Weird_O Bill's Second Cosmos

 Current Reading    followed by 

Covers of books read, Spring Season 2020

 Oh, do be patient. I am reading as fast as I can.

 # 45.  # 44.  # 43. 

 # 42.  # 41.  # 40.  # 39. 

 # 38.  # 37.  # 36.  # 35. 

 # 34.  # 33.  # 32.  # 31. 

 # 30.  # 29.  # 28.   # 27. 

Books Read, Spring Season 2020

June (4 read)
45. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (6/28/20)
44. The Paris Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe (6/20/20)
43. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (6/18/20)
42. Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith (6/5/20)

May (6 read)
41. Nemesis by Philip Roth (5/31/20)
40. The Overstory by Richard Powers 2019 Fiction Pulitzer (5/28/20)
39. Hombre by Elmore Leonard (5/24/20)
38. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (5/23/20)
37. The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston AAC Wild Card (5/8/20)
36. American Gods by Neil Gaiman (5/4/20)

April (9 read)
35. Winston Churchill by John Keegan (4/28/20)
34. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (4/22/20)
33. Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (4/21/20)
32. Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen AAC Wild Card (4/18/20)
31. Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill 1957 Drama Pulitzer (4/15/20)
30. A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey (4/13/20)
29. Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer (4/11/20)
28. Death of a Doxy by Rex Stout (4/4/20)
27. A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley (4/3/20)

      

       

      

      

      

      

      

      

 

Books Read, Winter Season 2020

March (9 read)
26. Towards Zero by Agatha Christie (3/31/20)
25. Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (3/28/20)
24. Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (3/26/20)
23. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (3/25/20)
22. The Book Bag Treasury of Literary Quizzes by editors of WaPo's Book World (3/21/20)
21. The Reivers by William Faulkner 1963 Pulitzer (3/15/20)
20. The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough (3/9/20)
19. Of the Farm by John Updike (3/8/20)
18. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (3/3/20)

February (9 read)
17. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (2/26/20)
16. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2007 Pulitzer (2/24/20)
15. Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov (2/23/20)
14. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (2/20/20)
13. Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (2/18/20)
12. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan (2/11/20)
11. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (2/9/20)
10. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (2/5/20)
9. Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carré (2/2/20)

January (8 read)
8. The Neuroscientist Who Lost her Mind by Barbara K. Lipska (1/29/20)
7. Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter (1/28/20)
6. When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard (1/24/20)
5. Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (1/23/20)
4. Masters of Death by Richard Rhodes (1/19/20)
3. Nova by Samuel R. Delany (1/13/20)
2. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt (1/8/20)
1. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1/2/20)

 R. Crumb

Spring Season 2020 Reading Stats

Books read: 26
Authors read: 23
Single-read Authors: 21
Multi-read authors: 1*
New-to-me authors: 12

  *Isaac Asimov3

Note: One book was credited to "the editors of the WaPo Book World", making it a book without "an" author.

Author gender
Male: 17
Female: 6

Author Birth Country
Germany: 1
India: 1
Ireland: 4
Russia: 1
UK: 4
US: 15

Dead or alive
Currently breathing: 15 (afaik)
R.I.P.: 8

First published
1926—1950: 2
1951—1975: 10
1976—2000: 2
2001—2010: 4
2011—2018: 8

Genre
Fiction: 14
Non-fiction: 6
Sci-Fi: 5
YA: 1

Format
Hardcover: 10
Paperback: 11
Mass-market paperback: 5

Source
Acquired in 2020: 6
ROOT: 20

I've been absent without leave. I'll do a better job going forward. Congrats on all your bookreads so far.

>8 weird_O: Christopher Walken knitting.

Nightmare fodder!

Happy new thread! Great visuals!

Happy new thread, Bill.

I am getting onto The Reivers belatedly and will hunt down my O'Neill copy.

Happy new thread, Bill. lol >6 weird_O:

Hi Bill, and happy new thread.

>6 weird_O: Yup.

>7 weird_O: I like your stats. 12 ‘New-to-me authors’ is a great statistic.

Happy new one!

Loving all he book covers with the authors pic.

Have a beautiful Wednesday!

Happy new one, Bill.

Happy new thread!

Our niece Coreen and her husband Gianmarco celebrating their 13th anniversary on the balcony of their home in Italy.

Happy new thread, Bill!!

>8 weird_O: Where, oh where is that picture of Christopher Walken from? LOL

>18 weird_O: Congrats to your niece and hubby.

And to you -- Happy reading, sir.

Howdy, Bill! Happy New Thread! I hope you and the family are doing okay. I just finished The Splendid and the Vile. I loved it and I am sure you will too. Larson Rocks!

Happy new thread, Bill!

>18 weird_O: Congrats to your niece and her husband.

Happy new one, Bill! I enjoyed catching up with your reviews from the previous thread - you always have something interesting to share, so thanks for taking the time.

>8 weird_O: This made me laugh out loud!

Bill, I couldn't resist the Eugene O'Neill and have already read/watched it. I gave it a thumbs up. Now to reacquaint myself with the Faulkner!

# 24.Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers Finished 3/26/2020

The Weird Report^TM  

A natural death or murder? When Miss Agatha Dawson, a spinster of means, died, that it was a death of natural causes was the consensus amongst authorities. Her doctor was not so sure. Yes, she was elderly. Yes, she had cancer and a surgical procedure—not the first—was scheduled. Yes, her mental acuity seemed to be declining. But a post-mortem examination and tests had not revealed any evidence of an "unnatural" cause of death; no poison in her system, no marks on her body. Some non-medical issues were in the record. Miss Dawson had no direct heir; but a grand-niece was living with her, had been granted a power-of-attorney by her, and had been designated verbally by Miss Dawson to be the heir. But stories circulated, stories of Miss Dawson's hostility to making a written will, of her abrupt firing of her long-time attorney, of the abrupt firing (by the grand-niece) of household servants and of a nurse who, well, maybe heard or witnessed shady doings.

When Miss Dawson's doctor overhears a conversation between Lord Peter Wimsey and his pal Charles Parker of Scotland Yard, he tells the pair about the Dawson death. Parker is unmoved, but Wimsey is ready for investigatin'. At first he comes up with nothing. But after locating and scheduling an interview with an insider, Wimsey's confronted with her untimely and unexplainable death. Fuel to his suspicions. Genealogy and significant changes in intestacy law add twists for Wimsey to untangle. Unfortunately, there's another mysterious death. But Wimsey gets the villain.

Unnatural Death was a pioneering book in a surprising way. Without overt mention, the book depicts a long-term (presumably lesbian) relationship between Agatha Dawson and Clara Whittaker that ends only with the death (this one of natural causes) of Miss Whittaker. (Parenthetically, Miss Dawson's heir, Mary Whittaker, is the granddaughter of Clara's brother and Agatha's sister). An investigator informs Wimsey: "...Agatha did not care about marriage, any more than Clara, and the two ladies lived together in a big old house, with immense stables, in a village in Warwickshire…" Furthermore, as the story progresses, Sayers depicts Mary Whittaker as establishing a lesbian relationship with Miss Vera Findlater.

Now, about that death. Please be aware that what follows (behind the spoiler shield) is a spoiler atop a spoiler. The murder method is something I've heard of—a folkloric or urban myth kind of thing. But I always wondered why, if it is so easy and virtually impossible to detect, it isn't more common. Well, a post-completion search quickly revealed that while it can be done, you need an elephantic syringe, something of immense capacity. And unlike the fiend here, you've got to find a vein, not an artery.

>9 RBeffa: You have my leave to be absent, Ron. I'm pretty much absent too. Sign of the times, I think. I'm pleased with what I've read so far. No clunkers.

>10 richardderus: Walken is pretty good at exploiting his weirdo personae, isn't he. What's he knitting in there?

>11 quondame: Thanks, Susan. Stop back again; I'll try to add some more eye candy.

>12 PaulCranswick: >23 PaulCranswick: Wow! That was quick, Paul. Yesterday you were going to hunt down O'Neill, and today you're done reading it. Good work. I know you'll get to The Reivers; you might even like it.

>13 jessibud2: Nice you you to stop by, Shelley. Actually, I'm thinking I should get up early tomorrow for a grocery run. Of course, the dog does take me out for short walks several times a day, but our property is big enough and sufficiently remote that we don't encounter anyone else. And I DO like getting outside. Just reading for an hour or so on the deck is sublime.

>14 karenmarie: Hi, Karen. Staying in is good. Of course, I'm not hunkered down in a small apartment. And my best friend is here with me. As I mentioned to Shelley, the dog takes me for walks, and I do get out on the deck for some reading.

I was feeling good to introduce my brain to the musings and challenges new-to-me authors offer. I've got additional new authors on the reading schedule—Herman Wouk, Richard Powers, Robert Macfarlane, Alison Lurie. I also have a list of mystery/crime/thriller/detective genre books from the TBR, by 12 different writers whose work I've already sampled.

>15 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita. Wednesday was darn good. Today too. Chilly but sunny.

>16 katiekrug: Katie! :-)

>17 drneutron: Hi, doc.

>18 weird_O: For some reason, we've usually had joint anniversary observances. Judi's parents were married around the same date as Judi and I, then our son Jeremy was married within a date or two of us. So we've usually gone out to celebrate with another couple close to us. Here's our poor Beanie and her hubby, locked in their apartment while thousands of their fellow Italians are suffering and dying.

