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

Current Reading

   DwD for Nov

Books Read: First Quarter 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

     

Books Read: Second Quarter 2016

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

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

     

Books Read: Third Quarter 2016

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 (7 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
59. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner (8/31/16) ROOT DwD--June

September (5 read)
60. Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (9/13/16) PPF--1956 DwD--September ®
61. My Movie Business by John Irving (9/15/16) ROOT AAC3--September Wedgie ®
62. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (9/20/16) Because... ®
63. The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road by Bruce Catton (9/24/16) SSS
64. A Red Death by Walter Mosley (9/30/16) SSS + MnM

     

Books Read: Fourth Quarter 2016

October (9 read)
65. Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (10/3/16) AAC3--October
66. Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry (670 pages) (10/10/16) ROOT MnM DwD ®
67. Common Sense by Thomas Paine (76 pages) (10/12/16) Wedgie
68. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (198 pages) (10/16/16) ROOT PPF--2000 Wedgie
69. Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King (10/20/16) PPM--2013
70. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (10/22/16) ROOT
71. The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand (10/23/16) PPM--2002
72. Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan (10/28/16) PPM--1977
73. Indignation by Philip Roth (10/29/16) ROOT ®

November (6 read)
74. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (11/2/16) ROOT PPF--1983
75! An American Childhood by Annie Dillard (11/5/16) ROOT AAC3--November
76. Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen (11/9/16) ROOT MnM
77. Sula by Toni Morrison (11/13/16) ROOT Wedgie
78. Here at The New Yorker by Brendan Gill (11/24/16)
  The New Yorker Affair by Tom Wolfe (in Hooking Up (11/25/16)
79. Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill (11/25/16) ROOT PPM (drama)--1922

December (4 read)
80. Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart (12/2/16) ROOT MnM
81. The Body Artist by Don DeLillo (12/9/16) ROOT AAC3--December
82. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (12/15/16) PPM (GenNF)--2012
83. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (12/22/16) ROOT PPF--2012
84. Falling Man by Don DeLillo (12/28/16) ROOT AAC3--December
85. The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon (12/30/16) AAC3--October

    

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

surprise!!

Happy new thread Bill.

You be the first to look the place over. In the Warped and Wacky World, that gets you exactly...wait for it...nothing!

Sorry. But thanks for playing...

Happy new thread, Bill!

Thanx, Doc.

I got a kick out of the Observer (UK) review of Blonde. Well, not the whole review, but one sentence only. The reviewer noted the book "invites a rumble over the use of facts," and cited some examples of Oates asserting something that might or might not be fact. How is the reader to know? One example made me laugh: "Is there a C.I.A. dossier that states that she [Marilyn Monroe] slept with Lassie?"

The answer of course is no. The allegation (rather than statement) is mentioned in the novel as being in an F.B.I. file (not a C.I.A. dossier).

Her lovers! From out of the voluminous F.B.I. file labeled MARILYN MONROE A.K.A. NORMA JEANE BAKER.

These were Z, D, S, and T, among a half-dozen others at The Studio. These were the Commie photographer Otto Ose, the Commie screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the commie actor Robert Mitchum. These were Howard Hughes,…John Huston,…Tyrone Power,…Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix, Otto Preminger,…Van Johnson, Tonto,…Roy Rogers and Trigger,…Errol Flynn,…Ava Gardner,…Lassie,…and numerous others. And this was just up to 1953 when she was twenty-seven years old! The most scandalous were yet to come.

By citing the C.I.A. rather than the F.B.I., the reviewer revealed his ignorance of 1940s and 50s American culture. Just to cite a "voluminous F.B.I. file" conjures up the vision of J. Edgar Hoover, famous for keeping files on anyone he suspected of unAmerican actions and/or thoughts, or who he thought might need some blackmailing to bring him or her into the path of Hooverian righteousness.

 Marilyn, Milton, and J. Edgar.

>10 weird_O: I feel vaguely cheated.

>14 Oberon: Yeah, I know that feeling. But I didn't promise ANYTHING to the first poster. Alright, tell you what. I'll give you a free pass to come back any time. That's unlimited free access, 24/7. Come back often.

Well, if this thread's for mature audiences only, that leaves me out... :)

Me, too, Bill. But Congrats on the new thread, anyway!

Happy New Thread, Bill! I am also with the other immature males. Could you make an exception? Just this once?

It has been so nice following you along on your reading life. You always bring smiles...

I finished Blonde and I am FREE!!!!!! It was an excellent read but also demanding. I had to put aside everything else but my audios. Yes, it is a load off.

>16 drneutron: >17 jnwelch: >18 msf59: Hey, who could be less mature than the guy in charge here? I mean, you Mark, just fer instance, you just finished Blonde, surely a book for mature readers (well, primarily). We're all good here.

>19 weird_O: How is Mark going to deliver the mail with that get-up on?

Happy new thread, Bill.............always plenty to entertain of thought provoke here.

Mature in age only. I'll be around. : )

Happy new one, Bill!

>20 PaulCranswick: Great question, Paul.

>1 weird_O: My clicking finger automatically went for the "Like" button...and of course there isn't one, and so I'm feeling thwarted. But ready for whatever comes along here, just the same.

Happy new one, Bill!

Happy New Thread, Bill! It's always fun to see what is happening over here...

On Monday, I found myself about a mile from my hometown library with an hour to kill. Dropped by to see what was for sale on the mezzanine. (Stopped at a money dispenser on the way to equip myself with a 20.)



There's always something...

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Show Boat, So Big, Cimarron by Edna Ferber
Dog Stories by James Herriot
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
Zeke and Ned by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Pretty Boy Floyd by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
The Desert Rose by Larry McMurtry
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The Discworld Graphic Novels by Terry Pratchett

Well, ya did all right... West With the Night was a great read.

So was Prayer for Owen Meany. I think you done good. I have Old Filth, West With the Night, and Power and the Glory on my TBR list

>27 EBT1002: What an incredible book haul. Are you practicing for the September 19th Bethlehem Library sale?

>30 benitastrnad: Oh, yes...Owen Meany...somehow I looked right past that one. I loved that too.

Linda Laytonwoman3rd: I was shopping for Walter Mosley. The early books in the Easy Rawlins series. Nahda. Now regret not pulling a William Gibson as soon as I spied it; I meant to go back for it but forgot.

Whispering Linda: I have to stay in "shopping shape." What better way. I have to visit the A-town library one of these days. I mentioned Owen Meany on your thread because I do feel in a quandry about what to read for September's AAC. You and Diane and many others have warbled mightily about how good it is. But even though I now have a copy, I may stick with Cider House and My Movie Business for September. So many good choices...

Happy with what I got. Thank you all for sharing in my pleasure.

Another impressive book haul, Bill. You sure can sniff out those deals and those gems.

I loved West with the Night (great memoir!), Old Filth, the Greene and the Irving. Is the latter for next month's AAC?

>28 weird_O: Another fan of Old Filth here. Would love to read the WeirdO report on that please (Do you take requests?!)

Lots of warbling going on about your acquiring A Prayer for Owen Meaney, Bill. Great book.

The Discworld Graphic book intrigues me. Looking forward to hearing what you think of it.

Well, I'm certainly a mature audience! :) Here on Library Thing, some of us like to try to guess at what book might be short listed for the Booker Prize - or maybe even the winner. If it has to come to fisticuffs - so be it :) Like you, I am trying to good about purchasing second hand books, or only borrowing from the library. I'm getting much better.

Nice haul @ 28. I really enjoyed A Prayer for Owen Meaney . Paris Wife is one I'd like to read too.

>34 msf59: Owen Meany just might be an AAC read for September. See my reply to Whispering Linda at >33 weird_O:. So many people have warbled so persistently about the book that I've been on the lookout for a cheap but clean copy for about a year. Now I have a copy, and you see? I get more BBs zinging around!

I passed on a copy of Beryl Markham's memoir a couple of years ago at a top-notch used book store outside of Freeport, Me. (I also skipped over a clean hardcover of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff; a super book.) My box o' books was getting too full, meaning awfully expensive. So I put those two--and a few others--back. Oh, the regrets!

>35 charl08: I caught an Old Filth BB a couple of months ago, Charlotte. I can't remember what it's about; some LTers loved it, some didn't. Eventually I'll find out for myself.

>36 jnwelch: I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, Joe, but of course I know the name. A hardcover comic book!

>37 vancouverdeb: My wife picked up The Paris Wife once we returned home, and she read it through. She's positive about it. Now it's on my TBR shelf.

Happy Friday, Bill! I finally posted a mini-review of Blonde over on my thread. It pales in comparison to your review but it'll do. Stop over.

When you decide to read The Paris Wife, I suggest you read A Moveable Feast beforehand. Great companion piece.

Morning, Bill! That's a very nice haul up there - I loved the Markam memoir.

Another incredible book haul, Bill. Happy new thread although I'm not sure I'm mature enough for it. ;)

>39 msf59: Your review of Blonde can't pale in comparison, Mark, for the simple reason that I haven't written one. But I did sneak over to your brewhouse to have a read and I liked it. Wraps up the book concisely. (I have trouble with conciseness.) And thanks for the tip on reading A Moveable Feast before The Paris Wife, I read Feast in 2013; probably should revisit it.

>40 Crazymamie: See? Everyone who knows loves the Markham. Beryl would thank you for your endorsement, Mamie. And I'll take it into account as well. :-)

>41 BLBera: Beth, that notice is simply a filter to scare off the "immature-in-name-only." The really, really immature read it as a welcome. :-)

Not to muddle your thinking on the subject of choice, but Cider House Rules is also a very good Irving. Owen Meany is a bit "weird" though (the character, mostly, not the book, so much), so maybe you're better off with that one. *smiles innocently*

The Right Stuff = a super book. Agreed. Couldn't be more different, but Old Filth is, too.

Nice books you chose there. Several I want to read, and I'll join the group approving of Owen Meany. It's in my top 5 favorite books.

#44
Just to warn you an Bill - Old Filth is the first in a trilogy that most people really like. By reading the first - Old Filth - you will probably end up with two more books on your TBR list.

That's a fantastic haul up there, Bill! I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Another fan of Owen Meany. Not my favourite book of Graham Greene's but it is still a pretty powerful piece of work.

