Weird_O Bill's Warped and Wacky World (of Reading) Part The Third

Whoa! WTF happened?

The wheels came off in April. That's what happened. Me 'n' Buster; standing perplexed. Venice disappointed me. My laptop swallowed the digital hemlock. Taxes had to be done. Lonesome Dove hasn't sucked me in the way I expected. So… Less that ten days left in the month, and I've only finished two books.

It's time to turn the page. What better way than a new thread.

Current Reading

 DwD for June

Year-to-Date 2016

January (8 read)
1. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (1/2/16) ROOT AAC3--January ®
2. The Singular Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolph Raspe and others (1/3/16) ROOT
3. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (1/5/16) ROOT MnM ®
4. The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1/7/16) ROOT Wedgie ®
5. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler (1/9/16) ROOT AAC3--January
6. The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett (729 pages) (1/15/16) ROOT DwD ®
7. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (1/24/16) ROOT PPM NFC ®
8. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1/26/16) ROOT PPF AAC3--January ®

February (11 read)
9. Our Town by Thornton Wilder (2/3/16) ROOT PPM ®
10. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley (2/5/16) ROOT MnM ®
11. The Tycoons by Charles Morris (2/10/16) ROOT NFC ®
12. The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel, vol 1 by Neil Gaiman (2/13/16) ®
13. The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel, vol 2 by Neil Gaiman (2/13/16) ®
14. Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2/14/16) ROOT AAC3--February PPF
15. The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Power-House by John Buchan (2/16/16) ROOT Wedge ®
16. March Book One by John Lewis (2/23/16)
17. March Book Two by John Lewis (2/27/16)
18. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (729 pages) (2/27/16) ROOT DwD
19. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (2/27/16) ROOT PPM ®

March (7 read)
20. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (3/5/16) ®
21. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (3/7/16)
22. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (3/8/16) ROOT Wedge
23. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (3/11/16) ROOT AAC3--March PPF ®
24. War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (3/22/16) ROOT DwD ®
25. Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (3/22/16) MnM ®
26. A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton (3/25/16) PPM

April (4 read)
27. The Alienist by Caleb Carr (4/4/16) ROOT MnM ®
28. Venice by Jan Morris (4/16/16) NFC (for March) ®
29. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (4/28/16) ROOT DwD PPF ®
30. John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet (4/31/16) ROOT PPM--poetry 1929 AAC3--April

May (6 read)
31. The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (5/3/16) ROOT PPF 1973 ®
32. A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (5/5/16) ROOT M'n'M
33. The Stranger by Albert Camus (5/6/16) ROOT Wedge
34. Keith Haring 1958-1990: A Life for Art by Alexandra Kolossa (5/6/16) NFC--arts
35. English Creek by Ivan Doig (5/13/16) AAC3--May
  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (a.k.a. J. K. Rowling) (5/14/16) ®*
  In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (5/14/16) ®*
  The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell (5/14/16) ®*
36. Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby by Reading Public Museum (5/31/16) NFC--arts

June (8 read)
37. Truman by David McCullough (6/2/16) ROOT DwD PPM
38. Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (6/4/16) ®
39. Nobody Move by Denis Johnson (6/7/16) M'n'M ®
40. A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester (6/12/16) ROOT NFC ®
41. The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth (6/13/16) ROOT Wedgie
42. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (6/19/16) ROOT AAC3--June PPF 1994
43. Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor (6/25/16) ROOT ®
44. So Human an Animal by Rene Dubos (6/30/16) ROOT PPM--GenNF 1969

July (8 read)
45. A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck, photos by Robert Capa (7/3/16) ROOT AAC3--July ®
46. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (7/4/16) ROOT MnM
47. March by Geraldine Brooks (7/10/16) ROOT PPF 2006
48. The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck (7/19/16) ROOT Wedgie
49. The American Leonardo by Carleton Mabee (7/21/16) PPM--Bio 1944
50. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (7/23/16) ROOT Wedgie
51. Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen (7/25/16) ROOT MnM
52. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (7/27/16) ®

August (6 read)
53. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach (8/1/16) NFC
54. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (8/2/16) ROOT AAC3--August ®
55. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (8/6/16) ROOT PPF--2008
56. Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark (8/7/16) ROOT MnM ®
57. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (8/16/16) ROOT AAC3--August DwD--August
58. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (8/20/16) ROOT

*I'm not counting these three shorties in the tally for my 75-book challenge.

Lists of Challenge Book Possibilities

Pulitzer Prize TBRs here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5396390

Deadweight Doorstop TBRs here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5396393

Wedge Doorstop TBRs here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5396394

Murder 'n' Mayhem TBRs here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5396395

Happy New Thread, Bill. You should put a link on your old thread.
I hope the rest of the month is more relaxing for you and I sure hope Lonesome Dove begins to take off for you. Fingers and toes crossed...

Happy new one, Bill!

Love the Buster up top.

That topper is amazing. How did they do that?

Happy new thread.

Happy New Thread, Bill! I don't hold much hope for Mr. Keaton, but I hope that you can keep this thread on the road and in one piece.

Hi There Bill!

Happy Friday to you!

May this be a weekend of good reading.

Congrats on the new thread, Bill!

April is the cruelest month, right?

I hope Lonesome Dove starts grabbing you. I came to it a skeptic, and finished it a believer.

Happy New Thread, Bill! I hope the remaining week or so of April improves in terms of reading. And that the rest of the year goes well!

Happy new thread, Bill! I hope Lonesome Dove gets better for you. I just ordered it to read in July with Mamie.

Good idea to call on Buster Keaton to get you going again, Bill.

He would be very much at home on the Malaysian roads I am sure.

Have a great weekend.

Howdy, Bill. Hope you get your reading mojo back soon!

>5 msf59: I don't know what I missed in starting this new thread; I didn't get the link between the old and the new. Per your suggestion, I added some arrows and a link as post # 100. Appropriate, I think.

>6 scaifea: >7 charl08: >8 kidzdoc: >13 PaulCranswick: Glad you like Buster. I don't know how that sequence was engineered, Charlotte. I do know that Buster (and many of his contemporary film comedians) didn't use stunt doubles and any of the safeguards used these days. Buster's comedic stunts in The General are pretty amazing.

Happy new thread, Bill!

>15 weird_O: - You only get a link to continue a thread after 150 (I think it is) posts... Seems kind of silly to me!

Hope the reading is picking up for you!

To all you nice boosters, a hearty thank you. I will get through Lonesome Dove. No doubt about it. The characters and situations are great, I just have got to stick with it.

>9 Whisper1: I spent yesterday pinballing around The Internets, discovering interesting factoids about Lehigh.

My journey began with a Facebook challenge to my daughter from one of her closest college friends. Casey, the friend, linked to a page on the Atlas Obscura website that showed Lehigh Millennium Folk Arch, I guess knowing that it was near Becky's childhood home. Reading the page, I learned the sculptures were created by students taking a course first offered in 1999 by a now-retired professor of religious studies, Norman Girardot. The course, “Raw Vision: Creativity and Ecstasy in the World of Shamans, Mystics and Outsider Artists”, was based on the concepts of art as a means of personal expression, and it was a practical way for students to study the nature of spirituality and mysticism.

 

 

The site is officially called The Stolfa Sculpture Garden, and Google Maps showed me its location near the crest of South Mountain, hidden in the woods. I must go see. So I can take Becky and Casey there. You know.

Have you seen it, Linda? Do you know about it? It doesn't comport unabashedly with my mental picture of LU. So that's cool.

Love the sculptures!! And I am sure that this new thread and the books that go with it will be awesome!!

Hello weird_O! Happy new thread.

Those are interesting sculptures indeed.

How did you like The Tycoons? I've heard good and not so good?

"The characters and situations are great, I just have got to stick with it." Whew! I am much relieved...

Happy Sunday, Bill!

An important Saturday event on my calendar:

 at the Kutztown (PA) Community Library

>21 weird_O: I wish I could rent a teleport machine...

Happy New Thread, Bill. I LOVE the photos of The Stoifa Sculpture Garden. It's the kind of art I really enjoy.

Can't wait to hear about your library haul. Wish we could join you.

This is stuff you can't make up. Charles Koch, boss at Koch Industries in Wichita, KS, and financier of all things right-wing, has a cache of reading materials in his private bathroom at the office. Just in case, you know, he gets constipated.

>25 weird_O: Wow, that's impressive! Not sure how he gets any work done...

>17 weird_O: Hi Bill, there is always something new to learn. I've never heard of this. But, I will go searching. I know there is a walking path when you first drive into the road to Stabler. I'm guessing the art work might be there.

I might finish this Lonesome Dove pamphlet after all. What a man. Just 200 pages to go.

^Great job, staying on task, with LD, Bill. If you are like many of us, you will be sorry to see it end.

 

Dogwoods in bloom at my house!!

>30 weird_O: Ooh...

What incredible dogwoods! How very lovely!

So jealous!! I used to have a gorgeous one at my old house, but nothing so glamorous now. Enjoy!

>30 weird_O: Beautiful trees. We have cherry and magnolia round here giving a similar colour.

>30 weird_O: Oh yeah, that's what we're looking for. Thanks, Bill. We need a glimpse of spring where we are.

Done!

>30 weird_O: Glorious!

>25 weird_O: That looks...unsanitary. And a little extreme.

>30 weird_O: Gorgeous dogwoods. I miss them - we had a few in our yard growing up but I don't see them out here in CO.

>38 Copperskye: Charles Koch is nothing if not extreme, Joanne.

Bagged these 26 books and--gasp!!--3 audio books at the K-town Library $5 bag sale. Spent $10. In the deal, I got two reusable grocery bags (wheee! hoot hoot). I'll get a list up shortly.

I can sense my reading prospects shifting to the good. Ahhhhhhh.

Wow! You got a great bunch of books. I am a huge fan of Goon Squad, The Known World, the Murakami and the Krakauer. Great job!

The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway (pbk)
King Lear by William Shakespeare (pbk)
SparkNotes on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (pbk)
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (pbk)
The Learners by Chip Kidd (hc)
The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir (pbk)
My Life in France by Julia Child (pbk)
Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman (pbk)
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje (hc)
The Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry (hc)
1776 by David McCullough (hc)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell (hc)
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, Illustrated by Michael Hague (hc)
All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley (A Leonid McGill Mystery) (hc)
Known to Evil by Walter Mosley (A Leonid McGill Mystery) (pbk)
Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis (hc)
Millennium People by J. G. Ballard (hc)
The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer (pbk)
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (pbk)
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (pbk)
The Good Wife by Stewart O'Nan (hc)
A Mercy by Toni Morrison (hc)
Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers by Margaret Bonham (pbk)
The Great Santini by Pat Conroy (pbk)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (hc)
America Enters the World: A People's History of the Progressive Era and World War I by Page Smith (Volume Seven) (hc)

audios…..

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, narrated by Roxana Ortega
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, narrated by Gianfranco Negroponte
The Known World by Edward P. Jones, narrated by Kevin Free

Great haul, Bill! Two that jump out for me are The Nick Adams Stories and 1776. Both excellent.

Dogwood beauty and book haul beauty.

Some great additions with the latter and looking upon that vista I am surprised you get so much reading done.

Have a wondrous weekend Bill.

I sure am glad April has 31 days, because I've only 50 pages to go to finish Stephen Vincent Benet's epic poem, John Brown's Body. It's my AAC3 book, as well as a Pulitzer winner for poetry in 1929. My big failing this month, reading-wise, was to get through a wedge Doorstop.

>40 weird_O:, >42 weird_O: Magnificent haul, Bill.

I finally caught up. Congrats on this (>40 weird_O:) fabulous book haul. I'm just a bit jealous. Wow (>30 weird_O:), what stunningly trees. I love it.

>41 msf59: Wow, Bill, that's an incredible pile of great books! Hope you will still have room for the Bethlehem Book Sale this month! I'm wondering if I should add Allentown to my itinerary as well...

Great haul. I'd like to read the Julia Child.

>40 weird_O: Looks like I'm hanging out with you full time during the Bethlehem library sale in May. You know how to get a bargain. That book haul is fantastic!!!!

>48 Dianekeenoy: Yes, any time you and Bill want to meet me at the Allentown Library, just let me know!

Thanks to all, esp. to >41 msf59:, >43 jnwelch:, >44 PaulCranswick:, >46 laytonwoman3rd:, >47 Ameise1:, >48 Dianekeenoy:, and >49 charl08:, for liking the books I bought. The Julia Child, Charlotte, was for my wife. I usually scan the fiction by author names, and thus picked up Murakami, Gaddis, Hemingway, Hoffman, Ondaatje, O'Nan, Mitchell, etc. Not usually knowing anything about the books, but hoping for an intro to a new-to-me writer. Two screw-ups--I already own Streets of Laredo and the audio of the Kelly Gang yarn is on cassettes (have to listen in the car, which is old enough to have a cassette player).

Glad for the "likes" for our flowering trees, too.

April 2016 has run its course, and I am pleased to have survived it. My reading was a stumble; I got through only four books, though I'll argue they amounted to a lot of pages (2200+) and only missed one of the six challenges I accepted at the beginning of the month. Ahh; you'd think I coulda driven a Wedge Doorstop in there—less than 199 pages to satisfy ALL my challenges. Three were ROOTs.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr (4/4/16) (496 pages) ROOT MnM ®
Venice by Jan Morris (4/16/16) (347 pages) NFC (for March)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (4/28/16) (947 pages) ROOT DwD PPF (1986)
John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet (4/31/16) (455 pages) ROOT PPM (Poetry—1929) (AAC3—April)

   

I'm starting May by reading The Optimist's Daughter, which won Eudora Welty the Pulitzer for fiction in 1973. It's a shorty—less than 199 pages—so it could, I say could, double up as a Pulitzer winner and as a Wedge Doorstop. What I read following that is undecided. I got no Doig at this moment.

