On my recent trip to South America we ended up spending a lot of time in airports and I did more reading than I expected to.

I ended up leaving the book I was reading, _When you are Engulfed in Flames_ by David Sedaris, behind since it is a hardcover and I was already 2/3 of the way through it. That's a funny book that I knew I would want to keep and there was no point in lugging on an intercontinental trip.

At the LA airport I picked up two new paperbacks. First was the book that the current HBO miniseries is based on _Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the new face of American War_ by Evan Wright. I didn't realize it but I had read one of the original articles it was based on in Rolling Stone on another airliner back when it was originally published. I was enjoying the first few episodes of the TV series before I left and reading the book of course provided much more background material and depth to the characters and story. The HBO series is shocking at times but it still had to be toned down from what the book describes. I strongly recommend this book and in my opinion it would be a very good thing if more people were aware of what the US troops and Iraqi people have been really going through.

My second book was _Spook Country_ by William Gibson. It is Gibson's first book set in the present and he did a very good job of keeping the qualities of his Science Fiction intact in a less futuristic setting. I enjoyed the fact that it was very unclear through most of the book who the "good guys" and "bad guys" really were, though ultimately the payoff was a bit disappointing when all was revealed. I was amused that the book had scenes set in Buenos Aires, where I happened to be at the time and also that it mentioned Costa Mesa as an example of a place to live that was low on the scale of being fucked up.

After I finished those two books I scrounged another from my daughter Allison for reading on the beach in Brazil. The book was _Twilight_ by Stephanie Meyer, a very romantic vampire book that seems to be quite the hit with the teenage girl set these days. I think I tended to be annoyed by the characteristics which make it popular with its target audience. It was strong on the ultra-romantic lovey dovey stuff and short on action and violence, which tended to take place "off screen". Still I liked it enough to read the next one in the series which Allison also had with her in Brazil and the other two when I got back.

I think that Stephanie Meyer, like Anne Rice before her, has had vampires be very very good to her. As a consequence she has gotten a bit too enamored with her bloodsuckers for her own good. A "good" vampire as a hero is only interesting as long as there is conflict between the hero and the monster within. If the character loses that conflict then he just becomes a superhero with some cool powers and tends to get boring quickly. The series reached that point for me, but I'm sure the teenaged girls (like my daughter) will keep snapping them up as soon as they are published.

I've just started reading _Fight Club_ by Chuck Palahniuk, which should restore my testosterone flow to normal.