Dexter in the Dark

Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 303


Next time I make the list, I need to shuffle it up before finalizing. Three murder mysteries in a row is kind of much, especially coming this soon after the Ted Bundy book.


This one wasn't bad however. It really felt like the Showtime series. At least the characters of Deborah, Dexter and Rita did. The relationship Dexter had with Rita's kids was definitely different, and kind of his relationship with Deborah was too, because it seemed she new more of his true nature than she does on TV. It probably means that I need to read the first two books in the series to see how this developed. But not this summer. After reading the book I pulled up a couple of plot summaries to make sure I didn't miss anything major, and I saw where it said this was the first Dexter book not entirely in first person Dexter point of view, as it also included sections from the point of view of The Watcher and IT. To tell you the truth, those were the sections I could have done without. And also this book was too much in Dexter's head for my tastes. I would rather the characters be doing things than one character thinking about things and me having to read his thoughts. Even though this one had a better story and better characters, I still tend more to liking Kinky's writing style more because it was straight forward plot driven, and no internal monologs.


3,312 pages in 29 days for an average of 114.20. 


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Murder in the White House

Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 235
After the first couple of pages I was coming up with one line reviews to cover this whole book;
"You know those conversations you hear old people having and can't believe anyone in the world would find them interesting, this book was just a boring old person conversation." and "This book would have never been published if she were not a president's daughter." &t.
But, it got better. The dialog was really good and kept the story going. The details and plot action, eh, not so much, but it was a good quick read. I really have no complaints. Well, except for the first two or three pages. Those were pretty awful. And the fact that the chapters were so long. Two were over 40 pages, and one was over 60. Ok, so I have two complaints. Three if you count how boring the stuff that wasn't dialog was. 


3,009 pages in 26 days for an average of 115.73. 


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Greenwich Killing Time

Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 166


I liked this book a lot. Kinky does something in his books that I find really awesome. He takes himself, and then makes himself the main character of a the novel, but completely fictionalized. Which honestly I think is what most people do, they just change the character's name, which takes away the awesomeness. Instead of saying "I like detectives I will right a story about one name 'blah, blah, blah," it is like he said,"I would make an awesome detective, and this is what I'd do." The only other book I have read by him is Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch, and that one involved three plots with Kinky trying to solve them all, whereas this one only had one plot. Now, I am trying to figure out what that means. Normally, I would guess it is assumed as someone becomes a better writer, they can integrate more plots and twist into the story and give it more depth, but I think at least with this style, that writing a full length novel around one story line is going to take more work and creativity. I don't know. If I ever see Kinky again I may just ask him. (That last part was intended as a joke, but thinking about it, I guess it isn't out of the question that I will see him again. I mean, just hanging out at the right cigar stores in Texas should really boost my chances.) Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch, had a little bit more crassness in it, and a little bit more of Kinky's personal life in it, which I think comes with him just being more comfortable putting himself into the novel, but I give this one an A+, and I decided while reading it, there really is no way that I can say what my favorite book of the summer is at the end, because every time I have been reading a book (except for Alda's) I have been thinking "This is the best book yet!" so me judging wouldn't really work. I can say that I liked it more than Duma Key, which is currently in 3rd with Flow My Tears and this one tied for first.


And here I am with Kinky a couple of years ago.

2,774 pages in 26 days for an average of 106.69. (About 1 page per day behind schedule.)


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 611 pages


I did not like this book. At all. It wasn't all commencement speeches, but there sure were a lot of them. It has been over 5 years since I read Alda's other memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, but I do remember really liking that book. This one just seems like the leftover. The stories that weren't good enough to get into the last book, speeches to make the book longer, and anecdotes to make the speeches seem to fit into the story.



2,608 pages in 21 days for an average of 124.19.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Duma Key

Duma Key - Stephen King; 611 pages

First off, it took me more days to read this book than I expected it to take me to read any of the books. I was on pace to finish it on Saturday, but I had a conference to go to in Louisiana Sunday, and that mucked up Saturday. Then, you know what, the time spent in Louisiana was better spent not reading. However, I did get a couple hours reading time on the airplane, and now that I am back, I finished this book up.