My challenges are:

American Author Challenge—Ivan Doig for May
Pulitzer Prize for fiction—'twill be The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973's winner)
Pulitzer Prize for "not" fiction—not decided yet
Deadweight Doorstop—Don Quixote
Wedge Doorstop—The Stranger by Camus and/or The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter by Ambrose Bierce
Murder 'n' Mayhem—A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
NFC (The Arts)—book(s) by or about Russell Lee and/or Keith Haring

Bill, April was a slow month for me as well. Real life kept getting in the way of time to read. I hope May is better for you, and for me.

I don't think I have made your acquaintance Bill, but I'm pleased to meet you. I am a big fan of Lonesome Dove and hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. The television series they made of it with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones was spot-on. The characters were what McMurtry created in the book and the ending brought me to tears. Loved the book, loved the mini-series. Hope you do too! Enjoy your May reading.

Keith Haring was born this day in 1958. He would be 58, had he not died in 1990. He grew up in Kutztown, just 15 miles down the road from where I live. He always wanted to be an artist. Here's a piece he wrote in elementary school (don't know what grade). (Nice cursive handwriting for a youngster.)



There are books out there about about him, journals he kept, and of course volumes displaying his artwork. My NFC reading for May.

>55 weird_O: Nice. He was a very talented artist.

Radiant Baby by Keith Haring

>52 weird_O: That's some heavy reading on tap, weird_o. The Alienist is brilliant.

Finished my Murder 'n' Mayhem book for the month: A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler. A British writer of romans policier tracks a clever and ruthless villain across Europe. Talkie, but satisfying. Published in 1939, filmed in 1944 with Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

Visited the Kutztown University library, renewed my card, and checked out four books by/on Keith Haring.

Cinco de Mayo! Boy, do I love tacos...

Bill, you remind me to find an Ambiler book. There was a time I couldn't get enough of reading his stories but it's way back.
Wishing you a wonderful day.

I didn't know that Keith Haring died so young! How come?

>61 Berly: AIDS. Haring was openly gay. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and died two years later.

Finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. Perhaps this'll be the Wedgie I didn't get read in April. I've got some other short books atop the TBR beanstalk that I could read for this month's Wedgie. At any rate, I'm off to a better start than last month.

I started Haring by Alexandra Kolossa last evening--for NFC Arts. And English Creek by Ivan Doig--for AAC3--is babbling next to The Comfy Chair; I can hear it.

I've read lots of Camus in French during my grammer school time. I liked L'étranger.

Finished the first of the books on artist Keith Haring that I borrowed from the library. Ninety-six page book, many many pictures of Haring's creations, not a whole lot of text. It's been a slow day here at work (ha ha), so I read.

Thanks for the background re. Keith Haring! I think you are like me in that when you latch on to a topic, you read as much as possible, till it is time to move on to the next interesting person, history or event to learn about.

That is quite a book haul pictured upthread, Bill. I've read quite a few books on the list and liked most of them quite well. I'm a library user and a used book buyer with an occasional new book thrown in. I like having my own books to fall back on. There were rumors around LT a few years ago about a possible world book famine. Your stash will come in handy if that happens. Also loved the dogwoods in your yard. You live in a beautiful part of the U.S. Thanks for sharing pictures from time to time.

I hope May continues to be a better reading month for you. I'm glad you stuck it out with Lonesome Dove. I loved that book!

Yesterday I drove to Kutztown to retrieve my old laptop, resurrected by replacing the hard drive (and yes, with all the data retrieved from the old drive), and to make a buy from one of my pushers (Mr. Rite-Aid). While I was there I cruised through the borough park and found the sculpture that Keith Haring gave the town in 1989. I only just learned he did that.



 

What an awesome sculpture. :)

>68 weird_O: "Like"

I'm nearing the conclusion of English Creek, and I'm thinking about what to read for this month's Deadweight Doorstop and for this month's non-novel Pulitzer winner. I had been thinking of reading Don Quixote, but I'm feeling daunted by it. My wife is reading David McCullough's 1776 right now, and I've got his mammoth bio of Harry Truman on my challenge lists. Truman 900 or a thousand pages, and it won the bio Pulitzer in 1993. Two challenges met with a single read. I LIKE that. And McCullough is always interesting and easy to read.

>71 weird_O: I listened to McCullough read Truman and it was fantastic. It was abridged (maybe 5 or 7 CDs?), which I normally don't do, but figured in this case it was truly the best of the book. You come to understand Harry Truman the human being in such a profound way; you realize that other biographies of famous people only scratch the surface.

Happy Friday Bill! Looks like I haven't been by in awhile. Bad Mark. Glad to see the book love continuing...

Hope you enjoyed English Creek and it prompts you to continue the trilogy. I NEED to get to the 2nd one. Plan to this year.

My vote goes to Truman. One of my very favorite presidential bios.

Happy weekend, Bill.

>71 weird_O: Well, I'm reading Don Quixote right now and I can say that it is *excellent*...

I'm not giving up on Don Quixote completely, Amber, just for this month. Seven more months to the year, which means seven more Deadweight Doorstops to be read. I'm sure DQ will be one of the seven.

And by the bye, I'm going to read two short kids' picture books this weekend: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak and The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman's retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Plus Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, ostensibly the basis of the movie of the same name that'll be in theaters in November; 42 whole pages!

AND a few more pages to read in Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby.

Read a few pages in Truman to kick off the weekend.

Another vote for Truman. McCullough is one of the few authors who can make me even consider reading that much on a single subject (although of course there is much more to a McCullough biography than the life of one man). He kept me engrossed through Truman and through John Adams. The man is a wonder.

>76 weird_O: Way to rake in those extra books by reading 42pagers! And happy new week!

Saturday was a goofing around day. I read two picture books and admired the artwork in them. I read a pamphlet-ish Harry Potter by-product. Read some more about Keith Haring, and I started Truman by David McCullough. I’m not going to count the three little books against my 75-book challenge, though I will count the Haring and the McCullough.

The Weird Report^™   

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander was written in 2001 by J.K. Rowling, in concert with Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp, as a fundraiser for U.K. Comic Relief. Rowling is donating her royalties on the books to the charity.

The premise is that Scamander compiled an encyclopedia of creatures that exist in the magic world, but that are unknown to Muggles. An introduction outlines the regulations put in place through the Ministry of Magic to safeguard the safety of witches, wizards, and Muggles, and to keep the beasts out of the sight of Muggles. The book’s been updated as the catalog of beasts changes, running through 52 editions. The particular book in question was owned by Harry Potter, and it’s been annotated here and there by Ron Weasley.

Among the beasts included are: Acromantula (“a monstrous eight-eyed spider capable of human speech”), Billywig (“its speed is such that it is rarely noticed by Muggles”), Grindylow (“a horned, pale green water demon’), Jarvey (“an overgrown ferret” that talks but “tends to confine itself to short [and often rude] phrases in an almost constant stream”), many varieties of Dragon, and a few species known in Muggle world--Imp, Fairy, Centaur, and Gnome.

The read this 64-pager because, though 15 years old, it’s the basis for a film to be released in November. Rowling is credited as the screenwriter. The book’s title will be the movie’s title.

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak is a 1971 Caldecott Honoree. It’s a short, fun book that I read again and again to each of my kids. Sendak’s drawings are, of course, wonderful. A youngster named Mickey is awakened by a trio of Oliver Hardy lookalikes who are baking the morning cake. Behind them is an array of food packages and cooking utensils forming a cityscape. Mickey falls out of bed and into the cake batter, gets baked in, but breaks free to fly into the sky in a delicious-looking airplane to fetch a cup of milk for another batch of morning cake.

The reason I bring this book up is because it’s been censored and even banned from so many elementary schools and community libraries because Mickey has a penis. We wanted to buy a copy for our grandson Gus and none of the B&N stores in our area had it in stock. It was on my mind when I heard a repeat of a Terry Gross interview of Sendak taped shortly before his death. They conversed about this terrible attribute--a 4-year-old boy with a penis--and the measures taken to protect the sensibilities of, ostensibly, adolescent girls and boys but much more likely an idjit adult. Anything you do to censor the drawings just provokes attention and stimulates curiosity.

Judge for yourself…

 

 



The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrations by Chris Riddell, is a reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty tale. Three dwarves report to their queen that sleep, deep unending sleep, is overtaking the population of the neighboring kingdom, from which they’ve just returned. The queen is preparing for her wedding, but she dons hiking garb and follows the dwarves. Once past the border, they come upon sleeping people, slumbering farm animals, dozing birds and forest beasts. Some are festooned with cobwebs, they’ve been out so long. As they pass through a city the visitors sense movement; the sleepers are following them, sloowly but steadily.

As you might expect, they get to ruler’s castle and ascend to the top of the highest tower. There they discover a gorgeous young woman, asleep on a bed, observed by a haggard, wrinkled, balding, old woman. A spindle wrapped with yarn is on the floor beside the bed. The sleepwalkers can be heard stumbling into the castle, moving toward the stairs.

Gaiman’s tale has a surprising denouement.

The young queen  The old hag 

The beauty sleeps 

# 11. The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris Finished 2/10/16

The Weird Report^TM  

The premise of this history of business and industrial development between the Civil War and WWI is that four men—Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan—played THE dominant roles in transforming the way goods were manufactured and distributed. The book is is a good exposition of that history in general. The contributions of the four tycoons are highlighted, but so is the truth that "the American supereconomy"—a late 20th century concept in my opinion—is hardly a result of any particular individuals. It’s a collective achievement.

Carnegie was diminutive, smart, resourceful, devious, imperious, driven. He had a vision of steel manufacture that was bigger, faster, continuous. His factories were mammoth and were shaped by the newest technology. His cost cutting was relentless. Despite soaring profits—and despite pro-labor columns he wrote and published in Scottish newspapers he owned—he sought to cut wages, stubbornly willing to endure disruptive strikes. Carnegie Steel was the biggest and most profitable steel producer at the turn of the 20th century.

Rockefeller mastered vertical integration, controlling oil practically from well-head to the retail customer. His Standard Oil Company owned the rail cars that moved the crude from the oil fields to his refineries. The same cars further transported the refined product to Standard’s regional depots, and Standard workers carried it directly to retailers. Generally, he worked quickly, quietly, methodically, fairly, and without rancor. To swallow a competitor, he'd offer a fair price and would often bring the firm's executives into his Standard Oil operation. Anyone who rejected an offer would find his business cut off from suppliers and customers.

Gould was a consummate Wall Street manipulator. He was a master at concealing his purchases and sales of stock; one day he’d suddenly be in control of some key asset, disrupting monopolistic deals among competitors intended to control routes and rates. Contrary to legend, Gould wasn’t a railroad looter, rather he sometimes put more money into a railroad. He was focused on progress, experiment, and speed.

Morgan was the premier financier and banker of that time. His father was a leading banker and financier, and J.P. followed in his footsteps. While he seldom innovated in industry, he arbitrated the propositions and innovated ways of financing projects he approved. What he valued was market stability, and if he had to sideline a mover-and-shaker to achieve or maintain that stability, well, so be it.

For the most part, The Tycoons was excellent. The passages describing the financial jiggery-pokery were opaque to me. I just didn't know what the author, a one-time banker, was writing about, didn't know the terminology. On the other hand, the author wrote good sections on actually achieving the manufacture of truly replaceable parts, on Carnegie's disruptive status as a steel tycoon, on Morgan's endeavor to launch U. S. Steel as a means of shutting out Andy the Disruptor and calming and stabilizing that segment of the industrial economy. I enjoyed too the description of Frederick Taylor's bamboozling of many industrialists with his time-and-motion studies; the bosses wanted to cut wages, and Taylor's consultations provided a scientific gloss to what they wanted to do.

A good read, if somewhat dry in spots.

The author, Charles R. Morris, has written eight other books, including Money, Greed, and Risk and American Catholic. He is a banker and lawyer, as well as a historian.

 

 

Jay Gould (top left); Andrew Carnegie (top right); John D. Rockefeller Sr. (lower left); J. Pierpont Morgan

Nice review of The Tycoons, Bill.

>81 kidzdoc: Ditto, Bill. Well done.

Thanks for the wonderful post about In the Night Kitchen, Bill. It's a beautiful book. I wish people could just calm down. I had a little brother; there's nothing there I hadn't seen when I was six years old.

Good review of The Tycoons, Bill! I'll have to put it on the Long List!

Has Truman snared you yet?

I listened to a wonderful programme where Sendak talked about his aunts and how they inspired Where the Wild Things Are. It really tickled me. Such a gift for telling a story.

Amazed what people want to ban. I'd not come across this book but the illustrations are charming.

#28. Venice by Jan Morris Finished 4/16/16

The Weird Report^TM  

Inexplicably (perhaps), this book was a big disappointment to me. Years ago, I added it to a TBR list that I still maintain, after seeing it recommended as one of The Guardian's top 100 NF books. The endorsement read: "An eccentric but learned guide to the great city's art, history, culture and people." When I had the chance recently to get a copy of The Folio Society's edition I jumped. It's a lovely book.

But it was laborious to read.

Not a narrative, the book doesn't present a coherent, cohesive view of this altogether unique community. I do not feel like I got from the book anecdotes or nuggets of history that I can share, say in a conversation. It didn't imbue me with enthusiasm for Venice. That surprises me, but having read it, I can't view it as anything but a disjointed compendium of disconnected factoids. I didn't find a unifying thread; it's just a heap.

