Weird_O Bill's 2023, Part Three (3)

     

Geez. Dunno what happened. I was just sailing through me library, getting to The Big Seventy-Five in record (for me) time. Then everything went black.

You ever have this experience?

Maybe it's the weather. Or the beginning of mass extinction.

First Quarter's Reads

January 2023
1. Regeneration, Pat Barker. Finished 1/6/23. 
2. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Kate Beaton. Finished 1/6/23. 
3. Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus. Finished 1/11/23. 
4. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum. Finished 1/13/23. January 2023 AAC. 
5. Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein. Finished 1/15/23. January 2023 AAC. 
6. Freddy Goes to Florida, Walter R. Brooks. Finished 1/15/23. January 2023 AAC. 
7. Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Giles Milton. Finished 1/19/23. 
8. The Far Side Gallery 2, Gary Larson. Finished 1/19/23.
9. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Finished 1/20/23. 
10. What Is Left the Daughter, Howard Norman. Finished 1/23/23. 
11. How to Be Safe, Tom McAllister. Finished 1/26/23. 
12. God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts, Lynd Ward. Finished 1/26/23. 
13. The Odyssey, Seymour Chwast. Finished 1/27/23. 

February 2023
14. What It's Like to Be a Dog, Gregory Berns. Finished 2/1/23. 
15. How to Fake a Moon Landing, Darryl Cunningham. Finished 2/1/13. 
16. The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams. Finished 2/4/23. 
17. Bewilderment, Richard Powers. Finished 2/7/23. February 2023 AAC. 
18. The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman. Finished 2/9/23. 
19. A Master of Djinn, P. Djeli Clark. Finished 2/24/23. 
20. Help I Am Being Held Prisoner, Donald E. Westlake. Finished 2/28/23. 

March 2023
21. Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, Norman Ohler, Finished 3/5/23. 
22. Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, Mark Miodownik. Finished 3/9/23. 
23. When We Cease to Understand the World, Bernard Labatut. Finished 3-11-23. 
24. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, T. S. Eliot. Illus. Edward Gorey. Finished 3/11/23. March 2023 AAC. 
25. Intercourse, Robert Olen Butler. Finished 3/18/23. 
26. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver. Finished 3/27/23. 
27. American Cult, Robyn Chapman, ed. Finished 3/30/23. 
28. Severance: Stories, Robert Olen Butler. Finished 3/30/23. 

Second Quarter's Reads

April 2023
29. The Case of the Baited Hook, Erle Stanley Gardner. Finished 4/4/23. 
30. He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him, Mimi Baird. Finished 4/8/23. 
31. Drug Use for Grown-Ups, Dr. Carl L. Hart. Finished 4/11/23. 
32. Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo. Finished 4/11/23. 
33. Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas, Jim Ottaviani; illus. Maris Wicks. Finished 4/15/23. 
34. Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America, Ursula Hegi. Finished 4/19/23. 
35. The Woman Who Died a Lot, Jasper Fforde. Finished 4/21/23. 
36. All Systems Red, Martha Wells. Finished 4/26/23. 
37. Six Easy Pieces, Walter Mosley. Finished 4/29/23. 

May 2023
38. An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison. Finished 5/4/2023. 
39. Sapiens: A Graphic History Vol. 2: The Pillars of Civilization, Yuval Noah Harari, illustrations by David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave. Finished 5/7/23. 
40. Plum Pie, P. G. Wodehouse. Finished 5/15/23. 
41. Number One Is Walking, Steve Martin and Harry Bliss. Finished 5/21/23. 
42. Robert Capa: Photographs, Robert Capa. Finished 5/22/23. 
43. A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage. Finished 5/29/23. 