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Bill.

Happy Sunday, Bill. Sorry, I thought you had reviewed Blonde. I remember The Misfits photo and I had planned to return to read it, after finishing the book. I fumbled the ball. I am very glad I choice that JCO and plan to read more of her work later on.

>51 msf59: Truth.

Morning, Bill!

>51 msf59: Hmmm... Whaddaya mean by that, Mark-eMark.

#46. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie Finished 7/4/16

The Weird Report^™  

A couple of years ago, my wife and I consulted with a lit professor to find out which of Christie's many, many books were the best and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was one of several he suggested. I do believe he was correct.

The sleuth is Hercule Poirot. The victim, of course, is Roger Ackroyd, stabbed in the neck and left dead, sitting in his chair, the door to his study locked from the inside. Naturally, many suspects roam his estate and populate the nearby village. One village resident who isn't a suspect is the recently retired Belgian investigator who is learning that vegetable marrows are not easy to grow. Poirot, once exposed by his neighbor, the community's physician, is persuaded to investigate.

Ackroyd was intending to marry Mrs. Dorothy Ferrars, the wealthy widow of Ashley Ferrars, a mean drunk who died in mysterious circumstances several years before. Though never charged, Mrs. Ferrars was unanimously convicted of his murder by the town gossips. Just as the story begins, she's found dead, and as might be imagined, those gossips conclude it's a suicide and a confession of her guilt. And then Mr. Ackroyd is killed.

Dame Agatha loaded the story with a good dozen suspects: Ackroyd's sister and her daughter, his stepson Ralph Paton (who, Ackroyd has just learned, is secretly married to a parlormaid); Ackroyd's ambitious and efficient private secretary; the housekeeper who has an illegitimate, drug-addicted son; even the butler who seems just a bit dodgy. Each has a secret, one they're reluctant to divulge to anyone.

I was pretty close to the end when I realized who the killer was. Not great literature perhaps, but done very well, with some twists and surprises. I give it a thumb up.

Roddy Doyle:

-See Young Frankenstein died.
-Gene Wilder - yeah.
-Terrible, isn't it?
-Some o' those fillums he was in.
-Brilliant.
-Fuckin' brilliant.
-The Producers.
-I'm wet - an' I'm hysterical.'
-Blazin' Saddles.
-'Little bastard shot me in the ass.'
-I met him once.
-Fuck off - where?
-Here.
-Fuckin' here?
-Dublin - yeah. When I was a kid. He was makin' a fillum. Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx.
-I'd forgotten tha' one.
-It wasn't his best. But annyway. They were filmin' on the street outside me house. Vans an' lights an' all - loads o' people. An' Gene Wilder was leanin' against the railings just down from me house. I didn't know who he was back then. An' I said to him, 'Are yis makin' a fillum, mister?'
-Wha' did he say?
-He smiled an' told me to say it again. He liked the way I said 'fillum'. It was better than ‘movie’, he said.
-That’s nice.
-The first time I ever felt intelligent.
-An’ the last.
-Fuck off.
-I told the grandkids there, when it was on the News. I told them Willie Wonka was dead. An’ they were all cryin'.
-Says it all, really, doesn't it?

>55 weird_O: Love that, Bill. Thanks for sharing it.

I like this one, too.

*grin*

>55 weird_O: Beautiful. Thanks for posting that, Bill.

Good review of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. My wife just read it, too. It was very controversial when it came out, with some believing she hadn't played fair - a very British notion from this side of the pond.

P.S. This is one of my favorites, too. A couple of others I love that are less well-known are The Tuesday Club Murders, with Miss Marple underestimated, and The Mysterious Mr. Quinn, with a bit of the supernatural creeping in.

Love the Gene Wilder tributes. There's a local showing of Charlie as part of the Dahl 100 celebrations. Will have to see about tickets.

>57 katiekrug: Oh, Gene Milder. That's dandy. Thanks for adding it.

>59 jnwelch: Joe, thanks for the Christie title suggestions. I'll have to watch out for them.

>60 charl08: I am going to miss Gene Wilder. Willie Wonka was one of his lesser films, in my opinion. Loved his work with Mel Brooks and with Richard Prior.

#51. Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen Finished 7/25/16

The Weird Report^™  

With Hurricane Hermine just now blowing Florida away somewhere, it seems appropriate to read what novelist Carl Hiaasen has to say about such weather in his home state. South Florida in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane is the setting for Stormy Weather. As usual, Hiaasen populates the story with a spectacular cast of grifters, psychopaths, loonies, innocents, tourists (a given in Florida), politicians, law enforcement men and women, laborers, bosses, clerks, and hustlers.
In a Hiaasen story, such characters generally race from city to swamp and back again, criss-crossing one another's paths, seldom mindful of what anyone else is doing (or trying to do).

In Stormy Weather, most everyone is trying to capitalize on disaster, typically but not exclusively someone else's disaster.

• Max Lamb interrupts his honeymoon, begun in an Orlando motel, to race to Miami to videotape the storm damage and the newly homeless, treating the devastation as a tourist attraction. Offended by Max's antics, his wife turns away. In a flash, Max vanishes, abducted by a large man in military trousers, no shirt, and a flowered shower cap.

• Bonnie Lamb, Max's wife, finds herself stranded in a dystopian environment without money, without knowing a soul. When it starts raining, she's invited to shelter under a scrap of plywood by a young guy with a small rifle on his shoulder. What she really wants is to go home.

• Augustine Herrera is a young man of independent means, wandering the streets in search of exotic animals--many of them dangerous--that the hurricane liberated from a ramshackle wildlife farm, a failing operation bequeathed to Augustine after the recent death of his uncle. The exotics include several big cats, a huge Cape Buffalo, and a variety of monkeys. His armament shoots tranquilizer darts.

• Skink is an unpredictable wild man, a denizen of south Florida's swampy wilderness. He's intent on teaching Max some manners and a respect for nature, and a shock collar is a primary tool in this endeavor.

• Edie Marsh, an attractive grifter, abandons Palm Beach when the hurricane threatens Dade County. She had schemed to bed a Kennedy, then cry rape, and finally settle out of court for a suitable payment. That hadn't worked, so now she was going to visit hurricane-flattened housing and have a roof or wall collapse conveniently and injure her.

• Lester Maddox Parsons, better known as Snapper, is a low-life thug, recently out of prison, having served time for manslaughter. An occasional "business associate" of Edie (she shoplifts women's underwear that he fences), he's once again her associate in her personal injury scam. He knows a Cuban-American called Avila who can help them locate a suitable house.

• Avila is highly qualified for Edie's and Snapper's scam because he formerly was a building inspector for the county. He would inspect and approve as many as 80 houses a day without exiting his pickup. Taking them to a high-density development, he tells them to pick a house, because when the hurricane hits, all the houses will be coming down.

• Tony Torres is the owner of the house the scammers select, and he is camping in the rubble, armed with a shotgun. Not surprisingly, he's able to dissuade them from their scam. He has the shotgun because he knows he'll be visited by enraged owners of now-demolished double-wides he sold them with a bogus sales pitch stressing that U. S. government regulations were met. He's staying put because he intends to pocket the entire insurance settlement on his own house, not splitting it with his estranged wife, who is living in Oregon. He offers to give Edie a cut if she'll pose as Mrs. Torres when the adjuster appears.

• Jim Tile, a state highway patrol officer, and his girlfriend, Trooper Brenda Rourke, represent the side of law-and-order. As it works out, Tile is Skink's oldest, closest friend in the world. (Both Skink and Jim Tile have appeared in other Hiaasen novels.)

It's a twisty, turny road to the conclusion. Will Max and Bonnie ever find each other? Who the hell is this Skink guy? Who, if anyone, is Edie going to bonk? Yes, those wandering exotic animals cross the set from time to time. Yes, it is hoot the entire journey, even when guns are drawn and fired.

Two thumbs up for this entertaining novel.  

I finished reading The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner just at the end of August. It's a doorstop, one I started in June but didn't get going in until late August. But I've finished it.

I am struggling with Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden, which earned him the Pulitzer for non-fiction in 1978. I wanted to read it in August as my Pulitzer-Prize Miscellany book. To me, it is awfully dense; slow going.

I was going to read The Awakening by Kate Chopin as my wedgie for September. Now I can't find the book. I find myself scanning the books on the shelves in bedroom, living room, dining room, and reading room. And downstairs in my room of horrors and in "the stacks." Like if I stare long enough, it will suddenly materialize there between Chekhov and Christie.

Started Andersonville yesterday. Mammoth book.

It took me several months to read Big Rock Candy Mountain. I liked the beginning of the book and all the way through Canada, but then it got bogged down and so did I. It wasn't a waste of time, but it was hard to read.

Closing in on the halfway point of Andersonville. Kinda of formulaic, with characters representing every ethnic, racial, gender, and geographical group. Lots of pages.

Hi, Bill! Glad you liked Stormy Weather. I have not read that one, but I like Hiaasen. I have not read him in a couple of years.

I am starting Avenue of Mysteries tomorrow. I am swamped with books lately. I am sure you feel my pain.

It's Sunday, so an image from Sunday in the Park with George is appropriate. Even more appropriate since the show opens today at the Huntington Theater in Boston!

Believe it or else, this is a photo taken during dress rehearsal. My daughter Becky is one of many costumers and set builders who put in 80-hour work weeks to ready the show. I still can't see this as a tableau with people rather than a painting. Marvelous!

You might know this already, but Andersonville was made into a movie version. You might be able to find it on Netflix or something. I think that Turner Broadcasting did it around the same time that they made the Civil War film Gettysburg.

I read the book years ago and thought it was psychologically traumatizing - but then many Civil War books are. Well, war stories in general are.

I heard that Carl Hiaasen has a new one out. Razor Girl. Being a Florida native, I love his stuff.

>68 benitastrnad: I knew there is a film about this prison camp, but I didn't know that Turner had anything to do with it. The film Gettysburg is smashing good. Have to investigate the Andersonville flick. At this moment, I have less than 100 pages to read; tonight I'll read through a chapter that ends after page 700, and polish off the final ~60 pages Tuesday.

>69 EBT1002: Thanks for the tip on the newest Hiaasen, Ellen. I think I have 4 or 5 Hiaasen TBRs, so I won't be dashing out to snag a brand new $$$ book. :-)

...Just sayin...

