Books: What are you reading tonight?

I'd have put in more Walker Percy.

My list changes from day to day, but it always begins with Catch-22.

Will always be my #1. I have read it 3 or 4 times (and I almost never reread books) but the last time was over 30 years ago. I think I need to pick it up again sometime this summer.

If anyone else likes good espionage/CIA assassin type of fiction, the Gray Man series by Mark Greaney is excellent. Well-written and propulsive. They made one movie out of it so far starring Ryan Gossling. The move was ok but the books are hard to put down.

I agree Dom I love those

I read it when I was 16 but haven't read it again.

I've recommended Wittgenstein's Mistress, which I think is Markson's best, to quite a few people.

Markson's friend, Gilbert Sorrentino, is overlooked by many. I recommend his early novel Steelwork.

I'm not sure what I'd put on a list, but I couldn't leave off A Fan's Notes.

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The Moviegoer is 5***** indeed.

As I said, not gonna be all the classics.

Agreed, you guys are killing me! 😀

Should also have Graham Greene and Ishiguro.

And David Mitchell. So add those 5....

In 2020 iirc Mitchell was left off TIME’s 100 Best Novels Of The 21st Century (So Far!). Cloud Atlas or The Bone Clocks just simply has to be on any Best Novels List.

And LOL Infinite Jest. Just read The Corrections if you need something in that genre. Now, if we were doing 15 Best Longform Essays Since WWII, Wallace might have 4-5 on there.

Speaking of which, 10-15 years ago I read several hilarious essays written by women describing all their “You like to read?! Have you ever read Infinite Jest???” encounters with men, all of whom they subsequently never socialized with again, or came to regret that not being the case.

As far as sports fiction, great usage of the English Language and a wholly original imagination, can I get a shoutout for The Universal Baseball Association by Robert Coover?

Probably posted before that McDermid is as good as Michael Connelly & Lawrence Block, and her The Blood In The Wire > The Silence Of The Lambs.

I like the TV series. It's Wire in the Blood, though, in case anyone is looking for it.

Coover's book is great.

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It was 6am lol. Are the lambs in silence?

Dang, just saw Coover died last October at 92. The original NYT review of UBA is worth reading. $ link https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/books...

This was written by a former student of his in 2021.

https://www.gasherpress.com/post/a-student-again-reflections-on-street-cop-by-robert-coover-with-drawings-by-art-spiegelman

Gasher Press

A Student Again: Reflections on Street Cop by Robert Coover, with drawings by Art Spiegelman

At a glance, Coover appears to say things about writing and being a writer that are identical to what Stephen King, has said, but probably more than any other activity, there really is only one way to do it: “Write, read, repeat.” (Both my parents were published writers)

my american adventure by Amy Burritt.

When she was 12, turning 13, Burritt's parents got a motorhome, and took her and her brother to all 50 states. This was over the course of a year on four road trips, and a couple flights for Hawaii and Alaska. The goal of this trip was to meet and interview all 50 state governors.

It was a nice story. Charming, you might say. They had to deal with some lows and highs. She wrote a compelling story, especially for a 13-year-old.

I did not realize it was this when I picked it up; thought it was another travelogue like I enjoy. Turned out to be a nice surprise.

Violet McGraw for the movie?

So you/they don't like IJ, who cares? I guarantee you 99% of those women did not read IJ, much less understand it. I also am willing to lay huge odds that they would not have liked those same men if they [men] hadn't read IJ.

And some people don't like po-mo, their loss.

One of the hotter women I ever dated, our 1st meet went successfully because we both loved DFW. Super-smart blonde from a top 5 liberal arts school, played on the tennis team, wrote her thesis on IJ.

I don't regard Cloud Atlas nor Bone Clocks as among Mitchell's very best works. Needless to say almost all of his stuff is wonderful ♥

I liked the microwave story and I bought Garner's Modern Usage.

The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe.

Always liked Rowe from the Dirty Jobs days, so figured I'd try this. In the intro, Rowe writes about how much of a fan he was of the old Paul Harvey "The Rest of the Story" broadcasts.

This book is several stories along that line. Some odd detail about a famous person, told in that style so the reveal is at the end. Then, he tells a story from his own life which is related. Sometimes that relationship is pretty thin, but it's overall pretty interesting.

From those stories, it seems that he's had a pretty interesting life.

Aged Urine, The Buddha And Vipassana by Harry Matadeen

Quotes:

Wait, entities?

Then he spent the rest of the book trying to prove that the Buddha recommended drinking aged urine in the Pali Suttas. 5/10

Re: Infinite Jest --

~10 years ago one of my weirder Tinder dates transitioned from a bar when she asked “do you want to just grab some Taco Bell and we’ll head back to your place?”

Get back to my place with Taco Bell, she immediately sees my bookshelves and starts browsing, zeroes in on IJ and says “no way you’ve read this – I just finished my second reading of it”. Me: “Actually I’ve read it twice too”.

Meanwhile I’m horny AF but also really wanted to eat the Taco Bell.

Mind spoiling the u̶r̶i̶n̶e̶ results? Need to know whether I need to add stealing a baby this weekend's plans...

I'm completely unconvinced. I have read the Pali Suttas (12/10, highest recommendation) and when the Buddha was sick he went to the doctor and got some medicine like everyone else.

My Amazon recs are ****ed now tho.

The best pickup place in Manhattan used to be the Taco Bell across from Penn Station [dunno if still there] after the last train.

Why not, too mainstream?

If you have a link to the specific card game they play in 1000 Autumns please share.

I made it a bit past the football halftime show in IJ. Figured I was unlikely to enjoy anything as much as I did the filmography footnote so I took a small dub. I do wish I’d just read all those.

I did read Oblivion, liked Mister Softee, lol the diaper story.

A Tale of 7 Elements by Eric Scerri.

After Mendeleev figured out the periodic table of the elements, there were 7 spaces in the "naturally occurring" (i.e., pre-Uranium) elements which had not been discovered. This is the story of various people's claims on discovering each one.

Scerri begins with some discussion of how the periodic table came to be through several iterations including a few different people. Then, a chapter is devoted each to the seven elements in question. Finally, he wraps up with a discussion of trans-Uranic elements, all of which needed to be synthesized for discovery (though it turns out neptunium and plutonium do occur naturally, just in extremely small amounts).

Seems like it should have been more interesting than it was. Sometimes, he seems repetitive, and sometimes talks pretty technically without explaining terms. It did seem from the writing that this is aimed at the layman. Better editing probably could've tightened this up quite a bit.

Overall, kinda meh.