I have to say the first 400 pages or so, I was enjoying the heck out of it. But as it drug along, I was really just wanting it to be over. Really, it reminded me of a Goosebumps book for adults, and that aspect isn't really a criticism; I enjoyed it. But after the first 400 pages, I was really ready for the action, and though the last 200 pages were action packed, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed the set up. Up until the end, I was thinking this might beat out Flow My Tears as the new lead in best book of the summer, but Flow My Tears still stands in a steady, uncontested first place.

2,384 pages in 20 days for an average of 119.2.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 231 pgs


So far, this definitely has to be my favorite book of the summer, which I guess is somewhat surprising to me, because so far it is the only book on the list by an author I haven't read before, and the only book I started without any expectations for at all. The main thing I liked about Dick's writing style is he pretty much only wrote exactly what was needed in the book to prolong the plot. That is a huge deal to me while reading. It is the reason I loathe anything I have ever read by J.R.R. Tolkien, because his books are just filled with useless nonsense, wasteful descriptions, and he rarely, if ever gets to the point (now, this opinion may seem to be in contrast to the glowing review I gave of Moby Dick, but the purpose of that book was to give the reader the experience of being a whaler, and to do that, the reader needed extensive knowledge of whaling.)


At the beginning of the story there were terms and concepts I didn't understand at all, (sixes, etc.) and I was worried that I needed to be familiar with Dick's earlier works to understand what was going on, but in due time in the book, all of my questions were answered, and I finished the book happy and satisfied. 


1,773 pages in 13 days for an average of 136.38.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

The Stranger Beside Me

The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 627 


This book was about Ted Bundy, written by a former coworker, and close acquaintance, Ann Rule. Spoiler alert, he's guilty. What I found most interesting about this book is that Ann Rule was a crime writer before she met Bundy, and was hired to write this book before it came out that Bundy was a suspect. Now, I don't know how I feel about it. I feel like the technical sections in this book were more tedious than in Moby Dick. And it seems like a common problem for me in all Ann Rule books that I try to ignore (because it isn't her fault, it's mine), but all the victims run together. There is just a bunch of women's names in close connection, with not much to identify them with, so when they are mentioned later in the book, I find myself flipping back to see which was which. Also, I guess why I didn't like this as much as her other books was there was no suspense. Even the things about Bundy I didn't know before were told in the first couple of chapters. I am sure at the time it was written everyone knew all about him and his escapes and his trials because they had watched them on the news, but the book was written four years before I was born. All I had heard about him were short little snippets here and there. But it was interesting to see the interaction between the two of them, and that unique perspective gives this book something that can't be recreated.

So now, 1,542 pages in 11.5 days. 134 pages per day, I am still ahead of schedule.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Swine Not? and Moby Dick

I will do my best to report on each book as it is read. That being said, the first week of the summer I spent computerless in a cabin in New Mexico, so I am going to do a little catch up and do the first two books finished in this single post.

Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256


First, I have to say I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping a book about a pig would be sillier. In  actuality, it was a book about a normal, single soccer mom raising her two kids and their pet pig. The chapters alternated between the point of view of the pig and one of the children. But it was just a normal family, and fairly normal situations. Not quite what I was expecting. Towards the end of the book the pig teamed up with some pigeons and it started to feel like the book I was hoping for, but it was too little too late.

Moby Dick - Herman Melville; 614


This book was also nothing that I expected, but in a good way. I thought it would be incredibly heavy and boring, an exhausting chore to get through. Not the case.

My high school English teacher once said her dark secret was she got all the way through with a masters in English having never read Moby Dick in its entirety, and I suppose that tainted my view on the book. She talked of how the long anatomical descriptions of whale anatomy and dissection were just too boring and tedious and she never got through them. I never found them to be too much, and plus each chapter is extremely short, so if you get to a part that doesn't particularly interest you, it is over soon. I suppose there are long stretches in it of no action, but I found the descriptions and that kind of thing in it very interesting. And as a bonus, I had heard from different sources that Ahab won and that the whale won, and luckily for me, I couldn't remember which source was credible and which one was my friend who claimed to have read it being a liar, so the suspense was still there.

Averaging 124 pages a day, I am in great shape to finish this list on time. 7 days in, 870 pages down.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000