One of the things about retirement that I have enjoyed the most is getting back to reading. So far, I have read seven books. The latest is Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion. It is a brutal look at life and the deals we make with each other to make it work. The movie version came out in the early 70’s and was one of my favorites, starring Tuesday Well, Anthony Perkins and Tammy Grimes among others. My friend in Memphis, Lester Nunalle took me to see it for the first time and we must have seen it four for five times together after that. The lead character is Maria (Marya) and she says at the end, I know what nothing means, and keep on playing. Why, BZ would say. Why not, I say”. Brutal
I also read My American Dream, A life of Love, Family, and Food by Lidia Bastianich. It is a memoir. Lidia has a cooking show that is usually scheduled on Saturday afternoons. It is one of my favorites. I also have one of her cookbooks.
I also read Stephen King’s new horror fest, The Outsider – creepy and scary, and a Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child mystery, City of Endless Night. Also read (a great read), the Bill Clinton and James Patterson thriller, The President is Missing. Lastly, I have Arthur C. Clarke’s A Fall of Moondust. Arthur C. Clarke also wrote 2001 – A Space Odyssey.
I also read a very Gothic thriller called The Little Stranger – extremely creepy. They actually made a move of this book starring Charlotte Rampling (8/30/18). Just got a Nordic thriller called Nightblind by RagnarJonasson.
Done with Night-Blind, I will now move on to Jams Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk.
I read it years ago. It is well deserving of a revisit. So, I am reading the Baldwin book. I have certain pages circled and brackets around certain lines or paragraphs. When Philip Hamilton and I were rereading all the Baldwin books in preparation for Ezekiel’s Wheel, that is what I did. We ultimately decided to abstract the ideas and came up with the three R’s of James Baldwin, themes that appeared in all the novels, Recognition – Responsibility and Redemption. It was the right way to go. Here is a short passage from the book.
“I guess it can’t be too often that two people can laugh and make love, too, make love because they are laughing, laugh because they are making love. The love and the laughter come from the same place: but not many people go there”. AMAZING!
The Dark Lake was a bust – four hundred pages with a female detective as the protagonist. She was annoying and completely unsympathetic. I did not enjoy it at all. I have much hope for the latest John Grisham book, The Rooster Bar.
The Grisham book was a huge disappointment – I had to make myself finish it. Here’s to P. D. James!!!
This was one of my favorite novels when I was in high school. It was made into a movie starring Natalie Wood. I hope it still resonates.
This is an amazing book. It is the first in a trilogy. It is a reread. Fox will debut a new series based on the three books on Monday January 14, 2019. Good luck.. The plotting is impeccable, extremely complex but easy to follow. Can’t wait.
This is book #2.
The Finale!!
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Here’s hoping that this is good. It was most annoying.
This is a re-read. I am taking it on our trip to Minneapolis.
They are doing a new series on Netflix. It is odd because at the end of this book, Anna Madrigal dies at Burning Man. The Netflix series is OK. We’ll see ow it develops.
This is one of three order mysteries written by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I have heard great things. Looking forward to getting started! Unfortunately, this book was twice as long as it should have been – overblown and overinflated.
Let’s hope this is better. It was reviewed very positively by Stephen King in the New York Times. Here’s hoping. It was one of the best books I have read in a long time!!
Just got back from the Dallas Public Library. There is a local branch across the street. After I read a bunch of books, I donate them to the library. They are always most appreciative. It is a good thing.
This is the latest. Don’t know much about it.We’ll see. It turned out being a bit too hysterical.
This is the next – hopefully a change of pace. It is described as something like The Hunger Games. I have postponed reading this. It is like The Hunger Games but I am not ready to invest in figuring out the mythology.
This book got an amazing review – the scariest book I have ever read. Sounds promising. It enjoyed the writing. Scary is not quite the word I would use and the ending was a bit hard to accept.
Back to Anne Rice and vampires. We will see. At least it’s not too long. I will give it a try. I did enjoy the writing but the number of characters was a bit much. It assumed a great knowledge of previous Rice novels.
This was a re-read, although I don’t remember it. It was quite brutal in a lot of ways, but fascinating in that you learned a lot about Afghanistan. It was worth it.
The latest Stephen King got amazing reviews. It is inspired, in large part, by the awful immigration policies of the Trump administration – the separation of families at the border. It is apparently scary in a somewhat realistic way.
The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage is the first of a trilogy. The Book of Dust – The secret Commonwealth is the second in the trilogy. The first trilogy was The Golden Compass. It was made into a film staring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The movie was not that successful. It was too complicated and a bit hard to follow. It was beautiful to look at, though and. I really enjoyed it. It is unlikely that they will try and make a movie out of the second trilogy. I think a made for TV miniseries would have a greater chance of success.