>19 Berly: Christopher Walken: Don't know where I got it. Probably on Tumblr. I did a Google search on the image and it seems to be all over the internets.

Coreen and Gianmarco are both fitness freaks, always active, walking, running, cycling. And there they are, trapped in an apartment in northern Italy. Coreen's MiL found a key to the door to the roof, so Coreen spends time walking laps up there. Will their 13th be memorable or forgettable? I don't know.

>20 msf59: Thanks, Mark. Someday I'll get to that there new book by Larson. I just read a couple of chapters of In the Garden of the Beasts and decided to return it to the TBR for now. I think I've read pretty much all of his stuff except the Nazi thing and the new one. Easy Rawlins is getting my attention for now.

>21 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita. I didn't realize Coreen and Gianmarco got married on April Fool's Day. With the pandemic raging in Italy, I'd guess the anniversary was pretty sober.

>22 Crazymamie: Thanks, Mamie. I added another review today, just for folks like you. Hope you likey. I'm still grappling with a Foundation Trilogy report. I had to post Mr. Walken; enjoying himself by knitting until the lockdown is lifted.

>23 PaulCranswick: No worries, mate. I'll get to O'Neill and you will get to Faulkner. Stay sane.

>24 weird_O: I love your review, Bill! You're right about all the subtle lesbian stuff. And DLS wrote emotions beautifully IMO.

Happy new thread, Bill. Your review of Unnatural Death brought it all back to me, not hard as I just read it, I suppose. I you reading the next book in the challenge, Lord Peter Views the Body? Sadly, I don't have that one on my shelves so have to wait until my library opens to take that one up.

>28 karenmarie: Thanks much for stopping in, Karen. And for the kind words about my book report.

>29 Familyhistorian: Your reference to the next Wimsey book had me stumped, Meg. Until I used the Touchstone and learned it was a short-story collection. Narrow-minded me, I've been following the novels and ignoring the short stories. The next in the sequence of novels is The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, which I already read (out of sequence) because it was paired in a volume with Clouds of Witness. The next to be read by me is Strong Poison, which is at large in the TBR Galaxy^TM. But I'm taking a Wimsey break (:-)). Just read Death of a Doxy, a Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout. Continuing with Berlin Diary for now.

ETA: I see you are reading the Wimsey books, having read Clouds of Witness in Feb and Unnatural Death in March. Thumbs up!

Hope you have had a lovely, peaceful, safe and healthy weekend, Bill.

>30 weird_O: Yes, I'm following the Wimsey reads on the Category Thread. They are the ones who determine the book for the month, which this month is Lord Peter Views the Body which, as you said, is a collection of short stories. As I don't care for short stories I don't have that one on my shelves and don't want to buy it so I have to wait for my library to reopen to get my hands on it.

Just popping to catch up on all the weirdness. : )

>31 PaulCranswick: Paul, we had all that and more. Great weekend. I'm really going to start O'Neill, just any day. Caught up for the time being in Berlin Diary, William Shirer's record of his time in Nazi Germany between 1934 and 1940.

>32 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg. I'll have to check that out. I might read along.

>33 Berly: Speaking of weirdness, Kim, you've got a lot of it at your house. Hope you husband really recovers.

I've been reading Berlin Diary, which is the diary journalist and radio newsman William Shirer kept between 1934 and 1940. While his work took him to many European countries during those years, he was primarily based in Berlin. On Karen's thread a few days ago, I mentioned how interesting it was to read Shirer's observations and thoughts "in the moment." An example I cited was the severe rationing imposed in Germany even in 1939. Here are some sample entries:

BERLIN, August 27, 1939
Food rations were fixed today and I heard many Germans grumbling at their size. Some: meat, 700 grams per week; sugar, 280 grams; marmalade, 110 grams; coffee or substitute, one eighth of a pound per week. As to soap, 125 grams are allotted to each person for the next four weeks. News of rationing has come as a heavy blow to the people.

BERLIN, September 5, 1939
The war is starting to hurt the average man. Tonight a decree providing for a surtax on the income tax of a straight fifty per cent and a big increase in the tax on beer and tobacco. Also a decree fixing prices and wages.

BERLIN, September 24, 1939
Starting day after tomorrow, new ration cards for food. The German people will now get per week: one pound of meat, five pounds of bread, three quarters of a pound of fats, three quarters of a pound of sugar, and a pound of ersatz coffee made of roasted barley seeds. Heavy labourers are to get double rations, and Dr. Goebbels — clever man ! — has decided to classify us foreign correspondents as heavy labourers.

BERLIN, September 27,1939
New restrictions today on clothing. If I order a new suit, my tailor must make it out of a piece of cloth exactly 3.1 metres by 144 centimetres.1 Also the papers inform us we can no longer get our shoes half-soled. No more leather. We must wait for a new substitute material not yet out.
Also, how to shave? A decree says you can have only one piece of shaving soap or one tube of shaving cream during the next four months. I shall start a beard.

BERLIN, October 28, 1939
I hear in business circles that severe rationing of clothing will begin next month. The truth is that, having no cotton and almost no wool, the German people must get along with what clothing they have until the end of the war.

BERLIN, October 30, 1939
Bad news for the people today. Now that it has become cold and rainy, with snow due soon, the government has decreed that only five per cent of the population is entitled to buy new rubbers or overshoes this winter. Available stocks will be rationed first to postmen, newsboys, and street-sweepers.

BERLIN, November 12, 1939
The ration cards for clothing out today, and many long German faces to be seen. There are separate cards for men, women, boys, girls, and babies. Except for the babies, everyone gets a hundred points on his card. Socks or stockings take five points, but you can buy only five pair per year. A pair of pyjamas costs thirty points, almost a third of your card, but you can save five points if you buy a nightgown instead. A new overcoat or suit takes sixty points. I figured out tonight that with my card, which limits your purchases by the seasons, I could buy from December 1 to April 1: two pairs of socks, two handkerchiefs, one muffler, and a pair of gloves. From April 1 to September 1: one shirt, two collars, and a suit of underwear. For the rest of the year: two neckties and one undershirt.

MUNICH—LAUSANNE, February 4, 1940
Hitler decreed today that henceforth babies must have ration cards for clothing. A country is hard up when it has to save on diapers.

>35 weird_O: That was a doomed effort from the start, obvs. Rationing DIAPERS!

>35 weird_O:
That just meant that you had to wash them more often, and there was no shortage of water in Berlin. Maybe of soap, but not water or bleach. However, all that would make a woman think twice about having those 6 Aryan babies it took to get her first medal for being a mother of the nation.

>35 weird_O: Thank you, Bill, for posting these comments on rationing. I knew there was severe rationing in England, but it never occurred to me that the Germans had rationing too. Naive, I know.

Happy New Thread, Bill.

Like others, I love that gif of Christopher Walken! Great combo of his scary aspect and his lighthearted unconventional one.

Good review of Unnatural Death, including the intriguing spoiler.

>35 weird_O:
In the UK rationing didn't end until 1965. The last commodities taken off rationing were potatoes and coal.

Contrast that with West Germany. Rationing there ended in the 1950's.

In the U.S. rationing ended in 1948.

What does all that say about who bore the brunt of the war?

>36 richardderus: Yep. A country is hard up when it has to save on diapers.

>37 benitastrnad: Yes, having a smaller diaper inventory meant each one would cycle through pooping and laundering more frequently. Meaning each could wear out more quickly.

That business of women being urged to bear more children for Fuehrer and Fatherland wasn't something I'd known, but Shirer recorded in his diary that Himmler advised that it was okay for women whose husbands were away fighting to have relations with other men so they could get pregnant and bear those future soldiers. Oh my!

>38 karenmarie: I didn't know about rationing in Germany either, Karen. Just never thought about it.

>39 jnwelch: Walken is a hoot, ain't?

>40 benitastrnad: That's a whole different theater of discussion, Benita. But theaters are closed for now. :-)

Hah! liked the pun. Cool beans on the word play.

>40 benitastrnad: I think the duration of rationing was much more about entrenched bureaucracies than about real scarcity.

There was an excellent article on NPR's program "On the Media" this morning. It is under the segment titled "Blindsided" and the article is titled "Why the Toilet Paper Shortage Makes More Sense Than You Think."

The article on "Filling the Covid Data Gaps" was also a good one. It explained why the Math of this wasn't making sense to me. Turns out, it is because we simply don't have the data available on which to base decisions.

I mentioned this on Mamie's thread, but I'd like to record it here, too.

Spent some time this afternoon [Saturday] reading WaPo. In particular, I read an article about efforts by some states, private individuals, non-profits, etc. to establish and follow a Plan (in the absence of such efforts by the federal government). The story reported on the plan followed by officials in Liberia in fighting the Ebola outbreak. Key is testing, contact-tracing, and quarantine. Identify the individuals who test positive, locate (trace down) every person the "positives" had contact with, and put those contacts in quarantine.

What popped into my mind was Doomsday Book, which I read last month. Written in 1990. Fiction. And in it, Connie Willis described British officials placing a quarantine on Oxford because of an unknown virus. A main character was a physician who badgered everyone to be tested for the virus, for each person tested to fill out a contact sheet, to wear a mask, to stay in quarantine. So 30 years later, we can't grasp the basic steps.

WTF?

I wanted my message this year to be fairly universal in a time we all should be pulling together, whatever our beliefs. Happy Celebration, Happy Sunday, Bill.

