The Pratchett was lent to me when I ran out of other things to read in Vietnam (apart from work books and really didn't want to read work books), the Phalahniuk was a airport impulse purchase, and the Ian Rankin was a birthday pressie from my flatmate. The green self help book was another impulse purchase when I was in the shop getting a copy for my other flatmate as a 'get well' present (she'd told me about it and said she'd like it).
Pratchett and rankin were as you'd expect. The Chuck book grated a bit at first with it's dense lists of factoids assembled as paragraphs (in the section 'people together' which are mostly essays for magazines on zany cultural events), but then became more interesting for me when he weaved in more personal stories (in the section 'portarits' and 'personal'). I think the one 'Almost California' about his own experience of going to LA for the making of the screenplay of fight club and the disconnect between his wildest dreams as a writer in the past and then what it felt like having those be realised is very poignant and extremely raw, very good stuff. That junction of writer as celebrity and writer as teller of eth story behind celebrity is interesting. The stories about his dad's recent murder were amazing. That this most horrible, pointless and suddent event is just woven into a couple of the stories makes it even more powerful - like you wonder 'fuck, how can he get it together to keep functioning and concentrating on all this other stuff when that has happened?' - his processing seems all the more powerful because it is restrained.
More on 'refuse to choose' later.
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