June 2023
44. The Eye in the Door, Pat Barker. Finished 6/5/23. 
45. Shopgirl, Steve Martin. Finished 6/6/23. 
46. A Puzzle for Fools, Patrick Quentin. Finished 6/8/23. 
47. Bangkok Tattoo, John Burdett. Finished 6/10/23. 
48. The Unsuspected, Charlotte Armstrong. Finished 6/12/23. 
49. The Chinese Orange Mystery, Ellery Queen. Finished 6/14/23. 
50. Rocket to the Morgue, Anthony Boucher. Finished 6/19/23. 
51. The Bigger They Come, A. A. Fair (a.k.a. Erle Stanley Gardner). Finished 6/20/23. 
52. Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ, Giulia Enders. Finished 6/26/23. 
53. Voices from Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich. Finished 6/28/23. 
54. Joe Gould's Teeth, Jill Lepore. Finished 6/29/23. 
55. Mort, Terry Pratchett. Finished 6/30/23. 

Third Quarter's Reads

July 2023
56. Fen, Bog & Swamp, Annie Proulx. Finished 7/6/23. 
57. In Review: Pictures I've Kept, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Finished 7/7/23. 
58. Fables of Aesop, S. A. Handford, trans. Finished 7/7/23. 
59. Independence Square: Arkady Renko in Ukraine, Martin Cruz Smith. Finished 7/10/23. 
60. The Rubber Band, Rex Stout. Finished 7/11/23. 
61. Foster, Claire Keegan. Finished 7/14/23. 
62. The Netanyahus, Joshua Cohen. Finished 7/18/23. 
63. The Witches, Roald Dahl. Finished 7/20/23. 
64. A Book of Days, Patti Smith. Finished 7/20/23. 
65. The Chickens Are Restless, Gary Larsen. Finished 7/20/23. 
66. Ascending Peculiarity, Edward Gorey. Finished 7/22/23. 
67. The Red Box, Rex Stout. Finished 7/23/23. 
68. The Widening Stain, W. Bolingbroke Johnson. Finished 7/25/23. 

August 2023
69. The Dubliners, James Joyce. Finished 8/2/23. 
70. The Haunted Lady, Mary Roberts Rinehart. Finished 8/8/23. 
71. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell. Finished 8/11/23. 
72. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride. Finished 8/15/23. 
73. The Far Side Gallery 4, Gary Larson. Finished 8/19/23. 
74. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman. Finished 8/20/23. 
75. The Unquiet Ghost, Adam Hochschild. Finished 8/30/23.  

September 2023
76. Good Talk, Mira Jacob. Finished 9/21/23. Most Excellent.
77. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles. Finished 9/26/23. 
78. Ride the Pink Horse, Dorothy B. Hughes. Finished 9/28/23. 

Fourth Quarter's Reads

October 2023
79. Tabula Rasa, John McPhee. Finished 10/5/23. 
DNF Tunnel Vision, Sara Peretsky.
DNF Our Woman in Moscow, Beatriz Williams.
80. The Chocolate Cobweb, Charlotte Armstrong. Finished 10/11/23. 
81. They Called Us Enemy, George Takei. Finished 10/16/23. 

November 2023

December 2023

…So, whilst blacked out, I apparently read a few pages, sometimes a chapter or two, in various books, interviewing them (so to speak) for the position "Number Seventy-Six."

At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien. I wanted to read this, having made my way through O'Brien's The Third Policeman last year. But boy howdy, this'n opaque from the first paragraph. More concentration required than I could summon in my comatose state.

Our Woman in Moscow, Beatriz Williams. Both my daughter and I have copies of this. She liked it and suggested I read it. By page 90…that's where the bookmark is: NEXT!

Mathilda, Mary Shelley. Need I remind you that Mrs. Shelley wrote Frankenstein. This short novel is about incest. In hand-wrung preVictorian gush. For a different mood, one to settle over me some other day..

Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann. TransAtlantic was a great read; LGWS started well, but it was going somewhere I hadn't been thinking of for position "Number Seventy-Six." Another time; when I come to.

      

Ride the Pink Horse, Dorothy Hughes. A possibility for September's AAC: Crime novels by women. It's been resurrected by Otto Penzler, owner of NYC's Mysterious Bookstore and publisher of "American Mystery Classics." I've read a bunch of them. Hmmm. Slow start, even for someone seemingly comatose. Coming to, I found it set aside nevertheless.

