Books Are For Losers

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Books Are For Losers

Tragedy strikes the Books Are For Losers family

June 18th 2008 01:28

This is truly a sad day friends.

Two days ago, the inspiration behind this great internet endeavour, Books Are For Losers, met his tragic end.

Chris Bosma was more than just a friend. He was a mentor to many. He was a fine son and a caring brother. He was a proud father and family man. His cheeky smile poking through his bushy beard lit up the lives of so many.

I like to think that Chris and I share a special bond - he always had a word of encouragement for me. There were so many times when it all became too much. I found myself thinking that maybe the internet didn't care about stupid book reviews. I found myself hating this website and everything that it represented... everything that I had to give up to keep it going. But Chris was my rock. His firm hand on my shoulder helped me through the tough times and for that I am... and always will be... truly grateful.

Tragically it has all come to an end... his young flame snuffed out all too soon. Just thinking of what might have been if Chris had lived to reach his full potential... it's almost too much to bear.

My thoughts are with his family at this very difficult time.

R.I.P -~=~- CHRISTOPHER BOSMA -~=~- YOU MAY BE GONE FROM THIS WORLD -~=~- BUT YOU WILL NEVER BE GONE FROM OUR HEARTS -~=~- R.I.P.

23 September 1983 - 16 June 2008

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Jailbird

June 15th 2008 11:51

"Harvard and Nixon, the Holocaust and Watergate, Sacco and Vanzetti, Alger Hiss and Whitaker Chambers are the obsessions of this novel of evil and inadvertence."

That's the blurb from a review of this book in the New York Times from 1979 (what's that? oh yeah, I guess I'm pretty widely read - newspapers, journals, whatever - no big deal).

You can read that review if you'd like, and in fact, I'd recommend it if you are genuinely curious about this book, Jailbird, by famous author Mr Kurt Vonnegut.

Click this and get on with your life: Really Long Link

If you don't care all that much about the book, then you're better off with continuing to read this because it's so much shorter and you'll be out and about and going about your day in no time.

This is the worst Vonnegut book I've read. It's ok though, but just imagine one of his other books and exchange the theme of that book for the theme of this book: economics and its effect on modern life on this great planet of ours, the planet Earth. That's basically it and you can just apply the general formula of a Vonnegut book (if there is such a thing) and you'll have a fair idea of how you'll be feeling after reading this novel.

The novel deals with the life and times of Mr Walter F. Starbuck, who was (in)famous for playing a minor role in the Watergate scandal, and tells the story of his life leading up to his release from jail (hence the title), including some fairly uneventful descriptions of his love life in America and Europe. All fairly mundane and I remain unimpressed at the time of typing this review but I reserve the right to read over this in five years time and to post a comment about how much of a dolt I am.

The actual plot describes Mr Starbuck's first two days after his liberation from the prison system of the United States of America. The story packs no surprises and the twists are apparent from very early in the piece. It's clearly just a vehicle for Vonnegut to have a whinge about "flaws in corporate America, the American political system, the American red scare of the late 1950's, and both capitalist and communist theory" (thanks wikipedia - a fine replacement for working short-term memory) and the plot is really not all that important.

Mr Kilgore Trout appears as a fellow inmate and this was probably the most notable aspect of the book.

This isn't a sour review by the way - Vonnegut is pretty much the best author ever and, if he were alive today I would gladly perform menial tasks for him for free, like mowing his lawn or washing his dog, in homage to his writing ability. This novel is excellently written and is a very entertaining read in its own right. It's just that this book is lacklustre in comparison to his other books but you should still read it and then read everything else that he ever wrote and you'll be a better person for following my advice.

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Raymond Chandler

June 1st 2008 04:44

I think I must be the only person in the world who thinks that Raymond Chandler sucks.

Everyone raves about him (including you) and that's why I gave him a chance. Not just one chance either; I read the following novels: The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye. All three of them sucked.

The Big Sleep was overly complicated for my feeble brain and a bit of a let-down when things were all wrapped up. I could be persuaded by someone telling me that the intricate plot is the best thing about it and that they really enjoyed being confused by Chandler, but you would be hard pressed getting this argument off the ground against me. Redeeming features of this novel is the appearance of murder, casual violence, pornography and homosexualty - all very good things and if I still didn't enjoy this book despite that, then I guess there's no hope at all.

