THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING by Nancy Tucker

Wow, first novels don't get much better than this. I give it 4.5 stars out of 5. I would have given it 5 stars, except I wasn't itching to pick it back up each day, and I learned in The Guardian that the story bears a striking resemblance to the Mary Bell case. Slightly disappointing that The First Day of Spring didn't all sprout from Nancy Tucker's imagination. Nonetheless, great novel! The characters were so life-life, and in parts the book is a black comedy. The jacket copy mentioned "humor and horror" — that's a good way of putting it. Can't wait for Tucker's next novel!!!

Simple Minds: LIFE IN A DAY

In the first of many Simple Minds listens, I played their first album, Life in a Day, several times. Strong debut! You can hear the Roxy Music and Boomtown Rats influence. Only song I'm deleting from my iTunes library is "Pleasantly Disturbed". Little too long and art rock for my tastes. Up next: Real to Real Cacophony.

Leftöver Crack (LOC): FUCK WORLD TRADE

New apartment I moved into has a mouse digging though in the bedroom wall (the one near where my head rests). Kept me up Friday night, so yesterday energy was lacking, therefore I went to PLyrics and listened to Fuck World Trade while reading the lyrics. Been meaning to do it for a while, since I picked up the album back in April.

LOC's Stza is a gifted lyricist, but from now on I'm mainly only going to listen the following 10 tracks:

And I like these bonus tracks:

I also dig the first six and a half minutes of the bonus track "Fuck World Trade", but I'll listen to it when I'm reading or writing. Oh, and I'm keeping the discarded tracks on my computer; while I don't want to hear 'em constantly, they'll be nice to pop up on shuffle occasionally.

Sidebar: Why did Stza even start Star Fucking Hipsters (SFH)? Fuck World Trade and SFH's first album sound similar.

THE UNQUIET by John Connolly

I decided a while ago that this would be my last Charlie Parker novel. Back in 2018, I listened to the audiobook for The Woman in the Woods. I really enjoyed it and thought that I found a Robert B. Parker replacement, so I bought the first six books in the series. I quickly grew bored with it. Almost every entry has an interchangeable antagonist who almost seems inhuman in its capacity for evil and makes life incredibly unpleasant for Parker; and to increase the suspense, there's the threat of cliched mobsters. It's a formula that gets old after a while. Plus, unlike Robert B. Parker's Spenser, I don't find the jokes funny; Parker comes across as someone who flunked comedy class quicker than Drew Carey bombing at improv night. Also, the romance between Louis and Angel feels unrealistic (Louis strikes me as a sociopath who could fuck but not love). And the paranormal backstory throughout the series annoys me with its too little reveals. But Connolly's lyrical prose is seductive, even though at times it could be edited down.

I give The Unquiet four out of five stars. Lots of surprises at the end; the pacing is really good throughout; and some characters are so lifelike, I had to remember it wasn't nonfiction. Nice book to stop reading the series at.

He was about five years older than I was, big and strong-looking, but balding badly on top, although he kept his hair cut short enough to disguise the worst of it. It was petty and childish, I knew, but I always felt a brief surge of warmth inside when I met someone close to my own age who had less hair that I did. You could be king of the world and own a dozen companies, but every morning when you started in the mirror your first thought would be, Damn, I wish I still had my hair.

Chapter IX, pages 115-116

Men, by and large, sought sex. Women traded it.

Chapter IX, p. 119

Simple Minds

Been listening to The Best Of Simple Minds a lot lately, so I picked up their first seven albums last night (up to and including Once Upon A Time). I'm $53.99 poorer . . . hopefully I don't regret it 😊

Loki

Watched the final episode last night of season one. That's one of my problems with this series. I thought it was going to be a standalone, but turns out there's going to be a season two. Also, there's was a lot to hate about it:

• Turning Loki into a hero when I think he's more interesting as a villain.
• The love angle fell flat.
• If Loki's a god, why is he so powerless most of the time?
• The fight scenes seemed out of place, like the screenwriter said, "There hasn't been any action in 20 pages. Time for some violence!"
• The last episode with who was behind everything I found to be a huge letdown (both the actor and the never-ending explanation).

I don't watch too many Marvel movies, so a lot of the plot probably went over my head. Only other thing I saw with Loki was the first Thor movie — the one Kenneth Branagh directed.

I give Loki 2 out of 5 stars. WandaVision was much better.

AMERICAN DELIRIUM by Betina González

I returned this novel to the library last night. I gave it 50 pages, but — like Queen Victoria — I was not amused. Hmm, what to read next. . . .

CONFIDENT WOMEN by Tori Telfer

All right, I'm back! I moved on Monday, June 28th. Things have finally settled down. I'm more or less moved in to my new apartment.

Finished reading this nonfiction book yesterday (subtitle: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion). I give it three out of five stars. Interesting to read about some of the swindlers, but I didn't enjoy Telfer's tone; it was very wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

One of the stories featured Robert Blake. Forgot all about that murder. Wow, was it really around 2000?

A recent psychology study found that people crave high social rank not only because it satisfies our aching need to belong, but because it gives us a sense of control, better self-esteem, and even reproductive benefits.

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