Tunnel Vision, Sara Paretsky. Apparently another AAC candidate. I have three Paretskys in amongst the TBR. Apparently I picked this one to sample; stuck the jacket flap between pages 14 and 15, beginning of chapter 3. Features starving sleuth V. I. Warshawski, who seizes an opportunity to save a struggling family, whether they want to he saved or not. Left it under the Hughes book, so not rejected outright.

Fathers and Children a.k.a. (Fathers and Sons), Ivan Turgenev. Linked to position "Number Seventy-Five" by its setting in Russia. (An aside: Having read of Chernobyl earlier this year and, in position "Number Seventy-Five," a book about Stalin and his residual impact on the USSR, I rounded up all the Russia-related books I could remember owning—see the following post.) Anyway, Turgenev. I observed an ad in The New York Review of Books last fall about a new translation of Turgenev's novel. Got it for Christmas. Read only a dozen pages before recognizing the need to make a list of characters. That was enough to stall the read. Oh! The shame, the shame… But I am going back to it, damn it!

The Collected Tales, Nikolai Gogol. Another Russia book, another Christmas gift. I solicited, last fall, something with a story by Gogol titled "The Nose," described as the funniest story ever. So…got the story. Read it. Didn't roll on the floor laughing my ass off. But still, I intended to read all the stories, so it was at hand. Maybe for position "Number Seventy-Six"? But I've come to…

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles. Not least was this tome, on the TBR since 2019, with my sister's recommendation and many recommendations here on LT. So, again, I read some pages. But I collected other books. I know I did, because a stack of them on the bookcase bore witness of my—well, someone's labor.

Dark days, dark. Would someone…get…this…clod…out…of…his…stupor? Read on, read on.

Books drawn from my vast but weird TBR for consideration for the position of "Number Seventy-Six." These were deemed unworthy of sampling, but I don't know why. Right now, each one of them seems worth a taste. In no particular order then.

Red Famine, Anne Applebaum. An exhaustive account of the Soviet folly called "collectivization." Peasants were forced off their small but productive farms and onto huge farms that absorbed—collected—all the small holdings. Didn't work too well, but Stalin made do by transforming famine resulting from crop failures into a means of population reduction. Three million of the estimated five million who starved to death in the U.S.S.R. were Ukrainians.

The Chocolate Cobweb, Charlotte Armstrong. September AAC candidate, published as an "American Mystery Classic", a mystery novel published in the 1940s that lapsed out of print and has been republished in the 21st century. A switched-at-birth (or maybe not) yarn.

Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead. Whitehead's second Pulitzer-winning novel, which has been sulking amongst the TBRs for two years. "You read five of eight of my fellow Whitehead creations, chucklehead. When is it MY time?" Into the serious circle with ya, sez I. So soon, soon.

The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel, Don Marquis. I was introduced to the existence of "archy and mahitabel" in a journalism class in college, though I admit to not having read more than a few entries, then or since. The concept is that archy is a cockroach who writes missives to mehitabel, an alley cat. And does it letter by letter, by jumping onto the keys of a typewriter (no caps or punctuation—those are just extra keystrokes, thus extra jumps). I bought this paperback edition from Amazon earlier this year, but…still haven't read it. So…

The Trial, Franz Kafka. Cited by Adam Hochschild in The Unquiet Ghost, my read Number Seventy-Five. Though possessing several copies, I've never read it. It makes my current list.

Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak. My notion of this'n is that Pasternak smuggled the ms. to the U.S.—CIA involvement, I believe. Soviet authorities angered. Anger inflamed by book's publication and even more when the author is awarded the Nobel Prize. Anger mollified by author's rebuff of the award. But a spectacular film—David Lean, dir; Robert Bolt Oscar-winning script; Oscar-winning sets, costumes, cinematography, and score; Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay Alec Guinness, Rod Steiger, Geraldine Chaplin, and a few other performers—sealed the book's influence. But it has never escaped my TBR. Sadly, unread. Time for action?

