May! 2016 is one quarter of the way into the past. And since it’s spring it totally makes sense that I’m reading a book that takes place in December, right?
I will finish Khadaji’s Whatcha Readin’ thread - April 2016 edition Fallen Man by Tony Hillerman today. As with most of his books, the story flows very well.
Khadaji was one of the earlier members of the SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, and he started these monthly book threads. Sadly, he passed away in January 2013, and we decided to rename these monthly threads in his honor.
Our power went out at 2 am, 70 mile an hour wind gusts being the culprit, and stayed out for about 3 hours, so to while away the day (and distract me from lack of internet) I started reading Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch. This volume of the Peter Grant series is dedicated to Terry Pratchett, so I cried a little before even starting it…
I started Meg Wolitzer’s first foray into YA, Belzhar, on Friday night. I finished it on Saturday night, with nothing but a full day’s choir retreat in the middle. It was really great; a bunch of misfit teens at a boarding school for the emotionally fragile bond over Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and the semi-mystical journalling process instigated by their mysterious teacher, Mrs. Q. The journals were a great device to allow the teens their first experience of self-reflection. I read TBJ in high school too, and remember many of the same reactions as these well-drawn characters experience. A wonderful illustration of its own theme: words matter.
Still on a break from Randall Munroe’s What If?, a collection of XKCD columns, for the moment. I’m now about two-thirds through the audiobook of Frederick Forsyth’s thriller The ODESSA File, about a spunky young German reporter in the early Sixties tracking down an ex-Nazi who’s in hiding. Good stuff.
On the other hand, I’ve been plodding through Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent, a well-reviewed book about the Progressive movement in the U.S. which just isn’t grabbing me. It’s for one of my book clubs, though, so I do intend to finish it.
I’ve been watching 11.22.63 on Hulu, and am also re-reading some favorite bits of the King novel on which it’s based.
My current fiction pick is Summer at Hideaway Key by Barbara Davis. It’s nothing earth-shattering or particularly original, but I’m a total sucker for this book’s formula: person in modern day times finds letters/diaries from an ancestor, and delves into a mystery from the past, with romance in both the past and the present. It’s like my comfort food in book form.
My non-fiction pick is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, and god I hope it gets better. I adore Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing; I’ve read three of her other books and liked all of them, but this book is just … honestly, it kind of strikes me as nonsense. Like you know when someone develops some completely baseless theory, and then writes about it like it’s the gospel truth, and you’re in disbelief about how someone can be so convinced about something so random? It feels that way so far. But I think I’m only about 20% of the way in, so it’s entirely possible that the book could improve. Not probable, but possible.
I finished reading Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures by Montague Glass. It’s a collection of short stories about two business partners in the New York garment business (specifically “the cloak and suit trade”) in the early 1900s. The stories were moderately humourous, although the broken English started wearing thin after a while (e.g. “Did you seen it a lady and a gent in an oitermobile leave here five minutes ago?”)
The stories almost all follow the same formula:
Partner A hears about an opportunity that sounds great (e.g. a potential employee, a potential customer, a potential investment, etc.)
Partner B is skeptical, but doesn’t stand in his way
Partner A’s opportunity turns out to be a lemon or an outright scam
A & B try to get out of the deal (this part is optional)
There was enough variety in the situations that the formula didn’t seem too repetitive.
I just finished Ernest Cline’s Armada, which I was a little mixed about. I thought it was a fun read, very similar to Ready Player One in that it is a series of endless 80s references (to the point where I doubt that anyone would even pick up the book if they weren’t a person who gets a kick out of endless 80s references). It’s fluffy, which I get, but at the same time, I felt like with just a little effort there could have been more substance to it.
I’ve got two others that I’ve started (one at home, and one for my commute because it fits in my purse), both of which were recommended in one of these threads, a book about the history of libraries, and The Traitor Baru Cormorant.
I’m in the middle of Z: A Novel Of Zelda Fitzgerald. Now, I don’t know much of anything about Scott or Zelda, but it sounded interesting. It’s got great reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, but I’m just not getting that into it. It’s kind of a slow read (for me, anyways).
Hopefully I’ll be done with it soon. I’ve got either Fear and Loathing or A Clockwork Orange next.
I’m in the midst of Ordinary Jack by Helen Cresswell. I picked it up after I saw it on a list of best British children’s books, and it doesn’t disappoint. Jack Bagthorpe is the only ordinary kid in a family of extraordinary talents, and he’s fed up with it. He and and his Uncle Parker dream up a way in which he can be extraordinary. Thus far the wry wit and droll situations have me captivated.
I have mislaid my Deadpool & Cable Ultimate Collection, vol. 1. It’s a great introduction to the Merc with a Mouth. I took it to bed with me (if only I could take the real Deadpool) on Saturday night, and it’s mysteriously vanished. Somehow that seems appropriate but I would quite like it back!
One of the best books I’ve read in the past week is Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American Society. It’s a first-rate look at several families and how they were caught in the cycle of eviction, poverty, and more eviction, as well as at the landlords who chose to evict them and why. I could hardly bear to put it down, and it’s a real call-to-arms on what we might do in this country to improve the housing situation for those in dire need.
I read that back in the Nineties and liked it a lot. The chapter on Federal budgeting is particularly funny.
Yesterday, I finished the audiobook of Forsyth’s The ODESSA File and enjoyed it. A good thriller about hunting fugitive Nazis in the Sixties.
Just started Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins, who is continuing Robert Parker’s Spenser detective series. In it, Spenser is hired by a badass pro football player to find out why he’s being followed. Atkins writes very much in Parker’s style, with due attention paid to wiseass quips, local Boston color, good food and characters’ clothes.
It’s a great introduction to the Merc with a Mouth. I took it to bed with me (if only I could take the real Deadpool) on Saturday night, and it’s mysteriously vanished. Somehow that seems appropriate but I would quite like it back!