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Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson

It's unfortunate that the reissue of this book has such a True Detective type cover. It's not nearly as sensationalist as the cover leads one to expect, and it becomes a little embarrassing to read something that looks like it could contain "Jail-Bait Rape Party XVII".

Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz

Kat's a bit of a Mahfouz fan, and I was out of books I wanted to read before leaving last Monday morning. I needed something light enough to read in shifts. Metro, airport, airplane, hotel, airport, airplane. I knew the books at the head of my personal queue were not adequate to this requirement, so I thrashed among the bookshelves for something to read.

"Here's a book that's not too thick, has the pulpy pages of an interruptible read, and won't start a conversation with a stranger."

Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

The Murakami binge¹ continues with one of the more bleakly depressing books I've read in a while. This is mainly because I avoid depressing books, except that all of the Murakami books are depressing in that cloudy, rainy, "poignant" (I hate that word) Japanese way.

This book is all about ill-defined apprehension. I kept waiting for the supernatural element, present in the Murakami books read to date, to manifest. I kept waiting for the horrible realisation that was foreshadowed quite darkly from early on. I kept waiting for the reckoning that seemed due for some of the behavior and attitude criticised in the book. It's almost like reading a Stephen King book, except there, you know demons are going to crawl out and eat the brain of the nearest five year old. In this book, the fear is atmospheric.

Two things:

If you have any interest in making film, read this book. If nothing else, if you ignore every piece of advice in it, it's inspirational. As you can guess from his films, and you can conclude from the frequency that he releases films, the guy has an incredible amount of drive and energy. It's very infectious.

If you have any interest in doing anything that you feel is "too expensive" because of equipment or whatever, read this book. It's a great reminder that resourcefulness (which Rodriguez refers to as "creativity") is worth dozens, hundreds, thousands, or millions of dollars in expensive equipment. Sometimes, the resourcefulness involves more work, sometimes, not. It's an incredibly accessible (almost too much so) book, and you will finish it with your head full of those projects you have wanted to execute, but didn't have the equipment or money.