The Stupidest Angel is kind of like a TV reunion special- If you watched the original series, you’ll love the reunion. If you hadn’t seen any of the characters before, you’ll probably still enjoy it but won’t get all the inside jokes. That’s kind of how this book was for me. I had heard that the characters in The Stupidest Angel also appeared in Practical Demonkeeping; Island of the Sequined Love Nun; The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove; and Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, so I ordered these books with high hopes of getting through them all before tackling Moore’s newest. Needless to say, at the busiest time of year- I didn’t. But I still immensely enjoyed this fun, funny, eccentric novel.

I did manage to get through Practical Demonkeeping and was introduced to both Pine Cove and Moore’s style of writing. It’s like Empire Falls but make all the characters slightly insane, drunk, high, self-absorbed and introduce the supernatural. It all worked for me. I find that sometimes when authors introduce something far out there (e.g. Zombies), it can come off as unbelievable and take you right out of the story. Moore has a knack, I think, for introducing the weird, the weirder, then the weirdest and you go along with it, saying to yourself, “Ha hah haa ha haa.”

So here are my questions:

1. Has anyone read any Moore before?
2. If so, was reading The Stupidest Angel like returning home to beloved family members (or something slightly less maudlin)?
3. Did you enjoy the story? (Eh, maybe this should have been question number one.)
4. What did you think about Chapter 13?
5. Chapter 16?
6. There are lots of characters in this book; did you ever get lost or confused?
7. The ending- A total and complete cop-out or a relief?
8. The next Moore book you plan on reading because you just have to read more of [enter character’s name].

Our discussion of The Stupidest Angel kicks off tomorrow, so I’ve got some serious reading to do today since I’m only on page 118. I’m really enjoying it, by the way. It’s a welcome relief from the good cheer that always aggravatingly accompanies the holidays.

During a time-wasting bender, I poked around Christopher Moore’s web site and discovered his web log, which comes in the form of a bulletin board. He is clearly not a conventional blogger and is probably a fan of Star Trek.

[Note to self: Must create a page of links to published authors with blogs. Some links on the original post are dead, some have moved, and other authors need to be added.]

Ever since my quest for The Bad Beginning in paperback turned into a series of unfortunate events, I’ve been noticing news about the books, the movie, and Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler all over the place. It’s not surprising now that the movie is close to release. I was surprised, though, to read in this USA Today article that Handler sold the film rights before the first book was even published. Despite Handler saying, "I’m still amazed so many readers liked the books," someone out there obviously knows kids are big money-makers. I, however, might be waiting for video:

In the movie, Snicket, played by Jude Law, mostly is reduced to a voice-over and is seen only fleetingly.

That disappointed Handler's wife, "who loves Jude Law. She wanted to see more of him, more of him than they would allow in a movie for kids."

Speaking of adaptations, Kate sent me a link to the teaser for Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It looks delicious. Movie magic has improved greatly since Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka, so I hope Veruca Salt meets her end the way Roald Dahl wrote it.

Ana brought up Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven in the comments of another post, but I thought it could do for a mention on the home page. Tonight, ABC will air the made-for-tv version of our July 2004 selection at 8 p.m. EST. You might want to check it out. Or not, if you read some of the reviews.

From The Boston Globe: "It turns out that the five people you meet in heaven are going to bore you to death all over again."

From Chicago Sun-Times: "Albom has turned his slender novel into a movie so thin you can't help but see through it. For this, ABC is pre-empting 'Desperate Housewives'?"

From The New York Times: "For all of its eventual effectiveness as a weepie, 'The Five People' is too often turgid."

Although Andy hasn't mentioned it,¹ he?s listed as a contributor at Boldtype, a book review newsletter.² Not only that, but the book he covered for their October 2004 issue was Blindness, our selection for June 2003. Check out Andy's review by clicking here.³

NOTES:

¹It's not surprising that I found this out second-hand by looking at the main page for Andy's site. He's gotten too busy to answer my e-mails since he seems to be appearing^1a all over the place these days. The New York Times. MSNBC.com. Reality Blurred.

²To me, most of Boldtype's content feels more like retelling than reviewing. However, I do like the concise format since the literati often go on and on and on for thousands of words. Opinion is usually best digested when served up in small chunks.

³Although I usually like to include hyperlinks directly in the sentence first mentioning them, I separated this one because they're so hard to see. My to do list includes updating the CSS to make finding links less like looking for forensic evidence.

NOTES ON THE NOTES:

^1aSpeaking of appearances, I'd like to mention that I can regularly be spotted at work (usually right after hearing, "Miss Marydell is coming. Run!"), at my local gas station mart (purchasing my morning cup of coffee), and in front of my laptop (wasting valuable time).