What Are You Reading

[LizzieMaine]

Statesman: George Mitchell and the Art Of The Possible, by Douglas Brooks. Not my usual type of fare, but an Uncorrected Page Proof of this upcoming biography of the former Senator was given to me for Christmas, so I've been paging thru it.

I knew Mitchell and interviewed him many times when he was a senator and I was a radio reporter, and I always found him a very pleasant, cordial, thoughful man, and that's the portrait that emerges from this bio -- he's revealed as a man who never made a move without carefully mulling over the issue on the table and who refused to put ideology ahead of what was best for his constituents. He's also revealed as something of a cheapskate and tightwad, who did not pay his staff well, until he was embarassed by the fact that one of his key DC staffers had to take a second job working in a video-rental shop to pay her rent. Costs more to live in Washington than it does in Maine, you know.

I always regret that George Mitchell never became Commissioner of Baseball, because he'd have been a hell of a lot better in that job than that meathead Selig.

I also note from the cover photo that he's still wearing the same set of dentures he had when I used to interview him. Thrifty Mainer to the core.

 

[Fading Fast]

I learned yesterday that Patrick Stewart tried his hand as Scrooge, will have to catch this sometime.

We watched it yesterday. It's a good version, not great. Stewart does an admirable job, but doesn't threaten to replace Reginald Owen in the '38 or Alastair Sim in the '51 versions as my favorite Scrooges. Also, the very early CGI looks horribly cheesy.

 

[Harp]

Stewart does an admirable job... or Alastair Sim in the '51 versions as my favorite Scrooges...

I believe Sim also was feature actor in An Inspector Calls-he had credibility and presence, and for me put his stamp on Scrooge.
Dickens wrote a role about a lightning in a glass curmudgeon turned around by ghosts, an elusive and mercurial protagonist
whose inner being probably isn't easy for any actor to capture much less run away with.

 

[Fading Fast]

Over the Christmas Holiday (and plane trip to and from Michigan), I read "Mildred Pierce." After having seen both the '45 movie (several times) and the '11 HBO mini-series, I wanted to read the book to learn the "real" or, at least, original-source-material story.

I will avoid spoilers, but will say that both stories differ in one big way from the book. Also, the HBO series is closer to the book than the movie, but to be fair, being a mini-series it had more time to do what the movie had all of two hours to accomplish.

I really enjoyed the novel as it's a well-written page-turner of a soap opera that, being of the period, truly puts you in the period as there is no revisionist history at work, no seeing the period through modern politics or cultural norms. Thus, you feel the desperation of the depression - the fear that formerly middle-class America had as it saw jobs disappear, wealth evaporate and opportunity fade away. Having grown up with two parents who lived through the depression in their youth and never forgot it - and imparted its fears and concerns to me regularly - it felt very accurate and alive to me.

Also, the interpersonal relationships felt real - messy, inconsistent, passionate - like in life where, over time, what matters is the underlying character of the person, not some stupid surface issue or moment of youthful dumbness.

Away from that, it was enjoyable to learn the broader backstory of the characters, especially, secondary characters like Wally Burgan, Lucy Gessler and Mrs. Biederhof.

Finally, for fans of the movie (not a real spoiler coming), I will mention that Veda is as horrible a child in the book as she is in the two movies. Just an absolutely hateful child.

 

[Tommy]

John Steinbeck - Cannery Row

 

[AmateisGal]

Spoils of Victory by John A. Connell, a post-WW2 mystery novel set in Germany in 1946.

 

[Fading Fast]

Just started "Glimpses of the Moon" by Edith Wharton - one of the few books of hers that I haven't read.

 

[Harp]

Edith Wharton - one of the few books of hers that I haven't read.

Edith fascinates, The House of Mirth is a favorite of mine.

 

[Fading Fast]

Edith fascinates, The House of Mirth is a favorite of mine.

"House of Mirth" is in the top-five of my all-time favorite books. About half way in and "Glimpses of the Moon" is no "House of Mirth." It's a decent read so far, but no more. "House of Mirth" lifted off from page one and just kept soaring.

 

[Harp]

Considering Ben Bradlee Jr's study of Ted Williams, The Kid. Acute baseball withdrawl setting in, need to refocus after the series where
the Cubs' plate inconsistency; especially in games 4 & 5 when failure to establish and maintain a disciplined strike zone against Cleveland pitching
almost allowed the Indians to sweep-Maddon's over-management hooking Hendricks in game 7 is another rankle-but we won. Luck is fickle though,
and Williams, faults and all, stands tall as a deliberate methodical slugger.

 

[apba1166]

James Salter's Burning the Days (memoir) with doses of an H.P. Lovecraft collection now and then.