Farewell, My Lovely is about nothing as far as I'm concerned. It didn't even make sense and there are absolutely ZERO queers in this story. What's the point, I hear you ask, and that's exactly what I was thinking. The biggest problem with this novel is the character of 'Moose Malloy', who despite having possibly the best name possible, seems like he should have been the focus of the story, but doesn't really have anything to do with anything. NOTE: I'm not checking whether that's actually true or not and I've got a sneaking suspicion that I'm horribly wrong, but take it easy, hey. Maybe get a cup of tea and relax. Put your feet up.

The Long Goodbye didn't make sense either. It's all about the search for old mate Terry Lennox and I remember getting to the end of the book and realising that I wasn't really all that clear on why anybody wanted to find him in the first place. Time is money and all that, so it left me a little annoyed that I had superficially read a famous novel and was left unfulfilled. Please also see my above NOTE because I'm admitting that I'm factually deprived slightly at the time of typing this. Please be gentle.

My biggest problem with Raymond Chandler is the main character of these novels, Philip (Phil) Marlowe.

In all honesty, and despite what you just read above, I would have really enjoyed these books if it wasn't for the way in which Marlowe was described, particurlarly his dialogue. The impression I got was that Marlowe's choice of words was decided by a ten year old boy who wanted to make the whole thing sound COOL.

To me, it seemed forced and a little bit embarrassing (for Chandler mostly, not for me; I was sitting on the train reading detective novels and probably looking really intelligent and impressing all the babes - no big deal).

Maybe this was the style of the times about 50 years ago, but if Chandler didn't take the time to consider that a stupid Australian man might be slightly annoyed by the tone of his books at some indeterminate time in the future, then it's out of my hands unfortunately. Basically what I'm saying is that the problem is completely with me and these books probably would have been really enjoyable if I wasn't such a pedantic and annoying jerk.

Thanks for reading my confused web log entry on the famous detective author 'Raymond Chandler'.

Next time I'll have a conclusion worked out in advance and the whole thing will have a 'structure'. I promise. Maybe a little proofreading as well (he he he [again with the written nervous laugh]).

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Flashman

May 19th 2008 12:10

The first book of the Flashman series is simply called Flashman, but it isn't the first Flashman book that I've read. You can read a wonderful review of Flashman At The Charge written by a very talented young man (the writer of the review, not George MacDonald Fraser who wrote the book itself) by following this link: Really Long Link

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Everything Is Illuminated

May 11th 2008 11:59

Everything is Illuminated is a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer and it is probably the best book that I've read in about the last (50 years/5 years/5 months/5 weeks/quite some time/I don't know).

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Be Careful What You Wish For...

April 28th 2008 12:35

Ugh, this book stinks!

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Death On The Nile

April 28th 2008 12:26

Hercule Poirot is one of literature's most charming gents.

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Wizard's First Rule

April 28th 2008 12:18

This is the worst book that I have ever read (not exaggerating in the slightest).

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Re: Re: Choke

April 28th 2008 12:09

This isn't a post about my post about the book called Choke at all and instead I just wanted to post up a blog entry so my blog looked a little more active because I've been pretty damn busy and haven't had time to write any more bad book reviews for you lovely people and also I thought it might be annoying for people to click on this blog entry hoping for something potentially interesting and instead they get this garbage (sucked in losers) anyway this week my excuse for not posting a blog entry is because last night I had to write a sports report for the local newspaper about a local sporting team and that was alright I guess, and tonight I had to write a summary of the court case named Vos Construction & Joinery Qld P/L v Sanctuary Properties P/L & Anor [2007] QSC 332 and I pretty much just finished this and was thinking about writing a book review (maybe The Big Sleep but I don't know yet) but instead I'm writing the world's most annoying run-on sentence to reassure you that I'm a hard-working young writer but don't have time to entertain you right now, thanks and good night.

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Re: Choke

April 20th 2008 03:00

I recently wrote a blog entry about popular Chuck Palahniuk book Choke. I made some disparaging comments about this particular book and encouraged those people who enjoyed reading that particular book to stop frequenting this particular blog.

Here are the internet traffic statistics of this blog as a result of my last blog entry

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June 2008

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