       

Gulag, Anne Applebaum. A 600+-page, Pulitzer-winning history of the Soviet concentration camps that terrorized its society from 1917 to 1986. Acquired a used copy in '21 and another in '22. There's a message there, ain't.

Midnight in Chernobyl, Adam Higginbotham. Lordy, another exhaustive history of another Soviet disaster. This time a nuclear disaster. I got a short report by reading Voices from Chernobyl, and I'm not sure I am up to an exhaustive read about THIS Soviet f*ck-up. We'll see, we'll see.

August 1914, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Russian history by exiled writer—a Nobelist—Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Focused on a Russian defeat during World War I. Is it fiction or nonfiction? Whichever, it is sweeping, detailed, comprehensive (a trade-mark of Russian writing). Actually, I have two copies, so I should read at least one of them.

The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Soviet history by exiled writer Solzhenitsyn. A doorstop at 900 some pages. After writing that first sentence, I checked WikiPedia and learned I was barely correct. I won't say more here, other than that there's a lot more to say. Especially if I read the book.

Ten Days That Shook the World, John Reed. John Reed was a young American journalist who witnessed the Revolution and was transformed. American publishers were unwilling to publish his story. He died in 1920, but a British publisher issued a posthumous edition. (I'm possibly making up this publishing history; don't even know if I'm sentient just now. Bump on the head, don't you know.) Warren Beatty revived Reed's short-lived fame by portraying him and his story in a film epic, Reds. Haven't seen the flick, but the book seems worth a read.

The Ghost Road, Pat Barker. Pretending to be a a completist, and having read the first and second books in Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, I plucked the third book from Box # 1. Barker won the Booker Prize for the third; I've read that many critical readers believe The Ghost Road is the weakest of the three, that the first shoulda been the Booker winner. Might have been a good fit as "Number Seventy-Six." But no. No, no. no.

LaRose, Louise Erdrich. Another opportunity for completistness. The third novel of Erdrich's Justice Trilogy has been on my TBR for several years. I've read both The Round House and The Plague of Doves, not knowing they are books 1 and 2 of a trilogy. I've the third and final in hand, so while in dreamland? La-la-land? Suspended animation land? I can consider completing the triad. Nothing ventured, as they say.

Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev. I acquired this doorstop of a book when it was published in 2009. Of course I have not read it—Why would I list it here as a possible read if I had already read it? I did consult the index; found the names Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, also that of Alger Hiss. Hmmm. Some flap copy: "In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States." He came away with extensive notebooks, which are the basis of the book. Upshot: Yes, the Rosenbergs and Hiss and many other Americans passed information to the KGB. I might read all about it.

Books purchased to be read right away…

Good Talk, Mira Jacob
Tabula Rasa, John McPhee

     

How did this come to happen? One was purchased at a Barnes & Noble, the other had a receipt from a bookstore on Newbury Street in Boston. When was I in these places? Sleepwalking? Zombie book buyer?

Upshot? Books read whilst I was…eh…"away":

76. Good Talk, Mira Jacob
77. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
78. Ride the Pink Horse, Dorothy Hughes September 2023 AAC

     

Books Now Being Read:

Tabula Rasa, John McPhee
Tunnel Vision, Sara Paretsky September 2023 AAC
Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp

       

I'll explain that Georgia O'Keeffe bio at another time.

       

Who is feeling lucky? The next slot is yours. It is Number Thirteen.

The Baker's Dozen is mine then, Bill.
Happy new thread.

Good to see you back!

I am going to guess that you are watching the Freida Kahlo special on PBS and that made you think of Georgia O'Keeffe. Hence, the biography of her?

For what it is worth - I liked the Pat Barker series and thought that Ghost Road was the best of the three books in the Regeneration trilogy. I am certain that you will come back around to it someday.

You must be going through a Russian phase. Lots of heavy duty reading on that heavy subject.

Happy new thread Bill!

Happy new thread and congrats on sailing past 75.

I have Our women in Moscow on my shelf for a while. Was it a good read for you ?

Happy New Thread, Bill. Love the topper. We missed you. Looking forward to your thoughts on both Good Talk & the Towles. I loved both. I am nearly finished with The Singapore Grip. You read this trilogy, right? One for the ages.

