Now reading...

[GA Russell]

Issue #1.  Surprisingly violent, with hangings and a stabbing.

[jlhoots]

Vanessa Lillie: The Bone Thief

[gvopedz]

The BBC talks to James Marriott about the post-literate age or the death of reading...

https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct71cy

 

 

[jazzbo]

I have begun reading this timely-published book and find it excellent in many ways: accurate in its factual presentation (I know more than a bit about the subject matter) and entertaining as it educates and explains.

 

s-l1600994×1500 90.5 KB

[ejp626]

I just finished Austen's Persuasion. 

I'm just starting Dawn Powell's Angels on Toast. Almost the entire thing seems to be about businessmen cheating on their wives and trying to get away with it.  Definitely not my favorite Powell...

[GA Russell]

The comic strips from March 3, 2014, to September 6, 2015.

[jlhoots]

Adam Johnson: The Wayfinder

[ejp626]

Almost finished with Powell's Angels on Toast.  It's curious this is set nearly as much in Chicago as New York.  Definitely not as good as The Locusts Have No King, which I'll have to reread one of these days.

I'm just starting Susanna Kaysen's Asa, As I Knew Him, which is good so far.

[jazzbo]

I started re-reading (for may be the second or third time) Raymond Chandler’s “The Lady in the Lake.” I just get into a particular enchanted zone reading Chandler. His writing has enthralled me since I was a young man.

Picked up this edition at Half Price Books:

[Brad]

On 8/9/2025 at 11:20 AM, Brad said:

 

and just starting

Well, it’s been a long haul but I’m finally in the home stretch. It’s not a page turner and can’t be treated as such. 

[GA Russell]

The first Continental Op novel.  The movie Yojimbo (and therefore A Fistful of Dollars also) was sort of based on this.  I enjoyed this, but I like the short stories better.

[cliffpeterson]

"The first Continental Op novel.  The movie Yojimbo (and therefore A Fistful of Dollars also) was sort of based on this.  I enjoyed this, but I like the short stories better."  Agreed.  Also, there was a Bruce Willis movie with Chris Walken that borrowed plot lines from Red Harvest or one of the movies you mention.

[Dub Modal]

On 12/25/2025 at 10:54 AM, Brad said:

Well, it’s been a long haul but I’m finally in the home stretch. It’s not a page turner and can’t be treated as such. 

Engrossing book. One of my favorites. 

[ejp626]

Also working on a few Narayan novels, rereading The Financial Expert and then The Painter of Signs to follow.

[Brad]

I took a break from Moby Dick to finish this wonderful book by Laurie Lee about his going to Spain right before the Spanish Civil War. During his two years away from home in Gloucestershire he travels by foot from the top of Spain all the way to the South and leaves just as the Civil War heats up. He survives on money he can earn from playing his violin and the kindness of the people he meets. In the book’s epilogue he decides he has made a mistake leaving and hikes over the Pyrenees to get back into Civil War Spain  

 

Edited December 30, 2025 by Brad

[jlhoots]

Ron Currie: The Savage Noble Death Of Babs Dionne

[ghost of miles]

Continuing to read this massive "tome" (salute to poster Hardbop if he's still around at all--he favored that term in his posts) in celebration of the city's new era that began today:

[GA Russell]

The collection of the final Calvin and Hobbes strips.

[Dan Gould]

From the author of The Perfect Storm, a decidedly different topic but handled in much the same way (a compelling tale told with the inclusion of a lot of information you didn't know you'd enjoy learning):

The basic situation was that at the age of 58 he had an anyeurism near his pancreas and came very close to dying. His dead father, a highly rational scientist, appeared to him in the hospital while they were working on keeping him alive ... kinda threw him for a loop as he had no religious adherence himself either.

Having turned 60 recently and despite having achieved a general level of "healthiness" in the past year and a half, my own mortality has penetrated my thoughts to a greater degree than ever before, so this was an interesting book to read.

Recommended - and definitely not the "this is what heaven is like" kind of story.

Edited Friday at 09:41 PM by Dan Gould
to add the clarifying word DEAD :)