>71 weird_O: Love it.

My next book will be Escape from Andersonville...

'Cause I finished MacKinlay Kantor's Andersonville today (Tuesday).

Actually, my current book is My Movie Business, a memoir by John Irving. I've mentioned that indecisiveness has been central to picking an Irving book for this month. I've gotten through only 1 book this month (740 pages!). The others on the month's reading budget are shorter than that first one, but still pretty chunky. So... Owen Meany? 543 pages. Too long. The Cider House Rules? 552 pages. Too long. My Movie Business? 170 pages. Why, it's perfect!

ETA: Escape from Andersonville is an actual book, a novel co-written by the actor, Gene Hackman. Sounds "meh" to me. When I mentioned the title in >73 weird_O: I was making that up. As a Joke. Referring to how long I was captivated by MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize novel. (Ha. Did you see what I just did there?)

Hooray for extraordinary people!!

Congrats on finishing Andersonville and do not be spooked by the length of Cider House Rules. It is a terrific read and well worth the time.

Completed my John Irving book for September's AAC3.

>67 weird_O: wow. That's pretty amazing!

Happy Saturday, Bill! Hope it's a good one.

>67 weird_O: Wow! Incredible! It was great to see you, Gig and Diane today. I look forward to seeing the books you bought.

I bought a few books at the Bethlehem Library yesterday. Before sharing a luncheon nosh with Linda (Whisper1), Will, and Diane (Dianekeenoy) and my friend Gig.

           

>80 weird_O:
Here's the list:

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (hc)
   Spiffy Franklin Mint edition with illustrations from a portfolio published in 1885 in London.
2. The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie (hc)
3. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (hc)
   A cherry Heritage Press edition sans slipcase
4. Death in the Holy Orders by P. D. James (hc)
5. A Certain Justice by P. D. James (hc)
6. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (hc)
7. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (hc)
8. A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz (hc)
9. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (hc)

10. The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell (mmp)
11. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (pbk)
12. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (pbk)
13. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (pbk)
14. Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín (pbk)
15. The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig (pbk)
16. King Lear by Will Shakespeare (pbk)
17. The Second World War by John Keegan (pbk)
18. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (pbk)

I also got four DvDs: Last Chance Harvey, Burn After Reading, Venus, and Michael Clayton.

>81 weird_O: Great list, Bill!
>80 weird_O: The image isn't showing for me. *Pouts*

>82 laytonwoman3rd: I'm going to blame The Google. I've been using Google+ as my photobucket, but just recently, it's stopped giving an image address with a .jpg extension. I've kept using it because even without the extension, the image appears for me in "preview" and on my thread on my computer after the message posts. Guess I need to find a different solution.

WOW! Nice book haul, Bill. Many fine gems. Where you putting all these books?

Great haul. I love the look of the old edition of Agatha Christie.

>84 msf59: >85 charl08: Okay, am I correct in assuming, Mark and Charlotte, that you can see the photo of the book stack in >80 weird_O:?

>84 msf59: Right now, Mark, the books are in two stacks on the dining room table. :-) I guess they'll go--most of them--into the basement stacks. Oh, we got a BIG basement.

>85 charl08: Charlotte, the Christie is a volume in a collection of Dame Agatha's oeuvre published by Bantam Books in the early 1980s. Decent typography, leather-like cover with padded boards.

Hi Bill, I can't see the picture in >80 weird_O: either. But, looks like you got some really great books! Good for you.

I can't see the picture but can read the list. (Isn't that what we do here -- Read?))

A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz and the Keegan Second World War are the only titles on your list of acquisitions that I have read. They are both very good. The Horwitz book is great fun to read - as are most of his titles.

Well, I have to find a different intermediary for posting my own images. Any suggestions? Anyone?... Anyone?... Bueller?...

I'm satisfied with what I got. As usual, I bought something I already have, and a hardcover edition of a mass market paperback I have and a trade pbk of a book I have and read in a mass market pbk.

Can you see it now?

Yup. Very nice stack o' books!

I see it! Very nice indeed. I have that very edition of Great Expectations, which I picked up at a book sale somewhere. My husband is currently reading A Brief History of Nearly Everything, and he is really enjoying it--he says Bryson has a gift for explaining difficult concepts simply.

Morning, Bill! Very nice haul! I really love >67 weird_O: - that is stunning.

"oh, we got a BIG basement". LOL. Nice thing to have for a book hoarder. How do you organize them? By author?

I have had that Keegan WWII book in my stacks for 20 years. Someday?

# 61 My Movie Business by John Irving Completed 9/15/16

The Weird Report^™  

I enjoyed the heck out of this short memoir by John Irving. Its focus is on the adaptation of Irving's novel The Cider House Rules to the silver screen. Irving worked on the project for 13 years (!!!), writing countless draft scripts for several studios, directors, and producers. When it finally made it to the screen, Irving won the Academy Award for his work (specifically for best adapted screenplay). But this book is a memoir by a gifted storyteller, who rambles from time to time, citing people and incidents seemingly far afield. All have some bearing on Irving's "movie business."

After his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1969, Irving was approached by director Irvin Kershner, who wanted to film the story.

It was great fun working with Kershner. He was a wild man with a nonstop imagination and boundless energy...Kershner never sat down. He paced. He would recite the entire story, from the opening shot to the end credits, without once referring to the existent script. I would struggle to write everything down…"You changed something! Stop!" I would shout. "You just changed something!"
"Of course I changed something!" he would shout back, never stopping or even slowing down. "I'm always chang­ing something! It's my job to change something!"

Around the time the two men had a script, Columbia Pictures killed the whole project.

Irving's next bit of movie business was the filming of The World According to Garp. The director, George Roy Hill, asked Irving if he wanted to write the script. "I'll only ask you once." Irving said no, and Hill assigned the work to Steve Tesich. Irving found the difference between Tesich's sense of humor and his distressing.

Steve was a guy who told jokes—good ones, but jokes. Like many comics, he had a gift for one-liners. The first draft of the screenplay was riddled with wisecracks.
I don't do one-liners. What's comic in my novels is not what my characters say; my comedy is not the comedy of quips. The whole situation is comic; the entire reaction of the characters to their situation is what's funny, if any­thing is.
In subsequent drafts, Steve laid off the one-liners, but a few survived; they still make me wince...

Next came Tony Richardson. "I've never felt as flattered as when Tony told me he wanted to make a movie of The Hotel New Hamp­shire, my fifth novel," writes Irving. "Tony didn't even pretend to be disappointed when I told him I didn't want to write the screenplay; he wanted to write it himself, which he did." The script turned out to be for two films; Orion Pictures refused to do two; Richardson refused to substantially cut the scripts. "He short­ened scenes, he used a lot of montage, he increased the voice-over, which fastforwarded many scenes, but in essence he deleted not a single story line or minor charac­ter from his two-movie screenplay. The rousing choice of music (Jacques Offenbach) gave to the film the lunatic, ex­uberant pace of the cancan." But it really wasn't successful.

Irving's most difficult movie business was scripting and filming The Cider House Rules. He began the project with director Phillip Borsos, who died of leukemia shortly after their script was completed. That stalled the project (naturally), stalled it for years, until Irving met producer Richard Gladstein.

I liked him instantly; he was resolutely practical. In order to make The Cider House Rules "happen" as a movie, Richard proceeded as straight­forwardly as a clock. He presented the novel and a 1992 draft of the screenplay to Miramax. Miramax optioned the old draft of the script and the novel; they agreed to finance the film, provided that Richard find an acceptable director. This meant finding someone who was acceptable to Richard, Miramax, and me. The cast had to be "accept­able" to each of us, too. That was the deal.
First of all, how hard could finding an acceptable direc­tor be? As it turned out, very.

Irving worked with two more directors in succession, revising, revising, revising, then parted company with each. The fourth director, Lasse Hallstrom, was the charm. Irving explains all the difficulties involved in chopping an 800+ page manuscript for a novel down to a shooting script of but 134 pages. Eliminating characters, reframing the pivotal conflicting, maintaining the central focus and not allowing a character revision to distract from that focus, how to collapse defining scenes from the book yet still convey their impact on a character.

The tension this creative process entails holds throughout filming and editing. Hallstrom and Irving settled on a shooting script with 234 scenes. But between completion of that script and the first day of principal photography, they cut 64 scenes and added 20, for a total now of 190. "But only 184 scenes were actually shot," Irving reports. "The six scenes we didn't shoot were casualties of the ever-present constraints of time. Miramax had given us a fifty-nine-day shooting schedule; they later gave us an additional three days. Even in sixty-two days, we simply ran out of time, and six scenes were lost."

Did I mention I liked this book?

>87 Dianekeenoy: I didn't see quite so many books this time, but I am satisfied with what I got. Got a few dupes, as usual, but I'll recycle them through the library sales system. :-)

>88 benitastrnad: I thought I'd read a Horwitz book, but looking at his author page, I see I'm wrong.

But I did read his wife's Pulitzer winning novel March. I recall now that she acknowledged in her afterword: "I retract unreservedly my former characterization of my husband, Tony Horwitz, as a Civil War bore. Further, I would like to apologize for all the times I refused to get out of the car at Antietam or whined about the heat at Gettysburg; for all the complaints about too many shelves colonized by his Civil War tomes and all the moaning over weekend expeditions devoted to events such as the interment of Stonewall Jackson's horse. I'm not quite sure when or where it happened, but on a sunken road somewhere, I finally saw the light."

>91 drneutron: Thank you, doctor.

>92 laytonwoman3rd: Not a permanent work-around, but one that worked. Posted it on FB, then linked to that from LT. I am remiss in remembering who it was that urged me to read GE after I'd commented that I wasn't inclined to read it, having seen two film versions. Well, there it was, very cherry and all, so why not? I started the Bryson--a borrowed book since returned--a couple of years ago, but didn't get past the first few pages. So I get a second chance.

>93 Crazymamie: Mamie, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who was floored by that scene. My daughter Becky, who put it several 80-hour weeks making costume for the show, hasn't actually seen it. As soon as a show opens, the crew tears into sets and costumes, etc., for the next production.

