What Are You Reading

Benzadmiral · Feb 1, 2016

Wolf by Wolf sounds intriguing!

I'm rereading Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo, the sequel to Lonesome Dove. Oddly for him, it's sometimes slow going, as he jumps around to multiple viewpoints in the same scene. The viewpoint is always clearly labeled, so I'm not confused as to whose thoughts I'm privy to in a given paragraph. But it is an odd technique.

AmateisGal · Feb 1, 2016

Benzadmiral said:
Wolf by Wolf sounds intriguing!

It really is. I'm glad I read it.

LizzieMaine · Feb 1, 2016

"The Wreck and Sinking of the Titanic, The Ocean's Greatest Disaster," by Marshall Everett. Published in 1912, just a few weeks after the sinking itself, this is a classic example of the exploitative "dollar books" which flooded the early 20th Century American market on the heels of any disaster -- Everett had also done similar volumes on the assassination of McKinley and the Iroquois Theatre fire. The books were all alike in that they contained a highly-sentimentalized account of the incident in question, supplemented by quotes from press coverage, and lots and lots of photos, engravings, and cartoons. Printed on cheap paper but bound in lavishly-embossed and illustrated covers, the books were sold, as their name implied, for a dollar a copy by door-to-door agents, and were still very common to find on your parents' bookshelf in the Era.

This particular book is actually quite well-done. Most of the accounts quoted are taken directly from survivors of the sinking -- and most of those have gone on to form the foundation of much of the Titantic literature of today. The point of view is quite condemnatory of the lack of sufficient lifeboats, considering it an example of the White Star Line's policy of "profit over people," and the author is quite militant in his demand for strict legal sanctions against steamship operators to ensure that such a disaster does not happen again. Because this was by far the most widely-distributed account of the sinking prior to the 1950s, this book, for better or worse, defined the Titanic's early place in American popular culture.

DNO · Feb 2, 2016

Deeper by Jeff Long. It's the sequel to the rather chilling Descent which I quite enjoyed. Hope this one is as good.

DNO · Feb 2, 2016

Benzadmiral said:
Wolf by Wolf sounds intriguing!

I'm rereading Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo, the sequel to Lonesome Dove. Oddly for him, it's sometimes slow going, as he jumps around to multiple viewpoints in the same scene. The viewpoint is always clearly labeled, so I'm not confused as to whose thoughts I'm privy to in a given paragraph. But it is an odd technique.

I enjoy McMurtry's westerns but I do find most of them somewhat slow going. However, the stories are interesting and so is McMurtry's writing so I really don't mind. Sometimes, I find with McMurtry that it's the journey that's interesting, not the destination. Telegraph Days is a case in point. Just a delightful book to read. I was in no rush to finish it.

Dan Allen · Feb 2, 2016

I am currently reading " The Best Years" by Joseph C. Goulden about the trials and tribulations of the return to peace (1945-1950 ). The book is a virtual cornucopia of information concerning America leading up to the Korean conflect.

Tiki Tom · Feb 3, 2016

Last night I finished "The Tomb of Alexander" by Sean Hemingway, Curator of Antiquities at the Met and grandson of you-know-who. I picked it up on a whim at an old fashioned bookstore. Then I made the mistake of reading the mostly bad reviews on Amazon. (Not surprising, I guess. What hell it must be to live in that shadow.) But surprise, surprise! I actually enjoyed the book and --at the end of the day-- thought it was pretty darned good. It is a fictional mystery involving an unexpected archaeological find on the island of Crete, tomb robbers, a mild supernatural angle, romance, and the inner-workings of the art world and the Met. It was obviously written with expert knowledge of Crete and Rome, not to mention of the history of Alexander the Great. I found the solution to the riddle both surprising and plausible. I'd recommend it for anyone interested in archaeology, Greek & Roman history, and the Mediterranean world. That said, I don't want to "over sell" the book. It had some of the problems that you often see in a first-time novelist. The dialogue is a little stiff and clunky, and he sometimes repeats information that he has already told you. But those are fairly minor quibbles. The writing is solid enough and a couple of descriptive scenes were memorable and good. What can I say? I enjoyed it. It was fun.

LizzieMaine · Feb 3, 2016

Killing some time on my lunch break leafing thru a recently unearthed stack of "Baseball Digest" magazines from 1955-69. This was a publication that carried far more weight in my childhood neighborhood than "16" or "Tiger Beat" ever did, and looking thru them now, after not having seen an issue for many years, is very evocative. The magazine was a digest of previously-published newspaper pieces by top sportswriters, and some of them are quite good -- a 1965 feature on 21-year-old Red Sox slugger Tony Conigliaro contains a comment from Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi that, in hindsight, is positively chilling: "Tony hangs over the plate. He's too brave for his own good in the batter's box." Two years later, Fregosi would on the field the night Conigliaro was nearly killed by a pitch that hit him in the face.

