I read and really enjoyed Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece by Michael Benson. Any fan of *2001 *should read it - lots of great behind-the-scenes stuff. Kubrick comes across as a very gifted asshole; Clarke, desperate for money to pay his debts and finalize his divorce at the end of a loveless marriage, put up with an awful lot.
Ernest Hemingway’s Bylines, a collection of his journalism and nonfiction (I’m now up to the Spanish Civil War, 1937-39), has its moments but has become a bit of a slog. Still, I’ll probably get through it.
Just started Joe Haldeman’s Worlds Apart (1983), the second book in his Worlds trilogy, and it’s better than I remember it. Set in 2085 and thereafter, with interesting contrasts between life in the high-tech, near-utopian orbital colony of New New York and the barbarity on Earth’s surface after a brief but devastating World War III.
Last night I started reading The Sun Also Rises, my first Hemingway experience. Five chapters in I can admire his style, but don’t love his storytelling.
Just finished it. The best parts are his writings on outdoor life, bullfighting and World War II (including observing the D-Day landings from offshore, and later working with French partisans during the advance on Paris). Some good bits I wrote down:
“Everybody wanted to see Ishmet Pasha, but once they had, they didn’t want to see him again.”
“You know what a classic is, right? A book that everyone mentions but nobody reads.”
“In Bulgaria, intellectuals are those who have absorbed sufficient learning so as to no longer be honest.”
“He had only one real defect as a chauffeur: he couldn’t drive a car.”
“One must be careful not to spill it [a cheap Spanish liqueur] on one’s clothes, because it eats wool.”
“In Hong Kong since the British wives have been evacuated [before the outbreak of World War II], morale is high and morals are low.”
Still reading Joe Haldeman’s sf novel Worlds Apart and digging it.
I’ve also begun an audiobook of Amity Shlaes’s biography Coolidge. Not far into it, but already she’s overselling him. Calvin Coolidge wasn’t all that.
Finished The Princess and the Goblin/The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald. The back cover of my edition says the C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were both fans of the first book, and I suspect they also read the second, which is the better written, in my opinion. The influence on their books is clear to me. One character seems like a cross between Aslan and Galadriel, and, in the second book, there are a number of sequences very reminiscent of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. Religious themes are very prevalent, especially in the second book, which I recommend to fans of the Narnia books.
I finished The White City which I quite enjoyed. Also The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon, a novel about college students who become involved with a cult and end up bombing abortion clinics. Extremely well written, with some interesting insights into Korean and Korean-American culture. Obviously influenced by The Secret History but not hugely derivative.
I have given up on Just One Damned Thing After Another, at least for now. This novel is about time-traveling historians, a brilliant premise. Alas, I find it tedious. Perhaps I’ll return to it later.
I’m currently reading The Feather Thief by Kirk Johnson. A fascinating account of a bold crime: the theft of stuffed birds and feathers from a natural history museum. The thief wanted them in order to feed his obsession of fly-tying. Strange events indeed. Also includes some information about natural history and a contemporary of Darwin’s who collected most of the specimens that were stolen.
Also reading Anne Tyler’s latest, Clock Dance. The release of a new book by Anne Tyler is always something to rejoice about.
I recently read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, a novelization of the lives of Sarah and Angelina Grimke. The sisters were from a prominent slave-owning family in South Carolina, but became well known abolitionists and feminists. Their chapters alternate with a story told from the perspective of one of the slaves their family owned. It was an interesting read.
Finished it, and really liked it. An interesting portrayal of an orbital society, good characterization and crackling dialogue. Makes me eager to move on to the final book in the trilogy, Worlds Enough And Time.
Just started Richard Hoyt’s 1983 novel Trotsky’s Run, in which the CIA gets word - in what may or may not be a deception operation by the KGB - that the likely next Democratic nominee for President is a Soviet deep-cover agent. The author doesn’t quite seem to have decided if it’s a satire or a spy thriller, but it’s got a foot firmly in both camps. A fun read so far, though.
Finished French Exit. It was a story of unpleasant people doing inexplicable things. Quirky, if you like that sort of book. As for me, I think the author may have used up the goodwill generated by The Sisters Brothers.
Next up, And The Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness. YA. Sort of a Moby Dick retelling from a whale’s point of view.
Finished The Art of War by Sun-Tzu. I don’t feel like I know anything more now than I did before I started it - lots of advice about “the wise general deceives the enemy” and “attack boldly but never before you are ready”. OK, but can you be a little more specific?
Started The Middle of Things by J.S. Fletcher, a very nice pre-WWI murder mystery with innocent accused, noble families, lost heirs, diamonds, and whatnot. Fun.
Also plowing thru 12 Rules to Live By by Jordan Peterson. Some of it is rather heavy going, for a self-help book. He does have interesting things to say about the Bible and some Egyptian myths about Horus and things like that. Also lobsters.
Last night I finished Phantom Pains and immediately bought/started reading book three in the Arcadia Project series, Impostor Syndrome. It was just released six months ago, so when I finish it I should be all caught up with this series…at least, for another six months (so far the author has released one book each March).
“In Uncommon People, David Hepworth zeroes in on defining moments and turning points in the lives of forty rock stars from 1955 to 1995, taking us on a journey to burst a hundred myths and create a hundred more.”
(1) The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont. Tbh, there were parts of the book that don’t deserve five stars. Too many characters, too much focus on material wealth. But the other parts of the book easily make up for this. There are passages in this book that are so beautifully written, and just speak to the whole process of finding your own way that is so prevalent in your high school years.
(2) Men Chase, Women Choose: The Neuroscience of Meeting, Dating, Losing Your Mind, and Finding True Love by Dawn Maslar. The cover looked a bit kitschy, and I was a little concerned that this would be one of those pop-science books that tried too hard to cater to a non-reading population and watered things down. But it wasn’t. It rang true, but at the same time provided new insights to me – essentially, while I can observe human behavior, I don’t have the scientific background to understand what’s hormonally going on in men and women’s brains as they fall in love with one in another, and I found the description of those neurochemical changes to be fascinating.
I can’t find any information one way or the other about it online, but the series sure reads like a trilogy; while there’s room to write more in that world, I’m not sure whether she intends to do so.
Started today and read over half of a childrens’ book, The Wicked, Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House, by Mary Chase, published in 1968. I really thought this would be much more charming than it is. Even making the usual allowances for a childrens’ book, it’s just weak.
I mean, maybe I’ll feel differently when I finish Impostor Syndrome – maybe I’ll agree that it feels “done” – but right now I’m sad at the thought of no more Arcadia Project.
Finished The Bees, by Laline Paull, which I enjoyed. Recommended. Note that the less you know about bees, the more you’ll enjoy it, because knowledge of apilology will spoil some of the plot twists.
Started A Handful of Time by Rosel George Brown, a science fiction short story collection.
