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Well - considering I just finished book 51 and well into the 52nd book now, I'm pretty sure I've almost
made it. That's right, I've almost completed something that at times has been a lot of fun and other
times been the New Year's Resolution from Hell. Unfortunately for me, I promised Sheryl I'd stick with
this column till at least next January (to catch my readers up to my December). I have enough books in
the box now that I could theoretically do it next year without buying any new books.
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne:
Probably one of the most prophetic and influential science fiction novels ever written. For everything that Verne gets wrong such as the means of powering a submarine, passages under continents and the existence of Atlantis- he finds so much that's right. The book predicts not only a large scale submarine, SCUBA technology which is pretty well known- but he also predicts the taser. However the book's two most interesting features are not the weird technology or oft meandering story. No- the heart of the book is the relationship between Aronnax and mysterious Captain Nemo. Really, the only problem I had with the book is that copy I have, a used book from the 1960s has some horrible typos or possible mistranslations in it. They are occasionally referring to the ship as He Nautilus. Conceil gets an aeock of the nerves. At one point something is two thosnad feet away. Also who can forget the one time appearance of Captain Emo. It reads almost like the translation was done collectively by a high school French II class.
And the moment you have all been waiting for . . .
- I Am Not A Cop! by Richard Belzer with Michael Black:
Ever wonder what Law and Order: Special Victims Unit would be like if it were funny? No, not like it has been for the last three seasons. I mean funny on purpose. Do you often find yourself wishing John Munch were the main character of the show? If so, this book is as close as you're going to get. More than any other character in the series, the line between Munch and Belzer has been very thin. In this book, a fictional version of Belzer must solve a murder in between shoots of an unnamed TV cop series. (The publisher Simon and Schuster is owned by CBS and not about to give the competition any advertising space than is absolutely necessary.) There are an awful lot of riffs about this throughout the book. It's also why he's the only actor from the series to actually appear. There are a few winks and nods to the rest of the cast. The book is part mystery, part comedy and part homage to all the great detective novels. It's sort of an oddball meta-fiction noir. Aside from the Meta-Belzer's personal assistant most of the characters wouldn't be all that out of place in a Coen Brothers movie: odd yes, sometimes twisted but very relatable and in some case incredibly likable.
Next month or maybe December . . . The Terror that is Book 53.
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