>13 PaulCranswick: Good good good, Paul. No superstitious avoidance by you. I myownself lived about 6 years at 1313 Cochran Road. In my formative years at that: 5th grade through 10th.

>14 benitastrnad: I am going to guess... Oh, I'm sorry, Benita, but that's not it. I'll explain soon.

I liked the first book in Barker's trilogy more than the second. I am heartened to read that you liked the 3rd book best of all. That inches it up other books in the stack.

I'm kind of stutter-stepping at the Russian border with my list of Russia/Soviet Union books. I am prone to jump into things, then suddenly lose interest and immediately walk away. Don't know if that will happen here. I'm thinking that I have unread writings of Pushkin, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gogol, Bulgakov, and other writers.

      

      Chekhov and Tolstoy in Yalta

Drat! I had replies to Susan and Anita written and one to Mark, then I blew it out the cables. Hovered indelicately over a Touchstone, just to get an author's name, and instead jumped to the book page. My uncompleted post thereby...uh...went away.

Happy new one, Bill!

I went through a fairly intensive Russian-novel-reading spell in my 20s. You know, back when there was all the time in the world, and it didn't matter how long it took to finish a book, the longer the better? I would love to have that feeling again. Immersive.

I read The Round House (but never reviewed it, so don't even remember the story line now) in 2017, and am currently reading The Plague of Doves. I think I'll re-read the first before going on to the third, LaRose.

Hi - I recently re-read Sebastopol Sketches - a good short one to start with.

>15 quondame: Thanks, Susan. It'll be happy if you, and other, stop by whenever you can.

>16 figsfromthistle: I never finished Our Woman in Moscow. I guess I should brand it a DNF. The main character proved too perfect, too accomplished, just invincible. The author has the potboiler format mastered. After 90 pages, I called 'Enough!" Becky (my daughter) wasn't overwhelmed by it, and she forgives me for abandoning it.

>17 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I'm composting my thoughts on Good Talk and A Gentleman in Moscow. Suffice it to say both are top-notch, and having now read all three of Towles' novels, I rate AGiM his best.

Singapore Grip is mostly unknown to me, though I see three titles by Farrell on my WANT LIST!! That means that I probably saw a post of yours and added the titles to the list. I think I already have solid prospects stacked up. (So much so that I passed on acquiring more at the Bethlehem Area Public Library sale a couple of weeks back. I mean I voluntarily forwent it, both days.)

Happy new thread, Bill. It has been a while since I visited last! Hopefully I can keep up better from here on out.

>21 laytonwoman3rd: Stacking those Soviet histories and Russian novels does yield a daunting picture. If I do start in, I just might dig into the John Reed historical polemic first, simply because it's only 349 pages.

I enjoyed both The Plague of Doves, which I read first, and The Round House. I had a hell of a time getting the Touchstone for the third book until I realized that the title is LaRose and not LaRosa. Duh.

>22 m.belljackson: Did not know of the Sebastopol Sketches, Marianne. Book Bullet!

>24 alcottacre: You keeping up better would be a splendid contribution to making this a "Happy Thread." But I've got to do a better job husbanding my own thread first. Thanks for stopping by,

Hi Bill! Happy New Thread! Happy Fall!

From your last thread, you gave me a BB – Ascending Peculiarity in July. It’s now in the pile of books on the dresser or little yellow table in the Sunroom, just waiting to find a spot on my now over-burdened-again shelves.

>5 weird_O: I’m so glad you thought A Gentleman in Moscow was Congrats on 75.

>8 weird_O: I have a lovely Easton Press edition of Fathers and Children on my shelves.

>9 weird_O: I found a VG mass market paperback copy of The Chocolate Cobweb and read it in December of 2017. My absolute favorite by her is A Dram of Poison.

>18 weird_O: Best thing about that photo is their boots – I’d love to have both pair.

>12 weird_O: You’re being very cagey about Being Away. Is your away time as exciting as Agatha Christie’s in 1926? Will there be books, movies, podcasts made of it? Just glad you’re back.