Another feature of the Digest that I'd forgotten about used to disturb me as a kid -- the presence of cartoons by a mysterious cartoonist who signed his work "Forth." I have no idea, and have never been able to determine, who Forth was, but his art style was deeply disquieting. He drew all figures, regardles of pose, regardless of age or gender, with exactly the same face -- a profile view with two large oval eyes on the same side of the head, thin protruding lips that looked like a duck's beak, no chin or forehead -- and an enormous, dominating, highly-phallic nose. His cartoons of ballplayers in humorous escapades on the field often featured row after row of spectators, all with the same haunting neo-cubist face. Looking at them now I can only ponder what it was all supposed to mean.

Oh, the horror.

Fading Fast · Feb 4, 2016

^^^ I wouldn't swear to it, but those images look familiar. My dad loved baseball, so we always had a bunch of baseball magazines in the house, but I can't say I specifically remember "Baseball Digest," but I think I do, as I think I remember those images.

belfastboy · Feb 5, 2016

Revisiting Wm Faulkner and The Sound and the Fury...struggling with it this time as much as 25 years ago. I put it in the difficult to comprehend file along with Ulysses and Finnegan's.

Dirk Wainscotting · Feb 5, 2016

I'm going to start on Patrick Hamilton's trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1929-1934). Set in late 1920s-early 1930s London. The BBC did an adaptation of it some years back, but I fear they trimmed it fit into three 50 minute episodes.

Before that I have 20-odd pages left of Martin Amis's Lionel Asbo.

Fading Fast · Feb 5, 2016

belfastboy said:
Revisiting Wm Faulkner and The Sound and the Fury...struggling with it this time as much as 25 years ago. I put it in the difficult to comprehend file along with Ulysses and Finnegan's.

If my Middle or High School memory serves, it opens with the Benjy section - which is a tough way to start a story (kinda like being thrown into the deep end of the pool and being told to "swim," as a way of learning how to swim). I was turned off a bit by it as I'm okay with having to do some work to fully comprehend a well-written novel as long as the work is both worth it and there for a reason and not simply to make it harder on the reader or to show off the author's skill. Faulkner, like Tennessee Wiliams, is an author I respect, but I don't re-read as there are only so many the-south-and-life-in-general-are-depressing-and-cruel stories I can take.

greatestescaper · Feb 5, 2016

After a reread of The Maltese Falcon, I've picked up the prequel Spade and Archer. It's been some time since I've read either, and, while it's not Hammett, Gore does a fine job of taking the reader back to the world of Sam Spade. Following this, I've already got a stack together of books to read, with 40 Miles a Day on Beans and Hay. For those of have not read it, 40 Miles a Day on Beans and Hay details the life of the enlisted man while in the service during the Indians Wars in the American West. It's chock full of information detailing the hardships on the frontier. I read it each year in preparation for a summer of Cavalry Interp at the Fort Davis National Historic Site.

Fading Fast · Feb 5, 2016

greatestescaper said:
After a reread of The Maltese Falcon, I've picked up the prequel Spade and Archer. It's been some time since I've read either, and, while it's not Hammett, Gore does a fine job of taking the reader back to the world of Sam Spade. Following this, I've already got a stack together of books to read, with 40 Miles a Day on Beans and Hay. For those of have not read it, 40 Miles a Day on Beans and Hay details the life of the enlisted man while in the service during the Indians Wars in the American West. It's chock full of information detailing the hardships on the frontier. I read it each year in preparation for a summer of Cavalry Interp at the Fort Davis National Historic Site.

A few years back, I did what you did, read "The Maltese Falcon" and "Spade and Archer" back to back and agree, he did an admirable job echoing Hammett. I did think "Spade and Archer" dragged a bit toward the end though.

Fading Fast · Feb 5, 2016

Currently reading two books, "Brooklyn," which I'll write about later, but it is fun fluff and "Downtown" by Pete Hamill, which is his personal reflections of living in downtown Manhattan for five or so decades entwined with a quixotic history of the same neighborhood (going back to the founding of Manhattan by the Dutch) driven by specific buildings, streets or whatever else catches Hamill's attention.

