2008 Reading List

Butterfly in the sk...I wouldn't do that to you!

I'll always remember 2008 as the year I gave my eyes a different kind of work-out. No longer were they molested and battered by endless frames of film on a silver and plasma screen. No, 2008 brought upon the heavy reading my eyes so loathed at first. Like the morning sun spearing the eye of a sleeping vampire. And there's one man to blame. Stephen King.

When I first started this blog thing (not a diary, damnit!), I wrote about how Mr. King's part biography / part instruction manual really gave me the jump start I needed to plow into some heavy reading I'd been putting off. Because of him, this year has brought on some pretty great adventures. I'll list all the ones I read, in the order I read them, along with some ratings should anyone get curious:

STEPHEN KING: ON WRITING by Stephen King (Excellent)
RED HARVEST by Dashiell Hammett (Excellent)
THE DAIN CURSE by Dashiell Hammett (Good)
THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy (Excellent)
THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett (Very Good)
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF CAVALIER & CLAY by Michael Chabon (Excellent)
THE BODY by Stephen King (Very Good)
WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor (Good)
DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS by Walter Mosley (Excellent)
A RED DEATH by Walter Mosley (Very Good)
R.L.'S DREAM by Walter Mosley (Good)
WATCHMEN by Alan Moore (Excellent)
WHITE BUTTERLY by Walter Mosley (Very Good)

These were the books that occupied my time, my thoughts, and informed my writing this year. I read a lot of Walter Mosley to get into the mood of the script I just finished. Somewhere in the process I got hooked. The ink in his pen bleeds noir. I read a lot of Hammett for his use of crime and noir conventions. This year I'd like to add a little more Stephen King and Arthur C. Clarke to the pile. To some the above list might look slight. To me, it's a tower. Admittedly I'm a slow reader. Baby steps, people! I'll post my "2009 To Read" list soon. But in the meantime...Happy New Year!