>45 weird_O:
This is what I have been saying all along. Instead this ineptitude on the part of so many who should have known better is mystifying. It is not like we don't know how to control the spread of virulent virus. Instead the lack of systemic response has led to wrecking not only our economy, but the world's economy.

I can only say WTF?

I simply have to get Doomsday Book off my shelves and read it. Going to find it now. See you.

Happy Sunday, Bill. I hope you are enjoying the holiday, with the family, even if it is remotely.

>46 PaulCranswick:

>47 benitastrnad: Yes, have some...Doomsday Book.

Not too many days ago, Benita, I recall that you mentioned the absence of milk from the supermarket dairy section. That didn't jibe with my shopping experience, but...okay. About an hour ago, I read a blog post citing dairy farmers being told, selectively, to dump milk. It explained briefly but in good detail about the way farmers, processors, and shippers are impacted by an abrupt and drastic shift in product demand, such that production lines catering to restaurants and food service are idled because they can't be shifted to packaging dairy for the retail market.

The same kind of shifts are happening throughout the food sector. Processing methods can't be quickly and inexpensively adapted to the sudden transformation in the marketplace.

>48 msf59: We did have a nice remote get together with kids and grands, Mark. Hope you're enjoying some time off.

Happy Easter!

Hi Bill! Happy Monday to you.

I simply can't justify buying any books right now since I have so many tbr on my shelves, so will wait for Doomsday Book. I read the second one, To Say Nothing of the Dog not realizing it was a series.

>44 benitastrnad: Fascinating info about the toilet paper shortage.

>49 weird_O: I had difficulty in getting milk for 5 shopping trips before I finally scored some. It's the same problem as TP - more people at home competing for the same products. Two separate supply chains, two separate markets.

Howdy all. Hit the supermarket at 7 a.m. today, list in hand, mask on face, gloves on hands. Rain falling. My plan was to get groceries, then use the drive-up window at the drug store a block away to pick up a filled prescription for my wife. The prescription the drug store's AI machine calls once a day to remind us of its readiness. Oh, but not at 8 a.m., which is when I was there. (And by god, that drugged-up machine called about two hours after I got home.)

Grocery had most everything on my list. Just the essentials out of stock: Crazy Richard's Chunky P-B, my favorite brand and flavors of ice cream. Did score some t-p, boosting our inventory by six rolls. I'm content.

Finished Berlin Diary, picked up the O'Neill play, put it down, picked up a Hiassen that opened with a rat sailing from a rolling-wreck of a pickup into the occupied back seat of a rented convertible headed in the opposite direction. Put it down (for now). Picked up Josephine Tey's A Shilling for Candles. Want to finish it tonight.

Got together with family yesterday.

Started watching/reading the O'Neill. The video is from 1987, with Jack Lemmon, Bethel Leslie, Peter Gallagher and Kevin Spacey. Directed by Jonathan Miller. Good.

McConnell as grim reaper

>52 weird_O: I like that family picture, Bill. Sort of for the age isn't it that we are all able to communicate and see each other in that manner.

>54 weird_O: Creepy!

>53 weird_O: Same version I watched too!

Gotta get back on the front page here. I've been reading, but not posting.

Today, I finished Carl Hiaasen's Native Tongue. A laugh riot set, of course, in Floriduh! What a menagerie of characters. More in a bit.

Happy Saturday, Bill. I think Hiaasen is a perfect fit for these troublesome times. Did you read Station Eleven? I am getting ready to start The Glass Hotel, her latest.

>57 msf59: Hiaasen IS just the tonic for the times. I think I have about 5 still sequestered in the TBR Catacombs™.

Haven't read Station Eleven, though I do have a copy. Not sure if I want dystopia just now. Paradoxically, I've just started Art Spiegelman's Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History, with Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began to be read next. What could be more dystopian than Nazi Death Camps!

What the hell am I thinking?

>58 weird_O: But those dystopias are past.

Those Nazi dystopias may be past, Susan, but they resonate still. And the lessons they have to share aren't being heard in as many places as they should.

Jeff posted a link to a line of 50 novels published since 1970, each exceeding 500 pages, that of course you should read. I have read 12 of them, and I have another 14 in the TBR Catacombs™, leaving 24 I neither have nor read. Geez. Some I haven't heard of. I maybe could read the 14 TBRs this year.

Richard Powers, The Overstory (512 pages)
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (512 pages)
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (528 pages)
Tana French, The Witch Elm (528 pages)
Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride (528 pages)
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (544 pages)
A. S. Byatt, Possession (555 pages)
Donna Tartt, The Secret History (576 pages)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (588 pages)
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (607 pages)
Neil Gaiman, American Gods (635 pages)
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (653 pages)
Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (704 pages)
Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon (773 pages)

The least likely to be read by me is The Corrections. So there they are, each one a ROOT. I don't know if I wanna do this thing. But there are at least five titles here that have my reading saliva welling up.

>60 weird_O: Some of those I've read, and some are in my nebulous TBR galaxy, a couple are even on library holds, and I hope to finish Lonesome Dove today, if I ever get off the computer. I can't remember when I've experienced such complete wizardry of storytelling! Edited: I've read 15, and well, really there are only about 3-4 of the others that catch my interest. I have completed A Suitable Boy.

>60 weird_O: I have read 4 of those listed and have most of the others on the shelves. I am pretty amazed that Tana French's book is on there. Wasn't it released only this last year?

The Overstory is one I must read soon.

I'll go and check out the full list on Jeff's thread.

>61 quondame: Yah, Susan. Lonesome Dove be a good one. I'd say A Suitable Boy is one I haven't read and don't expect to read.I see that you did look at the actual list. At this moment, I am interested in reading all the titles listed in >60 weird_O: except The Corrections. Beyond those, I'd like to try Dhalgren and three others, more or less.

>62 PaulCranswick: French's book was published in 2018, as was The Overstory. If you are interested in it, I'd be open to reading it next month as a Pulitzer winner. It's right over there on the shelf.

>63 weird_O:
A friend of mine read Suitable Boy and loved it. I have it on my TBR list, but haven't tackled it yet. I did read his biography of his uncle and aunt Two Lives and really like it, so the guy can write. Maybe that title will catch you in its grip someday.

>64 benitastrnad: Sounds worth trying. The wait for A Suitable Girl may prove to be longer than I, or the author will have.

Happy Friday!

In case you haven't seen it, 50 years of Christopher Walken dancing: https://www.good.is/articles/christopher-walken-dancing What a guy!

>67 jnwelch: That is such fun. I admit though, when I saw Hairspray I was happy to see John Travolta dance - I hadn't expected I'd ever see that again.

>69 weird_O: Some people have a destiny.

>69 weird_O: Heh!

Over the weekend, I got shanghaied by lists compiled years ago by Morphy that Paul Cranswick linked to. It couldn't get listomania out of my head, and surfed out onto the webs, where I found a timely list titled Books About Diseases, Plagues, and Pandemics. It has forty books, some of which I fail to recognize. But as the compulsion wouldn't abate, I marked the books I have read with a blue check mark and the books hiding in my TBR Catacombs™ with a green asterisk.

Just what I need, more books to read.

1. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel
3. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
4. The Stand, Stephen King
5. The Plague, Albert Camus
6. World War Z, Max Brooks
7. Blindness, Jose Saramago
8. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
9. The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
10. Black Hole, Charles Burns
11. The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood
12. Maddaddam, Margaret Atwood
13. The Strain, Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro
14. Severance, Ling Ma
15. Zone One, Colson Whitehead
16. A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe
17. Company of Liars, Karen Maitland
18. The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson
19. Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
20. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts
21. The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
22. Ammonite, Nicola Griffith
23. Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter
24. How to Survive a Plague, David France
25. Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
26. The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell
27. Nemesis, Philip Roth
28. The Great Influenza, John Barry
29. The Last One, Alexandra Oliva
30. The Book of M, Peng Shepherd
31. Cherry, Nico Walker
32. In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made, Norman Cantor
33. The Black Death, Philip Zeigler
34. The Demon in the Freezer, Richard Preston
35. Find Me, Laura Van Den Berg
36. The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman
37. The Children's Hospital, Chris Adrian
38. Flu, Gina Kolata
39. The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett
40. The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera

Here's the source: www.listchallenges.com/books-about-diseases-plagues-and-pandemics

>69 weird_O: *snerk*

>72 weird_O: I like that list! Many aspirational reads on it, not least Gina Kolata's flu book.

Hi Bill!

>52 weird_O: How wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

>54 weird_O: That man is evil.

>67 jnwelch: Fun! I forwarded it to my sister.

>72 weird_O: Neat list. I’ve read 9 of them, and have also read another very good pandemic/plague book: The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe by Robert S. Gottfried.

Hope you’re having a good Monday.

>63 weird_O: Sure, Bill. Count me in.

>69 weird_O: Like that, but doesn't look like Eric does!

>72 weird_O: Great list. It isn't my genre but I have read three of them. I will put up a link to your post on my thread, Bill, as sharing is caring.

>72 weird_O: I'm a bit plagued out just now, but this is a list worth tracking.

Hi, Bill. Always some shenanigans going on over here. I am so glad you are going to get to The Overstory. A great read. Since, you are on a bit of a Churchill roll, I sure hope you can bookhorn in The Splendid and the Vile. A terrific read.