>88 benitastrnad: >94 msf59: Keegan! I've read two of his books, one on WWI and a particularly interesting one on the evolution of battle, The Face of Battle. As the cover copy says: "Facing the arrow cloud of Agincourt, the musket balls of Waterloo, or the steel rain of the Somme."

>94 msf59: Well, they aren't too organized. Got a bookcase in the dining room full of fiction, alphabetized by author, from A to Z. But in the living room is another bookcase with the same organization. Just have to remember which place is home to which authors. And lots of books in the bedroom and more in the basement stacks. Unclassified, unalphabetized. Oh, and now there's a tall stack on the dining table.

You know, you just have to remember where things are.

>95 weird_O: Great review of My Movie Business. I would really like to read this one. I can't remember if I saw The Hotel New Hampsire film but I did see see Garp and Cider House and they were both very good.

I try to keep my books in alpha order. My "keeper" books are also separated into categories, to make it a bit simpler and more uniform.

I have to have some organization, especially with my TBR shelves or I would never find anything.

Bill, It looks like you take the prize for the best books acquired. I didn't count or post mine yet. Going back to work really interferes with many things I want to do. I grew accustomed to being at home, reading and resting. Now I remember what it is like to try to juggle a 40 plus hour week job, a drive to and from each day, coming home exhausted and wanting to do so many things, but only able to do a few.

Two more years and I am retiring!

I paid $3.00 for a brand new copy of A Sparrow in Terezin by Kristky Cambron
I paid $1.00 for a new copy of Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

One of the books that looked so interesting that I just had to buy Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London by Andrea Warren

I also found two wonderful books regarding paintings at the Metropolitan Art Museum.

This sale is always a good one! I always come away happy. And now that you, Gig and Diane are in attendance, it makes the sale even more delightful.

>95 weird_O: Sounds interesting. Did he mention the not-an-adaptation they did of A Prayer for Owen Meany? I don't remember the circumstances around it except that it ended up saying just "inspired by a novel by John Irving".

>100 ursula: Irving did mention ...Owen Meany in My Movie Business, but nothing about it being adapted. Wikipedia does say this:

The 1998 feature-length film Simon Birch, directed by Mark Steven Johnson, was loosely based on the novel [A Prayer for Owen Meany]. The film starred Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello, Ashley Judd, Oliver Platt and Jim Carrey. It omitted much of the latter half of the novel and altered the ending. The movie does not share the same title as the book or the character names at Irving's request; he felt that it would "mislead the novel's readers to see a film of that same title which was so different from the book."

Yeah, I knew he had refused to let them even mention the title in relation to the movie. I was just curious if he went into it at all, as far as if he tried to get them to make a more faithful adaptation or what. Guess not.

#62. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh Finished (9/21/16)

The Weird Report^™  

British author Evelyn Waugh visited Hollywood shortly after WWII to negotiate the sale of film rights to his novel Brideshead Revisited, and while there he hobnobbed with members of "the British film colony." Too, he toured the grounds and facilities of the famous Forest Lawn cemetery. He returned home without selling film rights, but with the outline of a satirical novel in his head. The Loved One skewers the insularity and pomposity of those Brits working in the film business. But its larger target is Forest Lawn.

Dennis Barlow, an unknown British poet, shares a house with Sir Francis Hinsley, a has-been British writer barely clinging to a job at a film studio. When his job vaporizes, Sir Francis hangs himself. Dennis is tasked with making the funeral arrangements at Whispering Glades. There he meets and instantly falls for Miss Aimee Thanatogenos, a mortuary cosmetician.

Her full-face was oval , her profile pure, and classical, and light. Her eyes greenish and remote, with a rich glint of lunacy.
   Dennis held his breath. When the girl spoke it was briskly and prosaically.
   "What did your Loved One pass on from?" she asked.
   "He hanged himself."
   "Was the face much disfigured?"
   "Hideously."
   "That is quite usual. Mr. Joyboy will probably take him in hand personally. It is a question of touch, you see, massaging the blood from the congested areas. Mr. Joyboy has wonderful hands."
   "And what do you do?"
   "Hair, skin and nails and I brief the embalmers for expression and pose. Have you brought any photographs of your Loved One? They are the greatest help in re-creating personality. Was he a very cheerful old gentleman?"
   "No, rather the reverse."
   "Shall I put him down as serene and philosophical or judicial and determined?"
   "I think the former."
   "It is the hardest of all expressions to fix, but Mr. Joyboy makes it his specialty--that and the joyful smile for children."

Mr. Joyboy, the head mortician, also has eyes for Miss Thanatogenos. Who will win her?

#96
If you haven't read Confederates in the Attic you simply must do so. Then you will totally understand why Geraldine Brooks wrote that paragraph. For years after reading that book, my sister, who lived in Clarksville, TN at the time, and I, living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, would quote portions of that book to each other and we would laugh and laugh and laugh. Tony Horwitz has a real sense of humor and it shows in A Voyage Long and Strange. My favorite passage in that book is when he goes to Newfoundland to find Vikings and he finds them in Lindsborg, Kansas in a bar where his beer drinking mate is a guy named Lars Nelson. Or is it Nels Larson? I forget which name it is. The passage was so downright funny to me because I grew up about 100 miles north of Lindsborg in a county that was half Bohemian, and the other half, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. I want to read Horwitz's book on Captain Cook at some point.

#60. Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor Finished (9/13/16)

The Weird Report^™  

   That night they were marched into the Andersonville stockade; and so they woke up staring, and they could not believe, they could not believe.
   Nathan Dreyfoos said, It was too good to last.
   But, Sarge, they can't mean to keep us here.
   Look at the other prisoners, Allen.
   But they must have made a mistake. Maybe they sent us to the wrong place. Maybe this is a punishment camp. Eh, Sarge? Oh, for God's sake, Sarge, please do ask the guards if there hain't been a mis­take! A man can't live in a place like this.
   A great many of them don't, said one of the blackened hairy crea­tures who stood watching and listening.

Andersonville is the common name of Camp Sumter, a Confederate prisoner-of-war stockade built in a sparsely populated region of western Georgia in April 1864. As many as 45,000 northern captives were held there (45,000 at one time, many more were funneled through in the single year of its existence). By the time it was liberated by Federal troops in May 1865, about 13,000 prisoners had died there. Capt. Henry Wirz, commander of the stockade, was the only--the only--Confederate official to be tried and executed for war crimes.

Andersonville is MacKinlay Kantor's mammoth novel about this notorious prison. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1956, the book is a detailed and horrifying depiction of the prison, seen through the eyes its neighbors, of the officers running it, the old men and young boys guarding it, and the unfortunates held there. The prison mirrors the trajectory of the Confederacy: Much of the squalor was the result of insufficient resources--food, medicines, building materials, manpower--the same shortages that plagued the entire Confederacy.

The prison itself was a simple rectangular stockade, initially enclosing about 16 1/2 acres, eventually 26 1/2 acres. Slaves were commandeered from surrounding plantations to log the pines covering the site, squaring 20-foot-long logs, and erecting them on end, side-by-side, set five feet into the ground. Outside the stockade wall, guard platforms, each accessed by a ladder, were erected. A small stream, the sole water source, traversed the yard. That was it. No housing, no latrines, no shelter from sun or rain or cold.



At first, as characters were introduced, the book struck me as formulaic. We first meet a thoughtful, sympathetic (but nevertheless pro-slavery) plantation owner and his family, decimated by the war; then an idealistic army surgeon; the villainous General Winder, a West Point deplorable, foul-mouthed, imperious, racist; the first prisoners representing a cross-section of the Federal troops, from cities, farms, small towns, of varying ethnicities, ages, backgrounds. Formulaic it may be, but Kantor did it well. A sampling of prisoners:

Willie Collins is an Irish thug from New York City--he committed his first murder at 14--who cycled in and out of jail for assault, robbery, general antisocial behavior. Released from civil prison after the war's start, none of the established gangsters wanted his services; he was bad luck.

There was nothing for Willie to do but enlist, which he did quickly, and then deserted just as quickly, bounty money sewn in his drawers. In this way, he went from regiment to regiment. It has never occurred to him that he might be sent into combat, but that was what happened after he joined the Eighty-eighth Pennsylvania, before he'd found opportunity to take his usual French Leave.

Captured by the Rebs and imprisoned at Andersonville, Collins reverted to form: intimidation, assault, theft. He recruited a hostile gang that preyed on fellow prisoners, one of several such gangs, known as Raiders.

Nathan Dreyfuss never thought he'd end up in a place like Andersonville. "Born in Boston, he had spent most of his life abroad, travelling from country to country with his father and mother, taught by English tutors the while." In New York City, he encounters two young Union officers, gets into a fight with them and bests both, then enlists to serve in their unit. Sent into battle, the officers are killed, Dreyfoos is captured (along with a majorty of the unit's soldiers). Inside the stockade, he is recruited into the "Regulators," a prisoner police force, organized to bring the Raider gangs to justice.

Chickamauga is called that because that's where he lost both his leg and his freedom. A harelip makes him difficult to understand. Extraordinarily bad breath makes him difficult to stand (near). He's an outcast. When he exposes a tunneling project to the guards in exchange for extra food, he learns what being an outcast is really like.

Judah Hansom from "York State" considers himself a woodsman though he's inherited from his father a 600-acre farm on which he's always worked, along with several mortgages. Goaded by the heckling of a young disabled veteran--"Might get shot!"--Judah enlists. Imprisoned at Andersonville, Judah enlists a handful of fellows to tunnel out to freedom. He hates being underground, but he's driven to take on more and more of the digging.

Willie Mann was brought up in rural Missouri, the son of a doctor who was known to be "foolish on the subject of water." (though none of his eight children died in infancy). Thoroughly indoctrinated, Willie is particular about water that he'll drink. Once imprisoned, he consumes very little and at every opportunity tries to collect rainwater and funnel it directly into his mouth. Then a violent thunderstorm hits.

Eric Torrosian schemes to escape by playing dead. Prisoners tote their fellows who have died to the stockade gate, and every evening slaves load the corpses on a wagon and take them to the dead house outside to await burial. Once in the unguarded dead house, Eric can slip out and disappear into the forest surrounding the prison.

Relatively few characters survive the book. It is a long, grim story.

