Finished The Rainmaker, by John Grisham. Another excellent installment in his canon. Published in 1995, set in Memphis, Tennessee from 1992-93. One odd thing about this particular book – and I mean the physical book, not the novel – is this one was published in London, and there were quite a few Britishisms. “Tart” instead of “hooker,” “speciality” instead of “specialty.” I don’t think real Memphis people talk that way. There was also a confusing mention of there being “a million people in this country,” which I finally figured out was supposed to be “county.” I couldn’t decide if that was the Brits being confused over “county” versus “country” or just a typo, as there were quite a few typos too.
I was in NYC yesterday. I went to BookOff, my favorite bookstore. Literally yards of one dollar books in the back of the place. I now have a fresh shipment of nine books to read including **The Canadians **by Andrew Malcolm, A Thousand Sisters by Lisa J. Shannon and **A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes **by Alfred deMarigny.
Just finishing up Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge - had it on the shelf for a while, saving it for when I had a clear run at it.
Very good IMHO - it’s an easy reader along the lines of *Vineland *(although a better book). Did not like his last one (Inherent Vice) one bit, so good to see TP back on form.
The writing is really sharp - not in terms of his muscular prose style that we all love / hate / tremble at, but more like old man Pynchon showing the young-uns how to rock the zeitgeist.
Some weaknesses of plot (the book does have one) - a prosaic complaint for a Pynchon book but there’s definitely some lazy devices in evidence.
Up next I reckon I might read some fantasy - been meaning to get to Glen Cook’s Black Company books for ages - and something by Denis Johnson. Only recently gotten into him - phenomenal writer - and there’s a lot of his stuff I’ve yet to read.
I’m deep into The Hundred Year House by Rebecca Makkai, which came out yesterday and appeared on my Kindle, somewhat to my surprise - I’d forgotten I’d preordered it. But a welcome surprise! It’s great, so far, lots of interesting stuff happening, well-written, very clear, realistic characters.
This is the author’s second novel - I also really enjoyed her debut, The Borrower, about a children’s librarian who accidentally steals one of her young patrons.
I also just finished the last ever (sniff!) Diana Wynne Jones story, The Islands of Chaldea. The afterword by her sister is moving - apparently all of DWJ’s friends and family came together to decide what would happen to the unfinished manuscript, and they asked Ursula to write the ending. I enjoyed the story, it felt authentically HERS, and I didn’t notice a change in voice. I’ll be reading it again soon, I’m sure.
Just finished Kent Haruf’s new “Benediction”. I though it was somewhat disappointing. Typical Haruf, but a bit too rambling through subplots for me. Pretty “edgy” with modern characters being explicitly revealed, which his previous novels adroitly avoided. I think in Plainsong and Eventide, he said “Hell” once.
YES IT WAS I don’t know that we’ve seen the end of Gestalt, not really. I feel like the door was left open in a small way, despite the elimination of some critical-seeming elements. Can’t WAIT for the next one.
I finished reading a book called The Great English Short-Story Writers, Volume 1. Most of the stories were pretty good, but there was one astoundingly unfunny story about how negroes think they’re smart but they’re really just a bunch of ignorant yokels. Ugh.
I was unimpressed by Henry James’s story “Julia Bride”, but maybe that’s just because I don’t like sentences that are so long that I can’t remember the beginning.
A million home, work and life crises kept me from finishing Kerouac’s*** On the Road until a few days ago. I’m now halfway into the mystery Come to Grief*** by Dick Francis. It features his one recurring character: the one-armed, ex-jockey detective Sid Halley.
On the Road was sometimes sort of fun in the same way Jim Bouton’s ***Ball Four ***was… but ultimately, the characters were too unlikable to suit me. If Neal Cassady was really like Dean Moriarty, I can’t see why Kerouac found him so fascinating. I’ve known plenty of irresponsible, womanizing drunks like Moriarty. They’re sometimes fun to hang with for short periods of time, but they just aren’t that rare or interesting to me.
I get the impression that the reason Sal Paradise idolized Moriarty so much is because he wanted to be a womanizing drunk, but he had too much of a conscience to do it as thoroughly as Dean did. I had more respect for the people who kicked Moriarty out of their houses than I did for the two main characters.
The only thing I really liked about OTR was the soundtrack. There was some good jazz mentioned in that book.
I love it when I stumble across British books in US Used Book Stores. Yesterday I found a treasure. It’s a slim, heavily-illustrated volume called Loos Through the Ages by Richard Wood. It’s fascinating not only for the pictures and the information, but because it shows and says things you couldn’t get away with in American kid’s books, such as using the word “pisspot”, or having a p[icture of Louis XIV on his “throne” with no obscuration, his “official wiper” standing behind him with two cylindrical wipes at the ready.
Speaking of wipes, the book has lots of answers for that perennial SDMB question “what did people use before toilet paper?” I’ve already m,entioned the Roman “sponge on a stick”, and have read Rabelais, but this book has things I’d never heard of, alonmg ones I had:
–leaves, moss, and stones
–ostrich feather (used by upper-class Romans)
– sponge on a stick, washed off in running water, salt water, or vinegar (roman soldiers and citizens)
–cut-up worn-out clothes (Middle Ages)
– “linen to wipe the nether end” (used by the English king’s “Groom of the Stool”
–packets of “curl paper”, Bromo paper", and “Medicated paper” in the 19th century.
Upon crossing the river Cam, Queen Victoria saw floating pieces of the new toilet paper, but didn’t recognize them. She asked her host what they were, and he replied that they were “notices warning people not to bathe.”
We also learn from this book (twice!) that a person who emptied cesspits was called a “Gongfermor”
I don’t know that we’ve seen the end of Gestalt, not really. I feel like the door was left open in a small way, despite the elimination of some critical-seeming elements. Can’t WAIT for the next one.