You will like American Gods no matter what Mark says. Somewhere on the internet is a guide to the gods that are in American Gods. Some people find it helpful. The other thing I would say about it is that the TV show is NOT like the book. Not even the same. My favorite characters in the book are Zorya and Mr. Nancy and Mr. Ibus. And of course, Bast. My favorite places in the book - the Center of the Center, which is where I happen to be from. Of course, the House on the Rock is cool as is Rock City.

I've got a lot of catching up to do. I haven't been here since last month.

We're really grounded until the end of the week. I got a recall notice from Subaru; the rear springs potentially can fail. And, by golly, the one on the left has. Advised not to drive it. Have to get it towed to the dealer for the recall fix on Thursday. The larder is developing voids here and there; hopefully, we can hold out until Friday when I have wheels.

We (my wife and I) have been enjoying homemade sourdough bread yesterday and today. Our oldest son has been devoting a portion of his weekend to experimenting with the starter (or whatever it is called). After two or three weeks of teases, he and his wife stopped by on Saturday to give us a loaf. Tasty. One loaf isn't enough. But much much better than no loaf.



Strange visit. Jeremy and Tara wearing face masks and sitting in folding chairs in the drive, Judi and I wearing masks and sitting on the side porch. And when they left, just waves and blown kisses, but no hugs. Boo.

>80 weird_O: That looks delicious!

Hi, there, Bill. Just delurking to let you know I've, you know, been lurking.

>80 weird_O: It's good you got to see your son and DIL (and great they brought you homemade sourdough!), but so sad not be able to hug. I just hope your food supplies hold out until you get your car back.

This whole plague thing sucks sour lemons.

>80 weird_O: I'm rampageously jealous of the loaf. And no, one would definitely not be enough no way no how. I'm glad the springs didn't fail while you were merging onto the Thruway or summat li' tha'. Still a titanic pain in the.

Courage! Montjoie! Dieu et mon droit!

Several threads have picked up a list from LitHub titled The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages, with "contemporary" being defined as works published after 1970. When Paul picked up the list, he supplemented it with 20 titles he deemed worthy. Mary (storeetllr) appended a baker's dozen of her choices.

Not to be outdone, I sifted through my catalog (after sorting "All Collections" by pub date and by number of pages. Everything on my list is either a TBR or a book I've read. (The underlined titles are the ones I have read. The rest are TBRs.) I'm not saying I am going to read these books. Putting a list together is its own reward, am I right? But...I doubt any of them will get shorter next year or the year after that.

Bill's Alternative Weird Dozen
^{Novels, 501 or more pages, published since 1970 (inclusive)}
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (512 pages) (1998)
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (525 pages) (1995)
Rabbit at Rest by John Updike (528 pages) (1990)
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (546 pages) (2003)
Cider House Rules by John Irving (560 pages) (1985)
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (560 pages) (1989)
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo (560 pages) (1994)
The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch (607 pages) (1988)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (608 pages) (2007)
August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (622 pages) (1972)
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey (628 pages) (1988)
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (656 pages) (2018)
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (656 pages) (1994)
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (815 pages) (2002)
11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King (880 pages) (2012)
His Dark Materials Omnibus (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman (929 pages) (2007)
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (1072 pages) (1998)
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

>81 figsfromthistle: It IS delish, Anita.

>82 Storeetllr: Nice to see you, Mary. *waving* Jeremy's been baking these loaves for several weeks now, posting photos on FB, warbling about how wonderfully they taste. So finally, FINALLY, he delivers. Yippie!

>83 richardderus: I'm sorry notsorry I cannot share a slice with you, RD. We'll be okay automotively. I haven't been on the Interstate in well over a month. Just short trips to the food store, maybe once a week.

>70 quondame: >71 richardderus: >73 drneutron: Happy happy.

>74 richardderus: I just saw Gina Kolata's name in the NYT today. She wrote an op-ed on whether or not closing schools was/is a good idea. I admit I did not read it.

However, I did read about Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague. She is an authority on pandemics, much sought after by governments other than our own.

“I’ve been telling everybody that my event horizon is about 36 months, and that’s my best-case scenario. I’m quite certain that this is going to go in waves. It won’t be a tsunami that comes across America all at once and then retreats all at once. It will be micro-waves that shoot up in Des Moines and then in New Orleans and then in Houston and so on, and it’s going to affect how people think about all kinds of things.”

Read the whole thing here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-prediction-laurie-...

>75 karenmarie: We've been Zooming every Sunday now. It IS good.

I think the plague books are pertinent reading. I'm thinking I'll buy a copy of the Laurie Garrett book soon.

>76 PaulCranswick: I saw you are starting The Overstory or maybe have already started it. I've got 45 pages or so of American Gods, then a reading-palate cleanser, then Powers. Most assuredly, the pestilential list is not everyone's fare, but I've got several of the titles amongst the TBR. (You said on your thread that you have several categorized stacks of books in your bedroom. I'm getting to that stage myself, though not in my bedroom, since my wife is beside me at bedtime. :-)

>77 quondame: Though not for everyone, Susan, it is worth keeping in mind, as you said.

>78 msf59: All I can say, Mark, is that Larson book about Churchill is on the wish list. But I'm stumbling over the categorized stacks of books I really want to read. Hmmm.

>79 benitastrnad: I'm having a good time with all of those American gods, Benita. I did a web search for the list of gods in the book, but the search results alone make me postpone taking another step until I read to the end. So...tomorrow I'll renew the search.

Hi Bill!

>80 weird_O: Sorry about the recall and no wheels until Friday. Yum to the homemade sourdough. I’ve been buying some fairly decent sourdough at the grocery store recently and just took the frozen loaf out of the freezer and put the newly-purchased loaf in the freezer. That loaf made by your son looks scrumptious.

>84 weird_O: Of your Alternative Weird Dozen, I’ve read 7 (well, read 15) and have 3 tbrs.

>86 weird_O: Excellent article, scary article, sad article. Thanks for sharing.

>86 weird_O: Pesky paywall keeps me out, though permaybehaps I'm not sorry this time given what >87 karenmarie: says.

Hey Bill, your visit over at my place reminded me I wanted to comment on your supplement to the Doorstop Tome lists going around.

Great additions, I've read 7 of them, with more WL additions. I just finished a pretty decent one, Guard of Honor. It clocked in at 631 (Won the Pulitzer in 1949), it wasn't earth shattering, but it was a worthy read.

R. I. P., Little Richard. *sniff*

>90 weird_O: A-women, Bother Man.

Just catching up, Bill. I haven't been here since last month either.

>54 weird_O: That's as grim as it gets.

>90 weird_O: What a character. My wife has a story. When she was little her grandparents owned a motel (in the 50's) in Oregon. Little Richard came to stay. Her grandfather had to fight off the droves of young women. He was apparently successful. I always wonder what it was that he did. He was big and a lumberman for Weyerhauser. Maybe that was enough!

This here is the mask I want to use. But...but...where can I get one?

>94 weird_O: - Easy peasy, Bill. Use a plain white ask and break out the coloured Sharpies! You can do it, I have confidence in you! ;-)

>94 weird_O: Oh! I want that mask too!

>84 weird_O: Fun list. I've read a few you listed: the Hitchhiker's Guide series, Lethal White, The Book Thief, and, of course, the Harry Potter series.

ETA I also like this one, but it seems a bit complicated, plus can you imagine how hot it would get in summer?

>96 Storeetllr: A number of my SCA friends have these. I'll have to ask about the comfort.

>97 quondame: Maybe you can knit a cotton version for use during summer. ;)

You know, not a bad idea. I'll have to search for a pattern, see about finding some black cotton yarn.

ETA you have interesting friends, Susan.

>98 Storeetllr: I think so. They are always doing. I used to, but I still like watching.

There's this look. A guy in Santee, CA (according to the news report on the web, "a city with a long history of white supremacy and anti-Black violence"), worn his KKK hood as a mask when shopping for groceries. Outrage and confrontations ensued. Police presence but no charges. Police said the guy claimed he was just “frustrated” with San Diego County’s mandatory mask rule and wore the hood because he didn’t like being told what to do. A San Diego County sheriff's department news release: “He said that wearing the hood was not intended to be a racial statement. It was a mask, and it was stupid.”

>100 weird_O: WTH??

Sweet Thursday, Bill. I hope you and the family are safe & sound. How is The Overstory coming along? I think it is a great read but it will not be for all tastes.

>100 weird_O: *sigh*

>100 weird_O:
That has got to be one for the Ignoble awards! and the Darwin Awards!

Hi y'all. Tippin' the hat to Karen >87 karenmarie:, Richard >88 richardderus: & >91 richardderus:, Jeff >89 mahsdad:, Linda >92 laytonwoman3rd:, and Ron >93 RBeffa:.

My reading has kinda rolled...to...a...stop. But It'll Pick Up. Just you wait and see. Check here tomorrow.

>95 jessibud2: Heh. Why do you have confidence that I can scribble a mask like that with Sharpies (tools of that devil, I should point out)?

>96 Storeetllr: Heh heh, Mary. I've got several images of that mask, that whole getup. I do think it'd be too hot. And the lenses in it would fog, along with my glasses. That pinhead in >100 weird_O: has an idea, but nope nope NOPE! Very bad idea.

>103 benitastrnad:

# 37. The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston Finished 5/8/2020

The Weird Report^TM  

Although this book is almost 20 years old, it is very pertinent, given the current pandemic. The Demon in the Freezer focuses primarily on efforts to eradicate, once and for all, smallpox from the globe. Like HIV, ebola, and covid-19, smallpox is a virus, immune to antibiotics. (The plague that killed millions during the middle ages, by the way, is a bacteria and IS cured by antibiotics.) A salient menace of smallpox is how easily it spreads. No more than a half-dozen particles of the virus are required to infect a human.