 

[Fading Fast]

Finished Edith Wharton's "Glimpses of the Moon."

While I can still say Wharton doesn't know how to write a bad book, good is the best I can say of this one.

Wharton feels enervated here as if she was out of fresh ideas and mishmashed "House of Mirth" with a few other stories to spit out a novel. This one lacks the depth of character development and credible / intricate plotting of her best offerings while stretching believability with too many coincidental meetings, etc.

There are astute social observations and sharp insight on human nature (she does those things in her sleep), but it doesn't add up to anything more than a decent read. And I was annoyed at, at least, one of the characters I was suppose to like and admire.

My next EW read will fill a gapping hole in me EW reading - "The Custom of the Country."

 

[Tiki Tom]

Currently 75% through "the lost city of z" by David Grann. All about the British explorer Percy Fawcett, the Royal Geographical Society, and amazon exploration from about 1890 through the 1920s. Enjoyable in so far as it paints a lively picture of the era; a lot of coming and going on ocean liners, and a lot of cameo appearances by notables of the day. Also a lot of backward ideas and bigotry. Percy Fawcett is a bit too obsessive and Victorian for my tastes ...and his poor wife and family suffer tremendously in the service of his romantic pipe dreams.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Working thru some issues of the 1930s "independent Left" political magazine "Common Sense." It's an interesting publication, with contributors drawn from a broad, undefined pool of Socialists, Trotskyites, LaFollette progressives, Farmer-Labor types, muckrakers, poets, novelists, and cartoonists. The editor, Alfred Bingham, was one of the more vocal figures on the intellectual left during the thirties, and while the magazine does offer an outlet for a broad range of ideas that were otherwise not well represented in the mainstream press, it lacks the focus and proletarian vigor of "New Masses."

The November 1936 issue is representative of the lot, with the highlight being an interview, by Upton Sinclair, of Elizabeth Dilling, author and future Fascist, whose was, to Sinclair's eternal amazement and amusement, the only red-baiter in the world so red-baity as to find a way to call ultra-right-wing columnist and National Association of Manufacturers flack George Sokolsky a Red.

There's also a very interesting discussion of the LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee's findings on the use of espionage tactics by employers against employees. The Pinkerton Agency in the previous two years, according to the committee, was paid more than $2,000,000 by companies seeking to keep their employees under surveillance in and out of the workplace, with Pinkerton just the largest of several detective firms reaping big profits from this practice.

The book review section includes two extremely prescient volumes: "Rich Land, Poor Land," by Stuart Chase, and "Waste: The Fight To Save America," by David Cushman Coyle. These books were among the earliest to sound a warning about environmental catastrophes in the offing if steps toward land and resource conservation were not taken soon, and sound like they'd make for very interesting reading even today.

 

[Harp]

James Salter's Burning the Days (memoir)....

The Hunters is an excellent psychological study of a combat unit.
__________

With the Pegasus inaugural mere weeks away, TD Thornton's (a racetrack degenerate's racetrack degenerate) splendid Suffolk Downs
memoir, Not By A Long Shot is revisited yet again. The Pegasus appears to be a bit chalky citing Arrogate and California Chrome in its lineup
but the purse will prove handle.

 

[DNO]

Currently 75% through "the lost city of z" by David Grann. All about the British explorer Percy Fawcett, the Royal Geographical Society, and amazon exploration from about 1890 through the 1920s. Enjoyable in so far as it paints a lively picture of the era; a lot of coming and going on ocean liners, and a lot of cameo appearances by notables of the day. Also a lot of backward ideas and bigotry. Percy Fawcett is a bit too obsessive and Victorian for my tastes ...and his poor wife and family suffer tremendously in the service of his romantic pipe dreams.

I enjoyed that one...his description of all the nasties that can threaten/infect you in the Amazon area will certainly ensure my avoidance of the area!

 

[DNO]

Currently reading Robert Parker's 'Brimstone'. Just found a copy of Ambrose's 'Pegasus Bridge' in a thrift store. I think that'll be next... 'Up the Oxs and Bucks', to quote The Longest Day.

 

[AmateisGal]

Getting ready to start The Dog Who Could Fly: The Incredible True Story of a WWII Airman and the Four-Legged Hero Who Flew at His Side by Damien Lewis.

 

[Fading Fast]

Getting ready to start The Dog Who Could Fly: The Incredible True Story of a WWII Airman and the Four-Legged Hero Who Flew at His Side by Damien Lewis.

Sounds fantastic, just ordered a copy for my girlfriend (and me ), but I know it is right up her alley.

 

[AmateisGal]

Sounds fantastic, just ordered a copy for my girlfriend (and me ), but I know it is right up her alley.

It's quite the story! I'm really enjoying it.