Last night I finished reading Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America by Dennis McNally (perhaps better known for his biography of the Grateful Dead), a book which I picked up for a few dollars this year at Bumbershoot. I never knew Kerouac had such a depressing life. In fact, it was pretty much over by about 1960. He sure was one strange antisemitic, christian-buddhist, hippie hating, drunk.

I’ve finished reading R. U. Sirius’ Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House, as per recommendation of Douglas Rushkoff. It’s an excellent book, which covers, as the title suggests, counterculture from the early counterculture of Socrates, Tao and Zen to the Enlightenment, Transcendentalism, Beats, Hippies, Punks, Hackers, Ravers, and even mentions S.P.A.Z.. The second part of the book (it’s split into three parts – defining counterculture, pre and post Hiroshima) reads more or less as a condensed history of the Western world.

I’ve finally finished reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo. It’s been on my bookshelf for over a year, and I’ve been reading it for about a month. For some reason it was really slow reading for me, but overall it is a good book – if slightly dated (pre Seattle and pree 9/11).

It can be summed up in a few statements:

1) Modern advertising = evil
2) Corporate outsourcing = evil
3) Reclaim the Streets, Adbusting, Culture Jamming = Good

Today I finished reading The Black Pullet, a book which discusses various amulets and rings that give the bearer power to become invisible, conjure spirits, punish their enemies – you know, the usual. An entertaining read.

I’ve just finished reading John Shirley‘s Crawlers. I picked it up expecting it to be a cyberpunk book, but it turned out to be more horror than anything else. It takes about 200 pages to get actually get into the book, but I ended up enjoying it. It reminds me a lot of some of Sean Kennedy‘s fiction.

Last night I completed reading Sybil Leek’s Diary of a Witch. Although I’m not a fan of Sybil’s writing style, the book is very interesting. It’s part biography, part rant. She covers everything from her time living gypsies in New Forest to her thoughts on reincarnation.

During MutantFest, I finished reading Hunter’s The Rum Diary. It’s your typical Hunter Thompson book, but with rum instead of drugs.

A whole lot of rum.