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My first gig was transcribing the handwritten notes of a mother of a colleage who had passed away, for which she was very grateful and I was compensated a small sum, but I enjoyed it.

Other notes can be very difficult and STT will get you nowhere. Like the old journal below I was given to transcribe about 13 pages in all, but they can be interesting to read.

Anyone looking for assistance in digitizing personal hand-written notes should get in touch. I’d be happy to do it for them or offer some knowledge transfer in how to do it yourself with STT software.

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The tales interweave with both widely recognised zombie fiction (Necrotic: Dead Flesh on a Living Body, Black Sabbath, Might of the Living Dead, The Haunted Ship, Pigeons from Hell and Job Satisfaction) and departures from the usual clichéd tales (Pariah, In Sickness, The Immortals, Dead Tales, MAZH, Dead Eyes Open, The Corpse, Zombie World: Dead End and Zombies) as well as including one story which has more roots in real life than in fiction (The Zombie).

By far the longest story was ‘Dead Eyes Open’, but I felt it took up a lot of space in the book. Even though it re-spun the zombie tale into a story about zombie rights, I found it a little tedious to read through to the end. On of my favourite stories of the book – also long – was Pigeons from Hell – though more for the captivating artwork and storytelling than the story itself. As I turned the pages I really felt the eeriness and sense of foreboding. It was truly scary for the first part – until the Sheriff showed up. That’s great storytelling – in a comic no less.

Other stories of note were ‘In Sickness’ – but who didn’t see that coming? ‘The Immortals’ – a classic twist. ‘Dead Tales’ – confusing at first but I eventually got the gist as a kind of ‘It’s Wonderful Life’ gone horribly, horribly wrong. ‘The Corpse’ – another classic twist. ‘Zombie World: Dead End’ – one twist I didn’t see coming which was a nice change. ‘Zombies’ – a kind of reflective story on what would happen if you were the only survivor you knew and how you’d cope – a fitting end to the book.

As I said, it’s well worth a read despite some of the less inspiring stories included in the book. There’s definitely some art that you will recognise, even if you’ve only ever stuck to mainstream comics, ‘Necropolis’ should have a familiar feel to it. I wouldn’t say it compares to The Walking Dead, though one Amazon reviewer did so unfavourably. There are definitely some stories in there that are on par with, or even surpass the storytelling of Walking Dead – but unfortunately they are dragged down by the overall mediocre feel of the lesser ones.

Still, there are better short story zombie novels out there, for example Zombie Tales: v. 1 which is available free to read online (I guess I should do a review of that too).

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The artwork by Frank Quitely is easy on the eyes, similar to All Star Superman and I really like his style. The story is a nice diversion for Grant Morrison who I’m mostly familiar with through his previous work on Batman. Since these guys have teamed up again for the new Batman and Robin post events of Batman: R.I.P. and Battle for the Cowl (which I still have yet to read), I’m looking forward to seeing their new work (of course, I’ll be waiting a longer time for the graphic novels).

WE3 is a powerful one-off story, which is guaranteed to tug a little at your heartstrings. It would make a nice introduction to graphic novels if you’ve never picked one up. If you’re into graphic novels already then this makes for a short but engaging read and change from your usual favourites.

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Not that Freakonomics and The Economic Naturalist are teaching exactly the same subject or entirely in agreement, the ‘school of thought’ I refer to is to examine cultural, historical and environmental mindsets and events and try to determine the reasoning behind such things.

I’ll start by saying it’s a good book and it did cause me to learn a few things, but I didn’t find it as good a read as Freakonomics. For a start I found the first few chapters to be shallow in terms of depth of understanding and plainly ignored or forgot factors such as ‘herd instinct’, scotomas or other practical and cultural factors. One such example given is the reason for all cabs in New York being painted yellow (reasoning being visibility for hailing) however, this just doesn’t explain why all cabs in London are black (or even carry full body cover advertisements)!

Of course the reason for sticking plainly to economic explanations can be understood because as the author, Robert Frank explains, these are adapted economic student essays. In fact early on Frank issues a disclaimer as such in that the answers provided are “hypotheses suitable for further refinement and testing”. So I shouldn’t be too harsh on the answers which seem to miss vital points of consideration.

As I said I did learn some things, including the meaning and application of opportunity cost, rational choice theory and pricing hurdles. The book does get much better after the first few chapters and there are some explanations that have caused me to see things in a different light. Good answers are found for the differences between worker salaries and contractors, why tobacco CEO’s (and probably Bank CEOs too) are willing to endure public humiliation and why workers usually vote for safety regulations but ignore them given the choice. The book also helps you to frame things in a different light, did you know for example, that women who wear high heals are competing in an arms race?

The Economic Naturalist is a worthwhile read and it will help you to think, however I think the reader should bear in mind the answers given are not always the end of the story.

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To be fair to Gerard, he does offer a disclaimer right at the start and this should be taken as a pitch for the humour and intellect level to be expected – “If you’re a secular humanist who believes in reason rather than magic fixers, this book will provide that warm feeling of smug superiority.”

The book does start off well, the first few chapters and the Readers Digest version of the Book of Revelation really did make me genuinely laugh. As I delved further into the book however, the book became less of a research-based humourous guide or retelling and instead more of a compilation of tired and stretched out anecdotes and bad jokes.

It’s painfully clear that Gerard has made up the bulk of his research with Wikipedia and Google. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but it’s obvious that material gleaned from search engines dried up pretty quick – which left Gerard to pad the rest of the book with drivel.

By about half way through the book, it seemed as though Gerard had outsourced the writing to an angst-ridden 14 year old. I hate not finishing a book, so I began to skip chapters until I got to the end – I found I skipped most of the last half.

