Last year, someone gave me a (second-hand) copy of William H. Calvin's De rivier die tegen de berg opstroomt (The Dutch translation of The River that Flows Uphill: A Journey from the Big Bang to the Big Brain). Not with the intention that I should actually read it, but you know, there it was, a book with my name on the cover and an enigmatic title. Seemed appropriate. Something like that, anyway.

A couple of months ago, I put this book on my nightstand for some bedtime reading. It turns out to be the fictionalized account of a rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This trip is used as a frame to discuss earth history, evolution and all that. Which I usually don't mind reading about. But in this case, I found it become increasingly difficult to set my mind to it and read on. Right now I'm about a third in, and I'm throwing the towel.

William H. Calvin — De rivier die tegen de berg opstroomt: Een reis naar de oorsprong van de aarde en de mens

Waar komen wij mensen vandaan?

And in case you're wondering if I now should to add this book to point 22 ("Finish all books I've started in and then abandoned") in my list of 100 things: no, I don't have to. I've changed it around a bit, so number 22 now reads "Finish all books I've bought, started in and put aside before reaching the end." You may call that cheating, but I don't care. If I selected a book myself, then I should finish it. If someone gives me a book, I will do my very best to finish it, but if reading Eco's damn book taught me one thing, it's that I should loosen up a little. Reading should be fun. If it isn't, you're doing it wrong.

In the edition I've read, the 'chilling' bonus story Morality was included. Which, as you might expect, deals with the moral issues of an indecent proposal.

Stephen King — Blockade Billy

William Blakely?

H.P. Lovecraft — The Road to Madness: The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft

The horrible conclusion which had been gradually obtruding itself upon my confused and reluctant mind was now an awful certainty. — from The Beast in the Cave

Until I saw this book in a bookstore in Amsterdam, I had no clue Pullman had a new book coming out. I immensely enjoyed his His Dark Materials trilogy, and a big reason for that was the role religion plays in it. So a book by Pullman, retelling the gospels? Should be right up my alley. And it was.

In this tale, Jesus, the first born son of Mary, has a twin brother called Christ. When the former starts going around Judea telling about the coming Kingdom of Heaven, the later follows him, recording what he says. Then he meets a stranger who tells him about the difference between The Truth and history. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a story about how stories are made. And a mighty fine one at that.

Philip Pullman — The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

This is the story of Jesus and his brother Christ, of how they were born, of how they lived and of how one of them died.

And yet, there are those who claim that Lolita is one of the finest books in English literature. And I strongly lean towards the latter qualification, because Lolita is, indeed, a mighty fine book.

That my novel contains various allusions to the physiological urges of a pervert is quite true. says Nabokov in the afterword. But after all, we are not children, not illiterate juvenile delinquents … If you take Lolita at face value, sure, it is the story of a 37-year old Humbert Humbert becoming sexually involved with a teenager. But to boil it down to just that would be missing the point entirely. Make no mistake, Humbert is a pervert, but little Lolita is far from innocent. And in my mind, flawed characters are always a good basis for a captivating novel.

While the first line of Lolita can very well hold its ground as one of the best first lines I've encountered, it would be shame to cut off the rest of the first paragraph of what has been described as a record of Nabokov's love affair with the English language.

Vladimir Nabokov — Lolita

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

The most noticeable additions are the chapter on Dream Theater's latest album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and the appendix covering the side-projects of the current band members. I'm sure there are new bits and pieces here and there, but apart from the most obvious one—the first few paragraphs of the first chapter are relocated from the 2006 Radio City Hall gig to the 2009 Download festival, but the tone remains the same—I didn't notice them.

So, did I learn any shocking new facts? Well, no. Maybe they've should have waited a few more years with this update. But on the other hand, when there's a demand for a product, you'd be crazy not to deliver. It's still a damn fine book about one of my favorite bands, so I got no complaints.

Rich Wilson — Lifting Shadows: The Authorized Biography of Dream Theater (second, revised edition)

Backstage, there's a bizarrely serene scene that's in pointed contrast to the expansive fields a few metres away which are crammed with 93,000 fans josteling to secure the best vantage point of the stage.

Don't Panic isn't much in the way of a Douglas Adams biography. It tells a lot about how Adams came to write all the various incarnations of H2G2 (and most of his other work), and not a lot about Adams himself. As I'm usually more interested in the art than the artist, that's fine by me. If you happen to like Adams' œuvre—and you'd be mad if you didn't—I'd guess you'd like this book as well.

No, wait. Let me amend that: if you pick up any of the older editions, or skip the last six chapters of this fifth revised edition, you'll probably like this book as well. While the first thirty chapters are well paced and flow together (probably due to Simpson's textual overhaul), after that it grinds to halt while feeling rushed, tries to be funny (and fails) and ends with the most insipid prose I've read in a long while. It's just the sort of writing that makes me shy away from non-fiction.

Neil Gaiman (et al) — Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The idea in question bbled into Douglas Adams's [sic] mind quite spontaneously, in a field in Innsbruck.

Good Omens is a riot. Of course, I'm biased. After a few tries I got the hang of Pratchett, and Gaiman's work won me over instantly. Having both writing a book together—and a book that deals with Armageddon, angels, demons, the Antichrist, the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse and what have you, at that—should be right up my alley. And it is. Highly recommended.

Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman — Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

It was a nice day.

* "Nice" in ye olde meaninge of "scrupulously exact," to be precise. ↵

To put it short and unimaginatively: the book is Mostly Harmless. The regular cast appears, earth is once again demolished, Vogons are still the most unpleasant race in the universe, etcetera, and so on and so forth. Business as usual.

All in all, And Another Thing… is a well-crafted, faithful expansion of the series, but Colfer is—to use another terrible, terrible turn of phrase—no Douglas Adams. It's not that I expected this book to be better, or even on the same level, as the other books, as that is a very high bar indeed, but it's a bit like watching a tribute band: sure, when it's done well it might be entertaining while it lasts, but in the end it always leaves me craving the real thing.

Eoin Colfer — And Another Thing… (Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Part Six of Three

If you own a copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy then one of the last things you would be likely to type into it's v-board would be the very same title of that particular Sub-Etha volume as, presumably, since you have a copy, they you already know all about the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor.

It's a shadowy business, this trail. The crime that is committed is never revealed, the legal organization is a bureaucratic hierarchical system that defies belief, and K. isn't exactly helping himself either. He slowly works his way to his own destruction.

I'll freely admit that most of Kafka's most famous work went straight over my head. But it's not as if you had not figured that out by now.

Franz Kafka — Het proces (Der Prozess, translated by Ruth Wolf)

Iemand moest Josef K. belasterd hebben, want zonder dat hij iets kwaads had gedaan, werd hij op een morgen gearresteerd.