Moreover, there's no index, so you can't look up place names or artwork, individuals or definitions.

Last year, I read John Berendt's City of Falling Angels, which I liked very much (and to be fair, I point out that a number of my LT acquaintances hold a view of it opposite to mine). Yes, it compiled a scattering of topics and people, but it had a narrative drive to it. I enjoyed reading it. I could--and did--talk about it. My report on it is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/189318#5153692

I want to grouse about the book's visuals. The Folio edition has dandy color photos scattered throughout, but none have captions or IDs, right there on the page. Here and there, I surmised a connection between a photo and the adjacent text. But why not make the connection unequivocal? Folio charged a lot for the book. Yes, I discovered a list of the photos with cryptic identifications, but it's in the front, following the Table of Contents. Not satisfactory to me.

If you do tackle Jan Morris' Venice, keep access to Google Maps handy. The Folio edition has a map of the island city, but it was of spotty use; I often could not find what I was looking for. Google Maps showed me the entire realm known as Venice. When Morris wrote about Murano, Mestre, Choggio, or the barrier islands of the Lido that protect the Venetian lagoon from the sea, I could see where they were, and grasp the immense size of Venice. And you can google specific landmarks and have them pointed out for you.

# 20. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown Finished 3/7/16

The Weird Report^TM  

The Boys in the Boat is the story of nine seemingly unremarkable lads who bested the world's top rowing teams at the 1936 Olympics. Those Olympics, of course, were hosted by Nazi Germany, and the Germans fully expected the results in the majority of events to demonstrate Arian superiority. We all know how that turned out. And of course those nine unremarkable boys played a part in the Nazi's athletic comeuppance.

In the depths of the Great Depression, each boy had enrolled at the University of Washington and had gone out for eight-oared crew. Their boat was a 60-foot-long scull, hand-built by a British ex-patriot named George Pocock. Each oar was fashioned by hand from a carefully selected 12-foot spruce plank. The season ran from September through the following June, with a winter hiatus December through February. It amounted to weeks and weeks of practice in all kinds of weather to prepare for two regattas: one for west coast teams, one, on the east coast, for the national championship.

Author Daniel James Brown weaves together multiple threads to tell the story—background on the rowers, the coaches, the rival teams and coaches, the boatbuilder—himself an unparalleled master of all aspects of rowing—the grueling practices and the mysterious slumps the teams experienced, the psychology of teamwork, the role of the coxswain as tactician, and, of course, the exhilaration of winning, especially winning the Olympics.

Recommended.



The Boys Out of Their Boat
Left to right: Don Hume, Joe Rantz, George Hunt, Jim McMillin, John White, Gordon Adam, Charles Day, Roger Morris, and cox Bobby Moch (kneeling).

Good review of The Boys in the Boat, Bill. I also loved this book. A perfect example of stellar NNF.

Ditto, Bill. I've got The Boys in the Boat, and need to read it at some point.

Nice review of The Boys in the Boat, Bill.

It sounds as though Venice would be best appreciated by those who have at least some familiarity with the city already.

# 29. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Finished 4/29/16

The Weird Report^TM  

I finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry several weeks ago, and yes, I'm still savoring the juicy parts. A look at the reviews posted here at LT pretty much confirms my impressions of the book (the wisdom of crowds, so to speak). It is loved by most, a highly regarded novel.

In addition to reading selected reviews by LTers, I googled the book and the mini-series and the author. Interesting facts turned up, things I didn't see in anyone's reviews. So rather than repeat the encomiums of 140+ enthusiastically positive reviews, I thought my report would focus on some history and background I found.

This may be the biggest surprise might be what McMurtry told an interviewer in 2013:

I don’t think about Lonesome Dove very much or very often. It only affected what I chose to write afterwards in terms of the other three books in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy. I would have written the rest of my books, whether or not I’d written Lonesome Dove. I’ve never re-read Lonesome Dove, or given it any real thought.

Asked in the same interview about the television miniseries, he said:

I have only seen portions of it, so I don’t really have a comprehensive opinion about it. Duvall and Tommy Lee made an appealing pair. I’ve heard it’s been seen by about 120 million people, so I guess it’s pretty popular.

Here’s the thing. McMurtry set out to debunk the myth of the Old West. But many readers--perhaps most--missed the author’s point. McMurtry told the New York Times in 1988:

Some people read Lonesome Dove as a reinforcement of the myth. People cherish a certain vision because it fulfills psychological needs. People need to believe that cowboys are simple, strong and free, and not twisted, fascistic and dumb…They want to believe that these are very good men...I don't think these myths do justice to the richness of human possibility. The idea that men are men and women are women and horses are best of all is not a myth that makes for the best sort of domestic life, the best sort of cultural life. It's very exclusionary. It is a code that for all practical purposes excludes women.

It’s ironic that the glamorization of the Old West in countless dime novels, the conception of The Myth, occurred as the wide open West was closing down. Barbed wire cross-crossed the plains, making those epic cattle drives impossible. The drives, as depicted in Lonesome Dove, only happened during a roughly ten-year period. The Hat Creek Cattle Co. drive from the Rio Grande to northern Montana would have been the valedictory.

Lonesome Dove initially was intended to be a movie. McMurtry had established himself with five published novels. The first three had been adapted to film.

1961: Horseman, Pass By; adapted for film as Hud
1963: Leaving Cheyenne; adapted for film as Lovin' Molly
1966: The Last Picture Show; adapted for film with the same title
1970: Moving On
1972: All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers

While collaborating with director Peter Bogdanovich on a script for The Last Picture Show in 1972 (their script would earn them nominations for the "best adapted screenplay" Oscar), McMurtry talked about an idea he had for a western. At the director's behest, he wrote a 75-page "treatment" of the Lonesome Dove story (though he called it Streets of Laredo at the time). Bogdanovich planned to cast John Wayne as Woodrow Call, Jimmy Stewart as Gus McCrae, and Henry Fonda as Jake Spoon. When Wayne (on the advice of director John Ford) declined to sign on, Stewart backed out. There the project stalled. In the early 1980s, McMurtry bought back the rights to the story.

In the interim, McMurtry had created four more novels, one of which was adapted for the screen.

1975: Terms of Endearment; adapted for film with the same title
1978: Somebody's Darling
1982: Cadillac Jack
1983: The Desert Rose

By 1985, McMurtry had expanded his treatment into an 850-page doorstop, retitled Lonesome Dove. It won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize. After two attempts to mount adaptations of it to The Big Screen failed, it was made instead into a four-part, six-hour-long miniseries for TV. The adaption featured a stellar cast, and its length allowed the full story to be presented.

>79 weird_O:. I love the artistry of Sendack. I'm looking forward to seeing you Saturday at the library. I confess that during lunch break today, I went across town and managed to get 13 books for $9.50. It is no surprise that I saw Diane there. We both managed to get some gems.

Thanks all for stopping by, Linda, Rachel, Darryl, Joe, Mark, Charlotte I'm afraid I'm not so good at the chit-chat. I want to tap out a witty reply to each post, but the brain-freeze sets in. I welcome you all, and I hope you stop by often.

>92 Whisper1: Ohhh! The horror!!!! You two betrayed me. BETRAYED me. We were going to shop together. Well, I can...usually I can...forgive.

Haha. See you Sat.

We will indeed shop together. See you Saturday.

>91 weird_O: I loved your interesting info on one of my all time favorite books, Lonesome Dove. McMurtry is a helluva writer but he is definitely a curmudgeon, as well.

Have you seen the mini-series, Bill?

>94 weird_O: Well, Bill, I looked for you as well. I was shocked that you didn't show up! I always worry that I'll miss something on Wednesday if I wait until Saturday. This way, I'm much calmer on Saturday...

>91 weird_O: I think the thing I liked about the book of Lonesome Dove is exactly that it served as a counterpoint to that mythical Old West. Maybe because I'm a woman, it never really seemed all that great. Even in something like the TV show Deadwood, it doesn't seem like a very nice place for a woman.

I watched the miniseries last year after reading the book. I don't think the years since it was made have been very kind to it. Although it had its moments, I didn't enjoy it very much.

I just finished Boys in the Boat as well. I thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing on the joys (and pains) of rowing (I was the eighth man). And I liked the way he wove the history throughout the story. A great read. Lonesome Dove fan as well. DQ should definitely be one of your door stoppers this year. ; )

>96 msf59: Mark, I have not seen the miniseries. I did watch two clips on YouTube--of Gus bustin' up the bartender who disrespects Call and him, and of Call beating on the Army scout who tries to commandeer Newt's horse. I'd see if a library has DvDs, but sheesh, it's 6 hours long. I could maybe read 50 pages of Truman in that time. Gotta have some priorities, know what I'm sayin?

>97 Dianekeenoy: Well, if you look for me on Saturday, you will see me, Diane. With 400+ books on my "Shelved But Unread" collection, I gotta be discrete about adding too many more books. Having looked into Larry McMurtry's oeuvre in the last couple of weeks, I see in my mind's eye a small clutch of his books--in hardcover--on the sales shelves at my birthplace library. They been there for months. $2 each. Ha, if I drive there, they'll be gone.

>100 weird_O: I completely agree about prioritizing, Bill. I do it all the time. LOL. But the miniseries of LD, is not to be missed. You can easily break that 6 hours into 3 viewing sessions.

>102 msf59: Listen to the man, Bill. The performances in the LD miniseries are classic. If you find the time, you'll be glad you did, I think.

Bill, I am discovering that I am very much like Diane in my way of thinking. I was able to get two gems at the sale yesterday. Long on the tbr list was The Romanov Sisters, and because I've managed to collect many, many books regarding the Tudors, when I find one that I haven't collected, especially when the price is only $1,50, it simply jumps off the shelf into my waiting hands.

Seriously, I look forward to seeing you. Hotel Bethlehem for lunch! And, between the four of us, I'm sure we can do some major book acquisitions Saturday morning.

>101 weird_O:, >104 Whisper1: There will be photos, I hope?
Lurking briefly... I'm not spending lotsa time on LT lately, hope to come up for air in a few weeks.

Hey, Bill.

I'm a late arriver, but I also enjoyed the Lonesome Dove tidbits in >61 Berly:. Oops, I mean >91 weird_O:.

I haven't seen the miniseries either, but now I'll look for the two Youtube scenes you mention.

Ha ha; learned about this through my daughter Becky's friend Casey. In Boston...

I just ran across something that might interest you Bostonians, as well as anyone visiting Boston, especially in the rain. Thinking of you, Mark. In cooperation with the city government, a non-profit called Mass Poetry, is stenciling poems on sidewalks here and there in the city. Because they are using special paint, the poetry is visible only when it rains (or any other time the sidewalk gets wet).

  

Crazy

>107 weird_O: It is true, poets always pray for rain!

Love the detailed reviews Bill - you have your mojo back undoubtedly.

Bethlehem Public Library Used Book Sale 5/21/16

1. White Noise by Don DeLillo (pbk) [Yeah, already read it, but now I have my own copy.]
2. Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig (pbk) [Second book of a trilogy; just read the first book.]
3. This House of Sky by Ivan Doig (pbk)
4. A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines (pbk)
5. Possession by A. S. Byatt (pbk)
6. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (pbk) Pulitzer for fiction 1995
7. The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich (pbk)
8. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner (pbk) [Moving up from a mass market paperback.]
9. French Creek by Daphne du Maurier (hc)
10. ‘Tis by Frank McCourt (hc)
11. Canada by Richard Ford (hc)
12. The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough (hc)
13. Glory Road by Bruce Catton (hc) [Second book of a trilogy; I've read the first and third books.]
14. The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton (hc)*
15. Terrible Swift Sword by Bruce Catton (hc)*
16. Never Call Retreat by Bruce Catton (hc)*
17. Nobody Move by Denis Johnson (hc)
18. Atonement by Ian McEwan (hc) [Upgrade from trade paperback to hardcover; going to read it someday.]
19. Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan (hc)
20. Dead Man’s Walk by Larry McMurtry (hc) [First book in McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetrology.]
21. Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry (hc) [Second book in McMurtry's LD tetrology.]
22. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (hc)
23. Murder at the Manor by Agatha Christie (hc)
   “Mystery Guild Lost Classics Omnibus”: Crooked House; Ordeal by Innocence; The Seven Dials Mystery

Ooops!
These two I already have. CRS
A Lesson Before Dying Ernest J. Gaines (pbk)
Wartime Understanding and Behavior in World War II by Paul Fussell (pbk)

*"The Centennial History of the Civil War"; a boxed set.

Nice book haul.

You have two of my all-time favorites in that haul, Bill: Atonement and The Stone Diaries.

I love those pavement poems. What a lovely idea. I'd be hoping for rain so I could take a picture of them.

Wow...beautiful haul. Great score on the boxed set of Catton's Civil War history.

>110 weird_O: Wow, you had some great books tucked into the biggest tote in the world! Good for you!

Holy moly, that's a nice stack of books! Well done, you.

Fantastic book haul, Bill! You guys have great book sales, that is for sure.

Hooray for another Meet-Up!!

Great book haul, Bill! I own Possession and Atonement, but I haven't read either of them yet.

WOW! Bill, you really obtained some great books. Of course, we could have filled more bags, but we left at a safe time wherein we could accumulate, but still carry them to the car in one trip.

It was a lovely time. I so enjoyed chatting away the hours with you, Diane, and Gig. Also, I'm glad I could corral Will to meet some of my 75 challenge friends.

