(different cover)

From Amazon.com: Starting at chapter 47 and screaming toward ground zero, Palahniuk hurls the reader back to the beginning in a breathless search for where it all went wrong. This time out, the author's protagonist is self-made, self-ruined mogul-messiah Tender Branson, the sole passenger of a jet moments away from slamming first into the Australian outback and then into oblivion. All that will be left, Branson assures us with a tone bordering on relief, is his life story, from its Amish-on-acid cult beginnings to its televangelist-huckster end. All of this courtesy of the plane's flight recorder.

Speaking of little black boxes, Skinnerians would have a field day with the presenting behavior of the folks who make up Palahniuk's world. They pretend they're suicide hotline operators for fun. They eat lobster before it's quite... done. They dance in morgues. The Cleavers they are not. Scary as they might be, these characters are ultimately more scared of themselves than you are, and that's what makes them so fascinating. In the wee hours and on lonely highways, they exist in a perpetual twilight, caught between the horror of the present and the dread of the unknown. With only two novels under his belt, Chuck Palahniuk is well on his way to becoming an expert at shining a light on these shadowy creatures.

My thoughts: This is kind of atypical Palahniuk for it is not as gory or graphic as most of his other work. He obviously became more sure of himself as he wrote more nad more books. This is definitely a thought provoking read and recommended for Palahniuk fans.

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Sending out to Tiara RABCK Sweepstakes winner. (9/13/05)

Thank you!

RELEASE NOTES:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Thank you for sending this. It's one of the books in my 2005 challenge (new to me author) and I'm looking forward to reading it.

I found this to be a very interesing book, quite different from what I expected, but enjoyable nonetheless. I didn't quite understand what the author was going for with the backwards numbering, but other than that I enjoyed it a lot. The characterization was especially interesting and well-done, I thought.

Read my full review.

This has been sent to Apolonia to go in a m-bag for Hunnyb.

Received for Hunnyb's M-Bag. I will probably be sending this out in the next couple months.

Received today as part of M-Bag. Thanks!! :) Palahniuk is a really original writer.

Seems like I've picked up another copy of this along the way: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/2429018 so I'll bring this one along to the meetup.

I've often read that Pahlaniuk is good -- but I haven't read any yet. Looking forward to it. Thanks hunnyb!

When I'm done with this it's reserved for booberst in Rostock.

This was fun, and silly. Can't say I found it truly awe-inspiring. It did remindly vaguely, of something else a little psychologically disturbed, and not just books about cults ... the protagonist is like a very sober, dull Augusten Burroughs. Something like that.

So it seems booberst doesn't exist any more (Can this be true?) so I'm bringing it along to the Sydney meetup tonight.

Caught at the Sydney Meetup, Crown Hotel.

A bizarre novel with a lot of deaths and suicides. It's written in a sort of disjointed style. I don't know if that's intentional, for effect, or not.

Taken to Sydney meet at the Crown Hotel.

Picked up at bookdrinks and intended as holiday reading, but I ended up reading it when I was sick in bed with a cold. Maybe the cold and flu tablets made it more reasonable than the last couple of journallers.

I loved the prologue, it was the best opening I've read in a long time (since Ian McEwan's Black Dog). Sadly, it didn't really live up to its promise and some of the social commentary was rather ponderous and obvious in places - but overall I enjoyed (not sure that's quite the word, maybe "was absorbed by") it.

Given its well-travelled status, I'll try not to wild release it. I'll try and remember to take it to next meetup.

Near the crossing