The Last Detective Alive by John Swartzwelder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Just fuckin’ read it. I am totally making a bold claim: Swartzwelder is the English language’s ONLY true comedy novelist. Other people write funny books, but I’ve never read anyone who uses jokes and gags to drive the story as opposed to having some sort of plot or connection to reality.
I have nothing to else to say about this book. Except that I started looking at the books “Readers Also Enjoyed” and was very confused.
Organic Gardening by Jeff Hamilton: Er, okay. This book has absolutely nothing to do with gardening, organic or otherwise. Also, what is non-organic gardening? Isn’t that making robots? Robot plants? How is a plant not organic? Maybe I just have low standards, which is why I’m banned from Whole Foods. That or because I insist anything unwrapped is sample-able.
Sartre For Beginners: Unless it beginners with how to say his name without being some kind of saying things snob, pass.
Sailing Fundamentals: I already know these. You get on a boat, put up the sail, and then when you’re done screwing around, use a motor and come back to shore.
Database In Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners: “Relational Theory” is not anything like that book The Game that tells you how to confuse hot babes into sleeping with you. Just thought I’d save some of you a bit of time.
Tournament Poker for Advanced Players: Does anyone who plays poker read these sorts of books? Cards only exist because they were the closest thing we had to Nintendo before we had Nintendo. Now we have Nintendo. Several kinds of Nintendo, in fact. Fuck Cards.
The Way To Make Wine: How To Craft Superb Table Wines At Home: A German foreign exchange student at my high school, who lamented that he could not drink here, left some orange juice in the car for like 3 weeks and came out with a wine-like product. Yet somehow, this book is 300 pages.
Some Stuff By Noam Chomsky: This is the modern Ben Franklin. By which I mean, just make up a quote that says what needs saying, attribute it to Noam. Also, I just want to point out there’s a guy out there named Noam, which is pronounced like “gnome.” I’m still waiting for a famous person named Owlbear or Displacer Beast or Gelatinous Cube.