The Once And Future King by T.H. White

Men Who Stare at Goatsby Jon Ronson

Knight Life by Peter David

Jackdaws by Ken Follett

Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I wasn’t sure what to expect from T.H. White’s The Once And Future King, but, um, I’m pretty sure I didn’t get what I was looking for. What I hoped for was a dramatic tale of King Arthur — what I got was somewhere between serious, and farcical. The first part of the book (it was originally published as four separate novels) was actually the basis for Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, and features young Wart turning into all manners of beasts. Ultimately, while a very good book, I was disappointed and underwhelmed: I sort of did want the whole grand story of Arthur and his Knights, and it just felt too much like a morality lesson. Honestly, is there any true difference between might is right and might for right? Not really.

A legitimately bizarre book — made more so by the fact that it’s non-fiction (i.e.: TRUE!) is Jon Ronson’s Men Who Stare at Goats, which chronicles Ronson’s examinations of some of the truly strange efforts the U.S. Military has made in the field of “psychic research.” Basically, it all boils down to this: once upon a time, the U.S. deceived the Soviets into thinking that the U.S. had developed “psychic warriors” capable of using their minds to do all kinds of crazy stuff — spy, kill, etc. So the Soviets said, “Holy shit! We gotta get in on this!” and developed a psychic warfare program. When the U.S. realized the Soviets were taking it seriously, they realized they had to take it seriously, too, and all kind of whacked out hippy crazy shit occurred (including, yes, the death of a goat by a man who stared at it). The movie is only loosely based on the book.

I don’t know why, but I’m feeling a King Arthur kick for whatever reason — anyway, having finished The Once and Future King, I opted to continue my King Arthur reading with Knight Life, a humurous take on the Arthurian legend, this time focusing on his return. In New York City. To run for Mayor. David’s an imaginative writer, and the story is pretty fun and quick — Merlin’s aging has regressed him to a 10-year old kid, and most of the Camelot standbys return through assorted literary tricks: Percival (the Grail Knight), Gwen, Morgan, etc. Sure, it’s all a little inconceivable, but that’s got more to do with Arthur in the first place then it does with the book’s author.

Jackdaws was my third Ken Follett book, the first being The Pillars of the Earth (AMAZING!), and my second being Night Over Water (not so amazing, honestly). I read that latter back in December, but looking at my review for it, I think I actually left out my review: so, here it is: Night Over Water = fun, but not particularly gripping. Jackdaws however, was fantastic. A week before the Allied invasion of Europe, and it’s up to a team of female Special Operations Executive agents to infiltrate a telephone switch center and destroy it, thus disabling German communications and slowing their military responsiveness. Although sometimes it feels a bit too formulaic (switching between SOE Agent-in-Charge Felicity Clairet and her German counterpart Dieter Franck), this was a page turner — a bit under 500 pages, and I read it in two days (while working both jobs!)

I’ve been wanting to re-read Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy for a while now. It’s a collection of all of Douglas Adams’ HHGTTG books into one volume, so at 800+ pages contains The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish; and Mostly Harmless. If you’ve never read this series, it’s great. True fact: I first read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (just the first book) while I was in fourth grade for an assignment. In one day. My teachers (Ms. Schwaab) apparently assumed I’d picked too easy of a read and made me pick another book and read that (can’t recall what book I chose, so it was probably dreadfully boring — I also probably read it in a day and then lied when asked how long it took me. Why, yes, I was in Catholic school for my 4th grade year). (And despite what some people might say, I thought the film was pretty darn good!)