An Update of Sorts

Yeah, well, work is kicking my ass lately... I’m good with that -- work = money, money = books. I do like my job well enough, but it is causing my reading schedule to become a hell of a mess (it hasn’t stopped me from buying books though).

While for the foreseeable future it seems my employer will be doing its best to prevent me from reading as much as I’d like (after putting in 10 to 12 hours a day staring at spreadsheets, my ability to unwind with a book becomes harder as the weeks wear on), there have been two recent books which have excited me just enough that, even though I might only read 20 pages a day, I know I will be carrying them around with me until they have been read. Typically, during busy times, a light and fun book (i.e. little thinking involved) is what I search out, but these two aren’t, in my mind, really "light" - fun maybe, but I should probably do my best to pay attention while reading them. Anyway, these two book really have me eager to read...

One... Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon - I just picked this one up over the weekend. A stoner detective yarn written by a literary genius - genre fiction that is bound confuse me - hell yeah, count me in! I may have mentioned this already, but I am Pynchon geek (sure, it was a rather rare occurrence while reading Gravity’s Rainbow that I knew what the heck was going on, but the words somehow still made sense in a grand and stimulating way ultimately providing a unique and rewarding experience) and a new Pynchon book is something to look forward to.

Two... A Fiery Peace in a Cold War - I received an ARC of this in the mail the other day and I am dying to dive in. This really looks to be a fascinating history of the postwar American/Soviet arms race. What is billed as “a magnificent, long-awaited new epic, fifteen years in the making”, I am really looking forward to digging in and getting a good nonfiction fix (something which I enjoy more of as I get older I am learning).

So there you have it - I am bound to be back with some good book blogging talk soon (as soon as my pay masters give me a minute to breath, that is)... with any luck, I will even be able to finish both of the above books and to definitively let you know if they are worth your hard earned buck.