Two survivors of Confederate prison camps.  

>105 weird_O: Apologies. I do think I got carried away.

But it's a solid book. Just another version of man's inhumanity to man

Finished The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road by Bruce Catton on Saturday, wrapping up my reading of that three-book set (starting with Mr. Lincoln's Army and concluding with A Stillness at Appomattox). This reading is an entry in the September: Series & Sequels brouhaha. And more to come for that: I just acquired the second and third books in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series--A Red Death and White Butterfly. Probably won't get both read before Friday, especially since i have more than half of The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand yet to read.

Bill-- Wow! You have been churning out the reviews and buying up the stores!! By all means, carry on!

Hi, Bill!

>67 weird_O: How great. We love Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, and have seen two different productions here in Chicago. Did I get it right that your daughter worked on costumes and design for this production? How cool.

>95 weird_O: Your review is a fascinating read all by itsownself. I can see why you liked the book.

Time for some Buster! He's playing my song...

October arrived while I wasn't looking.

I'm midway through The Metaphysical Club, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of "ideas" during the mid-19th century. Featured philosophers include Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William James (brother of writer Henry James), Chauncey Wright, Charles Sanders Pierce, and John Dewey. A September book to be completed in October. I had started Carl Sagan's Pulitzer-winning book The Dragons of Eden back in August and stalled out only a few chapters in; I do want to finish it. Thus an August book to be completed in October.

On the last day of September, it did finish A Red Death, the second book in Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" series. Have the the third book, White Butterfly, on tap.

For October, I've started Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road and also Thomas Paine's Common Sense. So I am engaged.

The Metaphysical Club has been on my list for a while - I need to get to it. I hope you like Gentlemen of the Road!

>112 drneutron: Gentlemen of the Road, now that I've finished it, is good, Jim; I did like it. Now back to The Metaphysical Club.

I'm a recent fan of Rawlins - such a good read. I love the historical detail of LA as well as the crime plots.

Thanks for the orange penguin gif - like it a lot.

I haven't read any Paine, so will read your comments with interest.

Well hello Bill! For some reason I only saw your Doorstop thread, never your actual 75 book challenge threads. Here I am, finally, and we seem to have eerily similar reading habits. Very cool.

In >90 weird_O: above, do I detect the Bantam edition of The ABC Murders? If so, I have to tell you that starting in 1987 my mother bought ALL of them for me via mail order, one a month, and doled them out to me two or three at a time 1987-1995. Apparently my dad was appalled at how many of them there were, but Mom was persistent and they are among my prized possessions.



>97 weird_O: You may have heard about Great Expectations from Mark or Paul - Mark declined, and Paul is in process - for my group read. Paul created the thread for me, but I'm a big girl now and will be able to create group read threads all by myself in the future! I'm glad I read GE, and I'm glad I'm done with it. The only other Dickens I might consider reading, and this would be next year, would be Tale of Two Cities since it was described to me as the most un-Dickens of Dickens' works.

>114 charl08: Glad you like that penguin, Charlotte. I like East R.; I've read three so far and have another three on the Tower of TBRs. I like Easy, but I'll admit to being fairly unsettled by Mouse.

>115 karenmarie: Oh Karen, I am pleased you discovered this thread. You are correct about that Bantam edition. I know I have two, and maybe three. I do have some Christie in other editions--paperbacks, anthologies. Your collection is Epic, with a capital E. My wife has read all the Christies that we have; I'm lagging.

I'd be open to a group read of something, but I don't know what. I've read Tale of Two Cities, once in high school (back in the last century) and again almost exactly six years ago. I think we exchanged posts about Great Expectations. I've locked myself into a half-dozen challenges this year; I won't do it again next year.

Gotta thank my Mom for the Epicness of my Christies. I wasn't as appreciative then as I am now, but now I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I've only done one challenge (September John Irving) and one group read (GE), and am leery of committing to too many more this year, although I've tentatively pulled a Chabon for the October AAC challenge. It's sitting between the lamp and the printer staring balefully at me - I haven't opened it yet.

Despite having three books in play, I've added a fourth; looking for something that really grabs me. So it is Helter Skelter. Long ago I read a true-crime book on the Hinman-Tate-LaBianca murders, The Family by Ed Sanders (which has a page but no Touchstone; click on the author T-stone and go from there to the book).

I was 16 in 1969, growing up in the Los Angeles area. Funny, I was never terrified that it could happen to me, because it was at the other end of Los Angeles and up in the Valley. Ah, the ignorance of youth.

I've read Helter Skelter two or three times. The Bug is an excellent writer. I hope it grabs you. He's written several other very good books, too.

I remember being totally grabbed by Helter Skelter when it came out. It's still around here somewhere, I think.

Oh yeah. This one has me. Compulsive read.

Happy Saturday, Bill. I also loved Helter Skelter, although it has been over 30 years. I have read several of his books and he is always interesting.

>105 weird_O: Thanks for the great review, Bill, and that is definitely one I will seek out online. The photographs are horrific.

Have a wonderful weekend dear fellow.

Completed Helter Skelter today. Top shelf true crime book.

Back to them idee'rs...The Metaphysical Club and Common Sense.

I just want everyone to know that I...the acquisitive bookster...donated seven (7) cartons of books to the library last week. I don't know how many books were in the boxes; who's counting?

Hi Bill, I hope you don't feel sad and regret it after your donation. I wish you a lovely week.

>125 weird_O: Well, Bill! I'm impressed. Of course it leaves room for more acquisitions, right?

>126 Ameise1: >127 karenmarie: No donor's remorse for me. Though I do wish, as Karen said, it'd leave room for more acquisitions. The truth is that most of the boxes have been collecting dust for years; I sorted books into a discard pile years ago. One box was loaded with Son the Elder's Robert Heinlein and Piers Anthony paperbacks that he never took with him when he moved out for college...twenty-five years ago!!!! I do try not to be too hasty about such important, life-changing decisions.

I've got a near lifetime of detritus to discard. "Just park that dumpster right there by the basement door."

>128 weird_O: What?!? 25 years in the basement? I guess, it was time to remove them. Now you got space got for yourself.

>128 weird_O: That pretty much sums up my attitudes to book giving away. Approach With Caution.

I just discovered that Windsor Chair guru Mike Dunbar, a man I know and worked with on a couple of occasions, is credited as the man who ignited Donald Trump's presidential ambitions. Ye Gods, Mike! You cur!

Google "Mike Dunbar Trump" and links to articles bestowing the credit for planting "presidency" in The Donald's head will appear. Time magazine, USA Today, the Boston Globe, Politico. It was 1987, and while Trump didn't enter the race that year, look at him now.

I wonder if bringing down the GOP was his long range plan?



I should add that Mike is an author, with a half-dozen or so titles published. Perhaps the best known is Building a Windsor Chair with Mike Dunbar (no Touchstone results; I'll have to add the book to my library).

>131 weird_O: Looks like The Donald has had his regrettably unfashionable tie-length problem for a very long time. And Mike ought to be ashamed of himself. Dangle something like that in front of a megalomaniac.....

-See Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize.
-Which one?
-Wha’?
-There’s loads o’ them. Bukes, science, accountancy – there’s rakes o’ the things. There’s even one for fuckin’ peace.
-Science then - I think.
-Fuckin’ science? He won the Nobel Prize for science?
-Has to be, I’d say. That song, Mister Tambourine Man.
-What about it?
-Well, how can one sham play a song with only a fuckin’ tambourine? It can’t be done. It’s like givin’ some poor fucker one o’ them Irish yokes –
-A bodhrán.
-Exactly. An expectin’ him to play Bohemian Rhapsody on it. It’s just not possible.
-But Dylan cracked it.
-That’s me theory. But seriously –
-Go on.
-He deserves it. The buke – the literature - prize.
-I’m with yeh.
-I remember when me brother brought home Highway 61 Revisited, when it came ou’, like. Now, I love me music – always did. But, like, ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah’. I mean, there wasn’t much in the lyrics of anny o’ the songs back then. An’ then I heard, ‘They’re paintin’ postcards of the hangin’, they’re paintin’ the passports brown.’ It was amazin’. The start of my life, nearly. Even me da stopped complainin’ about the noise.

Who else but Roddy Doyle

>133 weird_O: LOL! Beautiful.

Genius that Doyle.

# 66 Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry Finished 10/10/16

The Weird Report^TM   

August 9, 1969: Arriving at the Los Angeles home where she was housekeeper, Winifred Chapman noticed downed telephone wires. Walking up the drive, she saw a car she didn't recognize, parked haphazardly. She entered the house by the back door, as usual, passing through the kitchen and into the dining room. Looking into the living room, she saw what appeared to be blood staining the carpet and spattered everywhere. Through the partially open front door, she could see pools of blood on the porch and beyond, a body on the grass.

Upon their arrival, police determined that the murder scene comprised five dead bodies: those of starlet Sharon Tate, the eight-months pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski; celeb hair stylist Jay Sebring, a close friend of Tate; Abigail Folger, the coffee heiress; her lover Voytek Frykowski, and slumped in the haphazardly parked car, Steven Parent, a teenager not connected to the other four. Parent had been shot several times, but the others were dispatched by dozens and dozens of stab wounds and gunshots. The word P I G was written in blood on the front door.

Who would do such an appalling thing? The scene was grisly, shocking. The deed seemed pointless. And why? Why would anyone do it?

August 10, 1969: The bodies of businessman Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were discovered in their home. Rosemary had been stabbed 41 times, Leno more than a dozen times. A large carving fork was implanted in his abdomen, a steak knife in his throat. The letters W A R were incised on him. Written in blood on the walls were the words "Rise" and "Death to pigs" and on the refrigerator "Healter [Sic] Skelter."

The murders in all instances were committed by members of the so-called Manson Family. Charles Manson was a 32-year-old composer/musician wanna-be who'd spent about half his life in reformatories or prison. But he had a charisma that charmed a gaggle of rootless teenage and young-adult girls, as well as a few boys. All were outcasts, alienated from families and society, and those who stayed with him were soon in his complete thrall. They'd do anything he asked them to, even kill a complete stranger.

Helter Skelter is prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's thorough, detailed, and gripping story of the murders, the murderers, the investigations, the trial, and, in an afterword written in 1994, the aftermath.

