Some recent reads

 Here's a few reads.

Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut. What can I say? Vonnegut is incredible. This is the seventh of his I've read, and the most serious. From the very start of this book, I thought: This sounds familiar. Sure enough, once I was done, I looked at IMDB and found the 1996 movie with Nick Nolte. Never saw it. But would like to see it because the book was awesome. And the ending...unexpected. 

Ukridge, by P.G. Wodehouse. Let's start with the pronunciation. I always thought it was /uk-ridge/ and not /yuk-ridge/. But as I listened to this book, I finally learned this pronunciation. Anyway, great book. Great character. Will read more of the Ukridge books. (I'd read Love Among the Chickens years and years ago, but didn't remember Ukridge was a character in it.) Nothing more fun to read about than a British gentleman with crazy idea about raising money who borrows/steals from his friends and whose grand ideas always fail. Wonderful.

Daingerfield Island, by John Wasowicz. A first book for the author set in the area we live (about a mile's walk from our home). Not really good. Too perfect. Another of those. Sure, two car crashes and a messed up arm, but yeah, take the cop's gun and chase the killer in a BMW and purposefully crash that car to stop a killer, then try to shoot the bad-guy after your third car crash in two days. No. Stop. Will not read anymore of this author, despite the fun of his novels being set in my local area.

This Census-Taker, by China Mieville. The man can write. This is the least sci-fi-y of all his books. It really is weird. Not as weird as The Last Days of New Paris, but still weird. And very unique: from the first chapter, the switch, sometimes within paragraphs, of first-person and third-person. But wow, at the end, switching between first-, second- and third-person within three paragraphs. Masterfully done. Thank you, sir.