I just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora, a fantasy novel about a con man in a city similar to Renaissance Florence. It’s the best novel I’ve read in a long time, and if they’re really going to make a movie based on it, I’ll be first in line.
Re Bill Bixby: I don’t know. The family came to the San Juan Bautista area first, then later moved to Los Angeles and the Long Beach area. It was a huge clan (she mentions having over 100 first cousins). An upscale area of Long Beach is Bixby Knolls, where her restored rancho is located.
I finished reading Kipps by H. G. Wells, a novel with some autobiographical elements (a former draper’s apprentice gets some money and starts moving up the social ladder).
It was moderately funny and the biographical parts were interesting (it definitely sounds like it would suck to be an unpaid shop clerk for 7 years with not much to show at the end of it). The phonetic pronunciation (to show the difference between working class and middle class speech) was a little distracting to me, especially considering things like “noo” and “new” that sound pretty similar in my dialect.
The one bit I found startling was when a (sympathetic) socialist character was delivering a lecture against the problems of society and he came out with the comment: “There isn’t a woman in the swim of society at the present time who wouldn’t sell herself body and soul, who wouldn’t lick the boots of a Jew or marry a nigger, rather than live decently on a hundred a year!” Yikes.
I note from Imdb that Bill Bixby was a sixth-generation Californian. There’s a good chance he was related.
I wonder if science fiction writer Jerome Bixby* was related? He was born in LA and died in San Bernardino, according to iMDB.
*Probably most famous for the story "It’s a GOOD Life, which became one of the classic Twilight Zone episodes (re-used in the Twilight Zone movie, and had a sequel in the revamped TZ series). he also rewrote the screenplay for Fantastic Voyage. I think his best accomplishment was the 1950s SF movie It! The Terror from Beyond Space, which they strip-mined to get the plot for Alien. He also wrote the screenplays for the underappreciated The Lost Missile, and the better-forgotten The Curse of the Faceless Man. He went on to write three scripts for the original run of Star Trek, among other things, and the screenplay for the Love It or Hate It low-key SF movie The Man From Earth. Bixby deserves to be more famous than he is. He died 17 years ago.
I’ll let you in on a little secret.
They ALL are.
Oh. My. God.
I’m on a David Mitchell jag. I just finished The Bone Clocks and now I’m reading Ghostwritten, which I think is my favorite of his. There are nine stories that make up the novel. I’ve read seven of them so far and they’ve all been completely engrossing.
Just finished a Thea Harrison short story, Pia Goes to Hollywood. It’s Paranormal Romance fluff. Fun way to kill 30 minutes or so.
I’ve started the first Stella Rimington book, based on TexCat’s mention. My initial feel for it is that the character is very self-important and verges on Mary Sue. We’ll see if she settles down as the book moves on. It is a first novel, and these are common problems. If not, I may DNF.
In my TBR, I have the latest Ben A. Rivers of London book. That may be next.
Just finished Requiem For A Dream last night and I need to start a new one. I have a pile here so instead of starting a new one, I figure I should pick on of them, here’s my choices:
The Paying Guests (I’m actually about halfway into that one, from a while ago)
Doctor Sleep
Dark Places
Native Tongue
Native Tongue: I realize Hiaasen books are all the same, but I’ve read two and liked them.
Dark Places: I’m weary of that one only because A)I liked Gone Girl so much so it has a lot to live up to and B)I’ve heard it’s similar to Gone Girl WRT “men are dumb assholes”. I don’t have a problem with that, per se, but one book was enough. If it’s a great book, I’ll read it.
Doctor Sleep: Never read anything by King, not sure if it’s the right one to start with. I understand it’s a sequel to The Shinning. I’ve seen the movie a handful of times, but that’s my only background.
Oh, and The Paying Guests: I’d really like to finish it, I despise putting down a book, but it was kinda boring me.
I have just started **The Golem and The Jinni ** by Helene Wecker and I am loving it.
I Liked it… and didn’t. Nothing spoilerish, I just tired of the narrative style. The imagery was fantastic as well as her research and recreation of New York at the beginning of the 20th century.
Over the weekend I re-enjoyed two of David Macaulay’s remarkable pen-and-ink books,* Pyramid* (about the design, planning and building of an Egyptian pyramid) and City (ditto, about a Roman fortified city). Very good stuff for history and architecture buffs.
You might enjoy his video series on the same topics.
Thanks. Heard about 'em; never saw 'em.
Joey P You can read Doctor Sleep without having read The Shining. It will be slightly more meaningful if you have read The Shining first, largely because you will have an emotional connection to the main character and understand some of his baggage. FWIW, The Shining is a very good book also.
I ended up starting Seanan Mcguire’s Incryptid series (autocorrect hated that). So far, I’m enjoying it.
Opinions vary 
A few months back, as well as yesterday, a did some Googling about reading Doctor Sleep w/o having read The Shining (and/or only seeing the movie). It seems pretty much split down the middle. I started it [Dr Sleep] last night.
Finished The Hired Girl and it was just marvelous. I’m thinking of giving it to someone for Christmas.
About to start on Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, a book of short stories by Danielle Evans. I don’t remember why I picked this up, but the title alone seems like a good enough reason.
Second. Second in line behind me. Or we could go together!