A smallpox outbreak in Germany in 1970 is instructive. Peter Los, 19, had driven with friends from Europe through Turkey and the Middle East to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Upon his return home, he was hospitalized with strange symptoms, put in isolation. Within several days, doctors suspected he had smallpox, and they were correct. Los was quickly isolated in a separate building miles from the hospital, and he did eventually recover. The event triggered a massive inoculation effort, not simply of hospital workers, but of everyone living within a specified radius of the facility.

But in the few days Los was in the hospital's isolation unit, 17 others—several hospital workers, patients, and one unlucky visitor—were infected. The visitor put his face to the door of the isolation ward where Los was sequestered. The door was open just a crack, and though he was vehemently warned away and did immediately retreat, he nonetheless contracted "a wicked case" (he did survive). The 16 other people infected all worked in the second and third floors of the main building while Los was housed on the first floor of a semi-detached wing. Later testing with a smoke generator demonstrated how quickly and thoroughly air flowed from the isolation wing and into every corner of the structure. Despite a ban on smoking, Los would open his room's window a crack and puff away. The smoke test revealed that air would flow out the first floor window, up the exterior wall of the main structure, and get pulled into any open window on the second and third floors. Several of the additional cases proved fatal.

In terms of the current pandemic, we all are extraordinarily lucky that covid-19 does not (or at least has not yet) spread so quickly and effectively. The problem with covid-19 is that there's no known cure for it, as there has been for smallpox since the 1700s.

The demon of the title is, of course, the smallpox virus. As author Richard Preston explains, the World Health Organization (WHO) organized a global drive to eradicate smallpox, and in 1979 the goal was achieved. Enter the freezer. Not just a freezer, but a liquid nitrogen charged freezer, and not just A freezer but one in scores of medical research centers throughout the world. WHO negotiated an agreement to eliminate all stocks of smallpox virus with two exceptions: one in a freezer at the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the second in a similar facility in the Soviet Union. These two holdings were to be maintained "just in case."

In the late 1980s, a Soviet defector to the U.K., a virologist, revealed to British intelligence that he was engaged in Soviet research into weaponizing smallpox through genetic engineering. The Soviets had tons, yes, tons of the stuff in their freezers. Not long thereafter, the Soviet Union collapsed. Now who's got The Pox?

Preston, an alum of John McPhee's respected writing course at Princeton University, embraced what he learned from McPhee. He spent days observing researchers in restricted Level 4 labs where "space suits" are required. He interviewed and traveled with researchers, executives, and eradicators in the U.S., Europe, India, and Bangladesh.

Read it. It's important.

>106 weird_O: This book interests me a lot. I was a genetics major in college, and population genetics was what I liked best. It was discovered some years ago ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031120074728.htm ) that smallpox epidemics (and possibly the bubonic plague epidemics) have produced a partial immunity for some people to HIV (primarily northern Europeans). As it turned out, when I had my DNA done for family history several years back I also had it screened for pluses and minuses healthwise. I have two copies of the genetic variation that makes me resistant and probably immune to HIV. That chinese doctor who got in trouble for gene editing embryos to create HIV resistant babies was giving them artificial versions of what I have. (This is also the thing that allowed a couple men who got bone marrow transplants to be miraculously cured of HIV/AIDS over time.

This book is going on my list of books to watch for. Thanks for the detailed discussion. I've been thinking about this lately because of Covid and wondering if there is a resistant part of the population out there.

>96 Storeetllr:, >97 quondame:, >98 Storeetllr:.

>108 weird_O: Nice! A bit of a shout-out to the Plague, too.

Good review of The Demon in the Freezer. Yikes - where is all of it?

How are you liking American Gods? Hang in there, Shadow!

>106 weird_O: That book still gives me nightmares sometimes. I'm old enough to have had the vaccine, but I know many, many who aren't and didn't. I get boneshudders at the notion of what the world would face if that horror was re-released.

>106 weird_O: I remember hearing about this book years ago and meaning to read it, but then it fell through the cracks. Now seems like a very good time for it.

>110 richardderus: I don't mean to cause anyone distress, but I read somewhere that smallpox vaccine (which I got when I was a kid) doesn't last forever, and those of us who got the vaccine 40 plus years ago might not be still immune to it. The bad news: it just never ends, you know.

>108 weird_O: Hah! Yes! Perfect for summer. I need that.

Edited to make more sense.

>107 RBeffa: That business of having an acquired resistance/potential immunity to HIV is very interesting, Ron. Many of the scientists reported on by Preston have experience with many of the fairly recent viruses that have threatened mankind—smallpox, ebola, HIV. They're virologists, dammit! If they haven't died or retired in the last 20 years, then these men and women are, I'm sure, clad in their space suits and investigating the COVID-19's particle, DNA, and everything else they can find out.

>109 jnwelch: It's a timely book, that The Demon in the Freezer. I don't know why I am surprised to learn that both RD and Postman Mark have read it, but I am surprised. I note that Mark said he liked Preston's The Hot Zone, and also that Wiki alerted me to a subsequent book in the same vein that Preston published. I have The Hot Zone; have to scare up a copy of the other one.

>110 richardderus: >111 Storeetllr: Yes, the smallpox vaccine does not ensure life-long immunity. In fact, the book reported that "the visitor" to the German krankenhaus who contracted the pox had been vaccinated in 1946, but by 1970 it no longer protected him.

>111 Storeetllr: As I said to Joe, The Demon in the Freezer is very timely. Yes, it's nearly 20 years old. But the information, the viral science, hasn't changed, it hasn't been debunked. Rather it's been confirmed and expanded.

>112 weird_O: Oh, I didn't know the immunity wore off. I've got one of those pox scars high on my back as was briefly a fashion to avoid scaring the arm until the mothers revolted at having to deal with an infant they couldn't put on her back. It was fun to count the telltale scars on the old toga and tunic dramas.

*sigh* I guess it's time to die, then. Which horrific plague will carry me off, I wonder.

Hi Bill!

>106 weird_O: Excellent review of a scary book. I had it on my shelves at one point, had started it, and then for some very strange, not-remembered reason, got rid of it. Sigh.

>112 weird_O: Yikes. My smallpox vaccination may have ‘expired’? Interesting tidbit: Smallpox scars identify time travelers in the Outlander series…

Bill, here's proof you CAN trust the Internet:

"Smallpox immunization protection lasts 3 to 5 years"...then you need a reboot.

alternatively,

"Protection" from Smallpox after initial vaccination has been found to last as long "as 88 years."

>113 quondame: My late MiL had been vaccinated on her thigh in the late 1930s.

>114 richardderus: You'll probably choke on a grape, Richard. I only suggest a grape 'cause I've been munching on some. (Of course, they're all gone now, and I didn't choke on a one.)

>115 karenmarie: See? See? You've got to lighten up on your book culling profligacy. You never know when you'll pop bolt upright in bed and say to your Bill, "Bill, I've had that blah blah blah on the shelf for 40 years. I'm gonna read it!"

>116 m.belljackson: A lot of smallpox vaccines have been used through the years, some more efficacious than others. During the 1970 outbreak in Germany, the hospital workers who were exposed got a vaccine favored by the German medical authorities. The authorities from WHO let that go, because they didn't want to stir things up. But they didn't think the German formulation was good enough and reinoculated the workers with the vaccine they preferred. When the thousands of people residing in the communities around the Krankenhaus were inoculated, the WHO vaccine was used.

Back in March, I hit a bump in the reading road and needed something to get the vehicle rolling again. So I contrived a Murder 'n' Mayhem challenge list. Criteria: TBRs only; only authors I've already read. Here are "briefs" on four of the first books I've read. A couple of more briefs to come. And a half-dozen more on the list still to read.



A Weird Brief^TM  
# 26. Finished 3/31/20

Having read that Towards Zero was one of Agatha Christie's favorites of her many novels, I read it. Superintendent Battle is the crime-solver (no, not Poirot or Marple) and the crime is the murder of a dowager at a queer sort of family get-together at her home. Brought together are a very good, though not top tier, tennis pro; his girly-girl fiance; the former wife he dumped; a cousin with whom he was raised, just back from a plantation in the East Indies; the dowager's long-time assistant; a servant or two. The story presents a crime meticulously planned by a murderer with a long-held grudge. And the psycho very nearly gets away with it.

---

A Weird Brief^TM  
# 27.  Finished 4/3/20

In the fifth book of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, Easy is settled into a legitimate, respectable job when a murder he has no part of threatens to derail him. His job is maintenance supervisor at a campus of the Los Angeles public school system. Trouble descends. As the school day begins to begin, a teacher seduces Easy into keeping her snappy, disagreeable little dog hidden so her husband won't kill it. That done, she scoots. The police descend, not because she's absent but because there's a dead body on the school grounds. The investigator knows a bit about Easy's past brushes with the police, and that's enough to make Easy the prime suspect. To extricate himself, and to rid himself of the dog who hates him, Easy has to track the now missing teacher and her husband and her close friend, a flight attendant on international flights. The track runs by dive bars, mob-owned bars, mobsters, and sundry low-lifes.

The novel's climactic confrontation holds the biggest surprise in Easy's life.

