GOD do I hate “chick lit.”

I am filled with quiet despair, walking along the beach and seeing titles like “Mr. Wrong Now” or “Beauty and the Shoe” or some other horrible “beach reading.”

If you want disposable literature, read a magazine. If you want quirky, alternative summer reads, try one of these:

World War Z

by Max Brooks

This is an “oral history of the zombie wars.” The premise is that, after the recent zombie crisis, the author traveled all over the world and took down lots of different people’s stories.

It sounds like a dumb premise, but the book is ridiculously good. Brooks has a real ear for dialogue, so the accounts seem realistic. This is alarming to those of us who are highly suggestible. *coughmecough*

Plus, the neat thingy on the website said I have a 36% chance of survival in the event of a zombie war. Sweet!

Absurdistan

by Gary Shteyngart Read More »

Apparently, a freaky kind of shrimp wins best eyesight award.

Yeah, that’s right–the little scamp(i)s have better vision than every other freaking animal in the world. Go fig.

My favorite line in the article is “Just why Gonodactylus smithii needs this level of rarefied vision is unclear, although the researchers suspect it is to do with food and sex.” Because, really, what doesn’t have to do with food and sex?

But the article really got me thinking. I mean, I have bad vision. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was three years old. I now wear contacts, but, frankly, my astigmatism keeps them from being completely effective. But I wear ‘em anyway, because I am Vainy McVainstein. (Not to be confused with Veiny McVeinstein, who is a much less pleasant character.) But, as usual, I digress.

Here are the top 5 things I wish I could see (and which I WOULD see if God loved me and had let me be born as a shrimp):

(5) Robert Downey Jr. in his most, ahem, intimate moments. Read More »