What Are You Reading

[LordBest]

The Vicky Bliss Mysteries by Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Metz.
Oddly compelling, if only because of my archaeology/art history background and the fact the heroine reminds me of a close friend.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just starting "Walt And Skeezix, Volume 4," the long-awaited latest volume in the ongoing effort to reprint the entire first thirty years of Frank King's "Gasoline Alley," the most remarkable comic strip of the Golden Era -- a day-to-day picture of everyday life in which everyone aged in real time. This volume covers the events of 1927 and 1928, as young Skeezix makes his way thru grammar school, deals with the travails of childhood -- and is kidnapped by his biological father. Later in the volume, he gets a little brother, as Walt and his wife Phyllis welcome their firstborn, Corky, to the family.

If you've only read the modern-day Gasoline Alley, where Corky is 82 and still flipping hamburgers for a living, Skeezix is a grouchy 91, and poor Uncle Walt is a doddering 111-year-old, you'll be astonished by the emotional depth of the early strips. King was a great novelist trapped in a cartoonist's body.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Just Picked up Dante's Divine Comedy. I'll be starting it soon.


Lee

 

[Wire9Vintage]

I'll start Guns, Germs and Steel as soon as I do my dissertation defense next week. I need to shift gears in my brain in a big, big way!

 

[Fletch]

Through Finland in Carts (1897), by Ethel B. (Mrs Alec) Tweedie.
I first heard of this travelogue in an essay by Calvin Trillin, whom I assumed was making it up. But no, it's a real book telling of a visit to that handsome land of wood and water in a day when few outsiders went there - when it was a Russian possession where the educated all spoke Swedish, and it was quite possible to get along in German.

 

[John Boyer]

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Reading, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Frog n' Duras arrived today

Peace,

John

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

Hi ThesFlishThngs - is the book any good?
I have read mixed reviews.
I have read - Flapper: a madcap story of sex, style, celebrity, and the women who made America modern / Joshua Zeitz - It was okay, not great.
But it would be great to read an English side of things.

I am finding it enjoyable. Though I haven't read "Flapper", I've gone through most of the Scott and Zelda biographical material, and things like "All Night Party":

So, as you mentioned, it is nice to get the British perspective which was both very similar and very different. Of course, "Bright Young Things" has been one of my favorite films for ages, and while I accept that it veers somewhat from Waugh's original "Vile Bodies", there's no argument that the frenetic energy and atmosphere remains.
At just over halfway through, "Bright Young People" is giving me the urge to delve deeper into some of the lesser known characters of the British scene.

 

[Harp]

Game Theory, Predictability, and Route Selection, Captain Brandon Colas, US Army Professional Forum; Infantry/July 2009.

The role of instinct in counterinsurgency operations.

Applicable to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Vegas Strip.

 

[deadpandiva]

Pride and Prejudice. I am enjoying it very much.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I picked this up at a local library sale today:

Tango!: The Dance, The Song, The Story by Simon Collier, et al.
London: Thames and Hudson, 1995

 

[JennyLou]

Just finished Eat, Pray, Loy by Elizabeth Gilbert and Los Angeles Diaries by James Brown. Now I'm working on 'Tis by Frank McCourt.

I like how even though I don't have money I can still read from the library. Not many other hobbies are like that.

 

[Harp]

...Now I'm working on 'Tis by Frank McCourt.

I like how even though I don't have money I can still read from the library. Not many other hobbies are like that.

I never finished McCourt's prize, Angela's Ashes for some reason or other, and 'Tis has been high on my list since forever.
No overdue book fees?
I keep a bar tab. lol

 

[skyvue]

I interviewed Frank McCourt once, and I somehow expected him to be a twinkly-eyed, warm Irish uncle type. He wasn't at all -- he was kind of gruff, bordering on cranky -- at first, anyway.

As the interview progressed, though, he began to warm up a bit. At one point, he said, "Young man, you have a very nice way with an interview. You should be on television." I told him I was flattered he thought so -- perhaps he'd be willing to make some calls on my behalf? He just smiled.

I just finished A Bright and Guilty Place: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming of Age by Richard Rayner, which I highly recommend to anyone who's interested in the history of Los Angeles. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wrote a short appreciation of it here (it's too quick a take to quite qualify as a review).

Now I'm reading You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon by Lenny Kaye, which concerns the life and careers of Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, and Russ Columbo. It is interesting enough, but I can't quite get behind Kaye's prose stylings, which is a shame. It could have been a terrific book. I'll finish it because I'm interested in the story and Kaye's insights, but it will be a bit of a slog.

 

[JennyLou]

Oh, I do have overdue fees but I try to keep it at a minimum and try to give them back in time.

 

[Antje]

I'm now reading Max Havelaar, by Multatuli

 

[MisterCairo]

I've just finished "Harlequin" by Bernard Cornwell, historic fiction author probably best known for the Sharpe series. Harlequin is the first of three books on the start of what we call the Hundred Years War, with a search for the Holy Grail thrown in for good measure. On to book two!

 

[Kate O Potato]

The Long-player Goodbye: The Album from Vinyl to IPod and Back Again by Travis Elborough. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it is really interesting.

 

[KittyT]

Currently reading "Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty" by Nancy Etcoff, a book about the evolutionary role of "beauty" (among many other things). Pretty fascinating book, but I find her writing style to be a bit meandering, and the structure of her book to be a tad confusing.

 

[Feraud]

Just started reading Sugar: A Bitterweet History by Elizabeth Abbott.

 

[Tenuki]

I'm reading Margaret Atwood's "Moral Disorders," which is described as short stories about a woman through different stages in her life. I'm not far enough into the book to see how this differs from her usual style of jumping chapters through time. Though this lack of understanding doesn't detract from the reading enjoyment. Perhaps my partner's speculation will prove correct: it's short stories because Miss Atwood couldn't weave a plot to connect the chapters.