Pop Culture Roundup

How long has it been since my last PCR?  I dunno, but it's been a while.  Got a few minutes to share it and so, here we go.

I finished Anne Tyler's Noah's Compass a few days ago via our library's free audiobook system.  It was my first experience with Tyler, and I enjoyed it, though the book itself certainly wasn't life-changing.  I kept waiting for the big moment, the denouement (thank you, Mrs. Heier and Mrs. Sundell!) wherein I would understand the larger narrative arc that was going on in the midst of the story.  It never came.  From what I've read, this is a common feature of Tyler's writing, which makes me a bit cautious about trying another.  We'll see, I guess.

Now I'm on to Kraken by China Mieville.  This is certainly a change of pace from Anne Tyler.  On first listen, Kraken reminds me of a cross between Neil Gaiman's two masterful novels Neverwhere and American Gods.  The narrator even sounds like Gaiman doing his own work narrating Neverwhere, which is fantastic in my humble opinion.  Anyway, the basic plot involves a museum curator who specializes in mollusks discovering that the world's best-preserved giant squid has been stolen.  He is subsequently dragged into the underground conflict surrounding that squid, its worshipers and a host of other characters far too bizarre to spoil here.  Suffice it to say that if you liked Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar from Neverwhere, you're going to love this book.

I'm continuing to journey through the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan - currently I'm reading Crossroads of Twilight, with hopes of finishing the published works in the series before the next volume is released in November.  Stephen King once noted that Jordan's picture of how this series would develop was insane.  I dunno about that, but I fervently hope that the ghostwriter who's finishing the series does it well - I'd hate to invest this much time in a series to wind up as disappointed as I was in the last two volumes of The Dark Tower.

On the telly, Sons of Anarchy is back, and picking up right where it left off.  I'm really beginning to love this show.  I imagine much of what I love is due to the superior talent within the cast:  I'm no biker, but I believe with every ounce of my TV-watching eyes that these folks are exactly who they seem to be.  It's gritty, it's human, and unlike Grey's Anatomy or many of the other navel-gazing shows popular at the moment, I don't feel like kicking Jax or Tigg or any of the Sons in the nads on a weekly basis.  With other seasons starting in coming weeks, I'm very much looking forward to Fringe, Big Bang Theory, NCIS and CSI getting rolling again.  Beloved has gotten hooked on White Collar, but I also got her on Fringe this summer, so in coming weeks we'll be furiously working through Season 2 on DVD so we can enjoy Season 3 together.

We haven't caught many movies this year.  Dropping upwards of $50 when you figure babysitter, tickets, soda and popcorn means we will watch a lot of stuff on DVD, but even then by the time we get the girls into bed we're usually too tired to make it through a movie.  So I really can't comment on anything movie-wise at the present, though I'm hoping to catch Inception at the matinee tomorrow if I can get teh Sermon rolling early in the morning.

If you've got good recommendations for books/movies/TV/music, let me know!

Grace & peace,
Scott