He has a wonderful feel for New York's character, its evolution over time and how its architecture reflects its history. He can paint with a broad brush and then pull out a specific anecdote that personalizes New York in 1690 or 1988 (as he goes back and forth through time and place in a whimsical, evocative and enjoyable fashion). One line today, caught my attention as being very Fedora-Lounge like:

"The old church was torn down in the 1970s and replace with this one, which, like so much modern ecclesiastical architecture, seems inspired by Howard Johnson's roadside restaurants rather than the mysteries of time and faith."

Now, as a roadside eatery, I love those once-ubiquitous orange-roofed dispensaries of traveler sustenance - in particular, their ice-cream and hamburgers - but as inspiration for, well, metaphysical inspiration, I'm with Hamill.

If you like off-beat New York City history with a personal angle from a talented writer, I highly recommend "Downtown."

belfastboy · Feb 5, 2016

Fading Fast said:
If my Middle or High School memory serves, it opens with the Benjy section - which is a tough way to start a story (kinda like being thrown into the deep end of the pool and being told to "swim," as a way of learning how to swim). I was turned off a bit by it as I'm okay with having to do some work to fully comprehend a well-written novel as long as the work is both worth it and there for a reason and not simply to make it harder on the reader or to show off the author's skill. Faulkner, like Tennessee Wiliams, is an author I respect, but I don't re-read as there are only so many the-south-and-life-in-general-are-depressing-and-cruel stories I can take.

I read "As I Lay Dying" just before this and loved the book. I have a hard time treating "The Sound...." as one of the most brilliant works of movern fiction. I will persevere but have limits placing it in a category such as "Ulysses , which after multiple attempts have yet to finish. I shall try Absolom2 and A Light In August as well to give him his full due.

LizzieMaine · Feb 9, 2016

Enjoying "Walt and Skeezix: 1931-32," the seventh volume of the ongoing series reprinting cartoonist Frank King's "Gasoline Alley" comic strip -- the first comic in which the characters aged and evolved in real time. Young Skeezix, found as a two-day-old infant on Walt Wallet's doorstep in 1921 is now on the cusp of adolesence, and the sunny 1920s of his boyhood are darkening into the Depression. The strip is gradually becoming more about his life, although "Uncle Walt," "Auntie Blossom," little brother Corky, and the other residents of the Alley neighborhood still figure in the plots. Skeezix is at the age where he's starting to discover his independence -- roaming around, getting into trouble with his neighborhood gang, and even beginning to look at girls in a different way.

The Depression shadows all the fun, though. Uncle Walt's job isn't quite as stable as it once was, and one of the most melodramatic storylines in the run involves Skeezix's pal Spud, who not only lives in poverty but is put on trial when he accidentally shoots another boy with a revolver he found hidden in the shack where he lives with his mother. (Spud would end up as the strip's perpetual punching bag and would eventually be killed in action during World War II.)

King is one of unsung greats of American cartooning -- his work was never laugh-out-loud funny, and his stories, taken as units, often verged on soap opera without the soap. But taken as a whole, as a single story spanning the fifty years he worked on the strip before passing it on to others, it's a remarkable chronicle of what it was like to grow up as a member of what would eventually be known as the Swing Generation. Skeezix is still alive -- he will observe his 95th birthday this coming Sunday -- and to look back on his childhood in these volumes is to experience the unfolding of the Era in a fascinating and intimate way.

Benzadmiral · Feb 11, 2016

Dipping into a gift book, The Collected Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers -- ones with Lord Peter Wimsey and her alternate detective Montague Egg, and some crime and suspense stories that are part of no series. Sometimes DLS could be a a bit wordy by today's standards, but what she set down was always interesting and often funny. Two Lord Peter stories, one in which his first son is born, and a later one in which he and Harriet have several kids and the oldest is a scamp, are delightful.

AmateisGal · Feb 12, 2016

Just finished Where the Action Was: Women War Correspondents in World War II by Penny Colman. A great introduction to the female correspondents of WW2. It's written for young adult readers, but older adults can enjoy it as well.

Fading Fast · Feb 13, 2016

Finished "Brooklyn," which is a fun, fluffy "Irish-immigrant-girl-comes-to-America-in-the-1950s" story that hits most cliches, doesn't cover new ground, but tells the same story you've read before in a breezy way that has you rooting for the heroine.

Just started "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah - only a few pages in, so no real opinion yet.

Also just started "So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures" by Maureen Corrigan, a college professor of English who teaches a course on "The Great Gatsby." Also only a few pages in, but so far, she's keeping it interesting and not pedantic as some "main stream" books, like this one, by college professors can be. He's one of my favorite authors and "Gatsby" is one of my favorite books, so I'm far from impartial.

What Are You Reading

Benzadmiral

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AmateisGal

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LizzieMaine

DNO

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Dan Allen

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LizzieMaine

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greatestescaper

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