>27 karenmarie: Ooooo. Thanks for visiting. I love you responses always. Now first of all, you should dig out the Gorey. It's a collection of interviews and articles written about it Gorey, so it lends itself to occasional reading, between novels.

>5 weird_O: I DID like that Towles. I didn't binge-read it, didn't race through it. Maybe that's the savory read.

>8 weird_O: Have you read it? I have a quite old MMP edition, and more recently I stumbled on a Heritage Press edition. Both carried the "Fathers and Sons" title. And I read the HP edition when I got it; can't vouch for having read the MMP, way back, like in the 1960s. I do want to read this new translation.

>9 weird_O: I honestly don't think I'd have picked out The Chocolate Cobweb without seeing the trappings of the "American Mystery Classic". Haven't read it yet; have you? Never mind; I see you read it in 2017.

>18 weird_O: I like the contrast between the two, Tolstoy as the old man of the country, Chekhov more...ah...cosmopolitan.

>12 weird_O: Sorry about the absence and I'm sure nothing explosive will come of it. I'm not Dame Agatha.

Finished the reading, last evening, of Tabula Rasa, Volume 1 by John McPhee

A Short Weird Report^TM  

John McPhee has long been one of my journalism idols. He was writing for Time, unbeknownst to me, when I was in high school and moved to The New Yorker in 1963, when I was in college. All his writing is funneled through The New Yorker, and much of it has been republished in book form. He's authored 31 books, all still in print I believe.

Tabula Rasa, Volume 1 published this year (2023), is a review of many article ideas he's considered in his 50-year career. Things he intended to research and write, but failed to follow through on. It is a potpourri, and at least for me, was entertaining throughout.

When I was in my prime, I planned to write about a dairy farm in Indiana with twenty-five thousand cows. Now, taking my cue from George Bush, Thornton Wilder, and countless others who stayed hale doing old-person projects I am writing about not writing about the dairy farm with twenty-five thousand cows...I decided to describe many such saved-up, bypassed, intended pieces of writing as an old-man project of my own. [McPhee is 92.]

The book is not entirely an account of pieces that died aborning. For example, Princeton is never far from his mind. McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, attended public school there, and rolled directly into Princeton University, where his father was physician to all the sports teams. He has a short piece about being, right out of high school, a night watchman at the site of the Institute of Advanced Studies. (Think Einstein. Oppenheimer. Von Neumann.) He has memories of faculty like Joe Brown, a former boxer, coach of the college's boxing team, and a sculptor; an adolescent McPhee took advantage of an unlockable window to sneak into the sculpture studio to swipe modeling clay. Then he got caught.

Of course, his subjects include fishing, walking, geology. He comments on Woodrow Wilson's belated fall from grace as his racism emerged.

First rate from front to back.

Happy new thread, Bill, and congratulations on reaching 75!

>2 weird_O: Yes, sounds familiar, although not recently (knock on wood).

           

Slowly advancing through The Chocolate Cobweb by Charlotte Armstrong. Intended for September's AAC, but running a little late—a little Choco Late. I shall record the Sara Paretsky I tried as a DNF. Just put off by it; can't pinpoint the specific element that puts me off. But there it is.

>29 weird_O: I have read several of McPhee's books and I am a fan. I will definitely have to look for a copy of that one. Thanks for the recommendation, Bill.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Finished a book last evening, The Chocolate Cobweb, which I've been tussling with for at least a week.

In other news, clean sheets on the bed. Put out the trash, carted recycling to WM. Put a half-dozen books in the Little Free Library in exchange for an "American Mystery Classic", this one titled Death From a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson. First published in 1938.

Other side of the coin: I failed to reply to the visitors to this thread. I apologize, Anita and Stasia. I'm glad to read, Anita, that you haven't recently experienced one of those perplexing "What-just-happened?" events. McPhee has been one of my idols since the late 1960s, Stasia. I'm thinking I should expand my McPhee shelf to fill in books I'm missing. To be a completist, I'd have to add his geology tomes, but not to read. I dove into the first of that series, got flung aside, and gifted it to Son the Elder.

