Books by the Cold Pool

I like to read books. I read a whole bunch of 'em whilst I was vacationing by the Cold Pool as it is always and forever referred to in my house. It's not in my house, mind you. Or even at my house. I don't have a pool. The Cold Pool is in Vegas. And I like it there. Here's a picture of the Cold Pool.

Those are my hideous feet.

So one of my absolute favorite things to do is to sit by the Cold Pool and read books in between getting in and out of the Cold Pool. This summer I read all the rest of Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt vampire detective novels.

There are 5 books in all and I found them to be immensely entertaining, although not quite as hardcore cool as Huston's Jim Thompson trilogy (Caught Stealing, Six Bad Things, and A Dangerous Man). It's good old fashioned pulp with a nifty vampire twist. I like the fact that it's a finite series and that each book builds off the previous one and keeps tweaking the status quo. And Huston's got a great ear for hardboiled tough talk. Really ugly book covers though.

The other book I read by the Cold Pool is Game Change by a couple of political writers from Time and Newsweek or something.

I don't generally read political books that aren't written by Al Franken, but this book was fascinating. It's a behind the scenes look at the 2008 presidential primary and general elections. The book follows the Obamas, the Clintons, The Edwardses and the McCains (and to a lesser extent the Palins) from before the first primary right on through to election day. Everybody comes out pretty bad except the Obamas. I was really surprised at the extent of some of the revelations in this thing. Apparently, Bill Clinton has never really stopped fooling around. Everybody knows it's going on and just kind of ignores it. Him and Hillary have a really weird relationship. There's mutual respect and affection there, but they seem to do a lot of staying the hell out of each other's way and communicating via intermediaries. The McCain's relationship isn't much better. Affairs all around. And interesting to see just how completely half-assed his campaign really was. Edwards, it turns out, is just batshit crazy and completely out of touch with reality. The chapters dealing with him and his wife and his hair are jaw-droppingly hilarious. And a tad scary, when you think how close to high office this nutbag was. Nothing new about Palin here really, since all her nuttiness was pretty much on display and picked apart by the press while the world watched in horror. Only the Obamas come off smelling all daisylike. The one sort of negative thing is that the guy seems too have almost too much self-confidence. He does really kind of like himself a lot. But gee, I'd like myself too if I was that cool. Anyway, good book. Easy read by the Cold Pool. My girl liked it too and she's a dang foreigner.

Go on and get readin' something then!