I hope you have fun finding a place to put all those wonderful books.

And, thanks for the information and images re. sidewalk poetry in Boston. It remains one of my favorite cities. Though too expensive to live near, I do like to visit all the incredible historial sites. Have you been to author's row in a cemetery in Concord?

It is a must see

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sleepy-hollow-cemetery-concord

>111 Ameise1:, >112 katiekrug:, >114 laytonwoman3rd:, >115 Dianekeenoy:, >116 scaifea:, >117 msf59:, >118 kidzdoc: I enjoy you all enjoying. I'm quite upbeat about what I found (well, excepting the two unintended dupes). Good stuff to read.

The meet-up was wonderful. I invite any LTer who might be interested to join us at the next session. Bethlehem is two hours from NYC by bus, roughly 90 minutes from Philly via the Northeast Extension, Harrisburg about 90 minutes. The next sale is July 16, then Sep 17, and finally Dec 3. Saturdays all, open 10 am to 8 pm. (Linda's very doubtful for July as she'll be recovering from her surgery in mid-June.

Speaking of whom, Linda, and also Charlotte >113 charl08:, glad you like the poetry in the rain. We'll have to look for the cemetery in Concord. We stopped there once at an off time and didn't see much. My daughter walked out from Boston with a friend--there's a walking path--then took the T back into the city.

Reading Truman. In his 20s, Harry was wooing Bess Wallace by mail. She was in Independence, he several miles away in Grandview, working on his mother's farm. He broke his leg. From his bed, he wrote Bess:

I have been reading David Copperfield and have really found out that I couldn’t appreciate Dickens before. I have only read Oliver Twist and Tale of Two Cities. They didn’t make much of an impression on me and I never read anything else. A neighbor sent me Dombey & Son and David C., and I am glad for it has awakened a new interest. It is almost a reconciliation to having my leg broken to contemplate the amount of reading I am going to do this summer. I am getting better fast and I am afraid I’ll get well so soon I won’t get to read enough….I do think Mr. Micawber is the killingest person I have run across in any book anywhere. He is exactly true to life. I know a half-dozen of him right here in Grandview. They are always waiting for something to turn up….

(Emphasis added by me.)

I just read Copperfield a couple months ago. Two thumbs up, Chuck Dickens. Got write a report soon.

>121 weird_O: Interesting! I've started reading a Dickens a year, and my first was Oliver Twist, followed by A Tale of Two Cities ... and I'm currently reading my third, David Copperfield! I also am enjoying this much more than the others. Especially more than A Tale of Two Cities, which just wasn't a fit for me at all.

Excellent book haul, Bill. Possession is a knockout.

Fantastric thread topper! Love it, even though I have no knowledge of Buster Keaton. RL has a way of derailing... or just hitting a ditch like that car did!

Glad to see all is well and life continues.

>17 weird_O: - Those pictures are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing them.

>25 weird_O: - Well I am not comfortable with the idea of storing books in the bathroom - humidity central! - that seems to be a very organized book collection.

>30 weird_O: - Love the dogwoods! The Pacific Dogwood, Cornus nuttalli, is the official flower of the province of British Columbia so I do encounter it a fair bit. Love the pink/red variety!

>40 weird_O: - Great book haul!

>107 weird_O: - What a wonderful concept!

Here it is June. Already. I finished a second Keith Haring book for the NFC on the last day of May (book was due back to the library June 1). Two days later (why it was just today) I completed Truman for both the Pulitzer challenge and for the Deadweight Doorstop challenge. Have to work on some book reporting tomorrow.

 

New Month! New Books! Looking forward to your selections, Bill. Always interesting.

Hooray for finishing Truman!

Prospective reading for June.

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (just for so...) LOANER
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (AAC3 + Pulitzer4fiction) ROOT
Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto (NF Pulitzer ) LOANER
   or more likely...
So Human an Animal by Rene Dubos (NF Pulitzer) ROOT
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner (Deadweight doorstop) ROOT
Collapse by Jared Diamond (NFC) ROOT
   and/or...
A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester (NFC) ROOT
   and/or...
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stegner (NFC) LOANER
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth (Wedgie) ROOT
The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey LOANER
Nobody Move by Denis Johnson (maybe this qualifies as M'n'M)

I won't get all of these read, of course, at least not in June.

I like the June plans, Bill!

I loved both The Shipping News & The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Mixed feelings on the Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, but I enjoyed Nobody Move, plus it is a shorty!

Go Bill! Go Bill!

I thought your previous book haul was good but this second one is really good. Both of the O'Nan's you bought are great, not to mention This House of Sky, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, The Great Santini, and The Stone Diaries. Happy reading!

> 127 I haven't read any of those Bill - look forward to hearing more about the ones you decide to read.

From Roddy Doyle:

-‘I am the greatest.’
-He fuckin’ was.
-He was - . Well, he was Muhammad Ali. The name’s enough, isn’t it? Says it all.
-I was thinkin’ – rememberin’. He was fightin’ an English lad - Brian London.
-I remember tha’.
-My da let me an’ me brother stay up to watch it. I can’t remember exactly, but I think we might’ve gone to bed for a few hours an’ he came in an’ got us, an’ the lights were off an’ we went in to the telly an’ it was off as well. An’ remember back then, the telly had to warm up after yeh turned it on?
-I do, yeah. There’d be no picture for a minute.
-So, he went into the kitchen to put on the kettle an’ he poured us cups o’ milk and me ma had left a couple o’ Clubmilks for us. So we gathered up the cups and went back in an’ Brian London was on his back. The fight was fuckin’ over.
-Brilliant.
-Me da was bullin’. For a minute, just. But I could see it on his face. This was better. The story, like. An’ he told it all his life.
-And you were in it.
-I was.
-Tha’ was nice.
-Yep.

Finished Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey yesterday. I've picked up The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth (a Wedgie) and also So Human an Animal a Pulitzer winner for general non-fiction in 1969. I'm collecting some bits for a report on Brat, which was quite good. Also marshalling resources to comment on Mr. Haring and on Truman.

But a double birthday calls. We gots gifts to give.

>131 weird_O: Brilliant, that is. Thanks for sharing.

>131 weird_O: The man's a genius. Ali too.

I liked The Ghost Writer, Bill. I'm not a big Roth fan, but that one was good. Hope you enjoy it.

39. Nobody Move by Denis Johnson Finished 6/7/16

The Weird Report^TM  

Nobody Move is a short noir novel by Denis Johnson, telling of people pursuing large amounts of money they feel entitled to and the conflicts among them that their pursuits engender. It's about acquaintances, friendships, loyalties, betrayals.

Jimmy Luntz, an inveterate gambler, owes thousands to a fellow named Juarez. His collection agent, Gambol, picks Jimmy up as he leaves a "barbershop chorus" competition. Driving north, Gambol reaches for Jimmy's gym bag, unzips it, and takes a gun from it, which he orders Jimmy to stow in the glove box. Then he stops at a roadside rest and exits the car to get something from the trunk.

Standing at the pay phone, Jimmy Luntz punched a nine and a one and stopped. He couldn't hear the dial tone. His ears still rang. That old Colt revolver made a bang that slapped you silly.
  He dropped the receiver and let it dangle a few seconds. He shook his head and wiped both hands across the thighs of his slacks. He jabbed at the one again as he put the phone to his head. Some woman said, "Palo County Sheriff's Department. What is your emergency?"
  "A guy. This guy," he said. "A guy's been shot."

After describing their location, Jimmy hangs up, half-heartedly rigs a tourniquet using Gambol's belt, boosts Gambol's wallet, and drives off in his car. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy is seen by a freshly divorced and now homeless woman as he tosses his gun into a river. Naturally, she and Jimmy hook up.

Her name is Anita. She has a court date in just days, a hearing about the $2.3 million she's accused of embezzling. She didn't embezzle the money, but she knows who did. She regards the money as hers, and she intends to get her hands on it. In the meantime, there's hot sex.

Meanwhile, Gambol uses his cellphone to call Juarez, 500+ miles south of him, and demands assistance. Juarez delivers, coaxing a "vet" living near the spot where Gambol lies bleeding to drive and save him. Which she does.

Jimmy's terrified of Juarez and Gambol, who are not frightened in the least but are very determined. Jimmy and Anita head north along the Feather River, seeking temporary sanctuary with a pair of bikers running a roadside tavern. Mayhem ensues. Of course. Does anyone cash in? Does anyone survive?

The novel is short, as I said, a fast read with plenty of drive. A one-day endeavor. It was first published in four installments in Playboy in 2008. I like this opening spread of the first installment, Jimmy in his "barbershop chorus" tux, Gambol at the wheel, brandishing Jimmy's Colt revolver. Noir.

    

Good review of Nobody Move, Bill. I liked this slim book too. Train Dreams remains my favorite of his but I have many more to read. I have been meaning to get to Tree of Smoke for ages.

38. Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (6/4/16)

The Weird Report^TM  

Brat Farrar is a mystery book, one with a mysterious death, but it isn't what I'd classify as "Murder 'n' Mayhem." It's a mystery within a mystery.

The setup: Brat Farrar, a 20-year-old orphan, just returned to England after living and working in the U.S. for several years, is accosted on the street by a man who calls him "Simon." The man, named Alec, quickly realizes that Brat is not Simon, but he insists he is the spitting image of him. He proffers Brat a chance to assume a different identity--that of this Simon fellow's twin brother Patrick--and inherit an estate. Which, of course, he'd share 50-50 with Alec, entirely on the q.t. Alec knows the family involved intimately and can coach Brat on Patrick's mannerisms, on the layout of the the estate and the neighboring town, on the family members and their relatives and friends.

Patrick was the older of the twins--by only minutes, of course--so he would be heir. Besides Patrick and Simon, the Ashby family comprised a younger sister Eleanor, twins Jane and Ruth (younger still), and the children's aunt ( and guardian), Bee Ashby. The parents, Bill (brother of Bee) and Nora, died in a plane crash whilst returning from a holiday in France. Several months later, Patrick disappeared. His jacket was found, together with what was interpreted as a suicide note, beside a path along the seaside cliffs. Not a trace of him was found, and his disappearance was ruled a suicide.

About eight years have passed since, when the Ashby family solicitors are contacted by a man who says he is Patrick Ashby. His explanations and his family knowledge do pass muster with the solicitors. An experienced investigator sits in on an interview with Brat, and he is not convinced.

"What shakes me...is not the fellow's knowledge of the subject--all good con men are glib--but the general cut of his jib. He's quite frankly not what I expected. After a little while in my job you develop a smell for the wrong 'un. He doesn't smell like a crook to me, and yet the set-up stinks."

Lacking any clear disqualifier, the solicitors accept Brat as Patrick and pass him along to Aunt Bee. She must tell Simon he isn't the heir after all. And she must tell family members, retainers, associates, clergy, merchants and tradesmen...well, just everyone: Patrick is NOT dead, he has returned. Most accept him, though some harbor reservations. The new Patrick has reservations too.

The back-cover promo: "Culminating in a final terrible moment when all is revealed, Brat Farrar is a precarious adventure that grips the reader early and firmly and then holds on until the explosive conclusion."

The author was born Elizabeth Mackintosh in Inverness, Scotland, in 1896. Under the pen name Gordon Daviot, she wrote 12 plays, 3 novels, and a biography. As Josephine Tey she published 7 mystery novels, 5 of which feature Inspector Alan Grant. Although she died in 1952, her reputation as a mystery writer is as strong as ever. In 1990 the Crime Writers' Association voted The Daughter of Time, published by Tey in 1951, greatest mystery novel of all time. Brat Farrar is a strong runner-up. I give 'er both thumbs up.

Finished A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester.   

Notice that the subtitle on the cover is: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. I think I didn't fully grasp Winchester's focus here, even though I have read his previous books Krakatoa and The Map that Changed the World, both of which centered around geology. What I expected was more focus on the mayhem of the earthquake and fire. But you have to read almost half-way through before he buckles down to the actual event of 1906. The first half of the book explains plate tectonics, faults, geologic time and other aspects of New Geology, so you more completely understand what happened in San Francisco. Winchester articulated as simply and clearly as possible this (to me anyway) arcane science.

In an epilogue, Winchester puts other earthquakes (including the 1989 SF 'quake and two Alaskan 'quakes) into the story, as well as connecting variations in seismic activities in Yellowstone to activities along the San Andreas Fault.

Not what I expected, but nevertheless an interesting and informative read. I'll give it a thumb up.

 

Hey Bill! Happy new week!

>139 weird_O: I've got that one on my shelves and need to get round to it soon. Love Winchester.

Finished # 41 for the year, The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth. This is a slim novel, only 180 pages, published in 1979. I read it now as my Wedgie for June. Excellent. It was a finalist for the 1980 fiction Pulitzer. Recently, I ran across a note that in fact the fiction jurists recommended The Ghost Writer for the prize, but that the Pulitzer Board ignored their recommendation and gave the prize to Mailer's The Executioner's Song (which is about 6 time longer than TGW).

Turning now to Annie Proulx. AAC for June. Pulitzer for fiction in 1994.

Out and about today; my love and I got groomed. My love's copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has divided itself into about 5 chunks, so we stopped at the B&N to get a paperback replacement. I got a copy of Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke to read as a Deadweight Doorstop.

"Turning now to Annie Proulx." So have I, Bill. I started Heart Songs and Other Stories. It begins well...

>142 weird_O: Wow, great bit of book trivia regarding The Ghost Writer. I wonder what the Pulitzer Board would think now. I'm glad it was an excellent wedgie for you. Wait, that doesn't sound right . . .