---

A Weird Brief^TM  
# 28. Finished 4/4/20

Rex Stout created crime-solver Nero Wolfe back in a time when crime-solving characters apparently had to be quirky. So Wolfe is a diva, an imperious stay-at-home with a granite-firm daily schedule, unbreakable habits, a Falstaffian appetite, and a tight knit team to do his bidding. In Death of a Doxy, Wolfe unleashes his team to find and expose the killer of a kept woman. Urgency drives the story, since the prime suspect, the victim's last known visitor, is an occasional colleague. Two parties resist: the family of the adulterer and the family of the adulteress. But Wolfe and his colleagues prevail.

---

A Weird Brief^TM  
# 30. Finished 4/13/20

A Shilling for Candles is the first crime novel published under the Josephine Tey pen name. Oddly, it is the second novel featuring Tey's Inspector Alan Grant. Though not without shortcomings, the story is darn entertaining. Slight but fast-paced.

The lifeless body of a popular singin' and dancin' movie star, Christine Clay, was discovered in the early morning on a thumbnail beach along the English Channel coast. She drowned. Strangely, her death by drowning had been predicted by a well-known astrologer earlier in the year.

But was it accidental? A button tangled in her hair suggested foul play. A young man who'd been staying in her vacation cottage for a couple of days said she had left for an early-morning swim. Curiously, he didn't know who she was, only her first name. Curious also was the fact that he stole her car, though he did return it a day or two later. Suspicious was the revelation that the young man was a beneficiary of her will, she having added him only a couple of days before her death.

Resurfacing. Hit a wall with reading last week. Halfway through The Overstory, which is great, I stalled. Tried a couple of diversionary brain candies but couldn't get 'em running. During that time, my wife was racing through a book she was given for Mother's Day, on the recommendation of granddaughter Olivia (9 going on 10). The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Judi consumed it in two days. I've been in it for three days. But I am reading it.

Hopefully yours,

Weird_O

Excellent reports! A+. I like 3 of the 4 authors, having read the first Easy Rawlins and not cared to continue. I'm re-reading the Nero Wolfe series and am on #8. Lover Josephine Tey, love Dame Agatha. I hope the Perfectly Tiny Dragon keeps you motivated to read The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

One of these days I ought to re-read the Nero Wolfe series in order. I've read a lot of them, but never with any regard to chronology.

Finished The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Pretty decent. See if I can gallop through Hombre, then I'll return to The Overstory.

>120 karenmarie: Thanks for the high grade, Karen.

>120 karenmarie: >121 laytonwoman3rd: I should get after Rex Stout's series of Nero Wolfe stories. I've read the two titles that are in my library, and I have no idea how many Stout wrote. Gotta visit that Wiki and get informed. Next task, then, will be to acquire some of those books.

Everybody have a safe weekend.

At this time of the end of Ramadan I want to give thanks for your friendship in this wonderful group, Bill.

Weird? Not so much
Wonderful? Pretty much.

Have a great long weekend. Am waiting for you with The Overstory - ready to go soon?

>122 weird_O: You and Judi (though you should both vet it before Olivia sees it!) might also enjoy The Magic Faraway Tree, an Enid Blyton book that I heard about via the Great British Bake Off. One of the contestants made a beautiful cake inspired by it, which made me curious, so I got one. It is damned near psychedelic. It surprised me, and I admit pleased me as well.

Any road. Y'all have a lovely weekend chez vous.

>123 PaulCranswick: All the returns possible, Paul. Thank you.

Great weekend so far. Son the Elder brought us a picnic; we put out lawn chairs, kept a distance from his family, and had a good time. Helen, Claire, and Gracie took advantage of our spacious yard to run around outdoors, something they can't do at home.

I should be back in The Overstory by Tuesday at the latest.

>124 richardderus: Thanks for the BB, Richard. I checked the book page and read your review. Have to check it out. We zoomed with Olivia's family and she was pleased that both her grandparents read and liked the book she got her parents to give us.

>125 weird_O: I'll try to pick up its thread then too, Bill

Hi, Bill! I'm sorry you're still having a bit of trouble getting into the reading groove. I'd be there with you, except I've given up and am rereading a series I've loved, which somehow as made it possible for me to read an occasional "new" book. I really don't know what's wrong with me and can only hope this slump (move like a nosedive into the Grand Canyon) will end soon.

Good start on the Murder & Mayhem list. I've read all four of those authors and all but one of the books reviewed (I somehow seem to have missed that Christie). Love the Easy Rawlins series, perhaps in part because I read it while living & working in L.A. and also because it so eloquently shows the black experience.

>120 karenmarie: If I'd started with Devil in a Blue Dress, I might have taken a pass on the series too, Karen. Instead, back in 2004, I worked for a large law firm. One of the perks for us worker bees was a book club sponsored by the firm, and that year we chose to read Little Scarlet. At the book club luncheon (also paid for by the firm - it was a pretty great place to work back then), it turned out that Little Scarlet knocked most of us out, and since I loved it, I went back and started the series from the beginning. I've yet to watch the film adaptation of Devil, though Denzel playing Easy is a draw.

>121 laytonwoman3rd: I didn’t read them in order and haven’t read them all either, so this is a fun project.

>122 weird_O: There are 47 Nero Wolfe titles. And then there are the 14 estate-authorized books by Robert Goldsborough, but I haven’t read any of those.

>125 weird_O: Yay for the picnic and kids running around.

>127 Storeetllr: How nice of your law firm to host a book club AND fed you. If I ever run into Little Scarlet I'll snag it and see if it knocks me out too.

Happy Memorial Day, Bill. I hope you had a good holiday weekend. Miss seeing you around. Hopefully, that just means you are immersed in the books.

# 39. Hombre by Elmore Leonard Finished 5/24/20

The Weird Report^TM  

Published in 1961, Hombre was Elmore Leonard's fifth western novel. During the following half-century, up until his death in 2013, Leonard would produce 40 additional novels (a few of them westerns, but most crime and thriller works), several film scripts, and countless short stories. Hombre was the first Leonard novel adapted for the big screen, directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, Richard Boone, Fredric March, and Martin Balsam.

The title's "Hombre" is John Russell, a remote, laconic figure who arouses suspicion simply by existing. Raised by Apaches, he was adopted by a white man, James Russell, who named him and, upon his death, left him his ranch property. He and several others are anxious to leave Sweetmary and quickly hitch rides on a coach chartered by an Indian Agent and his wife. Passengers are forbidden to ride on top, beside the driver. But at the first rest stop, he's banished to the top by the other five passengers because they've decided he's a "half-breed", and he therefore can't ride inside with them.

Before the next stop is reached, the coach is held up by three thugs who work for one of the passengers. The four disarm the passengers (not knowing that Russell has a rifle in the center of his bedroll), relieve the Indian Agent of thousands of dollars, take or kill all the horses, take most of the water, grab the Agent's wife as a hostage, and ride off. It falls to Russell to extricate the passengers and driver from this pickle. All are unwilling participants, all expecting someone else to face the danger and lead them to safety.

This book read differently to me than other Leonard books. I think that's a result of its being an early work. Leonard's famous rules for writing are on display, but his application of them hasn't fully matured. I read a couple of reviews by readers who wanted character development, but didn't see it because of Leonard's subtlety. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions, and inactions, of the characters exposes them.

Both thumbs up.  

I didn't even realize Elmore Leonard wrote westerns. I have two Zane Grey's and one Louis L'Amour on my shelves but both are still tagged 'tbr'. I'm glad you liked it and it actually sounds like something I'd like. There's a 1967 movie with Paul Newman, 4.5 stars on IMDB.

Gahhh. Completed The Overstory this evening. I'm worn out. I liked a lot of it, but the abstractions and ambiguity at the finale left me dazed and confused. I'll give it a thumb...up.

I still haven't started it. It is going to have to wait until June. I got distracted by mysteries and Sci/Fi. Even though I like the world of the Forest I had other worlds to explore this month.

>132 weird_O: You're much more generous than I am. I gave it

thumbs down with razzberry chaser, not even by a good-looking actor.

>127 Storeetllr: Find the Devil in a Blue Dress movies soonest, Mary. It's so good! A young Denzel is excellent, but the guy who steals the show is Don Cheadle as Mouse. He should've gotten an Oscar nod.

I love the Easy Rawlins series, and it's nice to see you working your way through, Bill. Way to go on sticking it out with The Overstory. It's probably one of the more challenging reads out there, but it's worth it. I wonder what Richard thought of it. Oh, I see.

>131 karenmarie: Slow, so slllooowww, Karen. Wading through the molasses, the mole asses, the torpor. But I did follow The Overstory with another epidemic novel, Philip Roth's Nemesis. Starting June with a murder 'n' mayhem novel, this one by Martin Cruz Smith. Stalin's Ghost. Set in Moscow and featuring investigator Arkady Renko.

Yes, Dutch Leonard actually started his career producing advertising copy and pretty quickly turned to a side of fiction, putting in a couple of hours each morning before work writing western stories and novels. Hombre wasn't his last western novel ever, but he wrote a lot of thriller-dillers before returning to the western. As I noted, that 1967 film was the first of Leonard's books adapted to the screen. Two film versions of his short story, "3:10 to Yuma", were made.

Just scanning the list of his works on his LT author's page makes to thinking about scrounging up copies of his westerns. Well, and copies of his books and stories that I don't have/haven't read.