Happy New Thread, Biil, and cograts on finishing 75!

I’m impressed you read Dubliners ( a hard one for me; i did love that last story, “The Dead”), and I’m very happy you read and liked Einstein’s Dreams. I feel ED is so good and deserves to be more widely read.

I love it when one strikes you as “Great!”, and certainly agree with your picks.

Nice write-up on the John McPhee potpourri. My first of his was Coming into the Country, and as a basketball fan I also particularly liked A Sense of Where You Are. He is a prime example of the phrase “wide-ranging intellect”. I admire your ambition to be a completist with his books.

So far I’ve been able to be a completist with Murakami and a few others, especially series authors. (One LTer (Roni) used to call me “the series pusher”). I’d’ve liked to be a Walter Mosley completist, but he is way too prolific, and I honestly haven’t been that thrilled with his ventures into sci-fi. But I’m complete on Easy Rawlins and his other detectives, as well as some great outliers like Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow).

P.S. Man, I hope you enjoy Good Talk as much as I did!

Joe, you're always welcome here. Sorry I didn't have a cappuccino and a biscuit out for you.

One thing about Dubliners made me happy was that I could follow a few of the strolls that the characters took. I was in Dublin twice, courtesy of Son the Elder and his family. As I read I could say, "Oh, I know where they are!"

I did enjoy Good Talk, maybe as much as you did. Weird Book Report coming up.

Congratulations on reading 75 books, Bill.

>31 weird_O: I agree!

Happy Friday, Bill. Congrats on hitting 75! I hope you have shook off the doldrums and are immersed in those books again.

>31 weird_O: Perfect!

>37 vancouverdeb: >38 msf59: Getting to 75 was actually pretty easy. Then came a partial meltdown. But I've invested time in Fathers and Children. I've read it at least once before and some of it I remember.

Regarding post 31. It is so infuriating that folks nit-pick every damn choice. Several days ago, I read a David Brooks opinion piece in The New York Times, in which he examined every aspect of Joe Biden. But ignored the elephant in the room (Republicans in general, His Fraudulence in particular). Is there really—really—any question of who to vote for? Forget Bobby Jr. Forget Ralph Nader. Forget any and all who who've entered the contest with zero chance of winning. The choice is simple. Both candidates have held the job. Any questions?

>40 weird_O: Sure, one question: Why didn't Joe Biden immediately send a warship to protect Ukraine?

>41 m.belljackson: - Because of the Montreux Convention.

It's nice to see you out and about on the threads again, Bill!

I'm very pro-Biden/Harris and look forward to voting for them again.

>35 jnwelch:
The debate about completion rages on. I am also a completist. I start a series and I want to finish it. I don't always get that done, but I work at it until I do achieve completion. I am especially religious about completing mystery and science fiction/fantasy series. I do try to read all of the oeuvre of some authors, but am not as nit-picky about doing that as I am with the mysteries and Sci/Fi stuff.

>42 katiekrug: Did the U.S. ever sign that?

>45 m.belljackson: Yes! USA signed on September 17, 2008. Ukraine signed on the same day.

useful link: https://www.montreuxdocument.org/about/participants.html

>46 weird_O: - This is not the same as the Montreux Convention, Bill.

>45 m.belljackson: - The Montreux Convention only has 8 signatories, the countries who were party to the Lausanne Treaty which, with respect to the issue of the Dardenelles and Bosporus, the Convention supercedes. The important point is that Turkey, a NATO ally, is party to the Convention and controls the Straits, and Turkey walks a fine line between the West and Russia. The US is not going to risk diplomatic blow-ups with allies for an action that would be mostly symbolic, especially given the complexity of coordinating NATO's response to the Russian invasion.

Happy Sunday, Bill!

>47 katiekrug: Is Turkey still considered an ally?

>49 m.belljackson: - Yes, by definition, as a NATO member. Feel free to do your own research to learn more. A quick Google search provides a wealth of information, including from the US State Dept.

