Finished The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw. Very good overall, but I expected to like it more than I did. What diminished it for me was a handful of the people studied were obviously not very nice people despite the author’s attempt to portray them in a positive light. Mostly these were politicians, at least a couple of whom I despise outright to begin with. It would not matter one whit to me if Caspar Weinberger had been a casualty of World War II. And while Joseph McCarthy was only mentioned in passing in a single sentence and did rate a less-than-favorable remark, Brokaw repeats the fiction that he got his nickname “Tail-Gunner” from having been one in the war. In fact, that was a lie. McCarthy was never a tail-gunner and never shot down any planes. He flew solely as an observer. Overall a good read and interesting insight into the psyche of the generation raised and coming of age during the Great Depression and World War II, but again I expected it would be better.
Next up is Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, by James L. Swanson. The title is self-explanatory, plus I believe the book is well known here already. It was through these threads that I learned of it. I spotted it not too long ago in a used bookstore here in Honolulu and bought it.
Read a book of short stories, mostly shaded toward the mystery genre, each based on a painting of Edward Hopper. In Sunlight or in Shadow. Some of the stories were quite good–a very nice one by Lawrence Block, one of my favorites, who edited the anthology, and another by Stephen King that I liked a lot. Overall, though, meh. (It includes a “short story” by an art historian, but the “story” is really a hatchet job on a man who came to possess a number of Hopper’s works under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Terrible as a story, but intriguing given the background.)
I very much liked Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried when I read it back when, and liked his In the Lake of the Woods pretty well too. I thought I’d try July, July, also by him–a college class of '69 has a thirty-year reunion. Lots of unhappy people. Too many characters, too many uninteresting characters (the most interesting don’t have as much screen time as they should), too much repetition. I finished it anyway. Not close to as good as his other stuff.
I have now started Mary Lawson’s Road Ends. I really, really liked her earlier novel Crow Lake, about Kate, a young university professor trying to make sense of her experiences growing up, especially as regards one of her older brothers. Well written, interesting unveiling of details of Kate’s history, well dveeloped characters. Road Ends, also set in northern Ontario, seems pretty good so far–a terribly dysfunctional family, with a father who absents himself as much as possible, a mother who seems to be losing her mind and doesn’t seem interested in anybody but the newest baby (there are something like nine children), a grown son who has not been able to move past a couple of traumatizing events involving a friend, and a grown daughter who used to be in charge of everything around the house and who has now decamped to London (England not Ontario). Not quite sure where it’s all going but I’m enjoying the ride.
Finished The Winner’s Kiss, by Marie Rutkoski. It’s the third book in a really compelling YA trilogy. It’s nominally “fantasy,” though it’s not about magic at all. Very strong, intriguing female lead. One of the things I liked was how believable she was as a very smart, complex person. The author didn’t just say “Oh, she’s smart” and demand I believe it.
Just finished Love from Boy: Road Dahl’s Letters to His Mother. Some interesting/amusing anecdotes. Am now reading a Laurien Berenson Melanie Travis mystery, The Bark Before Christmas.
I looked at the Newbery books thread and instead of one from the list, picked up a different book by one of the authors, Laura Amy Schlitz. I really liked her book The Hired Girl. This one is A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: a melodrama. Pretty good middle reader, but I’m already half finished.
I’m 2/3 of the way through David Sax’s “The Revenge of Analog.” He gets a bit snobbish in places–his chapter “The Revenge of Paper” is one long Moleskine commercial–but it’s still a great overview of how real-world objects and processes are making a comeback. The digital ones will always be there; but now we’re getting to choose which ones fit which situations (a clothing store is better for getting a proper fit the first time; if size isn’t an issue, a site might be better).
Just finished Radha Vatsal’s A Front Page Affair. An historical mystery set in WWI Manhattan with a female reporter as the sleuth. Worth reading if you find that setting potentially intriguing. It’s imperfect, but I’m interested enough to read the next one.
Started today on A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman. I would give you a link but I suffered a computer “upgrade” this morning. :mad:
Anyway, it’s about two teenagers who go canoeing and find a submerged house to explore. And it’s interesting. Kind of spooky. But the writing. Lots of sentence fragments.
This book is also very short, so I should get done by tomorrow.
Knocked out Gaiman’s Norse Mythology way too quickly, wish it was twice as long. Read David Mitchell’s Slade House during air travel this week, its a fun novella return to The Bone Clocks. “Why in the Eleven hundred and Eleven names of God would I…?”; oh, I’ve missed you Dr Marinus.
Not sure what’s next; the daunting heft of SevenEves has been wearing out my bedside table for a while now, may be time to take that on.
Just finished The Bark Before Christmas, by Laurien Berenson. It’s a Melanie Travis mystery, and I tried it because jsgoddess enjoys them. I liked this one, too.
Just started Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.
I finished The Passenger, by Alexandra Bracken, a new YA time travel novel. It was good enough, but it’s the first of a series and it just ends in the middle of everything. Time traveling families in a feud through the ages.
I finished reading “Diary of a Nobody” which I selected based on Ukulele Ike’s comment last month that he was disappointed in it and he loves “Three Men in a Boat”. Since I was disappointed in “Three Men in a Boat”, I thought I might conversely like “Diary of a Nobody”.
I thought it was quite funny, so maybe I have a greater tolerance for slightly mean humour (like “Fawlty Towers”). I certainly laughed out loud much more than I did reading “Three Men in a Boat”, at any rate.
I just finished Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men and I can see why it’s an American classic. A great political novel about a Thirties Southern populist corrupted by power a la Huey Long, and the assistant who watches it all happen and almost loses his soul, too. An interesting plot and beautiful writing; highly recommended.
Still reading Ted Chiang’s Arrival and enjoying it, and just started an audiobook of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, too. Haven’t been back to C.J. Sansom’s Dominion lately, but I’ll get to it sometime.
