jstilts's reviews
116 reviews

Well I s#!t all over Benjamin Stevenson's "Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone" but both novellas in this book are fantastic!

The slightly faster pace made these books more gripping for me, and while I'd say the mysteries are less labyrinthine they are incredibly gripping - "Find Us" is as an unusually refreshing combination of police procedural and vigilante parent that is as twisty as they come but incredibly satisfying for it, the major twist is good enough that I want to read the book again with fresh eyes - and I can think of no higher praise for a mystery novel than that.

"Last One To Leave" has Movie Adaptation written all over it - it's a fun setup for a murder mystery that I'd be surprised if it hadn't been done before, but I can't imagine it's been done so engagingly - it's YouTube gameshow format has you rooting throughout for the lead both to win, survive AND solve the crime.

I completed both novellas in a day apiece, which isn't so much about their length as how compelling I found them. Highly recommended!

A short and genuinely practical guide to finding happiness through purpose, serenity through slow mindful action, long life through food and movement, joy through connectedness, and comfort through keeping in the present.

A wonderfully curious and slightly rambling book that essentially follows the life of the author John Keel as he investigates strange happenings and his attempts to rationalise them, before eventually being caught up in them himself - ending in the very real tragedy of the Point Pleasant Silver Bridge disaster of 1967 that resulted in the deaths of 46 people.

Keel lays out an endless stream of anecdotes, interviews, research and his own witnessing of people's encounters with a strange winged man, with UFOS and their occupants, with unsettling men in black, mysterious phone calls, hypnotizing lights, stange voices and unsettling prophecies. His wit and self-depreciation carry the book along enough for you to realise he is more critical of these unexplained phenomena than you might expect - entire chapters dedicated to a series of connected incidents that hint to a strange truth are often deconstructed and denounced by the end, inconsistencies are held up as evidence of hoaxing or given unexpected alternative theories.

At one point Keel denounces the whole thing as "idiocy piled upon idiocy" - but then he finds himself no longer just investigating strange events, he is caught up in them himself, a long series of paranoia-inducing games that could have cost him his sanity.

While called "The Mothman Prophecies" you will find about 10% of the book covers Mothman (especially early on) about 5% covers the prophecies (especially late in the book) and the remainder is more concerned with the mysterious men who harass people after they encounter UFOs and the like, who may be responsible for the UFOs - which themselves may be hallucinations caused by these same odd people whose nature and purpose may be sinister or simply hard to comprehend.

Whether you believe or not, this is a seminal work of investigative journalism into the unexplained that is for the most part an absorbing read. It can get a bit repetitive as Keel has lots of information to present, and it could also be improved (one day?) by fully referencing his work to original statements if indeed his work survives. It would be a huge volume, but would make it even more of an essential work for anyone interested in the world of the strange.

Well, this is embarrassing as I'm interviewing the author soon - I'm going to read at least three more of his books before then so pray for me! Hopefully, as a comedian, he'll see the funny side in this.

Basically I was surprised to find I didn't really enjoy this murder mystery book, as it seems to have become an absolute phenomenon, with TV adaptations and multiple sequels and rave reviews with the general public! For me I didn't find the light tone particularly funny, there were a few too many similar main characters (I could never get Erin, Katherine and Lucy straight in my head), the mystery-of-the-past being unravelled was incredibly labyrinthine and itself prone to unnecessary twists (even up to the final page post-solution) and frankly I didn't really care enough about it compared to the present-day murders (which, unfortunately for me, were obviously intrinsically linked). I mean kudos to the author for working this all out but I needed a whole wall with red string connecting people and times and places and motivations and how they changed.

The book makes a big deal out of following a set of rules and deconstructing and mocking the genre - which is fine, it's more than ripe for it - but somehow this peek-behind-the-curtain  wasn't very interesting to me and kind of took the fun out of what was left while not even really sticking to the *spirit* of the rules anyway. Probably if the rules were not constantly referred to this wouldn't have bugged me so much - it was like it was trying to be clever at the expense of being engaging.

Bad sign: when the murderer's identity was revealed I actually physically rolled my eyes (there should be a LOL'd equivalent for that - RME's?). Looking back it's probably the smartest thing about the book (and I reckon it'll play GREAT on the television adaptation) but with the rest of the plot being so hard to chart I was all out of patience for another wrinkle. Considering the whole book is about interpersonal dramatics and this is a big moment, I can't believe the rest of the characters were so blasé about it! Surely now is the time for extreme emotions and OTT reactions! It's one of the few times I can confidently say the book made a genuine mistake rather than just being not for me.

Possibly this book may have been on a hiding to nothing with me because I'm not really interested in family dramas (had too much of that in real-life thanks) - and this is ALL family drama ALL the time. If I were to write a positive review I'd call it "a juicy family murder mystery where secrets of the past must be unravelled before something something something".

