One Punch Man

If you're a fan of manga, or even if you're not, you should check out One Punch Man by Yusuke Marata. The first book in the series is a collection of short stories featuring our hero, who ticks off a monster ravaging City B (there are cities A-Z, apparently, all monster-prone) by telling the monster he doesn't have a back story. One Punch Man is just there for fun.

Unfortunately for him, One Punch Man's idea of a good time is a good fight, and no one seems able to provide him with one. He's a hero with ennui and a sense of humor.

So this bald warrior isn't really Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I like to think he could be Aang in his twenties. It's an outrageous, funny comic book. I look forward to reading the others in the series.

The Pleasures of Misanthropy

Growing up, I read Florence King's column because my parents had a subscription to The National Review. She was my favorite part of the entire magazine, mostly because of her way with words. I realize now how she reminds me of Oscar Wilde, Ambrose Bierce, P.G. Wodehouse, and a touch of David Sedaris.

And I wish that I had encountered her memoir, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, years ago. I heard of this book only because she died in the first week of 2016 at age 80. She makes misanthropy funny, and is scathingly honest. She's also a conservative feminist, which is a rare bird indeed.

Don't expect to read a placid 1950s coming-of-age story a la The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (a book I truly enjoyed, BTW). Do expect sex. LOTS of sex. And a woman whose family overlooks Christmas only because of "the din made by the Different Drummer Corps that marched back and forth across the parade grounds of our minds" (205).

Be prepared, too, for a stunning third act that turns this light fluff of a biography into something more. It is poignant, sad, and cathartic. I'm adding Florence King into my list of favorite writers, and look forward to reading more of her work.

So Quotable:

On her parent's first meeting: "It was a bad start but the gin helped." - 17

"Expecting Granny to stay away from an unformed blob of female material was like expecting a cobra to stay away from a flute." - 29

"A man who wears a tuxedo while emptying the garbage at four A.M. is bound to have strange children." - 33

"Today  I admire her lack of vocation for motherhood, but at four I was convinced that she was trying to murder me." - 42

"Whether or not I went crazy is impossible to say; a maniac could hide in my family as a leaf can hide in a forest." - 45

"Dimly I sensed that a female with a personality like mine has to make sure that she looks and smells good at all times, or as Henry Adams put it: 'Those who study Greek must take pains with their dress.'" - 81

Out of all the sports after joining the Marines: "I picked riding because it gave me a chance to sit down." - 148

"I inadvertently encouraged him by laughing - at him - but incapable of discerning the difference, he soon believed himself to be the heir of Swift and Wilde." - 240 (Spoken like a true misanthrope!)

Shakespeare Wrote for Money

Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hornby is clearly running out of steam, but that doesn't prevent the last collection of his "Stuff I've Read" essays from being enjoyable. He discovers the joys of YA fiction (and reads a few of my favorites - Nick Hornby reading genre novels!), gets distracted by football, talks a little more about politics than I care for, and makes it all engaging enough to be worthwhile. As ever, he continues to add titles to my to-read list!

The "September 2006" essay was one I had read in another collection, and it was just as hilarious the second time around as Hornby skates around the fact that due to the World Cup he hadn't read any books that month. A quotation from that essay, absurd out of context but still funny: "And anyway, I was making an elementary error: I was trimming and lengthening the legs of the same ants - and this, I see now, was completely and utterly pointless: three hours of microsurgery on each ant and they all ended up the same height anyway." (Does he write or perform stand-up comedy? This essay seems like it would translate well into that medium, and the persona he builds in his "Stuff I've Read" columns is consistently likable and self-effacing.)

Jeeves Again

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bertie Wooster's tranquil existence is continually disrupted by his lovelorn friend Bingo Little, the fearsome Aunt Agatha, or an engagement with a strong-willed woman - fortunately, Jeeves is always present to smooth over difficulties.

This is probably the best collection of Jeeves stories I've read so far. They are sequenced chronologically, though technically separate stories. I found myself laughing out loud in public (sorry if you came across me and were frightened) at Wooster's turns of phrase. Jeeves doesn't walk into a room; he 'shimmers in.' Grown men don't leave a club, they 'toddle.'  People don't scarf their food, they 'shove their heads down' and go for it. Wooster's narration is charming and silly, as Wooster himself is.

The dialogue is likewise brilliant: "'What ho! What ho! What ho!' I said, trying to strike the genial note, and then had a sudden feeling that that was just the sort of thing I had been warned not to say." Bertie is always overestimating his own ability to express himself, and is usually unintelligible to other characters because of his frequent use of slang. (And Wodehouse can get dialogue and narration to tell two different stories like no other writer.)

For reading when you're sad, or for reading when you're happy, or reading when you don't know what you feel, Wodehouse has no equal.

Box

Guaranteed to entertain your cat forever.

From I Waste So Much Time.

Advice from the Future

I'm so glad I started watching Doctor Who. Because otherwise I would have no idea what he was talking about at the end there.

Found at Curiosity Counts.

Drunken Deer Nearly Hits Driver

You read that right.

Here's the original story from Nothing To Do With Arbroath.

What Would You Have Done?

I think I would have pushed the button.

Via I waste so much time.

New Technology

Yeah, this is pretty much how tech support goes.