Jailhouse bragging provided an initial break. One of the murderous Manson girls, jailed on an unrelated charge, just had to confide her story to cellmates who, rocked to their cores by the remorseless glee of this murderer, passed information to police (not that police were interested in what two jailbirds had to say). In the book, Bugliosi recounts how he elicited her testimony, used her as a grand jury witness to get indictments, and then, when she recanted--he knew she would, how he worked the individual family members to gain true, and believable testimony.

Interviews with the suspects, peripheral friends and acquaintances, neighbors, many conducted by Bugliosi himself, helped him piece together a narrative of the murders, but equally as important, a motive for the crimes. Helter Skelter is central.

The murder trial, which ended in conviction and death sentences for the four defendants, began June 10,1970. It was the longest jury trial in history; the jurors were sequestered from June through March, when the guilty verdicts were presented. In a separate, later trial, a fifth defendant was also convicted and sentenced to the gas chamber. In 1972, the California Supreme Court overturned capital punishment, and the killers' sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. One girl died in prison in the 1990s; the other are still behind bars.

A terrific book, Helter Skelter reveals the chess game a prosecutor must play against defendants and their attorneys, the judge, the potential witnesses, even the jurors. Each day of trial rolls out setbacks and surprises, and in this sensational case, Bugliosi confronted hundreds of them.

Known Victims:
 You have to read the book to find out who Gary Hinman and Donald Shea were.

Charles Manson, then and now:                 Leslie Van Houten, then and now:
 

Patricia Krenwinkle, then and now:               Susan Atkins, in cancer treatment about 1990, and then:
 

Charles "Tex" Watkins, in the Family, on trial, and today:
  

Both of my thumbs are up.  

>136 weird_O: Great review as always Bill. Polanski has his detractors but I cannot help a certain sympathy towards a guy who had to face what had happened to his gorgeous, pregnant wife.

Fascinating review Bill. Sounds almost like it could be fiction. The pictures then and now are striking too. Time hasn't been kind.

Very close to the end of Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer-winning story collection Interpreter of Maladies. I'm also plugging away at The Metaphysical Club. Then I probably will tackle Devil in the Grove.

>137 PaulCranswick: >138 charl08: Glad you liked the report. No one deserves to die as Manson's victims did, Paul. And the book tells of at least a half-dozen other murders likely committed by Manson's followers. Helter Skelter could be fiction, Charlotte. Except you couldn't make this up. Or could you?

Happy Sunday, Bill. Good review of Helter Skelter. One of my favorites.

Do you think you will host a NF Challenge next year? I think it would be an excellent idea, since so many of us love our NNF.

I hope you are loving Interpreter of Maladies. It was my first Lahiri and I fell hopelessly in love.

>140 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I just finished Jhumpa Lahiri and I did like her stories.

NF Challenge? Suzanne (Chatterbox) is hosting just such a one right now, and I think she's going to do it again next year. You've probably seen it. Her format is structured around topics rather than authors; a very sensible approach.

>141 weird_O: I was just about to mention that there is already a non-fiction challenge going in the group, Bill.

>136 weird_O: Good review, Bill, and I love the photos! Bugliosi has written other books, also very good.

I'm getting closer to the goal of 75. Completed book #69 a short time ago. Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King, the Pulitzer Prize winner for GenNF in 2013. Just a wrenching story of Jim Crow and its murderous consequences in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s in Florida. More tomorrow.

Back to the philosophers...

Go Bill! Go Bill! You can do it!

Thank you for the vampire you delivered to my thread. In return, I've brought you a walker:

Don't forget to feed him.

>146 mstrust: Ohh, thanx. I'll send 'em to your Halloween Buffet. It is all you can eat, right? Or perhaps whatever you can eat...

Hum hum huh hahahaahha.

>145 msf59: Yeah, what Mark said!

>144 weird_O: Oh yeah, I remember seeing Devil in the Grove around. I can imagine that was a tough read.

Six books in the last two months plus will be a doddle for a man of your means, Bill.

Have a great weekend.

Completed book #70, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, on Saturday night and book #71, The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand, on Sunday night.

While the Steelers are just off off off, the Eagles rebounded from two disappointing games and ended the Vikes' 5-game streak. And, wow!, how about Penn State!

So the weekend was good.

>151 weird_O: All Quiet on the Western Front was one of my favourite books in my late teens.
Happy new week, Bill.

Did a little shopping in the last few days. Three books from Goodwill for $0.97 each. Two from my fave local used book store for $1.00 each. All hardcovers with decent jackets. I'm happy.

    

>146 mstrust: I am going to read Annie Dillard's memoir An American Childhood for November's AAC. My wife is pre-reading it (you know, making sure it is safe for ME to read). She mentioned that Dillard says her father had a bit part in Night of the Living Dead, the famous zombie movie filmed in Pittsburgh. Wonder if he met this zombie that Jennifer (mstrust) posted?

ETA: Dillard's father was Frank Doak. IMDB credits Doak with appearances in two films, Night of the Living Dead in 1968 and Living Dead in 2012. Titular appropriateness: Doak died in 1996.

Happy Saturday, Bill. Nice book haul. I can not warble loud enough about H is For Hawk. A top read for me last year. I also read and enjoyed Continental Drift a few years ago. A very edgy novel.

I think I have An American Childhood saved on ebook, so I may also bookhorn that one in, next month.

>154 weird_O: Strange, I know, but I can identify the zombie I posted in >146 mstrust: as Greg Nicotero, producer/director/make-up effects for "The Walking Dead". Nicotero is too young to have been there for filming "Night of the Living Dead", yet there is a connection to Dillard in George Romero. Romero directed both "Night of the Living Dead" and "Day of the Dead", which Nicotero worked on as a young make-up artist and had a small role with a few lines.
Six Degrees of Separation, Zombie Edition! Do I win anything?

>154 weird_O: American Childhood is excellent. I love Annie Dillard. Did not remember about her father's movie appearance, though. (Horror movies not being my thing, I probably just slid right over the reference.)

Happy Halloween Bill!

Ready for Trick or Treating Yes I am!

For me, October has been a very good reading month. I completed nine books, and not one of them a dog. I am but two books shy of the goal: 75.

65. Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (10/3/16) (AAC3—October)
66. Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry (670 pages) (10/10/16) ROOT DwD MnM ®
67. Common Sense by Thomas Paine (10/12/16) Wedgie
68. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (10/16/16) ROOT PPF (2000) Wedgie
69. Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King (10/20/16) PPM (GenNF—2013)
70. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (10/22/16) ROOT Because…
71. The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand (10/23/16) PPM (Hist—2002) {for Sept.} NFC {for Sept.}
72. Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan (10/28/16) PPM (GenNF—1978) NFC {for August}
73. Indignation by Philip Roth (10/29/16) ROOT Because...

Monthly challenges met:

     AAC3
     Pulitzer Price for Fiction
     Pulitzer Price for History/Bio/GenNF/Poetry/Drama*
     Deadweight Doorstop
     Wedgie Doorstop
     Murder 'n' Mayhem
     NonFiction Challenge**

*I read Devil in the Grove for October, beginning and finishing the book within the month. But I also completed Dragons of Eden, which I started in August for that month's PPM and NFC (science), and The Metaphysical Club, which I started in September for both that month's PPM and NFC (philosophy/history of ideas).

**While I did complete the books started in August and September for the NFChallenge topics for those months, I ducked out on the October topic (politics/economy/business).

>159 weird_O: Is that a new haircut? Hope you get lots of candy.
You got a lot of reading done this month!

>153 weird_O: Nice haul, Bill. I've read 1, 3 and 5, and really liked all of them.

Have a weird Halloween, buddy.

>156 mstrust: Talk about six degrees of separation... I just learned that, back in the late 1950s, young Annie Doak and her sister spent two weeks each summer at a Presbyterian church summer camp. My mother was the director of that camp and I was there. Annie Doak would be known as Annie Dillard.

>155 msf59: Mark, Saturday was good. I finished Roth's Indignation, book #73 for the year, and to me a good read. Penn State's footballers started slow, then demolished Purdue in the second half. Lehigh bested Fordham.

Sunday was good until late, when the Iggles got lassoed.

Glad to hear your encomiums for H Is for Hawk, which I of course knew you really, I say REALLY, liked. And to hear you liked Continental Drift helps it elbow a little closer top the top of TBR.

Warble on, man.

>157 laytonwoman3rd: My wife finished An American Childhood just this morning. I will pick it up as soon as I finish The Color Purple and read a couple of more "books" in The Brothers Karamazov. As I mentioned to Jennifer (MsTrust) in >163 weird_O:, I learned from my wife (as she read Dillard's memoir) that young Miss Doak attended a summer camp for girls that my mother directed. So I surely crossed paths with her.

>158 The_Hibernator: Thanks. Judi and I sat on our son's front porch, guarding the treats tub, while he and his wife and their daughters roamed the streets. Managed to pocket a couple full-size Snickers and sneak a couple or three peppermint patties and a peanut butter cup. I didn't scare anyone with my phony placid demeanor.

#73. Indignation by Philip Roth (10/29/16)

The Weird Report^™  

As do so many of Philip Roth's novels, Indignation begins in Newark, NJ, where Marcus Messner, a 19-year-old freshman at Robert Treat College, is a straight-A student. He's struggling to be focused on his studies in the face of his father's suddenly overbearing, incessant concern about his activities and his whereabouts. He harangues Marcus about the perils of leaving college for any reason. It is 1951, and the US military is mired in Korea, fighting North Korean and Chinese Communist troops. Leave school, get drafted, and, his father warns, Marcus will die in Korea.

So the nice Jewish atheist from Newark transfers to Winesburg College in Winesburg, Ohio (Roth's hat tip to the small town invented by Sherwood Anderson). He's assigned to a room with three other Jewish students. One becomes intolerable, and Marcus finds a room with just one other student, "decidedly non-Jewish." After he proves intolerable, Marcus finds shelter in the attic of the dorm. All by himself. Working weekends as a waiter in a bar in town, he's surreptitiously mocked by college boys who slur the words, "Hey you, over here," to make them, "Hey Jew, over here." Socially inept, he nevertheless asks a girl in his history class for a date. After dinner, Marcus drives Olivia in a borrowed car to a secluded spot. She aggressively French kisses him, then stuns him by administering a blowjob. Back in his room, he's baffled by the event and simultaneously repelled by and attracted to Olivia. Later, she tells him, "I did that because I liked you so much." Later still, she tells him she's been through rehab for alcoholism. Oh, and that scar on her wrist? Failed suicide attempt. But still, Marcus gets only A's.

