The unabridged audiobook is cool, read by the Man himself. Almost like having a conversation.

I wasn’t expecting an engrossing, believable novel from the inventor of Sparkly Vampires, but that’s what The Host is. She took the idea from Invasion of the Body Snatchers: parasites infest the human race, and only a few people hold out. The POV is from one of these parasites, Wanderer, who can’t seem to shut out the human’s voice. So she follows her pleadings to her former lover, and finds a small cache of settlers hiding in the desert. Definitely recommended.

I avoided this one b/c of the title, but it’s one of the better books to be honest.

Another Incarnation of Immortality book. It’s the raunchiest of them all; plot’s not bad either. If you’ve read the other books – this one’s all about Nox.

I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a YA book, or just an adult book about teens. It was, granted, hard to put down, but so is a bag of cheap potato chips.

Really shoulda been called The Cocaine Diaries. I mean, it was pretty obvious to me that there was a far worse problem with smoking crack and shooting up coke than the heroin. Although both were bad for Nikki. Coke was a lot more prevalent and acceptable in this rock star’s world, though, so no one ever said “You have a coke problem” even though he constantly saw (for example) Mexicans climbing over his fence to break into his house. Countless stories of cocaine psychosis, but because everyone else was doing a ton of blow, Nikki and everyone else assumed that being a junkie was his problem. Oh well. I’m glad he’s doing better.

This is more of a callback to Kitchen Confidential, unlike his last few books, which I felt were more travelogues. Nothing wrong with a good travelogue, but a memoir has more depth and feeling. Bourdain’s years spent traveling have definitely changed him for the better, although the core of cynicism is still present. Still, he’s aware of how lucky he was, and is. And also, that being a dad means you are automatically uncool. I don’t know that I’d go that far in this case, but I’m sort of regretting not taking the opportunity 3 years ago to have a torrid affair. Oh well.

Charlotte can’t figure out if she wants a divorce or not, and is sleepwalking through a life narrated by John Goodman in her head. Her new friend introduces her to the insane world of Roller Derby, and having rules of conduct helps her break free. Another home run from Pamie.

Written in 1996, some of the predictions are scary. Some other things, like Lawrence vs. Texas, are good news, along with a lot of states medical marijuana laws. And sadly, terrorism happened again in the US, and got a lot of attention. But in general, War On Some Drugs is still going on in a terrible way, and the number of people still being incarcerated or what have you is depressing.

Jack is a professor who keeps his mind when he’s transformed during a viral outbreak of zombification. He goes out in search of others like him, a smart zombie army, and then they try to find the man who created the virus. This first-person story is littered with cynicism, sarcasm, and pop-culture references. Hilarious.