The moral of the story...

I don't know if you've ever read and Care Bears stories (my advice: Don't!), but they are oppressively saccharine and dull. Unfortunately I was reading one to Atty and Elora the other evening (Elora grabbed the book from the shelf for her bedtime story). This one was about Sharing. Funshine Bear (or something stupid like that) had just received a box of Rainbow Bars (confectionery, I can only assume), and wasn't going to Share. But then Share Bear told him a story of other care bears who had failed to Share, and the dire consequences of this. Mainly that the other bears didn't play with them or were sad (disappointingly, no being torn to shreds by wolves or plummeting tragically over a cliff or anything). At the end of this tale of woe, Funshine Bear decides to Share the Rainbow Bars with the other care bears. Every Share second Share flipping Share word Share in Share the Share flipping Share story Share was Share Share. Share.

So, a little sarcastically, I then asked Atty and Elora what the moral of the story was. This should be easy, thinks I; Care Bears stories really hit you over the head with the moral mallet.

"Rainbow Bars" says Atty.

The kid is a genius.

Vernon God Little

Inspired by Jen's plan to read all the Man Booker prize winning books, I bought Vernon God Little (by DBC Pierre) a while back. It finally floated to the top of my to-read list, so I figured I'd give it a go.

I always find these literary masterpieces rather daunting to start. There's a girding of the loins, a deep breath to be taken before embarking on them. I think it goes back to a lot of badly translated classics that I've read in the past - always worth a read, even though the prose flows like a river of bricks. But then, as often as not, they take me by surprise.

This was one of those ones - lyrical, intense, and at times impossible to put down. It was responsible for several very late nights and cranky following days as I stayed up reading. It's story of a teenager wrongly accused of a crime, written in the first person. It chronicles the gathering of evidence for and against him, the various people in his life - his mother and her friends, schoolmates, and others who are brought in on the tide of publicity surrounding the crime.

This is definitely worth a read, and will propel on to try to get through more of the Man Booker winners.

The Jennifer Morgue

Another Charles Stross Laundry novel, this was a lot of fun, though not quite as awesome as the Atrocity Archive. Rather than Nazis, it's James Bond, but there's still whole bunch of geekery and Lovecraft.

Definitely worth a read, and I was quite excited to hear Stross is working on the next Laundry novel, due out next year.

Ambitions

Atticus, this evening: "When I grow up, I want to be a Daddy, so I'll have a phone and I can play the games on it"