Not to worry. There's more.

Marcus is invited to make an appointment with the Dean of Men, Hawes D. Caudwell. Suspicious, thus wary, Marcus tells the dean that everything is going fine, that his straightforward goal is to study and earn nothing but A's. Naturally, the dean bullies him into argument, to the point that Marcus struggles to avoid being forced into benign Winesburgian conformity, to defend his Jewishness but also his atheism, to not be driven off his path. Needless to say, Marcus' trajectory plummets from here on. He gets appendicitis, his mother vows she's divorcing his father, Olivia visits him every day he's in the hospital, then disappears when he returns to campus. And then… And then...

Did I love this weird story; why of course I did. Philip Roth is a favorite author. I like his characters and the choler they often display, the situations they forge (or just blunder) into.

>163 weird_O:, >165 weird_O: If Dillard wasn't so adamant about not having time for unsolicited communications, I would absolutely have to write and tell her about the connection, were I in your shoes. But she has pretty firmly shut the door on those who might reach out to her, and I think that's sad. She should not have to miss the opportunity to commune with The Weird One.

>168 laytonwoman3rd: The thought has crossed my mind, Linda, to make an effort. I read the stuff at the link, and it sounded to me like she wouldn't read and review your short story or essay or novel. She wouldn't hook you up with an agent. But she didn't say she wouldn't read a compliment or an observation. So, maybe...

I've started November with a Pulitzer-winning novel The Color Purple. Finished it yesterday.

Onward and upward. To infinity and beyond.

>169 weird_O: Well, go for it, Bill. Maybe we should bombard her with nice messages and bring her into the LT fold!

>165 weird_O: Miss Doak attended a summer camp for girls that my mother directed
That's a neat connection! Seems worth a shot to send a note.

>167 weird_O: Intriguing review. I've never read any Roth. Is there a book you'd recommend for a beginner?

Hi, Bill! Is The Color Purple your 75th read or 74? Inquiring minds. I read this back in the 80s and loved it. I also loved the film. Would love to do a reread.

I ended up reading The Maytrees instead of An American Childhood. I am finding is just okay, so I will definitely be visiting the memoir later in the month.

Re: Annie Dillard. I think I'll send a brief note to her agent (the only address given at her website) and see if it can be forwarded. Thanks for the encouragement, Linda and Katherine.

>173 charl08: Goodbye, Columbus, published in 1959, launched Roth's career and that might be a gentle start. It is short, so it's usually bundled with some Roth short stories. One I liked is The Plot Against America, an alternative history story in which Nazi-admirer Charles Lindbergh is elected president in 1940. The perspective is from Newark's Jewish community.

The Ghost Writer is a short novel--a wedgie--that features Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's alter-ego. Reputedly, the Pulitzer judges selected it for the prize in 1980, but the Columbia U. trustees ignored their judges and gave the prize to Mailer's The Executioner's Song. Joe Welch penned an excellent review of it.

>174 msf59: An American Childhood will be the 75th. The Color Purple is only #74. I never read it and I never saw the movie. I had the impression it was about incest; silly me.

So today I was reading in me buke and I turned the page...and it was blank. I mean, no "Finis," no "The End." That was it. So I had finished it. Goodie!

Not only was I done, but the book fulfilled the November episode of Mark eMark's American Author Challenge: Annie Dillard's An American Childhood.

And not only that, it was the 75th book I read this year. Ain't that sumthin'?

 I just through I'd mention that number, again. I case you didn't see it there amongst all those words. 

Congratulations! Good job!
Now you can go to recess.

The first Saturday of November is National Bison Day.

>178 weird_O: Good to know. Maybe I should go eat a burger. lol

Congrats!

>178 weird_O: Oh, dang. I missed it. Was there a parade and everything?

>174 msf59: I don't think Dillard is at her best with fiction. I love her non-fiction writing though, and An American Childhood was a treat, for me.

OBTW, Bill, how many books have you read so far this year? I might have missed that too.

Way to go, Bill! Love the 75 sitters.

Well done Bill. Not only on, erm, quietly passing 75 but also in the general quality of books you have waded through to get there.

>183 weird_O: Big fan of Pinky and the Brain Bill. They would have a vote from me.

>176 weird_O: Congratulations on reaching 75, Bill!

I've had that happen in recent years - turn the page expecting more book and finding just a blank page, then having to reprocess the 'last' chapter. Very strange.

>178 weird_O: Well. Who'da thunk it? National Bison Day indeed.

Read Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen. Started it last evening and finished minutes ago. Couldn't sleep last night anyway; Hiaasen stories keep you turning the pages more than do those of Dostoyevsky. Now I'm going back to the Russian.

#187
As long as you don't start loving Putin and turn into an orange haired sycophant you can read all the Russian you want. Your fellow LT members won't have a problem with reading Russian.

>176 weird_O: Congratulations on passing 75.
And also to the bison, of course.

Thanks for the Roth recommendations. Starting with something short sounds like a good idea.
Caught an old episode of the Simpsons last night - Lisa goes to a literary festival.

Hooray for 75!! Hooray for 75!! I knew you could do it, Bill!!

>180 drneutron: >182 jnwelch: Thanks, guys. I see you shared a brew to celebrate my "75" achievement.



>179 The_Hibernator: Well, do enjoy a burger for me, Rachel. Wouldn't have to be a Bison burger. To bad you couldn't meet up with Jim and Joe for their "Bill Reads 75!" festivities.

>181 laytonwoman3rd: No parade, Linda. More like a perp walk.

>184 PaulCranswick: Thank you, Paul. Some of those "quality" books proved challenging to get through. No extra credit awarded. Sad.

>185 Oberon: We'd all be better off if Brain and Pinky had won.

>186 karenmarie: Well, thanks, Karen. The Bison business was just a bonus. Oh, but we paid the price on Tuesday.

>191 weird_O: Now that is a thing of beauty. I suddenly got very thirsty...

Oh, they were very good!

Yes, indeed! That was in Kramerbooks in Washington, DC. Great to see Jim, and the beers were delicious. We knew you'd get to 75, Bill.

Had to take couple of days off for a little post-election...ah...treatment.

>196 weird_O: LOL!!

>196 weird_O: Did it work?

>198 qebo: Well, it did until the ozone smell disappeared. Now not so much.

Oooh, I'm the 200th post! I've brought you something weird to celebrate.

>196 weird_O: I shall be interested to see what they come up with. Hilary mixed with the Donald. He gets her hair and the popular vote and she gets the electoral college.

Have a great weekend.

>196 weird_O: Do you glow in the dark now?

>196 weird_O: I think I need that also!

Oh boy, I've fallen behind on my own thread (as well as everyone else's). I've got my reasons. Of course I do. And they are good ones too. Yes, yes they are.

First, I want to thank all you commented on my post-election therapy (>196 weird_O:), Joe, Katherine, Paul, Linda, and Ron. Though it hasn't provided any post-election relief, it was a lot of fun. Tingly.

>200 mstrust: I deny I ever possessed a getup like that. I may be weird, but I am not a fruitcake. I don't even LIKE fruitcake. (Is that supposed to be the biblical Joseph? Now I understand why his brothers got rid of him.)

Happy T-Day, Bill!

Happy Thanksgiving, Bill!

Happy Thanksgiving, Bill! Have a great time with the family!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bill, I am thankful to this group for introducing me to so many interesting people; even the Weird ones.

Hi Bill! I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving! The Bethlehem book sale is almost upon us. Are you and Gig able to join Diane and I on December 3rd? I hope so. It will be great to see you and Gig.

All the best to you my friend!

>196 weird_O: Even though I live in Canada, I know the feeling of needing of needing therapy after the Trump win. sighs.

>213 Whisper1: Gig and I are both a little spent by Thanksgiving, so we won't be able to join you. Gig is strong-willed enough to skip the sale. But I may get there tomorrow.

#215
What? There is a book sale and you aren't going? Something weird is going on.

Seriously, I hope you can make it. One more book in my collection always makes me happy. I think it does the same for you.

Ah, drat, Bill, you and Gig will be missed! I like our meet ups and look forward to them.

All good wishes for a wonderful holiday season, and of course, time for reading.

So November has come to an end. I was expecting to devour more than 6 books for the month, but that's what I got done. Got all but one of my monthly challenges.

  AAC3: An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
  Pulitzer for Fiction: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  Pulitzer miscellany: Annie Christie by Eugene O'Neill
  Murder 'n' Mayhem: Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
  Wedgie: Sula by Toni Morrison

The challenge I missed is the Deadweight Doorstop. I did start The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky and I'm reading several chapters each week. It is being a slog, but I shall prevail before the year is out.

All 5 challenge books completed are ROOTs, as is the uncompleted challenge book.

The 6th book--non-challenger--was Here at The New Yorker by Brendan Gill.

     

Bill, You read six mighty books. It is cold outside this evening. I hope you are warm and enjoying a good book.

>218 weird_O: I'd call that a highly respectable reading month, Bill. I have a copy of Here at the New Yorker on the TBR stacks. *sigh* One of these days...

The copy of Here at The New Yorker that I read holds nostalgic (and coincidental) interest for me. I spotted the book at July's book sale at the Bethlehem library, where it was displayed atop a bookcase in a corner labeled: "Ye Old Books, Rare Books, First Editions." A print-out tucked into the book, which sported an round fluorescent orange sticker showing a $3 price, listed on-line sellers asking $55 for a first edition. Well, I always wanted to read it, so I tucked it into my modest tote.

It wasn't until I paid for my books, drove home, and sorted through the stack that I noticed a second folded-in-half sheet tucked into the book, its projecting edge browned by age. Pulled it out, opened it up, and Yumpin' Yiminee! It was a memo written in July 1975 from my old boss to a Lehigh U. business prof doing consulting with said boss. Six days past the 41st anniversary of the memo's typing!



I opened the book to the front end paper, and there was Bob's signature. Way cool!