On the positive side: it eventually grabbed me enough to make me see it through, there was one GUT PUNCH of a memory of a death about halfway through that brought a tear to my eye, and I did laugh occasionally. I don't buy the last minute romance though, but I was amused the most by their interactions throughout the book.

So my two star rating might be a little harsh, but honestly if I didn't have to read it for an interview I might have given up early. Sorry Ben!

It does what it sets out to do - present factual material on the Point Pleasant Mothman sightings of the 1960s, which - regardless of your beliefs of what was really going on - certainly had a very big impact on the people of the city at the time. The book consists of a potted history of Pt Pleasant from 1770s onwards, eyewitness reports written in the days after the original sightings, a very large number of newspaper clippings, personal correspondence between author/investigator John Keel and his contacts in Pt Pleasant - and most interesting - a recent interview with the primary eyewitness Linda Scarberry that differs slightly from her original account.

While these historical documents are presented plainly (often scans of the originals alongside the typed transcript) a little context would have been appreciated: who took down and stored the original eyewitness accounts - John Keel, the police, someone else? The newspaper clippings are often undated, and a timeline to go with them would have helped. Strangely the Silver Bridge collapse is barely mentioned and doesn't feature in the clippings aside from a passing comment in an obituary. The letters from John Keel fair a little better, but a timeline would have helped greatly here too.

I appreciate the authors ideal to present the materials without conjecture, but there's nothing wrong with adding a little context. With the historical documents so well presented it would have been easy to visually seperate the documents from a narrative.

In summary: despite it's shortcomings this book is worth getting just for the fascinating recent interview with Linda Scarberry (and her original eyewitness account). It's a touching interview that casts a new light on the whole affair, and gives us a very human connection to the strange events that created such a sensation in the city and in the press.

It's rare I get through a non-fiction book so quickly, and I was a little surprised as this book - first published in 1975 - alternates between being quite dry and oddly jovial but in a very old-fashioned kind of way, so not an obvious page-turner.

Indeed it's slow to start as it covers the ENTIRE making if the movie starting with purchasing the rights for the book through to the first test screenings - but it becomes quite compelling from about Chapter 4 onwards when it becomes clear to the reader and the crew that nobody had ever made a film like this before, with challenges that just couldn't be properly planned for.

It's not an entirely satisfying book - way too much is crammed in to go into as much annecdotal detail to truly bring it to life, and coming from just one voice gives the whole book too much of the same flavour.

Nevertheless this is still essential reading for anyone who has ever been interested in what goes in to making a movie, especially a movie as great as this and as insanely ambitious in how it was shot. Almost any one incident in the shooting of this for any other movie would make you go "wow, what a crazy thing to happen, lucky that movie ever made it to the screen!" but here it's an endless stream of wild occurrences that should have ruined the movie or resulted in the death of cast, crew or destruction of finished film, sets and equipment.

A charming little book of short repetitive-in-structure tales of people wandering into a library just as they are at a turning point in their careers, and indirectly finding the inspiration they need to make a wise choice from the slightly unearthly librarian.

As with similar Japanese books the structure may stay the same but you see it differently through the fresh eyes and differing perspectives of the starring character of each story, keeping the book fresh yet cosily familiar - and eventually the stories, set in a small ward, start to overlap in pleasing little ways. It's rather a shame when it all comes to an end - while it took a few chapters to warm to this book, I could read more and more.

A strange book full of foreboding, less a coming-of-age than a very strange turning point in a thirteen year old Australian boys life. Michael spends ANZAC day missing his family, pondering his transitional phase from boy to man, exploring a beach with a mysterious younger girl - and being pursued by the awful town bullies.

An almost stream-of-conciousness book filled with dread, confusion and wonder - and never quite going in the directions you expect it to. While this is presumably aimed at teens of Michaels age, it's tense and complex and unexpected - definitely worth reading by adults.

A comic book about 3 people trying to make a comic book - pretty straightforward relationship stuff, but quite touching in the end.
 
There's love, grief, obsession, corporate greed, guerrilla marketing and a sort of coming-of-age - except the age is probably around 30!

Reads like a true story, but turns out this is a loose graphic novel sequel of sorts to the novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by a different author who writes an introduction to this. It's completely stand-alone though, I only discovered this when trying to work out why it's called "Michael Chabon's The Escapists" when Michael only writes the introduction.

That introduction also reads like a true story - a touchingly funny anecdote about a close-to-blind man getting lost in a hotel looking for the bathroom - but is also fiction, and makes me want to read the original novel now.

Probably not the right book for me, I've never read a "regular" issue of Archie, so a "What If" comedy was never going to land for me.

Still, even taking that into account this is pretty lightweight stuff, and I can't see it being much more funnier nor interesting than it appears to be - which isn't very much.

Full of objectification "jokes" too, which is pretty yawn.