>133 benitastrnad: You'll get to it, Benita. I'll be interested in hearing what you think of it. I was damned impressed but not swept away by it. Adam Sandler (see >134 richardderus:) didn't like it. A more discriminating reader (see >135 jnwelch:) did. I scanned a goodly number of the LT reviews, as well as some reviews published in newspapers and magazines. A lot of four- and five-star ratings, but quite a few razzberries.

>134 richardderus: Yah, I read your review, RD. It didn't daunt me.



>135 jnwelch: I'm moving cautiously through Easy Rawlings, Joe. I've got the next five in the sequence.

As for The Overstory, Joe, it left me feeling awfully melancholy. As I said to Benita, my brief exploration of reviews revealed lots of Overstory lovers and not as many haters, with representatives of both extremes equally articulate and adamant. I'm on the approving side of center.

>132 weird_O: I read it in a big chunk on a holiday but it was still a Long Read. Lots of exciting ideas though, and lovely trees!

>137 charl08: Agreed.

Ha HA! I read another book, I did I did. Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith, a selection from my Pandemic Year Murder 'n' Mayhem lineup, of course featuring Russian police Inspector Arkady Renko.

Happy Saturday, Bill. Miss seeing you around. I hope all is well. I am glad you ended up giving The Overstory a thumbs up, however reluctantly. I have not read Arkady Renko in many years. Great series.

I just admire this statement by the Mayor and administration and citizens of Washington. She really stuck Drumpf in the eye.

>141 weird_O: LOVE IT!

>141 weird_O:, >142 msf59: Saw that today and laughed out loud. Brilliant!

Hi Bill!

>139 weird_O: Pandemic Year Murder 'n' Mayhem lineup What's next?

>144 karenmarie: ^^^What she said

Arkady Renko, as played by William Hurt in Gorky Park, didn't work for me (why do these Russians have English accents?) so I didn't pursue the series. I read Porfiry Rostnikov's adventures by Stuart Kaminsky instead, and enjoyed them a lot. Death of a Dissident was the first.

I have been doing a spy thriller reading in May and loving it. I just entered the entire oeuvre of John LeCarre into LT. I think the spy novel thing is perfect Covid crisis reading.

>144 karenmarie: >145 richardderus: I was not reading as much as I wanted to, and I had the idea of reading some crime/thriller/detection novels. I compiled a list of writers and the books of theirs that I had lurking in The TBR Catacombs™. Don't know what compelled me to limit the list to authors I'd already read, but something did. And any reading program that clears books from The TBR Catacombs™ is good. Following is the list I came up with. Those read in this program so far have red checks; those reviewed have the red ®.

Pandemic Year Murder 'n' Mayhem lineup

Rex Stout: Death of a Doxy
Josephine Tey: A Shilling for Candles
Agatha Christie: Towards Zero
Jasper Fforde: Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
Dorothy L. Sayers: Unnatural Death
Walter Mosley: A Little Yellow Dog
Carl Hiaasen: Native Tongue
Elmore Leonard: Hombre
Martin Cruz Smith: Stalin's Ghost
P. D. James: No Job for a Woman An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Caleb Carr: The Italian Secretary
James Ellroy: American Tabloid
James M. Cain: Mildred Pierce
Jo Nesbo: Macbeth
Ed McBain: Heat
Ian Rankin: The Complaints
Robert Galbraith: Lethal White

Edited: To correct book title. Hat tip to LaytonWoman3rd

>147 weird_O: Lightening the load of unread books is always a Good Thing.

>147 weird_O: I like your list. I've read 9 of them. But the P. D. James title is actually An Unsuitable Job for a Woman.

>132 weird_O: I am behind as usual. Hope to get back to it later in the month.

I have taken out Evicted though and will get to it next week.

>147 weird_O: That's a nice list. Love me some Fforde, and I've been wanting to read Nesbo's take on MacBeth

>137 charl08: I agree with your take on The Overstory, Charlotte. A big read.

>140 msf59: All is well, Mark, if a bit nutsy. I've read Gorky Park and Havana Bay, both of which are on the shelf. I swear I read Polar Star but I don't have it. Hmmm. I actually don't know how many Renko stories Smith has written. This one has a doozie of a plot.

>142 msf59: Going to get weird? Mark, it already IS weird.

>143 drneutron: Mayor Bowser is not a lady Drumpf is going to bowl over. He can't deal with Speaker Pelosi, and here comes another competent, tough woman. I love that she had a confab with her team, came up with the idea, recruited a half-dozen muralists to lay out the words on the asphalt, got city workers starting at 3 a.m. Zero to All Done in about 12, 14 hours.

Looking forward to the Fforde review - I'm a big fan of that series.

Sweet Thursday, Bill. Cloud Atlas, followed by Evicted? Two of my very favorite books!

‘Morning, Bill!

>147 weird_O: Excellent line up! I’ve read 9 of them, and have read other books by another 3 of the authors.

I still have Cloud Atlas waiting patiently on my shelves. It’s not called out to me yet.

>141 weird_O: and >152 weird_O: Congrats to Mayor Bowser, her team, the muralists, and the city workers. It's fabulous.

Speaking of Pandemic Murder 'n' Mayhem, how about our policing! I'm wondering how our popular, fictional depictions—novels, TV shows, movies—shape our perception of RL cops. Recall the mayhem created by James Ellroy's LA cops. Compare the scenes of police violence in L. A. Confidential (in both the novel and the film) with video of police violence against protestors-demonstrators (as well as media crews and ordinary bystanders) in the past two weeks. Life imitating art; art imitating life.

By the bye, when is Robert Galbraith going to speak out against J. K. Rowling's transphobia?

I'm currently dazed and confused, so please indulge me if I fail to reply to each individual post. Didn't read a word of Cloud Atlas yesterday, for example. The thread of Mitchell's story is engaging and almost baffling, isn't it?

>145 richardderus: Funny, RD, but I didn't notice the British accents when I read the books.

>146 benitastrnad: I've read quite a lot of Le Carre, Benita. Liked many of his books, but stalled out on several and can't remember some that I did finish. I liked his most recent, Agent Running in the Field, which I read earlier this year.

>149 laytonwoman3rd: Ok ok. All I had to do was stand up; the book was kinda beside me, but not visible from my seat. Fixed it.

>151 mahsdad:, >153 charl08: I'm reading the Thursday Next series in order. Clearly I like it. But Fforde's creation is really tough to describe.

>151 mahsdad: Nesbo's Macbeth...I'm going to get to it. Getting keyed up. :-)

>156 weird_O: - I appreciate your comment about Galbraith/Rowling. I only read the HP series relatively recently and didn't become a "Potterhead" because of it. But I do find Rowling distasteful, due to her views, and don't plan to read any more of her work, no matter the name it's written under.

"By the bye, when is Robert Galbraith going to speak out against J. K. Rowling's transphobia?" Now there's a really fine question, isn't it?

>156 weird_O: JK is seriously irritating me these days. I'm re-listening to Harry Potter (currently on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and usually don't pay any attention to what she says outside her published works. That usually works for me. But now I've looked at a couple of headlines and one or two examples of what she's recently written and she needs to shut up. The Galbraith Male Side of her needs to stifle the Rowling Female side of her on this issue for sure. I won't stop reading her books, plays, and screenplays though.

>157 weird_O: Heh. I did...I saw the film before I read the book!

>157 weird_O:
I found Cloud Atlas to be disjointed - at first. I stayed with it and when the threads came together, they did so with a Big Bang! Just keep reading and things will start to fall into place. I found the novel brilliant and like Mark it is one of my all time favorites. It is one of my top 5 novels ever read.

>158 katiekrug: >159 laytonwoman3rd: >160 karenmarie: So many questions without a definitive answer. Do we shun the works of despicable individuals exactly because the authors are despicable? A case by case judgment in my mind. I don't expect to read the Rowling oeuvre beyond the Harry Potter books. But I'll continue reading Galbraith's books. Is that sufficiently weird?

>161 richardderus: Weirdly (or maybe not so Weird_Oly), I remember from the movie a scene with Renko/Hurt circling with baddie/Marvin around the animal pens, then some shooting going on. Of the book I recall nahda. I read the book, then much later saw the movie.

>162 benitastrnad: I'm sure you're correct, Benita. I see connection from section to section but haven't figured out exactly what it is. How can I go wrong? So many here and in my RL really like the book.

I got distracted by the Pulitzer Prizes about a week ago. I was looking at someone's Pulitzer list, and I suddenly had an epiphany about authors who've won multiple prizes. When the 2020 Pulitzers were announced, a good deal of awe was focused on Colson Whitehead's second win, this one for The Nickel Boys. Only the fourth writer to win twice!

Coming out of the fog of novels, I checked all the categories. Hmmm. Whitehead is the fourth writer to win twice in the fiction category. But if you consider all the categories in "literary achievement"—Fiction, General Nonfiction, History, Biography/Autobiography, Drama, Poetry—then you are talking about 40 multiple winners.

Robert Frost, Eugene O'Neill, and Robert Sherwood each won four Pulitzers, Frost for Poetry, O'Neill for Drama, and Sherwood thrice for Drama and once for Biography.

Three Pulitzers were won by playwright Edward Albee, historian and biographer Burton J. Hendrick, , poet, and playwright (and librarian) Archibald MacLeish, poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet and historian Carl Sandburg, novelist and poet Robert Penn Warren, and novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder.

Five authors have won in different categories: Samuel Flagg Bemis for History and, nearly 25 years later, for Biography; Richard Hofstadter for History and General Nonfiction; Norman Mailer for General Nonfiction and for Fiction; and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. for History, then for Biography, and T. J. Stiles for Biography, then for History.

