When it comes to books I'm mostly on a light-reading kick anymore, mainly to wind down from dealing with / responding to the shit news the world keeps bringing us. Like this.
Relatively speaking, at least. Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics and the Building of Modern Philadelphia isn't exactly a beach book, but it's great subway reading that takes my mind off other things for a while...
I just saw that piece, too. Awful. Really awful. There are a lot of good reasons at the moment to try and take one's mind off things. At least for a while. Anything that works, frankly.
Coffee maker accomplished! I purposely bought a smaller model, so I can cut down on the stuff. The past week or so has been good for me. I've learned to live on just 12 - 16 ounces a day. Will probably save me a couple hundred dollars a year, too, since I spend $14 - $18 on 12-ounce bags of beans from my local favorite roaster, ReAnimator Coffee.
Never read it, never any interest. I can't remember precisely what I read in the equivalent of high school but it was probably Gogol, Pushkin, John Milton, Swift, JS Mill.
Never given to us as an assignment. By the time I heard of it what I had heard were all the allusions to Mark David Chapman and every other Manchurian Candidate paranoid conspiracy movie. I do recall being handed a copy of Samuel Butler's "Erehwon" by Lit person who thought it was in some ways the model for social satire used by Salinger.
BTW have you ever read "The Devil in Bucks County" It's great little period piece, a satire of mid 1950's suburban upper middle class life. Not quite as depressing and angry as "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates. Edmund Schiddel always gets panned as a pulp author but so do Stephen King and PK Dick.
What the heck is that?
ReplyDeleteHolden helped me through high school, Shirlee.
DeleteThe sun is beginning to go down.
Good Sabbath to you, my friend.
Never read that one.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to books I'm mostly on a light-reading kick anymore, mainly to wind down from dealing with / responding to the shit news the world keeps bringing us. Like this.
Relatively speaking, at least. Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics and the Building of Modern Philadelphia isn't exactly a beach book, but it's great subway reading that takes my mind off other things for a while...
Jay,
DeleteI just saw that piece, too.
Awful. Really awful.
There are a lot of good reasons at the moment to try and take one's mind off things. At least for a while. Anything that works, frankly.
OT,
Hope you got your new coffeemaker sorted.
Still haven't gotten it yet! Tomorrow, definitely, though.
DeleteOk. Very good luck with that! :-)
DeleteCoffee maker accomplished! I purposely bought a smaller model, so I can cut down on the stuff. The past week or so has been good for me. I've learned to live on just 12 - 16 ounces a day. Will probably save me a couple hundred dollars a year, too, since I spend $14 - $18 on 12-ounce bags of beans from my local favorite roaster, ReAnimator Coffee.
Delete"The Ghost Map" - a book about the 1854 London cholera plague is pretty good. It's literally a book about shit.
DeleteDefecation has a history, too.
DeleteCoffee maker accomplished !
ReplyDeleteFantastic!
Great to hear something going right.
Hope you and new coffee maker have long and successful partnership together.
Never read it, never any interest. I can't remember precisely what I read in the equivalent of high school but it was probably Gogol, Pushkin, John Milton, Swift, JS Mill.
ReplyDeleteSo, no Salinger fans, eh?
DeleteCatcher in the Rye is an iconic book and, probably, the most overrated book of the twentieth-century.
Don't get me wrong. It is a terrific book and it meant a lot to many of us growing up.
I think that it was very easy for teenage boys in the latter part of the century to relate to Holden Caulfied who, indeed, did not like phonies.
I know that some editors thought that the character of Holden was "crazy" and that this was deeply insulting to Salinger, because Holden is Salinger.
btw, I have given up my Sunday column for the Elder.
Not that I have anything against the Elder, but it was becoming harder and harder to see the point.
Never given to us as an assignment. By the time I heard of it what I had heard were all the allusions to Mark David Chapman and every other Manchurian Candidate paranoid conspiracy movie. I do recall being handed a copy of Samuel Butler's "Erehwon" by Lit person who thought it was in some ways the model for social satire used by Salinger.
DeleteBTW have you ever read "The Devil in Bucks County" It's great little period piece, a satire of mid 1950's suburban upper middle class life. Not quite as depressing and angry as "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates. Edmund Schiddel always gets panned as a pulp author but so do Stephen King and PK Dick.