Project Zebra, by M. Crisci. This is the story of a secret World War Two program to build a version of the Catalina PBY aircraft for the Soviet Union and train Soviet pilots at a base in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Documents on the project were declassified in 2013. The writing and organization aren't fantastic (read: poor) but the subject matter is interesting. Training Russian pilots who spoke no English at all led to some problems, but all in all the program was a success.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. I thought it would be a lighthearted look at grammatical errors.

It's more of a serious book. Some history on how each punctuation mark came to be, with some examples of proper and improper use. There is some humor in there, it's not a textbook or anything.

It's a small book, so it will be a quick read, but not super-engaging to me so far.

saw the cover art on gf's shelf and assumed it was a comic book or lighthearted murder mystery - when i picked it up and she told me about it i immediately put it back on the shelf

501 Must-visit destinations. Doesn't seem to have an author credited. Published by a joint in London, which makes we worry about the typos I've found so far.

It's off-putting, in a way I can't put my finger on. Each page has a few paragraphs of text on some place with a picture, and then odd side bar factoids. No maps to show you where in a country something is, though they reference it from other places ("130 miles S of BFE").

Also, the first two things in the US are Mount Rushmore and then Custer State Park. Seems to me those wouldn't be individual entries--just have an entry for the Black Hills, and write about both (along with Devil's Tower, etc, etc).

IDK, not great, but hopefully I'll get some ideas if we're ever allowed to travel again.

Just started Once More Around the Park by Roger Angell. He wrote for the New Yorker, I believe. This is a collection of his favorite excerpts from his baseball writings.

Looks to be a bit before my time--the first two pieces are about the early Mets--but so far good writing and entertaining.

Finished reading The Little Prince to my son as a bed time story last night.

Tonight I read him a JG Ballard short story because he’s three months old and doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

Turns out when it comes to Ballard, nor do I.

If you have any good recs for kid’s stories that adults can enjoy, lmk

Anything and everything by Roald Dahl. The one with the cat who watches its family drink coffee would be a good start.

Anything by Edward Gorey. The one with the alphabet should give your son a head start in preschool and with his sense of humor.

Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories will really fine-tune your reading-aloud skills, and will introduce him to the greatness of American folklore.

You're going to have to keep this one in your backpocket about a decade but the Redwall series of books is the nuts in young adult fiction - animals live like people did in medieval era with pirates and monks and invading armies and it's very supernatural because of course the badger is hulking giant compared to the mice etc and my god the writing of scenes of food made me so hungry - never before nor after moved like that to taste the food in a novel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwall

I've read Two Hours, or the article it was developed from, and really liked it. He also did an article for the NYT on the Wasp which was really good. Plus, it's difficult to not like a guy named Ed Caesar--part time bookie / part time emperor.

This is a more appropriate space than the dead thread
https://www.salon.com/2020/09/03/dav...bs-dies-at-59/

David Grabener. BS Jobs

Who?

Really shocked to see this. One day he was tweeting, the next day, dead.

.................


someone elsewhere mentioned a book in the Perry Mason series which I wanted to read
it wasn't at my library and I didn't want to buy it - I have limited space

I was surprised to find the book available free digitally, along with several other books by Gardner on the Internet Archive

they have a crawler - I guess if a book was ever uploaded they capture it and format it into their format

they say they have millions of books available, and they did have a couple of pretty obscure out of print books that I checked out

the books are easy to read, I mean easy on the eyes, the way the have them formatted

they also have movies and tv shows - not as much as books

what a great resource





https://archive.org/

More amusements from Edward Gibbon, some backdrop to set the stage:

King Louis IX of France (r. 1226-70), later Saint Louis, acquired relics of Christ's passion from his cousin, the Latin emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II, most notably the Crown of Thorns, First and Foremost. And then, according to Edward Gibbon:

“The success of this transaction temped the Latin emperor to offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his chapel, a large and authentic portion of the True Cross; the baby-linen of the Son of God; the lance,the sponge, and the chain of his Passion; the rod of Moses; and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. "


Well, well – that is quite a of bundle of booty Baldwin II pawned off to the King of France. I hope he took good care of all those precious relics.

Will glide into Gibbon's last Volume of his grand tome this weekend. I laugh and joke with the Apocalypse looming all around me because Gibbon shows, so well, that high road to clear and clean liberation of the mind. Hume did that also but his is a dense and serious work.

Reading Molly's Game. Some details in there I don't remember from the movie. Not sure if it's because they were new, or the movie wasn't that memorable.

Anyway, the same story. A quick read, nothing special.

Picked up "The Lies of Locke Lamora"

I dont particularly know why I picked it up. I think a few people on my goodreads list were reading it and it seemed to have good reviews and be a fun story.

I'm halfway through. The story is definitely fun but as someone who doesn't read "fantasy" (and this isn't wizards and dragons full blown fantasy) some of the descriptions and names and the whole imaginary world comes off as incredibly cringy to me though. The dialogue is fun and the story itself is intriguing though

Started on The Reluctant Traveler by Dan Fazio.

For some reason, I think Dan's a 2p2er, or maybe someone on 2p2 recommended this, but I can't recall for sure.

Dan and his wife took a trip around the world some years back. To paraphrase him, he hates the travel part of traveling, but likes having the experiences once he gets to wherever.

So far, it's ben a fun read. Light, pretty witty. The kind of thing I'd imagine chopstick would identify with, and the rest of us can sympathize with.

I liked it but the next ones aren't as good imho.

DL'd Susanna Clarke's latest.

Finished the 3rd Ripley novel, very enjoyable. Also liked 'Deep Water' by Highsmith, possibly better, very good character study.

Reading Thomas Harris' novel on the Dreyfus affair, informative and entertaining so far halfway done.

Started the latest Ken follett - prequel to Pillars of the earth - came out this week. Formulaic but entertaining.

I’ve got Highsmith’s biography sitting on my shelf. The Ripley stories are terrific and bear re-reading.
I always thought there was a good Master’s Thesis in comparing the two movie versions of Ripley’s Game Malkovic/Hopper

Recently finished Change Your Mind By Michael Pollan. It’s about psychedelic mushrooms mainly. It’s the 3rd of his books I’ve read and I expect I’ll be sending off for mycelium To inject into my donkey’s leavings. Pollan’s Botany of Desire remains my favorite

So in my Locke Lamora book I got to page 405 and the next page is 301. Its a repeat of the pages I already read and pages 406 to 467 are completely missing replaced by the duplicates of pages 245 to 301. Obviously its a printing error but what a huge momentum killer. Anyone ever have this happen?

I have ordered copies of the nigel molesworth school stories written by Geoffrey Willans illustrated by Ronald Searle.

I hope that I find them as funny as I did when I was 12 years old.-

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy? It is not work that hav made Me dull.

"'Reality,' sa molesworth 2, 'is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder.'"

I have a vague memory of a similar experience a long time ago but it's been 15+ years minimum. Pretty bizarre! Wonder how many such copies there are and whether that might be valuable (note I know nothing about the publishing industry).

Off topic (Different medium), but I once purchased a CD of Mozart sonatas, the box and disk were both labelled as such, but the disk was actually ABBAs greatest hits.

Onto reading The Light of Day by Ambler, the source material for the film Topkapi.

Halfway done, liking it, very curious to see where it goes from here. Great unreliable narrator.

Just started on The Rough Guide to First Time Around the World.

I don't think I'll probably ever do an RTW trip, but I figure the planning and other tips will probably be good for general travel.

If we ever get covid under control and can travel again, that is.