Fiction: Archie meets Nero Wolfe by Robert Goldsborough. An attempt at an origin story for Archie Goodwin and his place in Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series of crime stories. It’s a decent attempt and I’m enjoying it.
Non-Fiction: Telling Tales by Melissa Katsoulis. A book about literary hoaxes and the people behind them. Some of the tales she relates are funny, some tragic, some cynical and some are just plain odd.
3 Likes
Got two on deck, although neither is new to me.
Picked ^^^ up to pass the time on a cramped flight a few years back. Slowly chipping away at completing it (it’s not a “ermahgerd, I need to know what happens next” read as I’m familiar with most of the short stories it contains).
And then there’s this:
A friend is reading it for the first time, so I wanted to freshen my memory before we sit and talk about it together.
3 Likes
Wow! Thanks for this. I just finished the sample and bought the Kindle version. Excellent so far. You’re right, he’s covering the parts of Irving’s life I’m most interested in.
Currently reading the new 33 ⅓ book on Elvis’s comeback album “From Elvis in Memphis” by Eric Wolfson. They are up to 151 in this series: each book covers one album. Be careful before buying one on your favorite album, because some are more meditations by the author whereas I prefer detailed history. Some are excellent, like the one on Eno’s “Another Green World” or Steely Dan’s “Aja”. Anyways, I like a lot of these and they’re easy to carry around.
5 Likes
For biography, Robert Caro’s books on Lyndon Johnson are my gold standard. The number and length of them can be overwhelming, so I’d recommend just reading the first one, which is simply a great story – kind of the opposite of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But I doubt there will ever be a book that does a better job of revealing how Congress works than the third volume, Master of the Senate.
2 Likes
The 33 1/3 books are great. I have “Another Green World” as well as the one for Bowie’s “Low.” (I like Eno.)
5 Likes
Most recent “proper” reading (as a few would tell me - text - dead tree) was either “Pilot X”, by Tom Merritt, or “Hot Shoe! A Checkered Past: My Story” autobiography of Gary Balough.
Most recent ebooks and/or audiobooks? “Trigor”, the sequel to Pilot X by Tom Merritt, and rereading American Gods, Good Omens, and the new Sandman audiobook (by Neil Gaiman - Good Omens co-written by Terry Pratchett)
I want all the dead tree books, but am completely out of room?
3 Likes
I am currently reading The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman. It is excellent, but long and pretty academic.
And I finally read Brave New World recently. I followed that up by reading P. G. Wodehouse’s Right Ho, Jeeves which was a very nice palette cleanser after Huxley’s depressing work.
5 Likes
Just finished ‘Run’ - John Lewis’s follow up to ‘March’ and bawled over it - he’s one of my heroes and I miss him so much.
Then I sat down and watched Chadwick Boseman’s episode of ‘What If. . .’, so it’s been a very teary day for me (although the episode was also unexpectedly funny, too).
5 Likes
I just finished Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World, and now I’m re-reading James Agee’s A Death in the Family.
3 Likes
I loved March, and I can’t wait to get Run into my hands.
3 Likes
Yay, I just picked up Catch-22 and a Muriel Spark collection (which includes The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) from the library, but which one to read first?
BTW, Pamela Franklin, who was in the movie, now owns a bookstore. If only I had $2,000 just hanging about, I’d buy her autographed copy.
2 Likes
Oh, I just read that in…January.
I recall it being basically humorless, except for a kind of sardonic cynicism, which isn’t really humor.
3 Likes
I’m now two books into the Earth’s Children series, which very quickly landed a spot among the best things I’ve ever read. I’m in awe of how Jean Auel can create a whole society and culture for Neanderthals out of the very little we really know about them. And yes, parts of it are based on research that has since been debunked, but the story already had a toe dipped into fantasy in the first place with its concept of genetic memory, so it’s easy to just see those bits as more of the fantasy world-building.
3 Likes
Price reduction at Comixology for the Black Cat series, binge-read 8 issues in one sitting. Jed MacKay writes a fun adventure (and creepy adventures too, as he’s also started writing the new Moon Knight series).
It’s nice to revisit Marvel, as they were such a big part of my youth
3 Likes
The only light novels I’ve read are the first three volumes of The Devil is a Part-Timer. It’s sort of like reading a screenplay (or reading a James M. Cain novel, which is also like reading a screenplay).
I take these are a little meatier?
4 Likes
I have one of those one of my kids didn’t want. I’ll have to give it a try.
5 Likes
Currently, I’m reading all of Bram Stoker’s novels, because I’ve been re-writing his last novel, Lair of the White Worm, which he clearly didn’t finish and, in parts, may not have even written. I’m on Mysteries of the Sea.
About five years ago, I started on a journey to read all my books that I had not yet read. Of the 800 or so fiction books, I have read about 200 in that time (and yes, probably another 200 that weren’t in the shelves when I started). I have about 200 to go.
On that front I’m on “T”, so “The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories” by Tolstoy is next. However, I have a Leigh Bracket novel in double-Ace form so I’ll probably read that first.
4 Likes
Thanks in part to the Ringheads podcast, I’ve been rereading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
7 Likes
I got a used copy of Mike Nelson’s Mind over Matters that I’ve been enjoying. Also rereading Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster after I started listening to the musical soundtrack again.
5 Likes
Honestly? Kind of a big meh. I’m about 20 pages from the end so I’m going to finish, but nothing about it grabbed me. I used to eat up just about anything he wrote in the 80s and 90s but I dunno if he ran out of things to say about Newford or just went off in a direction that’s not so interesting to me or what.
4 Likes