Martini Musing - What I’m Reading
I was recently tagged by Terry Starbucker for the “book meme.” This is a tough one since I’m addicted to reading. Left alone in a car, I’ll root around until I find something to read while I wait - old supermarket flyer, the car’s owner manual, anything. And, honestly, if the dentist could figure out a way I could read while he drills away, I could happily stay in the chair for hours.
Total Number of Books Owned: Somewhere between 500 and 600 (not counting four shelves of cookbooks). I donated at least a thousand to the library when I moved last year.
Last Book Read: I usually have at least five books going at one time - from junk food reading to serious topics. Here’s what I’m working on this week. (I’m not inserting Amazon links since all of these should be at your local library, for free. I save literally thousands a year thanks to Albuquerque’s wonderful library system.)
1. Letters From Nuremberg, by Senator Christopher Dodd about his father’s work at the Nuremberg trials. Having recently visited the city and being a WWII history buff, I’m particularly interested in the personal perspective provided by Dodd’s letters to his wife (the Senator’s mother.)
2. Find Me the latest from Carol O’Connell, with her woman detective protagonist, Mallory. Nothing warm, fuzzy or cozy about this woman or mystery series.
3. Last House by M.F.K. Fisher (I’ve had this one forever but didn’t want to read it because it’s her last book. I have a little fantasy that some day I’ll be the M.F.K. Fisher of bloggers.)
4. Re-reading The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher. Great bedtime “dip in” reading - a compilation of several of her books.
5. Finishing up Dizzy City. Great ripping good read about a WWI British deserter who comes to NYC to make his fortune…as a con artist.
Also on the bed table…Olivia and the Missing Toy (makes me smile)…and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
Five Meaningful Books:
1. Lifelines, Holding On and Letting Go by Forrest Church. Literally changed my life.
2. The Glory and The Dream, by William Manchester. A two-volume history of the U.S. - gives you some great perspective.
3. The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell. WWI, sociology and human folly…and we’re still doing the same damned dumb stuff.
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We strive, we lie, we fail, we do stupid things in pursuit of status and love. The story is timeless…and the words are incredible.
5. Probably the single best book I’ve ever read: The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. Ripping good read and a work of art. I read it cover to cover on a flight from NYC to Albuquerque a few years ago. Barely aware I was even on a plane. (Well, he did win a Pulitzer Prize.)
For fun, I also highly recommend anything by James Lee Burke (most recent read, The Tin Roof Blowdown) or Robert B. Parker…although I’m really tired of Parker’s lead women characters. They’re smug, completely self-absorbed twits who are the be-all, end-all great loves of the male protagonists. I recommend you just skip over the passages when Spenser starts in about the wonder that is Susan or Jesse Stone goes on (and on and on) about his soul-deep connection with Jen, the slutty, not real bright weather girl. Geez, guys. Grow a pair…of eyes and cojones. Parker’s female version of Spenser, Sunny Randall, is the same melodramatic tune, different pronouns. Give it up Sunny girl, your great love is married to someone else. All that said ranted - this is why I like Parker’s writing - you get invested in the characters, what they do, what they say, how they interact. Not too shabby for a popular “detective” writer.
I’ll be back at the library this afternoon restocking the pile for the weekend - hope they have the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic book graphic novel.
Have a great weekend! I’ll be - um - reading.
Tags: Friday martini time, Mary Schmidt, reading
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November 30th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
The Hours is one of my all time favorites as well. I was blown away by the craftsmanship Cunningham displayed in it. I read it immediately after rereading Mrs. Dalloway and it was just a wonderful pair-up. (Mrs Dalloway is another of my all-time favorites, which I suppose helps).
I remember thinking, “If I could write something like this, I’d die happy.”
It’s also one of the few cases where a novel has been made into a movie that actually works, despite the difference in forms. The film didn’t move me the way the book did, but I thought it was good - and I was ready to be horribly disappointed.
On a less happy note, I recently watched the film adaption of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Atwood is another of my favorite writers, and movie was just so flat, and had the inevitable bad Hollywood ending tacked on… it made me want to reread the book to try to blot the memory of the film from my mind.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
[…] Another bit of confirmation came when she talked about books she’s been reading identified The Hours by Michael Cunningham as one of her favorite books. […]
December 1st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Mary,
1. Agree completely with you about Parker’s women. I won’t read the Sunny Randall novels at all but love Spenser.
2. I’m blessed in living right across the street from a branch library. When a book comes out, I can go online to the library’s web site and reserve it. I receive and e-mail and walk right across the street to pick it up.
3. Like you, I also look for something to read in the car when waiting in the bank line or the fast food line. Try dailylit.com. If you have a cellphone that gets email, you can get books sent right to your cellphone. They send them to you 1000 words at a time, just like a serial. That’s what I read in the car now or when I’m waiting at an airport.
4. Thanks for the recommendations. I’m going to the library’s Web site right now.
Regards,
Glenn
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Hi Mary! Thanks for responding to the tag (quite marvelously, I might add). I had you pegged as a big book reader and I wasn’t disappointed. I look forward to our next get-together so we can sip a few lattes and trade book reviews (SOBCon08, I hope?).
All the best,
Terry
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 am
Hmmm…reading my cellphone, that sounds dangerous for a bookalholic like me
John - Yes, The Handmaiden’s Tale movie was pretty awful…but then it was a difficult story to film.
Terry - Hope to see you somewhere sometime - When is SOBCon08???
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I must say Mary, I’m terribly disappointed to not see any SciFi or Space Opera in that listing.
I personally recommend, fwiw, in the SciFi/Space Opera genre:
* Lois McMaster Bujold - specially the Vorkosigan series. Wonderful characters. Very cheering to read. My “read when down and out with a cold/flu” books.
* David Webber - pretty much everything - less focus on characters, more on blowing things up.
* Recently a good friend loaned me her copies of the Vatta War series from Elizabeth Moon. Wife was getting antsy at me - reading till 2am is frowned on by the “trying to sleep”er.
Obviously the late great Douglas Adams. A tear was brought to my eye at the end of the recent Hitchhikers movie when the Heart of Gold “flipped” through his face on it’s way on. Sniff….
If you enjoy the highly amusing absurd, Terry Pratchett - anything - is emphatically recommended. The book he did with Neil Gamin “Good Omens”… well lets just say I’m on my 2nd copy. The first long ago succumbed to re-reads.
Cheers!
- Steve
December 4th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Steve,
If I l isted everything I’ve read, love, keep around…I’d still be typing. Thanks for the tips re authors. And, I love “Good Omens!” I pull off the shelf and re-read every couple of years. I’m also a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels. (Note to non-geeks reading this: “graphic novels” are decidely not the comic books you remember from grade school.)
As long as we’re on graphic novels - Frank Miller’s Sin City, Hellblazer, Hellboy, Joss Whedon’s Fray. Joss Whedon’s Ultimate X-Men.
Dune is one of the all time greats, but I think Herbert rapidly went off the rails. #2 was okay, the rest got increasingly tired and weird (if such a combination makes any sense.)
December 4th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Heh. Know the feeling with the lists of books.
Re Good Omens. We were doing some gardening on the weekend. Wife was pulling out some agapanthus. She put these in pots in front of the others down that side of the house, while she kept working.
She told me later she had this little conversation going through her head, re the scene describing the plants in Crowleys flat.
“And our friends here just didn’t quite cut it….”
I’m only mildly terrified for my own shelf life at this point.
Cheers!
- Steve