Reader’s Diary #001: I got Hart, Yo!

I thought I’d write a wee diary. Not the ‘Dear Diary, a madwoman in the bus told me they were listening in through my headphones!’ kind, but a journal about what I read on a day-to-day basis. The sort of content I can put on my blog when I don’t have enough time to put the work necessary in a ‘Writing Advice’ blog post on a Tuesday — which is what I should be writing instead.

You’ll survive another week, no doubt.

But if you don’t, I’m sorry.

Today, I went through twenty-something chapters of Kevin Hart’s I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons by Kevin Hart. I’m listening to the audiobook even as I write this, and it’s both entertaining and educational. He’s a great comedian, but this book shows him as a cool human being, too — a guy who’s made many mistakes in his time, but always struggles on. Hart is tenacious, someone who’s gone through a crapload of hardships. A loving, but deeply religious mother, a destructive relationship and later marriage, a lot of sleeping around, a few nights spent in a cell over domestic violence.

But through all the bad shines through an incredibly resilient, even singular, force of will. You’d have a hard time finding someone who wouldn’t be inspired by Kevin’s journey from a talentless swimmer to shoe salesman to young comedian working on his style, to…well, Kevin Hart.

It’s very good, this autobiography. I’ll probably finish it before night’s out — or tomorrow, at the latest. I’ve taken my time as is.

Warning: if you end up reading it, you’re in danger of random fits of giggles while writing blog posts!

I also read two short stories from this month’s Clarkesworld issue, Deep Down in The Cloud by Julie Novakova, and Obliteration by Robert Reed.

I enjoyed them both, but not too much. Both these stories were dystopic. Obliteration in particular reminded me of Black Mirror’s first season finale — technology has advanced to the point that all memories are stored in miniature hard drives, and can be relived instantaneously. The protagonist’s hard drive, and backup hard drive both get smoked via some sort of…I want to say hacker attack, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. Something like that, at any rate.

Deep Down in The Cloud is interesting. It’s a story about the loss of freedom, which begins with the fall of net neutrality — the main character seems to have grown up in our present, or close to it, and still remembers that time. She’s a freedom fighter, hacker, diver.  Interesting characters, mystery.

Both endings are ambiguous and the language is excellent. I’m interested enough to check the respective authors.

That’s it, the end to my first Reader’s Diary! Thanks for reading!

How about you, what did you read? What’re you planning on reading? If you were to live in the world of a book you read over the last week, which world would you pick?