Ha, Joe. It certainly altered my gait a bit.

>145 weird_O: LOL!

My wife and her dog are going to Beantown USA for a few days. I have to go 'cuz I'm the driver. If I behave, they won't make me sleep in the car.

Taking along The Shipping News, which is reading well, and my June Doorstop, The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Also So Human an Animal by Rene Dubos, my presumptive nonfiction Pulitzer winner for June.

Will we see some Olmstead parks? The MFA? The Isabel Stewart Gardner? Coast 'o Maine? Lobster rolls? Lobster tails? A wet-sidewalk poem? An ice cream cone or five?

Stand by for continuing reports.

I always your reviews, Bill, aka The Weird Report, and I will look for the Simon Winchester book which is at present not in my home.

Have a great Sunday and a Happy Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day, Bill! Hope you had a great visit to Beantown and I am glad you are enjoying The Shipping News.

Thank you, Paul. Father's Day is being darn good. Hope your's is too.

Pretty good also Bill. Took the tribe for mexican food to celebrate Kyran's (my boy) graduation yesterday as well as Father's Day. The kids bought me a decent looking bottle of red, much to Hani's irritation, Ramadan and all. Also received touching text messages from my sisters-in-law telling me that they consider me a sort of father to them - all very nice but makes me feel damned old too.

Happy Father's Day Bill!

Happy belated Father's Day, Bill. Sounds like you had a good one. : ) You certainly had a major book haul back in May--whoohooo!! And just BTW, I love your thumbs up photos on the Weird Reports.

>149 msf59: >151 PaulCranswick: >152 The_Hibernator: >153 Berly: Thanx all for stopping by and for the Father's Day good wishes. Glad you like The Weird Report^TM, Paul. Just havin' fun is all it is. The thumb, Kim, is mine (and I like it too; wouldn't want to be without it--I have a friend who surrendered one of his to a band saw).

I'm up to 42 books for the year, with two more I want to/need to finish in June: The Big Rock Candy Mountain and So Human an Animal. I spent some time updating my various challenge lists for the year-to-date.

One of my personal challenges is to read at least one book each month from my Murder 'n' Mayhem TBR shelf. So far, so good.

M'n'M (6 books in 6 months)
Jan: Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
Feb: The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
Mar: Devil in the Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Apr: The Alienist by Caleb Carr
May: A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
June: Nobody Move by Denis Johnson

     

I'm up-to-date on the American Author Challenge [AAC3]. Five of the books I read won Pulitzer Prizes (starred).

AAC3 (8 books by 6 authors)
Jan: Anne Tyler--The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons*, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Feb: Richard Russo--Empire Falls*
Mar: Jane Smiley--A Thousand Acres*
Apr: Poetry--John Brown's Body* by Stephen Vincent Benet
May: Ivan Doig--English Creek
June: E. Annie Proulx--The Shipping News*

  

         

>154 weird_O:, >155 weird_O: Some very good reading there. I've read nine of those fourteen, and enjoyed them all except the Smiley. I'm not sure what it is about her that just doesn't click with me.

Nice progress, Bill! I'm in awe of your commitment to all your various challenges/goals.

Just to report briefly on the virtually drive-thru visit to Boston.

>147 weird_O: Will we see some Olmstead parks? The MFA? The Isabel Stewart Gardner? Coast 'o Maine? Lobster rolls? Lobster tails? A wet-sidewalk poem? An ice cream cone or five?

I'm going to say 5 out of 8 isn't bad. Olmstead parks? Nope. The MFA? Yep. The Isabel Stewart Gardner? Nope. Coast 'o Maine? Yep. Lobster rolls? Yep. Lobster tails? Yep. A wet-sidewalk poem? Nope. An ice cream cone or five? Yep.

Oh, I am VERY envious -- you are going to the Isabel Stewart Gardner museum! It is on my bucket list. Sadly, as you may know, a major art loss when paintings were stolen a long time ago and never recovered. Among them, a Vermeer and an incredible rembrandt.

Happy travels. I sure to do hope to be recovered to see you in July as I want very much to hear about the museum.

>136 weird_O: Great review, Bill. This one goes straight to my library list. Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Hi Bill - Have a great weekend. You've made some great hauls at library book sales.

Happy Saturday, Bill! Hooray for staying current on the AAC. You Da Man! I just posted the Steinbeck thread. I have been looking forward to this one, all year. He is my hero.

>159 Whisper1: As I wrote on your thread, Linda, we didn't get to the Gardner. My wife has been there (as well as the MFA) and thought the MFA had a broader range of artwork to see. Maybe on our next visit...

It would be terrific to see you in July. So heal, Linda, heal.

>160 Ameise1: Denis Johnson is a new-to-me writer, Barbara. I've read two of his shorties (Train Dreams and Nobody Move), and I just bought Tree of Smoke, his National Book Award winning (and Pulitzer Prize finalist) novel about the Vietnam war. It will be read (by me) before the end of the year.

>161 BLBera: What can I say, Beth? Gotta love those library sales. The weekend promises to be good; hope yours will be too.

My library has got a copy of Tree of Smoke, too. But with close to 900 pp I don't know when to read it.

>164 Ameise1: It's going to be one of my Deadweight Doorstops for the year. With six months left in the year, I've got several openings. :-)

>165 weird_O: :-)

For some reason, Garrison Keillor repeatedly has been impinging on my reading life this week. First, I ran across a column he wrote about Donald Trump as "the punk who would be president." That prompted me to fetch Homegrown Democrat from the shelf. It's a book Keillor wrote and published in 2004, during Dubya's re-election campaign. A reread proved--to me, anyway--that it is still relevant and persuasive. It provided this story:

I met my hero S. J. Perelman once at a dinner and sat across the table from him, stunned with admiration, try­ing to frame a compliment that would be substantial but not grandiose, and then he leaned over and groused about The New Yorker and its miserly treatment of writ­ers, asked me how much they were paying me, shook his head when I told him, said I was worth more than that, said it was a battle he'd been fighting all his life, this as­sumption on the part of management that we were all goddamned Du Ponts, and this brotherly conversation, like a couple of metalworkers grousing over lunch, en­deared him to me forever. To be regarded as a fellow worker by S. J. Perelman meant more to me than just about any prize.

On TV Sunday morning, there he was again, being interviewed by Jane Pauley on the eve of his retirement from The Prairie Home Companion, the NPR show he invented, wrote, and performed for decades. In the course of the interview, he said he is a high-functioning autistic, which accounts for his not looking people in the eye. And by golly, as the interview went on, he did not often make eye-contact with Pauley.

Yesterday, I returned books to the University library, and having done that, I stopped at the local used book emporium and there on the $1 book cart outside the door, I found a clean hardcover of Leaving Home, a collection of Lake Wobegon stories.

He's going to be with me for a while yet.

>167 weird_O: Where is the "Love" button for this post?? I saw that Sunday morning interview with Jane Pauley too. I have met Mr. Keillor in person, twice (my husband worked for a public tv/radio station for 22 years), and I thought he was the shyest man ever. On stage he was wonderful, but at the meet-and-greet he was so obviously discomfited, and had very little to say. We were told not to try to shake hands with him. It had not occurred to me until I heard him say it, but his being on the autism spectrum makes perfect sense. For a few years my daughter went to sleep every night with a "News from Lake Woebegon" audio recording playing. I think we had 3 sets of those tapes.

>167 weird_O: I didn't know about the autism issue for Keillor either. I saw him fairly recently when Hillary Clinton had a book signing at his bookstore in St. Paul. He seemed a bit "off" to me but I had thought it was attributable to a small stroke he had suffered but perhaps it was the autism instead.

>168 laytonwoman3rd: I remember a mention you made about meeting Keillor, and your comment that he seemed extremely introverted. So now we know. To me, it just makes his accomplishments that much more admirable. And Temple Grandin too.

>169 Oberon: A Minnesotan meeting a Minnesotan. The guy runs a bookstore too.

>170 weird_O: The high-functioning autism makes sense out of his stage presence too. We've been to the Memorial Day show every year for the last 10 or so. When he's on stage he rarely looks anyone in the eye - it was a bit surprising to me the first time I saw it. Radio would be a great medium for this, though. All the communication is oral, no facial expressions or physical acting needed.

June is toast. Tomorrow June 2016 closes its doors. Forever.

I'm confident of completing So Human an Animal by Rene Dubos, one of 1969's Pulitzer winners for general non-fiction (sharing the nod with Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night). I won't get through The Big Rock Candy Mountain; I'll finish it in July.

When I got the $1 copy of Leaving Home (>167 weird_O:) on Monday, I also got a copy of Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. That pretty much wraps up the AAC3 for me, in the sense that I have books in hand by each of the six authors remaining.

Steinbeck: I have quite a stack of his books, but I'm reasonably certain of having read most of them. Have to cogitate. Think I will read two or three Wedgie-type novels; he wrote several of them.

Oates: Never have I read JCO. But at the end of 2015, knowing she was on the list for this year, I got used copies of Blonde, a fictionalized life of Marilyn Monroe, and Black Water, a fictionalized account of Chappaquiddick. The former is a DwD, and the latter a Wedgie. Both were Pulitzer finalists.

Irving: My shelves hold five Irving books, three of which I know I've read, one of which I might have read, and one I know I'll never read. For the challenge, I could read The Cider House Rules or buy a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany, which has unanimous high praise from members of the LT Bethlehem reading circleers.

Chabon: Michael has written some of my favorite books--Kavalier and Clay, Wonder Boys, Telegraph Avenue, The Yiddish Policemen's Union. As I noted above, I'll read Gentlemen of the Road.

Dillard: Been sitting on a copy of An American Childhood for months. It'll be read in November.

DeLillo: Having read Underworld, Libra, and White Noise, I'll go with Falling Man and The Body Artist.

I thought Gentlemen of the Road was great fun!

>171 drneutron: Good point, Jim. The interview included clips of the performers doing the show, and even in brief snippets, Keillor appeared to avoid eye contact. A remarkable man.

>173 katiekrug: I'm looking forward to it, Katie. But October is so far off...

While I have been keeping up with my chosen challenges (barely), I'm way behind with the post-reading paperwork. I have read some books I want to laud, and I'm going to try to catch up and report on them. Here's one, from two months ago.

# 31. The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty Finished 5/3/16

The Weird Report^TM  

Laurel McKelva Hood travels from her life in Chicago to her childhood home in Mississippi to assist her father, a retired judge, deal with transitions. Clint McKelva has vision difficulty and he seems to be acting somewhat older than he is. [Damn! And he's younger than I am.] A decade or so back, his wife Becky, Laurel's mother, died. Just a year or two ago, he met and abruptly married Kay, a woman younger than his daughter.

Though the Judge seems content with his current marriage, his daughter is not. She was astonished when Clint remarried. She believes Kay to be narcissistic, and both unaware and unappreciative of Clint's role in the community. (Needless to say, Laurel is mystified by the marriage.)

Following seemingly successful surgery to save his eyesight, the Judge steadily declines. He's trapped in a New Orleans hospital bed, sandbags against his head to prevent movement that could undo the delicate surgery. In this moment, Laurel and Kay reach a shaky accord in which they'll split bedside attendance. On her watch, Laurel reads Dickens to her father. Kay, on the other hand, frets and fumes about this imposition on her life.

Clint dies.

A funeral service is set. Friends and neighbors gather at the house where Laurel grew up, the house that's now Kay's. Kay has always maintained she has no one—parents dead, no siblings—so both she and the denizens of Mount Salus, Mississippi are floored when Mother, Sis and Bubba, and other assorted Chisoms tumble out of their pickup truck and walk into the house. Like Kay, they're loud and coarse and unaware and jes' plain as dirt. Turns out that Clint knew of them and had directed a friend to invite the Chisom family of Madrid, Texas to attend, if a funeral should be necessary.

There's more, of course.

It's been pointed out that nothing much happens in The Optimist's Daughter. A man dies, his daughter and his lifelong friends and neighbors gather to memorialize him, and his much-younger second wife has hissy fits. It's a study of class, of the rednecks vs. the bourgeoisie.

Despite its brevity, I think this is a very rich novel. Two months after reading it, I think that still. Much of the enjoyment for me came out of the dialog, in what the characters say to each other, and in how they alter their words, their messages, according to the situation, the context, and who they're addressing. Everything seems telling and important. Quite the accomplishment. Eudora Welty won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel. And I award it two thumbs up.

 

End o' the month, and I finished a Pulitzer Prize Miscellany book (in the General Non-Fiction category in 1969), So Human an Animal by Rene Dubos. The Big Rock Candy Mountain remains for me to complete in July.

Top Books...so far

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth

      

>172 weird_O: A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my favorite books of all time. The Cider House Rules was a decent read for me but I liked it less than many people seem to.

Bill, I highly recommend A Prayer for Owen Meany. It remains one of my top three books of all time.

I really do hope I am able to attend the July meet up. I've taken a few steps backward this week and have increased pain levels, but overall, I'm doing remarkably well.

Catching up. I should have brought along a whoopie pie, darn it.
>138 weird_O: I really liked Brat Farrar, and everything I've read from Tey, but The Daughter of Time is an amazing mystery. Glad to see that you're a fan too.

Just read that Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz survivor and author of Night, has died at age 87. RIP, sir.

Happy Saturday, Bill. Hope you are having a great holiday weekend.

Sorry to hear about Wiesel. I loved Night and have been meaning to read more of his works.

I will be waiting to hear what you have to say about Big Rock Candy Mountain. I tried to read it at the same time that Mark did, but, like always, he read it much faster than I did.

Hope you had a great holiday weekend Bill!

