Each Thursday (or Friday, since some weeks we seem to be running behind on everything), Needcoffee.com’s staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We’ll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey…if you have something you want to recommend–whatever it is–drop us a line.
Incidentally, we’ve provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you’re interested, courtesy of those Amazon types, in the US, the UK and Canada.
Hey, come on, we can’t be totally selfless in this, can we? Okay, books and music first…
Book of the Week:The Humor of Healing by Dr. Donald A. Johnson. Humor is necessary, especially when you’re dealing with medical situations. Dr. Johnson, in this re-issue of his book by Badger Books, takes several aspects of the medical profession and relates numerous funny anecdotes for each. Everything from funny stuff like CPR performed with a plunger to odd stuff like the introduction of women to the medical community. Anatomy classes where women were barred from being around naked male corpses…ah, the good old days, right? A funny look at a serious subject.
Audiobook of the Week: The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor, performed by Grover Gardner. Not a big fan of the remake? That’s okay…check out the primary source material with this unabridged CD reading of the book, courtesy of Blackstone Audio. You know the story–and thanks to the remake’s trailer you pretty much know how it ends–but the book is a nice taut piece of suspense that’s worth checking out. Gardner’s reading is worthy as well. Like we said, unabridged, so good for a long, long drive.
Comic Book of the Week: Bear #8 by Jamie Smart. This Chazzie-nominated series returns with a Looshkin-spotlight issue, as the most hideously insane cat on the planet brings more dead animals into the book than you can shake Bear at, plus an inordinate amount of fecal references. If that wasn’t funny enough, you have to deal with the two-pager, “Battle Goths,” which I swear to God I would love to see fully animated. This will make you crave the plushie Bear and Looshkin coming out later this year. Read it and laugh your arse off.
Graphic Novel of the Week: Goodbye, Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson. This Top Shelf book, which preceded Blankets, is from Chazzie-award winning creator Thompson. And if you only know him from his later work, it’s worth backing up to check out this, in its sixth printing (!). A turtle–the titular character, this is not a book about food–decides to go on a journey away from his home, leaving behind his good friend (a mouse), Dandel. Sound simple? It’s not. There’s a reason Thompson is widely acknowledged as producing literature and not just comics.
Music CD of the Week: One Minute Science by Sunna. An older title, but I discovered this not too long ago. A former member of Massive Attack goes down the road of rock, and it’s a nicely diverse bag of stuff. “Power Struggle” is a good song to break shit to, though slower bits like “Preoccupation” and “7%” are just as strong in their own way. I wish to hell there would be a follow-up album. Ah well.
