David Pratt (4)Anmeldelser

Bob is a gay book looking for the love of his life. It’s a fun concept, a quick read, and a good allegory for life, love, and relationships. The story shows we don’t always get what we want, or we find it in a way that’s unexpected. Equally, it says that what we want isn’t necessarily the best thing for us or even what we need. And I’ll never be able to look at a book with a broken spine the same way again.

Dark and deliciously twisted.

Todd Sweeney just wants to take care of those around him, especially his friend Toby. When he learns of what he went through in a re-education center, he takes matters into his own hands to protect him. Along with his love interest, Nelly, they hatch a plan to save their friends, one dark plan at a time.

I loved this modern remake of a classic. This book with filled with dark humor, action, and romance. This is not your typical YA horror.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Pratt’s My Movie is not a “light” collection; I fondly remember Bob, the Book, apparently an easy/comedy like romance about a book falling in love for another book, but even that one had some committed undertone that the most attentive reader could catch. This is what I found again in My Movie, but in a more important dose. Truth be told, My Movie seems to me more “fantasy” than Bob, the Book, but not since it’s a traditional fantasy novel, but since we are mostly inside the minds of the narrative voices, and those voices are happy, scared, young, old, and all of them give you their perception of the world.

The My Movie of the title without doubt refers to the recurrent element of the “movie” in the short stories, but it’s also a way to explain that what we are “seeing” is the movie of the main characters, their story like in a private screening. Most of the time there is no recollection of the setting or the time, but simple since, when “you” are thinking, you don’t describe the outside world, you “are” in that world, no need to describe it to yourself. So that is the feeling, looking at things through the eyes of who is living them.

Another recurrent point is the past time; some of the story are between the ’70 and ’90, pre-and-during the apex of the AIDS plague, maybe since people before were more innocent, and people after couldn’t forget. AIDS changed the lives of many, and broke the lives of many others, and who survived was never again the same.

So no, you will probably not have the same smile I had while reading Bob, the Book, but you will nevertheless experience something of important, David Pratt’s own movie life.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0983285179/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Short stories exploring nuanced theme--the sense of how these other guys are the way you're supposed to be, but know you're not, and know that others know you're not; the edges of intimate relationships where our unspeakable secrets are already understood. In many ways, each of these stories circles around something that can't be or merely isn't said, and the effect often is satisfyingly poetic.

But other times it fails, and the repetition of these themes makes you think, "Haven't we been over this before?" The post-modern "Calvin Gets Sucked In" was cute, but fell flat, and the fable of the trees with intertwined roots just seemed clumsy in comparison to "The Island," "Series" and "The Addict."

Good work, but much of it of its time, not offering much that's fresh and different.

I just finished reading "Bob the Book" and I loved it. Witty, charming and just plain cute. The personalities ot the books are right on and shine through just as you would expect (as if you could have any expectations about the books in this book). The one upmanship between the dictionary and the thesaurus is priceless. The story of the book burning survivor is harrowing but uplifting.
Can't wait for David Pratt's reading from his book on September 8th in the GLCC Library. We have a few copies left for sale ($16/each).

I'll never through out another book again (as if I've ever done that).

I can easily see why this book won the Lambda Literary Award for best debut fiction for 2010.

I cannot find enough good words to praise this book, it’s most likely one of the best book I read this year, one of the most sweet, romantic and well plotted book, with not one, not two, not three, not five, but six happily ever after!

Bob the Book is the story of a gay non fiction book on vintage pornography. He is an interesting book, with nice pictures, but truth be told he is not selling as good as the more glossy photobooks on some male p**nstar or the various calendars. But Bob has a nice character, he is a bit haughty at first, but then, weeks after weeks on the shelf of a gay bookstore, he starts to understand how things are going and above all, he falls in love with Moishe, another non fiction book on Orthodox Jewish gay men. It’s very unlikely that they will be sold together, but in the meantime they are enjoying their romance.

When Moishe is bought by a straight woman researching for her own thesis, and Bob by a book lover, the torture of separation is almost unbearable, but Bob’s positive attitude will help him to find the good side of the event. From this moment on Bob’s adventures in the outside world start: he is first bought by a book lover who cherishes him but he has to sell his loved books to pay for his life-saving medicines; on a second hand book market, Bob will meet Angela, a paperback version of Mansfield Park, and Neil, a skinny book on gay poems. Both Angela than Neil lost their lovers, Angela to a flood in which her husband drowned, and Neil to an homophobic fire.

In his adventures Bob and Neil will meet different characters, both human than books: the gay man who doesn’t believe in romance but only since he has never been able to find it, the buddy friends who aren’t able to admit they are in love with each other, the young gay man who doesn’t want to admit he is in love probably fearing to be hurt; among the books they will meet classics and paperbacks, the how to do manual and the playwright. From all of them we will learn something, above all to respect the books, any type of books, even those apparently less important, even on those books you can find something worthy to be read.

This novel is funny, sweet and romantic. I was captivated both by the book than the human characters, it’s impossible for me to distinct the feelings, for all of them I wanted an happily ever after and the authors gave to almost all of them once.

It’s clear the author is a booklover as well, since he made me really thinking to my own books, if I’m treating them well, since they have a souls and you need to respect them. But with me the books are safe, I’m not only a bookaholic, I’m also very jealous of them, and more they are old more I love them. I rescued an encyclopedia (yes an encyclopedia, more than 40 volume) from a second hand market only since it was more than 50 years old: it was in English and the market was in Italy, no one would have bought it. I picked up three books from a street trash can since they were old: a scientific schoolbook (and I hate science), a prayer book (and I’m atheist) and a oscure novel, but they were almost 100 years old and I couldn’t bare the idea of them going through the shredder. I fell in love for a series of books on historical families (like Stuart, Hohenzollern, Hohenstaufen, Medici…), they were 33 volumes printed around the ’50 and ’60; the publisher closed down in the ’70, the books are almost impossible to find; I was able to find 31 volumes, and I’m still searching for the missing 2. After reading this book, I’m glad to think that maybe I’m helping some books to find a peaceful resting place in my bookshelves, and maybe some romance are blossoming right now.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984470719/?tag=elimyrevandra-20