The book is in very good condition and I really doubt whether the recipient ever read it. I suspect, without checking, that it sat on a bookshelf in the prof's home until he or his heirs donated books for the sale. I'm glad I got it, glad I read it.

Oh hey, speaking of Bethlehem Library book sales, the last day of the last sale of 2016 is tomorrow (Saturday, Dec 3). I can't make it; just too much going on. But I was able to get free Wednesday afternoon, and, unsurprisingly, I did find a few excellent books to reinforce the foothills of Mount TBR.


(left to right)
1. The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander (hc)
2. The Year of Decision: 1846 by Bernard DeVoto (hc w/slipcase)
3. The Round House by Louise Erdrich (hc) 2012 National Book Award
4. Lord Peter by Dorothy L. Sayers (hc)
5. Battle Cry by Leon Uris (hc)
6. Missoula: Rape and Justice in a College Town by Jon Krakauer (hc)
7. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (pbk)
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle (hc)
9. Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball (pbk) 1998 National Book Award NF
10. Endurance by Alfred Lansing (pbk)
11. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (pbk)
12. Ulysses by James Joyce (hc)
13. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (pbk)
14. Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill (pbk) 1957 Pulitzer drama
15. The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh (hc) 1954 Pulitzer biography
16. A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (pbk) Time's 100 Best
17. Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (pbk)
18. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (pbk) 2009 Pulitzer fiction
19. The Crucible by Arthur Miller (pbk)
20. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (pbk) Time's 100 Best
21. In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore (pbk)
22. The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand (pbk) 1938 Pulitzer fiction
23. Sophie's Choice by William Styron (hc) 1980 National Book Award
+ DVDs
1. War Horse
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. Doctor Zhivago

That's quite the haul!

Some great books there. Not jealous of the bargains at all...

Hi Bill. It looks like you were able to get some mighty good books. I went to the sale after leaving my office. It was a great time to be there. The aisles were easily navigated, Christmas music was playing, and the displays were so lovely. I managed to spend $19.00 for 20 books. I found a book that highlighted the American Wing of the Metropolitan Art Museum. This was a great find because I very much enjoy the American Wing!

We will miss you and Gig on Saturday when Diane, Will and I attempt to find more gems. Diane's husband Kevin may join us! We hope to see you and Gig in January! In the meantime, Happy Holiday to you and yours.

December is here. But you knew that, right?

To begin the month, I completed book number 80 for the year-to-date: Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart. I selected this book off my list of Murder 'n' Mayhem books. I wanted to read one such book each month, partly to clear some ROOTs from the slopes of Mount TBR. I didn't quite accomplish that, though I did read a Baker's Dozen of M'n'M books. Three of the reads were acquired during 2016. Still.... Ten of thirteen isn't bad.

I continue to peck at Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

I've begun Don DeLillo's The Body Artist, which is very short. In addition to answering to December's American Author Challenge, it'll be my Wedgie Doorstop for December.

By Monday at the latest, I'll be into The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt, the general non-fiction Pulitzer winner in 2012.

>223 The_Hibernator: >224 charl08: >225 Whisper1: Thanks Rachel, Charlotte, and Linda. I'm smugly proud of this collection; it includes some titles I wanted for a long time but always assumed I'd have to buy new. I love serendipity!

>222 weird_O: Nice selections. Some I've read and really liked, a few I want to read, and one I read and didn't like at all. :)

>222 weird_O: Same edition of Ulysses that I have. And it has the signature of an attorney who once (before my time) worked in the firm I retired from last year. I just love serendipitous things like that.

Hi, Bill. I loved The Brothers Karamazov, but then, I'm weird. Oh wait . . . you're weird_O. Maybe you'll end up loving it, too. :-) I also thought The Swerve was terrific. Greenblatt is such a smart guy. I got started with him with Will in the World.

>222 weird_O: That's a hefty stack, and lots of prize winners. You did a good job.

>222 weird_O: Jealousy tinged appreciation of a like minded fellow.

Have you given thought to a reprise of your great challenges in 2017, Bill?

Excellent haul, Bill!

Richard Derus sung the praises of The Swerve so highly that I bought it and devoured it the year it came out. I hope you appreciate it as much as I did.

I read The Body Artist years ago, and didn't find it to be one of those books you can't put down. It was good enough, but I din't think it was a prize winner.

I went to our local library Used Book store sale on Saturday and came back with a huge bunch of books. I haven't counted them yet, but I spent $25.00 and I know I got a couple of books I will want to read for some of the challenges next year.

I loved Brothers Karamozov! It was one of my most memorable reads of teenage years.

While I've been absent from the threads, I have been doing some little bit of reading.

For the AAC, I finished The Body Artist, a short but baffling novel by Don DeLillo. Not a writer of heavily, intricately plotted roller-coaster-ride books, this'n is pretty baffling. As Benita commented above, "It was good enough, but I didn't think it was a prize winner." But a week after finishing it, I'm still poking at the mystery.

Last night, I completed The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt. It captured the Pulitzer for general NF in 2012, telling how a poem written before the birth of Christ was rescued from oblivion by an obscure Papal secretary (acting on his own) in 1417. And how the Catholic Church tried (unsuccessfully) for another couple of centuries to reconsign it to the compost heap of literature.

I intended to read next The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, despite knowing that some LTers didn't like it. Then my DIL weighed in: "Soooooo boring!!!" So I'll act on that caution and slip the book back into the TBR archive. Replacing it (at least as far as the Pulitzer Prize Challenge is concerned) will be either The Hours (and yes, I've read Mrs. Dalloway) or The Orphan Master's Son.

Meantime, I'll keep pecking at The Brothers Karamazov. To quote someone I know, "Soooooo boring!!!"

Heyyyyy!!! Who drank the last of the coffee?!?

         

Hi, Bill! Just checking in. I have been so impressed how well you have done with the various challenges, this year Sorry, I didn't participate more on the Doorstop or the Pulitzer. I definitely read a few chunksters, that is for sure.

Are you planning on hosting any challenges for '17?

>222 weird_O: That is a nice haul! You do manage to track down some very fine titles. I am a evangelist for Olive Kitteridge. I see you have a Styron in there too. Sweet. I have not read him yet.

Since you put The Goldfinch back on shelf, (which I loved by the way) I would put a vote in for The Orphan Master's Son. It is a dazzling novel.

I have managed a few Pulitzers and a few chunksters and plenty of wedges. I have also enjoyed following your reading and wonderful reviewing the year through, Bill. More of the same for 2017, if you please!

Have a wonderful weekend.

>236 weird_O: I thought the first couple hundred pages of The Brothers Karamazov might kill me. Then it got good for another hundred, boring for a while, good again, and ended on a middling note. Not much of an endorsement, I know, but the good parts were really good.

My wife and I had to get our Christmas haircuts from RustyCutter, my wife's SIL. While Judi is getting her cut, I sneak off to my Olde Originale Hometowne Library to relieve said institution of some sales books. It's too close to gift-giving to go overboard, so I was restrained.

   My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (hc)
   House of Meetings by Martin Amis (hc)
   The Counterlife by Philip Roth (hc)
   The Peripheral by William Gibson (hc)
   Mythology by Edith Hamilton (pbk)
   The Wapshot Chronicles by John Cheever (pbk)
   Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (pbk)
   Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (pbk)

      

ETA: Can't seem to find a copy of the Cheever title with the cover that I now have. Scan it tomorrow.

Hi, Bill.

I think I'm one of the few William Gibson fans on LT. Hope you like The Peripheral. I wasn't as enthused about Never Let Me Go as many others, but I did love Bel Canto.

Wrapped up my Pulitzer Prize Challenge this morning at 2. Finished The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. Book #83 for the year.

>242 jnwelch: You have demonstrated wisdom in the selection of reading, Joe. So I shan't quibble with your judgments. I haven't been disappointed in any Gibson book; I've read five so far. Bel Canto is for 2017's AAC4; haven't read any of Ms. Patchett's writing. Never Let Me Go was a book my wife read and didn't much like. Then she gave it and some other books away. (!!?!) It gets included on "Lists," you know, ah, just lists. Ya gotta read this, man. It's on The List!

Wouldn't it be nice if 2017 was a year of peace and goodwill.
A year where people set aside their religious and racial differences.
A year where intolerance is given short shrift.
A year where hatred is replaced by, at the very least, respect.
A year where those in need are not looked upon as a burden but as a blessing.
A year where the commonality of man and woman rises up against those who would seek to subvert and divide.
A year without bombs, or shootings, or beheadings, or rape, or abuse, or spite.

2017.

Festive Greetings and a few wishes from Malaysia!

Merry Christmas from the Koons household to yours!

Happy Day After, Bill!

Can I add myself to the William Gibson fans on LT. The Peripheral is good, very much down the rabbit hole book ......

Hi Bill! Belated Merry Christmas, early Happy New Year.

All the best for 2017.

Happy Holidays!!

The grandkids had a good Christmas. Left to right, upper, Helen and her twin Claire, who is holding Cousin Gretchen, and Gus. Gracie is wearing the blue Star Wars shirt. Lia, on the bottom step, isn't quite sure she's loving this photo business. Photo by Jeremy, father of Claire, Helen, and Gracie. Animation by Google.

Love it.

Ditto, Bill. You're a lucky guy.

Great mini video, Bill!

Thanks Barbara, Joe, and Darryl. I am indeed lucky, given wonderful, loving siblings, children, and grandchildren. I love them all.

I finished Falling Man by Don DeLillo (# 84 on the year) and started Michael Chabon's The Final Solution. The latter is a shorty. I've been mulling over the reading year and looking forward to 2017.

Got a couple of books for Christmas. See if I can read 'em all in January...

Nice Christmas haul, Bill!

Thanks to all for Christmas greetings, Jennifer, Paul, Linda, Lynda, Karen, and Kim. And too all who communicated their best wishes through other, ah, conduits. See you all on the other side--2017!

One last message: Finished The Final Solution by Michael Chabon.

Total for the year: 85 books.

Looking forward to your continued company in 2017.
Happy New Year, Bill

I wish you from my heart health, happiness, satisfaction and much exciting read in 2017. May all your wishes come true.


from my hometown Zürich, Switzerland

Happy New Year, Bill!