The remaining 25 authors captured their two prizes within a single category.

Edward Albee
1967: A Delicate Balance • Drama
1975: Seascape • Drama
1994: Three Tall Women • Drama

Bernard Bailyn
1968: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution • History
1987: Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution • History

Walter Jackson Bate
1964: John Keats • Biography
1978: Samuel Johnson • Biography

Samuel Flagg Bemis
1927: Pinckney's Treaty • History
1950: John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of North American Foreign Policy • Biography

Stephen Vincent Benet
1929: John Brown's Body • Poetry
1944: Western Star • Poetry

Robert Caro
1975: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York • Biography
2003: Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson • Biography

David Herbert Donald
1961: Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War • Biography
1988: Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolf • Biography

William Faulkner
1955: A Fable • Fiction
1963: The Reivers • Fiction

Douglas S. Freeman
1935: R. E. Lee • Biography
1958: George Washington, Volumes I-VII (w/John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth) • Biography

Robert Frost
1924: New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes • Poetry
1931: Collected Poems • Poetry
1937: A Further Range • Poetry
1943: A Witness Tree • Poetry

Burton J. Hendrick
1921: The Victory at Sea (w/William Sowden Sims) • History
1923: The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page • Biography
1929: The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Walter H. Page • Biography

Richard Hofstadter
1959: The Age of Reform • History
1964: Anti-intellectualism in American Life • General Nonfiction

Paul Horgan
1955: Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History • History
1976: Lamy of Santa Fe • History

Marquis James
1930: The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston • Biography
1938: Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. • Biography

George S. Kaufman
1932: If Thee I Sing (w/Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin) • Drama
1937: You Can't Take It with You (w/Moss Hart) • Drama

Margaret Leech
1942: Reveille in Washington: 1860-1865 • History
1960: In the Days of McKinley • History

David Levering Lewis
1994: W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 • Biography
2001: W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963 • Biography

Robert Lowell
1947: Lord Weary's Castle • Poetry
1974: The Dolphin • Poetry

Archibald MacLeish
1933: Conquistador • Poetry
1953: Collected Poems, 1917 - 1952 • Poetry
1959: J. B. • Drama

Norman Mailer
1969: The Armies of the Night • General Nonfiction
1980: The Executioner's Song • Fiction

David McCullough
1993: Truman • Biography
2002: John Adams • Biography

Samuel Eliot Morrison
1943: Admiral of the Ocean Sea • Biography
1960: John Paul Jones • Biography

Allen Nevins
1933: Grover Cleveland • Biography
1937: Hamilton Fish • Biography

Lynn Nottage
2009: Ruined • Drama
2017: Sweat • Drama

Eugene O'Neill
1920: Beyond the Horizon • Drama
1922: Anna Christie • Drama
1928: Strange Interlude • Drama
1957: Long Day's Journey into Night • Drama

Edwin Arlington Robinson
1922: Collected Poems • Poetry
1925: The Man Who Died Twice • Poetry
1928: Tristram • Poetry

Carl Sandburg
1919: Cornhuskers • Special Award
1940: Abraham Lincoln: The War Years • History
1951:: Complete Poems • Poetry

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
1946: The Age of Jackson • History
1966: A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House • Biography

Robert E. Sherwood
1936: Idiot's Delight • Drama
1939: Abe Lincoln in Illinois • Drama
1941: There Shall Be No Night • Drama
1949: Roosevelt and Hopkins • Biography

T. J. Stiles
2010: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt • Biography
2016: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America • History

Booth Tarkington
1919: The Magnificent Ambersons • Fiction
1922: Alice Adams • Fiction

Alan Taylor
1996: William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic • History
2014: The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 • History

Barbara Tuchman
1963: The Guns of August • General Nonfiction
1972: Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 • General Nonfiction

John Updike
1982: Rabbit Is Rich • Fiction
1991: Rabbit at Rest • Fiction

Robert Penn Warren
1947: All the King's Men • Fiction
1958: Promises: Poems 1954-1956 • Poetry
1979: Now and Then • Poetry

Colson Whitehead
2017: Underground Railroad • Fiction
2020: The Nickel Boys • Fiction

Thornton Wilder
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey • Fiction
1938: Our Town • Drama
1943: The Skin of Our Teeth • Drama

Tennessee Williams
1948: A Streetcar Named Desire • Drama
1953: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof • Drama

August Wilson
1987: Fences • Drama
1990: The Piano Lessons • Drama

E. O. Wilson
1979:: On Human Nature • General Nonfiction
1991:: The Ants (w/Bert Holldobler) • General Nonfiction

Surfacing momentarily to report that I'm on page 500 of Cloud Atlas. Thirty pages to go. Shuuuwheee!

Think I'm going to wedge in Poe's The Paris Mysteries, a copy of which was delivered to my door just yesterday, before tearing into Evicted.

>165 weird_O: It is finished.

>167 charl08: Oh thank you, Charlotte.

Congrats on finishing Cloud Atlas!!!

In a couple of days I want to hear why you thought of it. I am an unabashed fan. But I know that not everybody is.

>169 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita.

>170 benitastrnad: Count me among the fans, Benita.
__________

I've shoved around reading plans just a little, given current turmoil. I'm long overdue reading The Fire Next Time, so I am reading that now. Then I'm going to read Exit West by Pakistani writer Hohsin Hamid. A good friend pulled it off a shelf and recommended it to me at a book sale* a couple of years ago. I bought it, but put it on another shelf, this one in my book stor(ag)e. I'll start it tomorrow.

*Remember book sales? I do, and oh how I miss them. How about you?

Speaking of book sales, I've read a couple of articles—hope there will be more—by book reviewer Michael Dirda of the WaPo about his book collection. He started work at WaPo in the late 1970s, and has been a regular at dozens of used book emporiums in Greater DC. His collection covers three walls of his living room, fills hundred of cartons in his basement, occupies a neighbor's unused backyard greenhouse, and two special collections inhabit his attic. Now he's endeavoring to reduce the numbers.

Link to first column: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/all-the-books-in-my-300-boxes....

Link to second: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/by-day-ive-been-trying-to-cul....

>170 benitastrnad: Have a happy day today, contemplating your ever-so-chipper reading plans and mourning book sales *sob* while reading some crazy person's lunatic plot to *get*rid*of*books* shudder.

Happy Father's Day, Bill.

^I hope you are having a great Dad's Day with the family, Bill.

Happy Father's Day, Bill!

Oh yes, I miss book sales, thrift shops, and second hand book stores. Still buying books, just from Amazon now, both ebooks and paper books.

>141 weird_O:, >152 weird_O: - Wow and good on her! Does it face the White House windows? Could he make them remove it? Ha! I hope they give him a raspberry!

Got together today with Son the Elder's family and in-laws. Granddaughter Helen, I learned, was one of those teen trolls who requested tickets to the Trump Tulsa CovidFest, with no intention of using them. She set up an email account for the request and reply: bite.me@gmail.com. "Didn't take her long to become a New York girl," said her other grandfather. (She's a student at Fordham at Lincoln Center.)

>171 weird_O: - I recently listened to The Fire Next Time and thought it was excellent. I'm now making my way slowly through The Fire This Time, a collection of pieces edited by Jesmyn Ward that were commissioned in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Exit West is wonderful! I've read it twice.

>100 weird_O: I feel ill seeing that.

>141 weird_O: this goes some way to make me feel a little better :)

Fingers crossed improvements abound all around!!!

Hi Bill!

Lots of reading going on? Still staying safe?

>177 weird_O: I love that granddaughter Helen was a Tulsa-stupid-event troll. bite.me@gmail.com put a smile on my face.

Since you ask, Karenmarie, ol' buddy, we have been staying safe, but my reading has taken a deeeeeep dive. Just one asinine distraction after another. I have but 15 pages to read of The Fire Next Time...so come-on come-on come-on, READ them. It is excellent, so why not finish it pronto?

On the other hand, I spent a relaxing day with Son the Elder and his family and his in-laws on Father's Day. No hugs, sadly. But I did get to see these loved ones up pretty close. That's how I heard about Helen's trolling of the Tulsa Covidfest. (I saw just a few minutes ago in the NYTimes that tracking cellphone data shows where attendees live and, enabling researchers to track the rise of cases in those areas. Is there a correlation between Covidfest attendance and scattered hot spots?)

And speaking of hot spots, how about those Wilmington poleese officers? And closer to my home, how about those Philadelphia poleese officers, showing some brotherly love?

Well, I just gotta dig out of this slough of despond.

I'm glad you're staying safe, sorry about the reading taking a deeeeeep dive. Is there something more frivolous or light or less demanding? More Rex Stout? Kids books? Calvin & Hobbes? Tim Gauld?

I'm glad that you got to see your loved ones up close on Father's Day. Heh. Covidfest. I like that.

Oh, my goodness, Wilmington. That's where my daughter lives. I'm so glad the Police Chief fired their sick, racist, sorry asses. Wilmington has a very bad history of racism and even had a coup in 1898, ousting the elected black and white 'Fusionist' government, killing 60-300 black men.

I have found a sort of happy place in my reading. I am reading the light fluffy romance of the French author Antoine Laurain. This time around I am reading Red Notebook. I read President's Hat spring and liked it so I thought that another of his books might take me out of the slough of despondence. I am half way through the book, so will see a bit later if it works.