Reading anything?

[lester1/2jr]

inevitably history gets turned into a one dimensional tale with heroes and villains out of central casting. Liberals do that with FDR who had many bad ideas as chronicaled by unpopular revisionists like Garet Garrett in Peoples Pottage. Everyone's starving: lets kill thousands of pigs!

[indianasmith]

FDR's actions with the AAA saved American agriculture, according to many.  He was a very complex and Machiavellian character; I think many of his New Deal actions were absolutely necessary at the time, but led to unintended negative consequences.  I do think he usually meant well, and had the sense to abandon initiatives that did not work.  Conrad Black wrote an excellent biography of him a few years ago.

[lester1/2jr]

I don't think they saved anything. If they had it would have been called the not that bad Depression, instead it was Great. He ended prohibition though so that helps his legacy in libertarian terms.

[Rev. Powell]

"One Human Minute" by Stanislaw Lem. A collection of three fake book reviews from the Polish science fiction author.

Also, I picked up Roger Ebert's "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie" again for my bathroom reading.

[lester1/2jr]

I used to read this book "Hollywood talks turkey" at the library in college. It was epic, amazing

[Newt]

Mallowan's Memoirs (1977) by Sir Max Mallowan.  (Subtitled on the cover "Agatha and the Archaeologist": he was married to Agatha Christie.)   A very dense book - it's astounding how 'small' the world was once upon a time; everyone you have heard of interacted with everyone else who has become 'known'.    Between the (now famous) archaeological adventures and the personal notes on Ms Christie's doings they make a fascinating couple.  Hearing it in Sir Max's own words brings it all closer.

Tolkien: a Look Behind "The Lord of the Rings" by Lin Carter (1969).  A compilation of essays on many aspects of the trilogy.  This one is fun because being from 1969 it acts as a 'time capsule' of a sort.  I remember 1969...and 'discovered' LOTR in the mid/late-70's, so Carter's views are both nostalgic and revealing to me. 

[JaseSF]

Started reading The Box by Richard Matheson. Actually it's a collection of short stories that are so far proving somewhat interesting and different in that the lead protagonist is often a detestable and unlikable character.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

Moushey and Dvorchak's
Game Over :
Jerry Sandusky, Penn State, and the Culture of Silence.

A couple of reporters take on the story. Fair and balanced. Concise, but complete, up till the date it was published. Of course, events have now overtaken it.

Steve Coll's
Private Empire
Exxon/Mobil and American Power
His 7th work of non-fiction

Everything you wanted to know about Exxon/Mobil and more. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Ben Taylor's
Apocalypse on the Set
Nine Disatrous Film Productions

Perhaps, not so much disatrous as difficult productions of films that were financial successes. Financial failures. Critical successes. Critical failures. Not much similiarity between the films, except that bad news is better than good news. And if the film press can't find bad news in a production, they'll make it up. One more knock on the book is that most of the stories are already well known.

Tracie McMillan's
The American Way of Eating
Undercover at Walmart, Applebees, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table.
Authoress' 1st book

She begins in the farm fields of California, working as a migrant picker, then goes to her home state of Michigan, where she covers the middle in the food process working at a Walmart, and then she goes to New York City, where she covers the end of the food process working at an Applebee's. And then returns to Michigan to work in a different Walmart. And  the last chapter provides hints on how people can eat healthier and better, if cheaper.

I'll give her credit as having more courage than I do, because I wouldn't have the courage to do what she does. She also has a personality that allows her to succeed.

Next time continuing with fiction and a graphic novel read.

[ER]

Recently finished Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, and enjoyed it. I used to say she was a better storyteller than a writer (not a put-down, it's a trait many authors share) but this novel was well-written and impressively literary. I look forward to her next work!

[Bushma]

I just finished Day by Day Armageddon: Shattered Hourglass third/last book in the series.  I didn't like the way this one was written compared to the first two, and I didn't like the ending either.  Oh well.

[lester1/2jr]

David Stockman "the Great Deformation" Amazing so far

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

Three mystery novels and a graphic novel.