>180 mstrust: Hey, so Jennifer. I'd eat a whoopie pie or three. What brought it to mind?

Another Josephine Tey fan; good to hear. I still have The Franchise Affair beside my reading chair. Gave it to a granddaughter for Christmas and borrowed it back.

>178 ursula: >179 Whisper1: I guess I've gotta get that Owen Meany to read.

>184 benitastrnad: I'm mentally hampered in reading The Big Rock Candy Mountain, Benita, 'cause I read a Stegner bio last year. This novel's drawn from the author's growing-up years, and his father was a heel who repeatedly abandoned his wife and children, the last time when she was dying of breast cancer. Wallace had to deal with his suffering mother. Then his father showed up at the funeral. I recognize the story is grim and I'm not relishing the read.

>185 The_Hibernator: We had a decent Fourth, Rachel. Missed all the fireworks. Neighbors shooting off things, causing pops and bangs and booms, but producing nothing we could see..

To kick off the month, I read A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck, with photos by Robert Capa. (The latter was famous as a photojournalist covering the Spanish Civil War and WWII. He was eventually killed while covering the fighting between the French and the Viet Minh in the First Indochina War.)

Steinbeck revealed that Capa was a reader, but that he didn't buy books. "Capa had provided books for the trip," Steinbeck reported in the book, "and at that time I did not know how he got them. But it came out later that Capa is a thief of books. He calls it borrowing. Casu­ally he puts books in his pocket, and if he is caught at it, he says, 'I will return it, I am just borrowing it, I just want to read it.' The book rarely gets returned."

>188 weird_O: There are some things that are unacceptable...book thievery is one of them. Yikes!

#187
I didn't find the novel a downer in everything. I thought it was very good, but I didn't find it easy to read. I think it was the style more than the story. It is very autobiographical, but still a good book. Mark got through it much faster than I did. My friends here say that Angle of Repose is Stegner's best novel. I haven't read that one yet.

>186 weird_O:
What brought it to mind?
I recall a certain someone sending his minion over to my thread to watch my employees and request a Whoopie Pie. Which I delivered. : D
I'm pretty sure The Franchise Affair and A Shilling For Candles are the only Tey I've yet to read.

>188 weird_O: Shocker! Great quote Bill.

'Twas a Pulitzer Prize weekend of sorts for me. Yesterday I finished Geraldine Brooks' March, the fiction winner in 2006. The honor was well-deserved. (By coincidence, E. L. Doctorow's The March was a finalist that year. And it was a Civil War book too.)

For my birthday on Saturday, my wife and our daughter picked three Pulitzer Prize winners from my wish list for me:

The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel F. B. Morse by Carleton Mabee; winner for Bio in 1944
Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald; winner for General NF in 1973
The Known World by Edward P. Young; winner for Fiction in 2004

My sister sent me a card published by Paris' famed Shakespeare and Co. bookstore. It had an extra fold, perf'ed so it easily popped off to be a book mark. Thanks, Marty! You know I'm a reader. :-)

I'm good.

Happy birthday Bill.

I hope to read March this month too.

I hope you had a Happy Birthday!

Happy Belated Birthday, Bill. Hope you were treated well. The Known World is excellent. I am glad you enjoyed March. It was my first Brooks and I loved it, even though I had never read Little Women.

I am loving my revisit with the Joad Clan. My God, could this man write.

More birthday wishes from me. Like Mark, I loved March - and that's a great haul.

Ha ha! Yet another Pulitzer Prize winner arrived at the door, sent by Son the Younger and his family. Andersonville by MacKinley Kantor, winner for Fiction in 1956. I read part of this way back in the day, but the book got mangled before I finished. Dog ate it or something.

It's a Deadweight Doorstop!

>198 weird_O: I read that one, probably in the '70's. I borrowed it from my FIL, and read a good bit of it in his house, where there was a large framed print of the inside of the stockade, with a prisoner being shot for approaching the "deadline". His grandfather served in the Union Army, was captured during the Wilderness Campaign, and was a prisoner at Andersonville for a time.

Hey hey hey!! I got my own bus route!

>200 weird_O: Hooray for Creeps & Weirdos, Bill! And, you are not alone.

Hope those books are treating you well. Waiting on a report...

#45. A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck, photos by Robert Capa Finished 7/3/16

The Weird Report^TM   

All sorts of interesting information about post-war life in the Soviet Union is packed into this short book. It's a unique history, an eye-witness account of everyday life in a nation devastated by war but determined to recover on its own. Writer/journalist John Steinbeck and photojournalist Robert Capa travelled to the Soviet Union in 1947, barely two years after the end of WWII.

Steinbeck explained the venture:

…[I]t occurred to us that there were some things that nobody wrote about Russia, and they were the things that interested us most of all. What do the people wear there? What do they serve at dinner?...What do they talk about? Do they dance, and sing, and play?...There must be a private life of the Russian people, and that we could not read about because no one wrote about it, and no one photographed it.

Under Stalin, the country was secretive, welcoming neither purposeful visitors nor random tourists.
Getting visas was a long and deliberately frustrating process, but the two journalists did get them, ultimately spending time in Moscow and Stalingrad, in Kiev and at collective farms in the Ukraine, and several places in Georgia.

Delays, mix-ups and misunderstandings, postponements and cancellations, and bureaucratic snarls were commonplace. No flying after dark; public transit unreliable. The pair couldn't go anywhere unaccompanied, but because they were under the aegis of VOKS, a Soviet agency promoting international cultural contact between writers, artists, and others, they had far more freedom than members of the international press corps (whose every dispatch was censored). Capa had to get official credentials before he was allowed to photograph anything, and even then, he was held up time and again by individual policemen who, studying his permit and questioning its validity, called in colleagues patrolling the neighborhood to consult. The usual judgment of the men on the spot was to call headquarters and wait until a higher-up arrived. He would arrive, okay the permit, and chat for a time with the foreigner. Even with a permit, photographing industrial operations--even the most commonplace--was not allowed.

When they did get out and about, always with a VOKS interpreter and guide, they visited stores and shops, ate in restaurants, toured museums, and tried to just chat with people. Moscow, their initial destination, was relatively untouched by the war; the Nazis got swallowed up by the Russian winter before they got to the Russian capital. Nevertheless, the Muscovites were uniformly glum, unsmiling, and humorless. In Stalingrad and Kiev, on the other hand, cities absolutely flattened by the Germans, the residents were friendly, smiling and laughing, voluble, living amongst the rubble and making do.

In the farmlands of the Ukraine, the Soviet "breadbasket," they visited collective farms, worked primarily by women, old men, boys, and a few former soldiers, most of them disabled. Many of the able-bodied men were victims of the war. Livestock had been slaughtered by the Nazis, and mechanical equipment destroyed. Two years later, the farm communities were still struggling to rebuild their herds and awaiting a tractor or two to expedite both planting and harvest. Like their urban countrymen, the farmers were friendly, good-humored, living with what they had, making do, looking to the future.

The biggest fear of the Russians, in both city and country, was of another war.

Steinbeck didn't say this in so many words, but you gather that life in the Soviet Union was not markedly different from life in central and western European countries. Nevertheless, the official line belied this judgment; access to the country was limited, and reports were closely controlled and rigorously censored. I don't think Steinbeck ever used the term "totalitarian." But he was conscious of the image of Stalin everywhere.

To Americans, with their fear and hatred of power in­vested in one man, and of perpetuation of power, this is a frightening thing and a distasteful one…[T]he pictures of Stalin outgrow every bound of rea­son....Every public building carries monster portraits of him. We spoke of this to a number of Russians and had several answers [ none particularly satisfying]....Whatever the rea­son is, one spends no moment except under the smiling, or pensive, or stern eye of Stalin. It is one of those things an American is incapable of understanding emotionally.

I did enjoy reading Steinbeck's "journal" and viewing Capa's photos. Working with a mass-market paperback failed to present the latter to good advantage. Images too small, clumsily cropped, shadow detail lost in black. Happily, all 69 photos published in the book can be viewed at the Magnum Photos website: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDIPUATU

  
A Capa/Steinbeck selfie        First hardcover edition         Current trade paper edition

Haven't read this one, but sounds very interesting!

Happy belated birthday and I am glad your family took such good care of you with books and place holders. Hope this is a great year for you. : )

Just returned home from the July library book sale and meet-up in Bethlehem. Linda (Whisper1) is looking great, especially considering the surgeries she underwent just a month ago. She and Diane have the photographic evidence, and I'm sure both will put 'em up here. 'Twas good to see her navigating the sales room, pushing a wheeled case for her purchases. Of course, Linda, her partner Will, Diane, my friend Gig, and I had a great time talking about current reading and other bookish topics over lunch at the Historic Hotel Bethlehem.

>205 weird_O:. It was so good to see you all! I'm sitting in my reading chair buried in books looking through them! Kevin wants to go out for dinner...Will have dig out for awhile then dive back in when we get back! Linda looks great, I will never know how she does it! Can't wait to see the list of your new books!

Here are some photos of our lovely time. Thanks Bill! It was wonderful to see you, Gig and Diane. time spent was well worth the added pain and lack of energy. It was soooo good to laugh and discuss books we are reading, and/or have read.

>202 weird_O: Excellent review! I will definitely get around to that one eventually.
>207 Whisper1: Great meet-up photos. I'm so happy you felt up to it already, Linda!

I LOVE hearing about meet-ups. I also love library sales. I went to our Friends of the Library Used Bookstore last week and stocked up. Again. As if I need to to that, but it was fun looking at all those books.

I always enjoy talking with book people.

I finally caught up here, Bill. Very belated happy birthday wishes to you. I love all your meet-ups. Lucky boy. Enjoy a wondrrful Sunday.

Great looking group! I'm glad you had fun.

Hooray for another Meet-Up! I bet there was some fine book chatter going on. Anyone end up with some good books?

I can't talk for Bill, but I was happy to find a copy of That Dark and Bloody River. This is a controversial work of nonfiction/fiction written in the same vein as Mari Sandoz's Crazy Horse, The Strange Man of the Oglalas, in that it is written like fiction but everything in it can be documented. I also nabbed a copy of Imperial Cruise for $2.00.

It's known that I attended the Bethlehem (PA) Public Library book sale. Volunteers hand out plastic baskets of the sort grocery shoppers carry instead of pushing a cart. But I use my own canvas tote from LL Bean. Even has my initials stitched into it. It's very commodious. I sometimes get those OMG! looks, even from my LT friends.

You can tell it's got some cargo. Just what's in there? I'll post a list and perhaps some photos.
Until then, here's a peek inside.

>214 weird_O: Hey, now you're just teasing us! You need to post those books for all of us to see! And, you're right, that's the biggest tote I've ever seen, the pictures don't do it justice...

Hi Bill

We chatted about many things, but I don't think we mentioned the books we purchased. So, I am anxious to see just what you and Diane acquired.

Here are the ones that I bought. To avoid Will's eye brows going heaven ward, I kept my purchases to a minimum. In fact, it is the first time I've attended that sale without multiple bags full. Gig and I hung out in the area where the children's illustrated, and Newbery award books were shelved. My find of the day is the incredibly beautiful book The Seeing Stick by Jane Yolen. I read this book a few years ago. The illustrations are breathtakingly superb.

>207 Whisper1: Good review of A Russian Journal, Bill, and kudos to you for taking it on. That's the first I've even heard of that one of his.

Enjoyed the meetup photos.

>216 Whisper1: I thought The Three Questions was very well done, Linda. I'm a Muth fan.

This is the painting that sparked my interest in Samuel F. B. Morse, the man who developed the telegram and the eponymous dots-and-dashes code that made it workable. In reading David McCullough's The Greater Journey several years ago, I discovered that, more than an inventor, Morse was a talented and accomplished artist. Now I am reading Carleton Mabee's Pulitzer Prize winning (in 1944) bio of the man, The American Leonardo. I'm about halfway through it.

Called Gallery of the Louvre by its creator, the painting is 6 feet tall and 9 feet wide. There is no such gallery as this in the Louvre, of course. Morse toured the halls and galleries of the museum, beginning in 1831, selecting more than three dozen paintings he regarded as the best. Then he laboriously painted copies of them, working on a movable platform that elevated him close to the actual masterpiece. In aggregating them onto his huge canvas, he had to reduce them in size and still capture the essence of each. In the center foreground, the artist is depicted looking over his daughter's shoulder, critiquing her work. The other figures were friends: James Fenimore Cooper and his wife and daughter, his Paris roommates Richard Habersham and Horatio Greenough. The lady at the table (right) may be Morse's late wife Lucretia.

Morse's intention was to display the painting in cities around the U.S., thus bringing the great art of Europe to the eyes of Americans. He also hoped a small admission would add up to a living wage for him and his family. The venture was a failure, leaving the artist deeper in debt than ever. He sold the painting for $1,500 and moved on to his experiments with telegraphy.He never got back to painting. (In the 1980s, Gallery of the Louvre sold for $3 million.)

The painting, I discovered today, has been on a tour of American museums. Currently on exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts through September 2016. Other institutions on the tour schedule are:

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, October 2016–January 2017

Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, February 2017–June 2017

New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, June 2017–October 2017

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, November 2017–January 2018

What an incredible painting. This is a marvel. I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler, and thus when I look at the wonderful detail, I am in awe.

Here's what I got at the library book sale on Saturday.



1. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (hc)
Most expensive book I bought--$10. But it's a first edition hardcover with a decent jacket, and it's in a readable size type. I quit an attempt to read this in mass market paperback because the type size (especially the footnotes) was too small for my eyes.
2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (hc)
3. A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton (hc)
I already have a hardcover of this, read it just this spring, but this one has a dust jacket. Cost a whole buck. Eh, whateveh.
4. Studs Lonigan A Trilogy by James T. Farrell (hc)
A vintage Modern Library edition with all three novels.
5. Here at the New Yorker by Brendan Gill (hc)
I'll say more about this book in a day or two. It had a big surprise for me inside when I got home and paged through it.
6. The Big Burn by Timothy Egan (hc)
7. The World According to Garp by John Irving (hc)
Read this in mass market paperback right after that edition was released. Still have it, but it's pretty tattered. This'n has an acceptable dust jacket, even.
8. Our Gang by Philip Roth (hc)
9. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (hc)
10. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White (hc)
11. The Return of Little Big Man by Thomas Berger (hc)
Got suckered by this one. "Little Big Man" in biggo type. At home, the small type "The Return of" looked so big I couldn't believe I missed it.
12. Rights of Man by Thomas Paine (Heritage Press edition) (hc)
13. Wisdom by Andrew Zuckerman (hc)*
Coffee table tome! Published by Abrams for $50. Beautiful high def color photos of famous men and women with pearls of their wisdom. Two bucks.
14. Fathers and Sons essays by Todd Richissin, photos by Jim Graham (hc)
Another coffee table hold-down. Another $2.

15. A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle (pbk)
16. The Night Country by Stewart O'Nan (pbk)
Adding to my stock of O'Nan in anticipation of next year's AAC. :-)
17. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley (pbk)
18. Some Luck by Jane Smiley (pbk)
Two more by Smiley. I liked the two of hers that I've read, and now I've got 4 Smileys to read.
19. Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (pbk)
20. The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig (pbk)
21. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (pbk)
22. Ironweed by William Kennedy (pbk)

*Just want to note that I couldn't locate a Touchtone for this book. I'm not the first LTer to catalog this book, but the Touchstone links to The Chronicles of Narnia and a long list of "other" books. There are many books titled Wisdom listed, but not one by Andrew Zuckerman. I did try, folks.

Oooh, that Heritage Press Paine, is lovely...

Bill, What a great book haul. Looks like I'm going to have to tag along with you when we go to the next sale. You acquired some gems. The touchstones are acting wonky these last few days.

Hope your day is a good one. We had such pounding rain yesterday, and now this morning all is bright and beautiful.

You done real good, Bill. I have identical copies of Here at the New Yorker and Studs Lonigan.

>221 weird_O: What an excellent haul, Bill. As Linda says, you done real good. You've probably seen some warbling about My Name is Asher Lev - great book.

I have yet to read Studs Lonigan, and should.

Lovely haul. I'm envious of the orange penguin, of course!

#43. Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor Finished 6/25/16

The Weird Report^™ 

I became a Democrat because I was eager and hopeful, not because I was angry. Anger makes for amusing radio shows but it's got a short shelf life. It's a crummy way to live. Your mother was right: forgive and forget. Live in the present and you'll be happier.

So says Garrison Keillor in his 2004 book Homegrown Democrat. I bought and read it a dozen years ago. Having just re-read it, I think the book is more relevant than ever. It's part memoir, part civics lesson. And it's couched in that calm, passionate, and compassionate voice of Lake Wobegone's creator. I recommend it highly.

What Keillor does is explain many of the dominant characteristics of Democrats through examples from his life and his home region. He describes the sort of behavior his parents expected of him, the impact of his education in public schools, and his experiences, inside the lecture halls and out, at the University of Minnesota. He describes too the blessings that government programs and services have brought to him and his family. Here are some quotes from the book:

Liberalism is the politics of kindness.

And…

Republi­cans are all about Old Glory and school prayer and the sanctity of marriage and the Fatherhood of God but when it comes to actually needing help from them, you shouldn't get your hopes up. They might send an ambu­lance or they might just send a Get Well card.

And…

Three years ago after I suddenly turned into a wheezy old man who woke up in the night feeling suffocated, Dr. Orczulak at Mayo opened up my thorax and sewed a leaky valve in my heart, a dramatic procedure whose perfection over the past fifty years was heavily subsidized by the taxpaying public….Thank you, America. How could I, whose life has been extended by this largesse, turn into an angry right-winger, a knee-jerk tax cutter, flogging public employees and the very idea of public service?

And…

We [Democrats] care less about symbolism and enacting our own theology into law...and we care more about the ordinary essentials of life. The New Deal put real people to work. My uncle Don was 18 in Wausau, Wisconsin, a big red-haired football star with no prospects, and got a job with the Civilian Conservation Corps and went off to build paths in national parks, a big experience for him. The Rural Electrification Act extended electric power to farms and villages that couldn't afford the capital investment: good old American socialism. The Keillor farm was one of them. They wired the barn so Uncle Jim had steady light to milk the cows by on winter mornings and a fluorescent light in the kitchen so he could read the Bible at night. Dem­ocrats brought about the school lunch program and the Public Health Service and integrated the armed forces, which then became a model of how Americans can be not so hung up on race. Democrats produced Head Start and food stamps and funded the college buildings to house the wave of boomers in the Seventies. The goal of Democrats has been to make this a nation of the middle class—educated people who own property and have a stake in the community and aren't easily bullied—and the most dramatic program was the GI Bill of Rights, which boosted a whole generation into the ranks of white-collar professionals.

And…

I wish that Republi­cans had a little more genuine love of this country …
   They denounce government as if it had only repressed them and civilization frustrated their no­blest instincts, to which I say: "Wyoming. Go there. Try western North Dakota." Go find a tanktown on the old N.P. line and wrest your living from the dry soil and be as paranoid and angry as you like. It's a big country; the principles of Republicans may work very well on a 5000-acre ranch. But you can't run cities that way and cities are where most people live.

Both thumbs up, sez I.  

>222 scaifea: Have you seen the Heritage Press edition of Rights of Man, Amber? The spine doesn't look like much. I grabbed a copy of Common Sense at B&N about a month ago. Having read Howard Fast's book about Paine, I'm interested in reading what Paine wrote; just have to bookhorn them in.

>223 Whisper1: You will be welcome to tag along as I scan the shelves in September. :-) But bear in mind that I pretty much ignore the kid's book corner.

The last two days have been pretty wonderful, weather-wise. Tomorrow we drop back into the soup--temps predicted to be in the 90s for at least a week. Oh my...

>224 laytonwoman3rd: Studs has been on my wish list for a couple of years, Linda, but the priority was low. And Brendan Gill's New Yorker book has been on the mental list for ages. I'll pleased to have 'em both.

>225 jnwelch: I have noted the occasional but passionate warble about Asher Lev, Joe. Couldn't pass it up, now, could I? We'll both get to Studs any day now...any day.

>226 charl08: Ha ha, Charlotte. Are you envious of the orange penguin cover or what's inside--Roddy Doyle. Both, I'm sure.

>228 weird_O: I have. I'm a fan of Heritage Press. And I think you'll not regret reading Paine once you get round to him - he's excellent.

>227 weird_O: One of those times when I wish I were "all thumbs" so I could give your review, and Keillor's book, 10 thumbs up! Mild-mannered wisdom from a quiet American with a heart AND a mind.

London is celebrating The Monty Python Reunion with a 50-foot dead parrot in Potters Field Park. Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue. Lovely plumage.

Praline [Cleese]: ...I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Shopkeeper [Palin]: Oh yes, the Norwegian Blue. What's wrong with it?
Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.
Shopkeeper: No, no, it's resting. Look!
Praline: Look my lad, I know a dead parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now.
Shopkeeper: No. no. sir. It's not dead. It's resting.
…
Shopkeeper: It's probably pining for the fiords.
...
Praline: It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker.This is a late parrot. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.

Text from…

I mentioned somewhere the other day that a new book (b-day gift) I was reading (more than halfway through) was missing pages. Missing a 16-page signature; a binding glitch. My daughter e-mailed amazon, and amazon shipped a fresh copy overnight, and e-mailed a return label for the "bad" book. Book arrived as promised. I have about 60 pages to go.

Subject is good, the book is somewhat dry.

That is great customer service from Amazon Bill!

I finished that book (>232 weird_O:). Carleton Mabee's Pulitzer Prize winning 1944 biography of Samuel F. B. Morse, The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. Book number 49 for the year.

Did the book end as good as it was throughout the read? I enjoyed your sharing about this book when the group met last week.

Bill, a very popular sketch is that parrot sketch from Python but I never expected it overshadow the Tower Bridge.

Great haul from the Bethlehem book sale dear chap - I really need to snuck along on one of those trips but I'll bring my driver and strong man so we can fill more of those bags.

Have a wonderful weekend.

^Thinking of you, Bill. Happy Saturday, my friend.

>231 weird_O: I love that. I think it's the only Monty Python bit I ever found funny.

>229 scaifea: I have quite a few Heritage Press books, Amber; you may recall my eBay buy in 2015, which indirectly led me to LT. So Tom Paine is well established now on my TBR.

>230 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda. My review, of course, is all Keillor, isn't it?

Following up on >234 weird_O: I should say I did enjoy the bio of Samuel F. B. Morse, Linda (>235 Whisper1:). He had a lot of contradictory facets to his character. He inherited his father's Calvinist religious faith and rejected Unitarianism. He was an American nativist and was proslavery. He was a gifted, serious, and innovative painter, highly regarded as such, yet he was unable to eke out a living for his family. His invention of the electromagnetic telegraph would make him a steady income that could allow him to get back to painting. Didn't happen. More about that later.

I followed The American Leonardo with Steinbeck's Cannery Road, then read another chapter in The Big Rock Candy Mountain. The latter still hasn't seized me. So on Saturday, I started Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather. Finished it this morning. Hiaasen has the knack, just hooks you and reels you in and keeps you until the final paragraph or two.

>231 weird_O: I've always loved that skit, Bill. I've spent a fair amount of time pining for the fjords myself.

I finished the Hiaasen book. At the book sale a week or two ago, I found a copy of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and included it in a trio of buys that I suggested to my wife that she should read. Before I could finish Stormy Weather, the Hiaasen book, Judi was telling me to quick read GotT. Why? She wanted to talk about, and I had said I planned to read and didn't want to spoil it.

So I'm almost done--maybe 60 pages to go. It's pretty darn good. Everyone in it is a liar.

Reading stats! I started jotting down the titles and authors of books I'd read at the beginning of 2010. Late in May, I added finish dates. I'd read 31 books prior to that. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie was the 32nd book, finished 5/23/10.

I have a notebook with reading records from 2010 through 2014. Never counted them. Last year, I started recording my reads here on LT. Got through 102 books.

Now I've transferred my handwritten lists onto a spread sheet. Seems I've been a 75er all along.

2010--78 books
2011--74 books
2012--68 books
2013--90 books
2014--80 books
2015--102 books

With 51 books completed as of today (7/27), I'm confident I'll finish 75 books this year, but not too many beyond that.

 Even if I do say so myself.

Thumbs Up, indeed, Bill! Congrats on being on track for 75. I think you will surpass it. Just sayin'...

Bill, It is always interesting to know how people found LT, and in particular the 75 challenge group. There are so many wonderful stories! And, there is so much to really enjoy about this group. I very much like the fact that the group began in 2008 and there are a core of people who are still here in 2016, and that it is never a country club, exclusive kind of group.

New members and always welcomed and very much included. We are the ones who keep track of our own number of books, but no body shames us, or kicks us out if we don't make the 75 total.

I've found a group of kind, sensitive, other directed people who are incredibly interested. My reading genre selection has changed. Prior to joining, I never knew the term, or read a book classified as Young Adult. Anita is the one who got me started on the road to YA, and I never looked back! And, in addition foggidawn was responsible for steering me to Newbery award winners.

Amber and Brenda (Brenpike) are responsible for noting wonderful children's illustrated books, and this is such a gift. I love art and illustrated books are incredible.

Gig would be such a wonderful addition to the group. I do hope she, like Diane, decides to come on board.

I have never kept track of numbers of books I have read, but I have kept lists of titles. That was because I found myself starting something and then thinking "I've read that before." Since I started keeping a list I would check titles and that was usually enough to trigger my thoughts about it. I am not sure if being a member of the 75'ers has increased my reading that much, but it sure has extended my TBR list!

I was part of the original group back in 2008, and it's been great getting to know readers with interests and likes/dislikes beyond my own. The intersections between our reading always interests me.

Plus, yeah, the 75ers have greatly broadened my scope and deepened my TBR list. :)

#52. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins Finished 7/27/16

The Weird Report^TM  

The Girl on the Train is Paula Hawkins’ first novel. It’s a thriller told by three unreliable female narrators, each speaking in the first person (of course), but not always giving a chronological presentation. The novel was hugely popular when first published in 2015, and a film adaption is due in theaters in October.

Rachel supplies the story’s premise. Each morning, she takes a commuter train into London, and each morning, the train halts at the same spot, awaiting its signal to move into Watney station. Rachel always scans the rear gardens of a row of single residences that front on a quiet, tree-lined street. Though she used to live in one of the houses, which is still occupied by her ex-husband, she focuses her attention on a house several doors away. It is occupied by an attractive and loving couple, to whom she gives the names Jess and Jason. Day after day, Rachel watches, witnessing vignettes in the couple’s morning—making breakfast, sharing coffee on the terrace, sitting shoulder against shoulder and holding hands and conversing.

When Rachel sees Jess in a clearly amorous embrace with not-Jason one Friday morning, she’s gobsmacked. It can’t be. She’s never seen either of the two—Jess or Jason—from a closer vantage point than a train stopped parallel to end of the fenced-in backyard, but she just knows something is screwy. Anger surges through her.

