Reading this book reminded me of reading a screenplay. I know it eventually became a movie, and you can tell from the way Chandler uses his descriptions that he had a very vivid mental image of his story. This book is important for its influence on the noir genre, and it's easy to see how the formula got so popular. I liked the underbelly of the era, and in some ways it's kind of nice to see that some things never change.

This book is a lot more interesting and more engaging than the first of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, [book: Dead Until Dark]. At its worst, it's a raunchy romance novel. At it's best, it tries to comment on minority groups in society. Harris knows how to write a sex scene, but I have trouble relating to her characters on any real level. As far as vampire protagonists go, give me the Cullens or LeStat any day over Bill and Eric. I'm looking forward to catching some episodes of Trueblood, because I think this might be a rare case where the tv show is better than the book(s).

I love Tony Bourdain. Not because he's nice, but because he's honest. There's nothing in this book that's really shocking, per se, but it's nice to read something without any filters on it. He speaks as openly about why not to order fish on Monday as he does about his heroin problem. That's refreshing.

[b:Water for Elephants|43641|Water for Elephants|Sara Gruen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170161179s/43641.jpg|3441236] is the best book I read in 2008. I could not stop recommending it to people. The narration is so singular, yet so relatable. Gruen did an excellent job bringing characters alive and giving her narrator a believable voice.

The fact that the narrator was an old man in a nursing home also reminded me of my grandfather, and in some ways, made me happy for him. My grandfather had advanced senile dementia, and at some points, the narrator loses touch with reality. It brought me great happiness to imagine my Grandaddy as the narrator for most of the story. I suppose that's why I felt like the characters were so real.

The book is interesting, well written, unique, and at times, hilarious. This is a must read!

I think a lot of things were lost in translation with this book. While I have some respect for the writing, the ending was utter crap. I felt totally let down after almost 500 pages of reading. That being said, it was certainly unique, and I liked Smilla. Other than that, I was glad that I bought this book used.