”

Even though I believe in God, it's long irked me that some people think atheists aren't moral people. If anything, a person not believing in God (and therefore possible eternal damnation in Hell) and still doing the right thing means she's doing the right thing for the right reason, not because of some fear of punishment:

read more here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/books/review/living-the-secular-life-by-phil-zuckerman.html

Okay, so I am addicted to Google Play Books and discovered a book by Havelock Ellis that has some rather interesting insights on sex. 

I don’t know to how to quote what I found intriguing without sounding rather crude (the book is surprisingly graphic for the late 19th century). In less crude terms, I’ll say what I think Ellis is saying and that is this: sex may seem highly biological and messy (he uses “evacuation” instead of the much more common modern term that also starts with “e”) but it has to be more if it comes with such a high intensity of emotion.

I can't believe how many times I've been experiencing something in my own life and then pick up a book that I have just started reading  and it's like the passage was meant for me to see:

The relation of love to pain is one of the most difficult problems...why is it that love inflicts, and even seeks to inflict, pain? Why is it that love suffers pain and even seeks to suffer it?

Picking up the book to read more of the "Love and Pain" chapter from one of this books I find myself more fascinated with the non-personal related aspects of it all and get sucked into the leaning and human interest parts. Reading and learning has so often been able to pull me out of myself and realize how universal alienation can be.