Phone My Family. Tell Them I'm Lost.

Books I read in the Last Few Weeks: Brief Reviews and Arbitrary Ratings

1. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick – Like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone complete with “Where are they now???” epilogue.
   9 Cans of Miller Lite



2. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut – What I always thought a read-in-one-day book should be.
   9 out of 10 pieces of eight



3. Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut – I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords!
   9 buns out of a baker’s dozen



4. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – See the cat?? See the cradle????
   9 aces



5. Terrorist by John Updike – It’s as if Mr. Updike, the magnificent writer of the Rabbit Angstrom stories, of which I have read none, went to the store for hackneyed characters and bought a few. Here they are:
   
   All the Middle-eastern characters: 5 terrorists, one CIA informer
   
   The one black woman: Whore
   
   The one black man: Pimp
   
   The one Jewish guy: short, depressive
   
   The one artist: flighty, slutty, bad mom
   
   The one Older American Wife: overweight, addicted to soap operas, has a cat
   
   The one Older American Spinster: scarily devoted to her job and boss
   
   9 pieces of sand out of some Alaskan beach.



6. The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman – The book I would write if I had the time, imagination, keen wit and flair for the almost truthy that Mr. Hodgson does.
   9 facts in the whole book. Maybe less.



7. The Pesthouse by Jim Crace – Not about post-apocalyptic America, set in post-apocalyptic America.
   9 sentences written in iambic hexameter per page.



8. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling – Snape Kills Dumbledore!!!
   9 dead, 25 missing



9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling – Deathly Hallows?? More like Deathly Harvests!
   9 chapters out of 10.