This is what I do when there is stuff floating in my head tht I really should talk about....like Jarrod's painful message yesterday on myspace about missing his Uncle Kent.And Kelli's big news...and the ex who is in prison.And how things have gotten so stressful on some ends I need a break.
                                        But I refuse.
So...meanwhile back on the ranch...


                        Here are a couple of books on my required reading list.These are books I own,couldn't put down,and reread in times of strife and abject boredom.I highly reccomend them...most are nonfiction,with a few noteworthy exceptions.

                                       
                                        DISCO BlOODBATH:
                   a Fabulous but True Story of Murder in Clubland
                             (Taken verbatim from book jacket)

When was the last time you read a story about murder and degradation that made you laugh out loud? When was the last time you read something that you just had to share with somebody and soon had you reading passages aloud? When was the last time you read something that was so startling that it made you think, "My God, not only am I not in Kansas anymore, I'm not even sure what planet I'm on!"

Well, welcome to the world of Disco Bloodbath, and the crazy, maddening, terrifying, bizarre, and totally charming people who inhabit it, doing all sorts of unspeakable things to each other -- and to themselves -- all in an effort to keep ennui at bay just for one more day.

Disco Bloodbath is a dazzling, dizzying, amazingly vivid, and startlingly fresh look at a subculture that for several years pranced its hedonistic way across the dance floors of New York City's trendiest clubs. It is also perhaps the funniest book about a murder you will ever read. Like its author, who experienced it all and has lived to tell the tale, it's a true original.

When self-proclaimed king of club kids and party promoter extraordinaire Michael Alig was convicted in November 1996 of killing a drug dealer known as Angel, a spotlight was trained on a world few people even knew existed. Author James St. James knew that world, of course; in fact, he was one of its creators. He also knew the rules, knew them inside out, because he helped write them. And while it was a life and a lifestyle in which just about anything was acceptable so long as it wasn't boring, murder was considered a no-no. So when Alig confessed his part in the crime to St. James, our author knew that there could be no going back -- and that this time the party really was over.

Now, in this unflinching tell-all book, James St. James leads the reader into the bizarre, almost surreal universe of abandon and gender-bending amorality, decadence, and drugs that he knew so well. And in a writing style as addictive as any drug, he details the rise and fall of Michael Alig, a kid from South Bend, Indiana, who burst on the downtown scene in the 1980s and quickly rose to the top as the mastermind of parties so outrageous that they became the stuff of legend.

                                               


From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Lavender, writer and online publisher of the parenting zine Hip Mama, holds nothing back as she recounts her life spent in and out of hospitals and her subsequent dissociation from her own body and emotions. She struggles with health problems from birth, which are compounded by her surroundings, including frequent encounters with street fights, domestic violence and poverty. Her voice is as strong as the front she puts up for the multitude of doctors she sees, and it's hard not to be in awe of what one fragile human being can withstand in the course of such a short lifetime (Lavender is now 35). Before Lavender has graduated from high school, she's endured cancer of the throat and skin (diagnosed as terminal at one point), cysts requiring massive jaw surgery, life-threatening allergies, internal infections and a major car accident resulting in multiple serious injuries. While Lavender herself steers far from any sort of self-aggrandizing, and her prose is somewhat inexpert, witnessing her strength and sheer determination to live makes this striking book completely engrossing. When questioned once about how she sees herself, Lavender explains, "primary identity is found in my body, in the scars, in the injuries and injustice and disease and decay." Lavender's struggles continue as she faces childbirth and recurrent health difficulties, but as her challenges grow, so does her strength to meet them, and this unforgettable memoir ends with Lavender's desire to "live as much as possible while I have the time."


   Relatively short at 160 pages,this is an amazing book about an amazing person.Instead of wallowing Bee presents her narrative with wry humor and a matter of factness seen rarely in memoirs.Even just searching it for quotes had me enthralled once again....

Extras:
Memorable Quote:
**Don't cry,because your tears will dissolve the adhesive of our armor.Don't cry,because you need to fight.**

An excellent interview with Bee is here.
Another book Bee recomends is : Hazel Wolf: Fighting the Establishment