A Short Weird Report^TM  

The Chocolate Cobweb begins as a "switched-at-birth" mystery, but morphs into something far more sinister. A Mrs. Garth and a Mrs. Garrison each give birth to a baby, virtually at the same time and in the same hospital. Husbands arrive, and each is shown a newborn. But Mrs. Garth recalls being shown a baby girl in the delivery room, not the baby boy presented to Mr. Garth. He asks questions, of course, and the mixup is resolved amicably with the girl baby going home with the Garths and the boy baby going with the Garrisons.

Jump ahead 23 years, and for the first time Mandy Garth is told about the baby switch by a gabby relative. Astonished, Mandy wants to decide for herself whether these Garrisons are really her parents. Maybe? Tobias Garrison is a much admired and prosperous painter. Mandy has artistic aspirations. Hmmm, where did that come from? After visiting a showing of his art and actually seeing the artist and his wife and son, she is provoked to make the artist's acquaintance. And she does. Toby Garrison is smitten and invites her to stay for several days so he can tutor her in his studio. During the visit she finds Ione, Garrison's wife, a bit of a cold fish and a sneak. Thone, the son, is cranky, distant, but very attractive. But trouble is in the air.

What's going to happen?

>47 katiekrug: Oh gosh. Sorry, Marianne, for false information. Happily, Katie has the correct info.

>47 katiekrug:

>47 katiekrug: Thank you very much, Katie, for the correction.

>46 weird_O: Send Katie a warm thank you, Marianne. I shall endeavor to keep bad info to myself.

>48 msf59: Hee hee. You got that right, Mark.

>49 m.belljackson:  

Don't. Ask. Me.

>50 katiekrug: Thank you. Amen.

Saturday last was rewards day for me. Not that I had earned it. But a gift card was smoldering in my wallet. To avoid a serious butt burn, I opted to make a trip to the temporary B&N. Once I found it, I matched the gift card's value on a credit card (the sneaky side of using gift cards). I acquired three titles from my WANT!! List™ and two other titles. I finished the first of the new acquisitions last night.

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei.
The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi.
Time and Again, Jack Finney.
Music Is History, Questlove.
Ladies' Lunch Stories, Lore Segal.

The book I finished is Takei's memoir of his family's incarceration with other families of Japanese descent in America during WWII. More grim that I thought. I'm a bit ashamed I didn't have it on my list. I thought I knew the story, but no, I didn't know the extent of the imprisonment.

I still am progressing through the Turgenev novel known as Fathers and Sons and also Fathers and Children. Halfway. I've also returned to Mary Shelley's Mathilda.

Time and Again is one of my all-time favourite books. It has everything: adventure, romance, history, fantasy, humour. I am still hoping for a really good and sensitive director (Ron Howard, Spielberg?) to turn it into a film worthy of its name.

>54 weird_O: what did you mean about matching the gift card on a credit card?

>56 ffortsa: My buy drained the gift card, and an amount equal to the card's value remained, to be paid by me, using my own personal credit. The buy totaled twice the value of the gift card.

>55 jessibud2: It's a chunkster! That'll have an impact on how soon I'll get to it. My list didn't include the identity of the person firing the book bullet. Perhaps I could blame you, Shelley.

>57 weird_O: ah. Of course. After all, you were in a bookstore.

>1 weird_O: My Topper was arrested in London. She was among the protestors of a meetup between oil tycoons and government officials.

Recommendation: Anyone following the clash between Israelis and Palestinians (and isn't that everyone) should read The Netanyahus, which won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2022. An insightful picture of Bibi Netanyahu, his older and now deceased brother Yonatan, and especially of their father Benzion. The basic story is true. Benzion was relentless—relentless—in pursuit of his aspirations.

>59 weird_O:
I have never understood The Netanyahus. If it is fiction why should I read it? If I want to learn about the Natanyahus shouldn't I read a biography of the family. or some other work of nonfiction?

If the book is fiction then the "facts" in it aren't true and people should be aware of that. Unless you are Donald Trump.

Happy Wednesday, Bill. I hope your week is singing along. I will get Skippy Dies in the mail in the next week or so.