Qiu Xiaolong's
"Don't Cry Tai Lake"
8th in the Inspector Chen series. Also a poet and translator of Chinese poetry into English.

Who killed the Chinese industrialist? Was it his wife? His son? His mistress? An underling? A business rival? The enviromentalist?

A reminder that politics is more deeply embedded into a criminal investigation over there, then it is even here.

Robin Blake's
"A Dark Anatomy"
1st in the Cragg and Fidelis' series

A lawyer (middle age, married, a Christian) joins forces with a doctor (younger, single, an atheist) to discover who murdered the squire's wife, who has some real dark secrets, especially for 18th century England, when and where the mystery takes place.

Donna Leon's
"Beastly Things"
the 21st in the Commissario's Guido Brunetti series. Since most, if not all, of the books in the series take place in Venice, she has also written a guidebook to Venice and a Venetian cookbook.

Who killed the slaughterhouse vet? And what does his death, if anything, have to do with what is going on at the slaughterhouse?

And the graphic novel.

Gail Corrigan's
"Soulless"

1st we have the werewolves, who travel in a pack and are always headed by an alpha male, who is seconded by an alpha female and a beta male.

Then we have the vampires, who travel in a hive, and are headed by a male or a female, with the rest of the vampires being known as drones.Actually, the head vampire determines the sexual orientation of the other vampires. If the head is a male, then the other vampires are homosexual, but if the head is female, then the other vampires are heterosexual.

The werewolves and the vampires don't like each other or trust each other, but they will work with each other.

There are werewolves and vampires that are solo operators. The werewolves being called loners, and the vampires being called bleeders, but they are more vulnerable.

Then there are the humans who neither like nor trust the werewolves nor vampires, but who use then anyway. The werewolves for their brawn, and the vampires for their brains.

And then there is the last group, the soulless, who are the most dangerous, as they can kill with a touch, at least werewolfves and vampires, and who are used to keep everyone else in line.

Pluses: the illustrations which are done by the Japanese, and the secondary characters in the story.

Negatives: the human villain, who is not effective as a villain, and the unnecessary violence.

Next time: more recommendations.

[ER]

A Life magazine from April 1945 I found in a thrift store. The best fifteen cents I've spent on something that wasn't edible.

In fact, this is it right here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=B1AEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

(Doesn't the future queen look purdy?)

[RCMerchant]

Stephan King's 11/22/63. It concerns a man who goes back in time to try and prevent the assasination of JFK. Very long book! But excellent! One of his best!

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

Charles Todd's
The Confession
14th in the Ian Rutledge Mystery series

After WWI, people are dieing and disappearing from a family estate in a village near London. Who is responsible?


Elizabeth George's
Believing the Lie
18th in the Inspector Lynley novels. Also writer of one non-fiction book and two books of short stories.

A man dies while out boating on a lake near the family estate. Was it accident, or was it murder? As Lynley investigates, at the behest of the family, other family secrets come out.

This starts out as one thing. Then morphs into something else. Then morphs into something else again. And then morps into several something elses. Besides all the morphs, it is long for a mystery. Most mysteries run between 200 and 400 pages, but this runs somewhere between 500 and 700 pages. Long, but readable.


Ian Rankin's
The Impossible Dead
2nd in the Matthew Fox series

Fox investigates an accident that may not have been an accident.

I actually like this series better than the author's better known Rebus series. Fox actually shows up in the next Rebus novel after this one.


Eleanor Kuhns'
A simple murder
1st novel

When an ex-soldier, ex-farmer, now a traveling weaver, becomes the main suspect in the murder of several members of a Shaker village in New England at the end of the 18th century, he stays on to try and solve the mystery. While working to solve the murders, he finds romance with an ex-Shaker gal and re-establishes a relationship with his teenage son, who he has not seen for several years.

Enter a contest for best first novel and win. A bit rough, like most first novels, but you can see why the authoress won. She certainly has a talent for writing. Of course, the question is: "Where does her character go from here?"


And just a name, a title, and a recommendation.

Hilary Davidson's
The Next One to Fall
2nd novel


Next time: a half dozen graphic novels