I feel as though something has been taken away from me. How could she? How could Jess do this? What is wrong with her? Look at the life they have, look at how beautiful it is! ...Hatred floods me. If I saw that woman now, if I saw Jess, I would spit in her face. I would scratch her eyes out.

By Saturday afternoon, Rachel is resolved...well, sort of resolved...to “see Jason.” She goes for a walk, stops at big, anonymous pub and sets to work getting stewed. She’s going to see Jason.

I'm not going to visit him, I'm not going to turn up at his house and knock on the door. Nothing like that. Nothing crazy. I just want to go past the house, roll by on the train. I've nothing else to do, and I don't feel like going home. I just want to see him. I want to see them.
  This isn't a good idea. I know it's not a good idea.

From the train, she thinks she sees Jess and Jason. “There they are!” she says to herself. “Is that him? They're standing on the terrace...I want to be closer, I can't see. I want to be closer to them.” Despite knowing that exiting the train at Watney and walking past the house is a bad idea, she does it anyway.

Cut to Sunday morning. Rachel’s rented bedroom.

My heartbeat feels as though it is in the base of my throat, uncomfortable and loud...I bring my hand up to my face; I press my fingers against my eyelids, trying to rub away the ache. My fingernails are filthy.
  Something is wrong….Last night. Something happened….I wait for the memory to come….Something happened, something bad. There was an argument. Voices were raised. Fists? I don't know, I don't remember. I went to the pub, I got onto the train, I was at the station, I was on the street. Blenheim Road. I went to Blenheim Road.
  It comes over me like a wave: black dread.
  Something happened, I know it did. I can't picture it, but I can feel it. The inside of my mouth hurts, as though I've bitten my cheek, there's a metallic tang of blood on my tongue. I feel nauseated, dizzy. I run my hands through my hair, over my scalp. I flinch. There's a lump, painful and tender, on the right side of my head. My hair is matted with blood.

The mystery widens and deepens. Jess has a name—Megan—and she reports on her life as she experiences and interprets it as the second narrator. Well, until she disappears; she’s last seen on that Saturday night, the one Rachel can’t remember. The third narrator, Anna, who is married to Rachel’s ex and has an infant daughter with him, reveals her perceptions of Rachel as an alcoholic who won’t leave her former husband alone. When Megan vanishes, of course, the police investigate.

I’ve got to say that about three-quarters of the way through, I knew who the villain was. But getting to the denouement kept me engaged—and guessing—to the very end.

Bill--Great meet-up photos! And Monty Python is a trip down memory lane. Dead parrot, indeed! I really did enjoy the unreliable narrators in GOT. Thank you LT ER for that one. ; ) Happy weekend.

Thanks to all who stopped by--Mark, Jim, Joe, Linda, Kim, Benita.

Hi Bill! Happy weekend!

The intersections between our reading always interests me.

That touches to the heart of it doesn't it Jim? I remember distinctly Morphy always seemed to hate books I liked and I didn't care for things that she adored but on the occasions when our thoughts and opinions converged it always seemed doubly satisfying.

Have a great Sunday, Bill.

Your imaginative gifs and always erudite reviews are a great addition to our little coterie.

Happy Sunday, Bill! Good review of The Girl on the Train. I am a fan of that one too. Nice debut. Hope you are enjoying the weekend.

>243 weird_O: Great stats, Bill.

>248 weird_O: Wonderful review.

Wishing you a great start into the new week.

>248 weird_O: Nice review of The Girl on the Train, Bill. My wife is reading it now in advance of the movie, and our daughter loved it. I may have to get my tail in gear and give it a go.

# 54. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates Finished 8/2/16

The Weird Report^TM  

Black Water presents the life of a young woman as she re-experiences in her dying moments. It's an interesting challenge for a writer. Kelly Kelleher is at an Independence Day party thrown by a friend, Buffy St. John, at Buffy's parents summer place on an island off the coast of Maine. A revered U.S. Senator appears as a surprise guest. Kelly is quite enthralled by him, and he seems to be taken with her. Though she's expecting to stay the night, The Senator, as he is referred to throughout the story, persuades her to take the ferry to the mainland with him. He has a room in a motel. Racing to the ferry, The Senator turns onto an unmarked gravel road, assuring Kelly it's a shortcut. But he's racing to the ferry, and he misjudges a turn, and their car plunges off a narrow bridge into a tidal channel.

You know the story, of course, because it's based on a 1969 accident in which a car driven by Senator Ted Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, drowning his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.

Rather than re-adjudicate that incident, author Joyce Carol Oates explores the thoughts of a young woman as she drowns. Her upbringing, her relationship with her parents (what will they think of her now?), her Catholic education, her jobs. Each vignette fades into her immediate peril: "As the black water rose around her, to fill her lungs." She's re-living her life, her friendship with Buffy, her past romances, her surprise that The Senator is attracted to her. As the car sinks into the stinking black water, Kelly tries to escape, grapples with The Senator as he too struggles to escape, then pleads to him to come back for her.

"She could hear him … somewhere above. The surface of the water was close above. There he moved cautiously in the shallows, he was diving, swimming to save her where she was trapped in the dark so she must guide him I'm here I'm here I'M HERE."

Excellent short book. It was a finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize. I'll give it at least one thumb up.

Oates takes on such challenging projects---I wonder if she ever has an idea and ultimately says "No, it just won't work---I can't do it." I'm reading her collection of short stories The Museum of Dr. Moses, and oh, the places her mind goes...just amazing.

>256 weird_O: I'd not come across that one Bill. Will see if the library has a copy. Not exactly a simple, uncontroversial topic.

Good review of Black Water. Hooray for a shorty and knocking out a JCO, so fast.

I hope you are enjoying Oscar Wao. I loved that book and the footnotes were a hoot.

I'm about halfway through ...Oscar Wao, Mark, and last night I was underlining all the Spanish/unfamiliar slang as I read. So I could Google them en mass. In doing the Googling, I almost immediately came upon a website called "The Annotated Oscar Wao" with it all done. Whoot!

If you are interested, here's the link: http://www.annotated-oscar-wao.com/index.html

#260
This sounds like the same kind of thing that somebody did for all the gods in American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Aren't you glad somebody took the time to do it for all the rest of us readers?

>261 benitastrnad: I am glad to have access to the annotations. ...Oscar Wao is packed with references to sci-fi books and their heroes, villains, authors, locations, languages. Lots of Spanglish, Caribbean slang, historical figures. The links in the annotations mostly are to Wikipedia.

Now reading Blonde, a Joyce Carol Oates doorstop and Pulitzer finalist, a fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe. The book has no photos, of course; it's a novel by a writer! But happily, the internets are chock-a-block with Marilyn images.

Here she is in 1947. 

# 56. Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark Finished 8/7/16

The Weird Report^™  

Where Are the Children? was the first "suspense" novel written by Mary Higgins Clark, who is, I gather, at the age of 88 the Queen of Suspense Novelists. (It's the first of her books I've read.) ...Children? was three years in the writing, earned Clark a $3,000 advance, and surged to the top of best seller lists when it was published in 1975. Her bibliography comprises more than 50 titles.

I was challenged to read this novel by a syllabus for a lit course, English 102--Literary Analysis I: Prose Fiction, taught by David Foster Wallace. The required reading included books by Thomas Harris, Larry McMurtry, James Ellroy, and Stephen King along with this Clark book.

The story: Nancy Eldredge is an attractive wife and mother (two young children, Michael, 5, and Missy, 3) living in Adams Port on Cape Cod. It is her birthday, and her husband Ray, a realtor, insists that the family celebrate it for the first time ever. Ray heads off to work, and Nancy bundles their kids in warm coats and mittens and sends them out to play in the back yard. Making coffee, she peruses the local newspaper. An article about a California murder case, in which a young mother was tried and convicted of murdering her two small children. Freed on appeal, the mother escaped retrial because the star witness vanished. The article speculates this woman is now living on the Cape. Photos show a woman with a striking resemblance to Mrs. Eldredge. Panic-stricken, Nancy races into the yard and finds only Missy's red mitten caught in the swing. Her children are…GONE!

Clark scatters a fair number of red herrings; suspension of disbelief is occasionally required. But the story keeps pouring out. Twists and turns and surprises, some of which are too pat As in all good suspensers, you know it's going to end well, but the edge-teetering drives you onward until the final...uh...fall.

Overall, I liked the book; I read it in a day. Kept my interest. But I do have major quibbles about some of the characters and their motivations. Can't say more without blowing up the plot, of course.

^This one made me think of Bill reading Blonde...

^Another one, made me think of Bill reading Blonde...

Norma Jeane Mortensen, age 20, in 1946. 

That picture proves that most people aren't great beauties unless they are heavily made up.

>263 weird_O: I read that book a few years back and thought Joyce Carol Oates did a credible job.

Happy Thursday to you my friend.

>268 benitastrnad: I think she's lovely, but you're right about the "great beauties."

>266 msf59: I never noticed that she had such long legs!

>268 benitastrnad: >270 The_Hibernator: I don't know how you define or characterize "great beauties." Don't even know how I would. The phrase heavily made up suggests to me makeup applied with a spatula. To me, minimum makeup applied with great skill and restraint is more like it, and maybe that's what you meant.

Neither here nor there...

I've somewhat less than 200 pages to read of Blonde and still it holds my interest.

>272 weird_O: I agree about the make-up....a delicate hand and a subtle technique with the cosmetics are what turn those "ordinary" faces into extraordinary beauties. It's the effect I keep trying for every morning in front of the mirror. If I ever succeed, the results will be posted here!

We had storms Saturday evening. Not much rain, but pretty remarkable displays of lightning all along the Blue Mountain that's the northern boundary of the Lehigh Valley. It stretches straight west from the Delaware River. Judi and I were visiting our older son's family in Easton, and my wife watched the spectacular cloud-to-cloud lightning as we drove west (about 35 miles) to home. The photo above was taken by my son in Easton.

>274 weird_O: Wow, Bill, just wow!

I'm with Rachel as I think she looked well in that quite natural pose without make-up. She is an icon as much as she was a beauty.

>274 weird_O: That's a prize-worthy photo...just amazing!

>274 weird_O: Awesome photo, Bill. Thanks for sharing.

>274 weird_O: I love storms and lightning! That's a great photo, love those clouds.

>274 weird_O: Your son has some talent, Bill. Love that photo!

>274 weird_O: Very cool photo.

Spectacular picture. I'm another one who likes the dramatic weather images.

#272
You would be surprised at how much make-up it takes to achieve that "natural" lightly made up look.

I read an interesting article in the Huffington Post about all the make-up the girls in the Little Girls Gymnastic events are wearing. Make-up on the Little Girls wasn't allowed until 2008 Olympics.

>274 weird_O: Yes, the lightening fireworks were spectacular in my area of Easton. It was a bit frightening as well. The rain never arrived, just the lightening and thunder, and that is what added to the fear. Lilly our Shetland sheep dog did not like it at all. She sat beside me on the sofa and shook. Thanks for the marvelous photo.

>274 weird_O: Love the photo! Go Easton!

I just started The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. This is definitely your cuppa, Bill. Just sayin'...

Hope to close in on the halfway point in Blonde by C.O.B. tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Done! Great book. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. American Author Challenge for August: check Deadweight Doorstop Challenge for August: check ROOT: check



Still from The Misfits, the final film of both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. Also starring Montgomery Clift. Screenplay by Arthur Miller.

And now...for something completely different...

>275 PaulCranswick: >276 laytonwoman3rd: >277 Crazymamie: >278 ursula: >279 jnwelch: >280 Oberon: >281 charl08: >283 Whisper1: >284 msf59: Glad you all like the lightning photo. BAG!

We left our pooch home alone on Saturday night, Linda, and she doesn't like T&L either. She paces and pants, but never panics.

>282 benitastrnad: In Blonde we read again and again about Whitey, MM's personal makeup artist, spending hours preparing her face for a few hours of shooting: "Whitey's deft fingers and cotton swabs soaked in astringent. His soothing ointments, his eyelash curlers and tweezers and tiny brushes and colored pencils, his pastes, rouges, powders working their magic...." When fully made up, she's Marilyn Monroe. Without makeup, she's Norma Jeane.

Here's my "something completely different" read. Surrendering my fame as the only group member who hasn't read it.

>287 weird_O: erm......then that would leave only moi! It is on the shelves though and I suppose I will read it if it is compulsory to stay a member of the group. :D

>287 weird_O: Go Grand Sophy! I hope you enjoy it, Bill.

>289 jnwelch: Seconding that. Fun stuff.

>289 jnwelch: Thirding it.

>287 weird_O: Well, actually, that be next to last...I haven't read her yet, either.

I'll watch for your comments on the Heyer, Bill. I think she's very funny.

You are the champion of library sale book hauls, I think.

Very rare specimen of dogwood...

 Photo: Anthony Photography in Boise via Facebook

Paul and Diane, had I know you haven't read The Grand Sophy, I would have set up a group read. Or not.

And to all you others--Joe, Charlotte, and Beth-- right you are. Less than 100 pages left, and Sophy is quite entertaining.

^Yes! Glad to hear it, Bill. It was my first of hers (other than a so-so mystery), and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Finished this day with The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer. Going back to Wallace Stegner and The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

>294 weird_O: Haha. I feel like I used to see that type a lot in Denver. :)

Big Rock Candy Mountain isn't an easy book to read. I liked the novel and think about it from time-to-time, so it has staying power, but it just isn't easy to read. Somehow didn't seem very smooth to me.

With the 300th post, Part The Third concludes. Take a look at Part The Fourth...