The real tragedy about this book however, is that there is so much real funny material to go on, why make it up? Why couldn’t Gerard interview some real people who believe this doctrine and utilise subtlety to drive the point? I felt this Amazon.com reviewer put it very well:

“And yes, this book could be humorous, but in my own view, most of the humor would derive naturally from the peculiarity of the doctrines and beliefs that comprise Rapture Christianity. Instead, however, author Jim Gerard has apparently done only a small amount of research and then has embellished his meager findings with a whole lot of kooky commentary and absurdist tangents. It’s a kind of Dave Barry-esque treatment, and for me it just did not work. In some places it’s actually difficult to differentiate between what is truly strange or funny about the Rapture community and what is merely “schtick” added by Gerard to beef up his chapters and evoke readers’ guffaws.”

To sum up, you should really only read this book if you are:

• An angst-ridden atheist 14 year old
• You hate Christians in general and revel in any opportunity to reaffirm your bias and loathing, regardless of accuracy
• You don’t understand the humour of Louis Theroux, Ricky Gervais, Sacha Baron Cohen… actually just about any British comedian as well as Michael Moore, Stephen Colbert, possibly even Jon Stewart or books like The Men Who Stare at Goats and think they are not real comedians.

And for those people, I’m going to offer up the Amazon link anyway. Buy Beam Me Up, Jesus: A Heathen’s Guide to the Rapture now at amazon.co.uk.

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Reading this book brought back memories for me of the last decade and my general disgust with the theme that the world had changed and would never be the same again – that we were entering into a perpetual war. I was against action being taken against Afghanistan, though initially I had always been pro-war when it came to Iraq. Mainly because I believed our leaders when they said we were in danger. I was not naive enough to believe the lie that Saddam was behind the 9/11 terrorist attack – but I felt he was a dictator that deserved to be removed anyway.

It was the 45 minute claim by Tony Blair that first made me question my assumptions – particularly when this 45 minute claim turned out to be completely false. That started me down the path of questioning the government and media as a whole – so much so that from being a ‘just war’ type of person I became vehemently and extremely anti-war. I never did join a protest but I read and took part in blogs and forum discussion anonymously. It certainly shaped a lot of my decisions and mentality towards life and the church since then too – not all negatively – In fact I’d say it’s had a lot more positive effects in raising my intelligence and a reasoning beyond the surface level.

All these feeling were evoked again reading this book, because Wolf has taken much time and effort to document the decline of American freedom and democracy under President George W Bush. The book follows the outline of 10 steps in a slide towards facism. It’s refreshing to hear someone define the word and apply it correctly, not just punting it around in a throw-away manner.

Wolf is careful not to go too far, in declaring that America has already entered into a fascist state, but from her descriptions and real world references it certainly sounds that way. She also maintains the premise that America’s political spectrum is rather like a pendulum, swinging towards democracy and freedom at some points in history, and back towards fascism at other times (Witch trials, McCarthy-ism etc…).

This doesn’t quite wash with me, perhaps because it seems like an excuse, or simply something that is inevitable and not something that should be prevented. But Wolf maintains the importance of the checks and balances put in by the founding fathers, and that is good enough for me.

Speaking of the founding fathers, I am glad that Wolf made a lot of effort to link current times to the times that they made the constitution – there purposes for making the constitution and the importance of the checks and balances that were all but destroyed under Bush. I think the founding fathers would have called for an insurrection by now if they could see the state of America today – it’s plainly not their vision of what the ideal democracy should be.

This is well worth a read, if you have the time or are interested in American history and politics.

Buy End of America, the: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot Now at Amazon.

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As it is, I’ve now read the novel before the movie, in fact I’ve only watched half the movie so far. For what it’s worth I don’t think the movie does this book justice at all! In fact the movie is less an adaption of the novel and more of a poor tribute to it.

There’s just so much detail left out and from what I’ve watched so far, it’s really treated entirely as a comedy with little care or attention paid towards the serious, more saddening side. Of course I’ve only seen half so all that may change towards the end of the film, but where I left it just seemed to be getting nowhere near the darker side of the novel.

As for the book, the book is fascinating, immersing, funny and tragic all at the same time. The author carefully leads us through interviews and historical events, offering background and explanation to the occasional bizarre moments that leaked into mainstream press and public consciousness. It also shows a darker, sinister side to the lighter, much joked about moments such as the leaking of torture using Barney the Purple Dinosaur.

Linking all of these events and bizarre military strategies is something that sounds like the plot of a badly concieved B-movie. The First Earth Battalion, brain-child of and army man gone native hippy taking inspiration from the peace movement of the 70’s. The author, Jon Ronson carefully lays out how something that started out as a thought experiment in creating a US army of peaceful warrior monks – bringing love and peace to the conflict zones – became so twisted and corrupted, ending with something a bit like Saw franchise meets X-Files.

Of course, it’s hard to touch on so much material and cover-ups without eventually succumbing to a conspiratorial tone, and towards the end of the book, as the author runs out of leads, there is a slight leaning towards speculation. It doesn’t detract from the novel in any way and after everything else that’s been presented, it doesn’t feel that far reaching. However, it does leave an small opening for sceptics to question the research and sources.

Nevertheless, I felt enlightened after reading the book, since there are so many references to real and tangible historical events, it really makes sense of it all from an inside perspective. It certainly makes you more media aware when looking out for those occasional blunders that make it into the spotlight.

The Men Who Stare at Goats totally belongs on your must-read list, click on the link to buy it now at Amazon.co.uk!

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