Caitlin was being an awesome girlfriend, as she always is, and got me an Amazon Kindle Fire for my birthday/christmas. Having gotten it, I decided to buy a $39/year student membership to Amazon Prime. Along with having access to movies and tv shows (the content is good but not as robust as Netflix) I get access to Kindle Owner's Library and free two-day shipping on any material purchases I make on Amazon. The cool thing about the Owner's Lending library is it allows me to borrow a book a month. The list of books I have the ability to borrow is actually pretty expansive. For my first borrow, I went down the list of best sellers and saw Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner, so it can't be too bad. I just started reading it on the bus today so I will update you guys more as I get deeper into the content of the book.I have gotten about halfway through the Autobiography of Malcolm X and had to put it aside. I know, I know it's the same thing with Atlas Shrugged, but I'm just not feeling it right now. All he has been talking about is the "hustle" and "jungle fever". Just from his testimony about his young adult life, you can tell that he was a deeply intense person and never half-assed anything. I just got bored with all the drug talk. I'll get back into it sooner or later because I know it gets better.
Over Christmas break, after receiving the Kindle Fire, I ordered the graphic novel Watchmen. A lot of people will recognize the name from Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie in 2009. Everyone was still hung over from the movie 300 three years earlier and we all wanted this to be the morning bloody mary to get back into the swing of things when it came to the ultra-violent, stylized CG genre. It was good. I thought it was good. But after reading the graphic novel itself, the movie's rendition of the actual story is just outright limited in its scope. I'm not into comics, but the storyline coupled with the illustrations is just awesome. This is especially accentuated by the bright, clear screen of the Kindle Fire.
A comment on the characters and storyline: Dr. Manhattan is one of the coolest god-like characters in any story that I've read (I can't think of any other comparisons at this time because he is literally God in the book - the only difference is he isn't worshipped and he doesn't know if he has/wants a stake in human life). His episode on Mars is just wild. The other main characters get their exposure through the main plot in addition to random articles of their own writings, newspaper articles, somewhat untidy writings that end most of the chapters in the book.Not to give you a spoiler or anything....but...the climax of the book is touched upon in the second half of the Peter Joseph interview on Joe Rogan's podcast. All things aside, that podcast is pretty interesting covering the Zeitgeist movement. Ah, I digress.
All in all, check out the book. It's a graphic novel/extended comic so it is not intended for readers under 16!
I also read The Stranger on a Megabus on my ride home for Christmas break. It was a good, short novella. Came to an abrupt end, but nevertheless it's a good look into the world of absurdity.
Cheers,
Mason
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