I have a shelf full of Jim Thompson, purchased for the lurid pulp covers, kept for the voices of the friendly psychopaths.

I loved Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia reread after Jonathan Meiburg’s A Most Remarkable Creature led me back to the bottom of the world.

I agree with your assessment of GR I still have my first copy, dog-eared and underlined, from my first reading in the Fairfax county jail. Sometimes I read shocking parts out loud to the block mates such as the old Admiral’s unsavory sexual habits. In college I read it again along with anything I could find on Pynchon (Playboy interview, Hugh Kenner, the house of the 7 Gables etc.. Then, mid 70’s there wasn’t much in the library on GR so when my English advisor had a grad student doing his Thesis on GR I was enlisted to help him. You haven’t really lived Pynchon until you’ve read him in jail on Acid.

14. A Promised Land, Obama
15. The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched a Quant Revolution

I’m halfway thru 15 and it’s a fun read for me since we share a lot of background and ex-colleagues despite our large age gap.

Late reply, sorry but I have been taken seriously drunk recently.

Ed McBain 97th precinct , can’t go wrong with any of them really, maybe “Hail to the Chief” as a starter.

Mayer Mayer reading the words “Totally bald” and working out that it is possible to be partially bald is brilliant, can’t remember which novel it is in.

1/3 thru the new Sally Rooney novel. It is seriously awful. Like, really bad so far and repetitive. Lots of discussion of marxist theory if that's your thing.

Gave her first 4/5 * and Normal Peopl 3-3.5*. This is struggling to be a 1*.

Interesting. I enjoyed her first two but have been hesitating over this one. Yesterday, however, I felt encouraged the NYT review, which seemed a bit ambivalent but concluded by saying it was "“Funny and smart, full of sex and love"!

One Fish,
Two Fish,
Red Fish,
Blue Fish.

My only problem with “War and Peace” is the Russian habit of referring to the heir to any aristocratic title as “Prince”, I had to keep referring back to work out which ****ing Prince was being referred to

No, this is not so. The Prince in that story is only one, they have the regular European styles. I have read it twice not bad for Tostoy who is a very horrible writer perhaps the direct opposite to Dickens.

I am reading and suggest everyone does also Proust's great opus, this masterpiece had to be self published believe it or not. "In Search of Lost Time"
I am a big off reader and have many gb of cloud storage just for books and papers, I am one of the few who actually read PhD dissertations, I am getting mine soon.

Tolstoy is a great writer, perhaps the greatest. The problem with War and Peace is that he introduces a character and then starts referring to him my his nicknames and patronymics. Russian names must have a half dozen nicknames and diminutives.

Read All the Trouble in the World by P.J. O'Rourke. In this, he discusses various world issues and seems to come to the conclusion that USA #n-style capitalism is the solution to them all.

I usually really enjoy his writing (though not necessarily his conclusions), but this one didn't do it for me.

I once posted a part of “How to drive fast on drugs while having your wing wang squeezed(without spilling your drink)” in OTT , no one there got the reference, uncultivated louts

Mmm, couldn’t agree more in respect of Proust. Would recommend Jean Santeuil, if you enjoyed a la recherche. I was always hesitant to read his first-up effort, believing it an unfinished draft etc., but loved every word.

PhD dissertations contain treasures, for sure. I’ve found a few in them over the years.

I would encourage anybody to read Proust who likes reading. It may have a difficult reputation, but I found it the perfect book for beaches and subways. I'd open it, read a couple of words, and immediately become immersed in it.

Take a few years. There's no need to hurry.

I read much of it on the subway. The long sentences seemed at home there. Not sure why.

95% done, it is neither funny nor smart but full of sex in parts, yes.

1.5 stars. 2 if you're feeling incredibly generous out of 5. Continued to be annoying, repetitive full of obnoxious dialogue btw the characters who just constantly fight over nothing and almost always act hateful even as they say they love each other [the same trick every scene, whether b/g, g/g, sister sister or brother-brother.]


Lots of good authors write utterly crap novels. This one of them.

I started it, then moved onto The Magic Mountain instead.

I will get back to La Recherche at some point.

Gonna hit up French Lt's Woman next, don't think I've read it yet. Been 20 years if so.

That's an interesting observation. I wonder if I tried to read Hemingway on the subway I would become distracted.

It does seem counterintuitive, but I’d rather read Carver in silence, too. I recall always looking forward to reading The Adventures of Augie March on the bus. Maybe texts with an internalised, conversational style read better in public environments, while those that are edited and sparse (e.g. declarative sentences) require focus so we can “read into” what’s on the page.

Weird Colorado by Ortega Getz.

It's apparently a series, one for each state, about weird things there.

Sometimes weird means spooky, like haunted houses and so on (eyeroll), and sometimes it means unusual, as in some odd architecture or museum or something.

Moderately interesting to read, but nothing in there made think, "Wow! I really want to go do/see that sometime!".

Though I probably should go to Frozen Dead Guy Days some year.

Run Guts Pull Cones by Adam Piggott (2p2's adsman).

A second book of his experiences as a rafting guide, this time in Italy.

I didn't like it as much as the first. A nice read, just not quite as interesting.

The Curse of Lono, by Hunter S. Thompson with illustrations by Ralph Steadman. I have the first edition of this book which I purchased in 1983 when it first came out.

Hunter and Ralph are in Hawaii. Big Island mostly and on the ocean doing some fishing and other messy activities. The ghost of Captain Cook appears. Pain and drugs and an ancient war club make substantial contributions has does Marlin Fishing. And a Man with The Blue Arm makes a brief appearance. The illustrations are topnotch Steadman material and add much luster to this slick book of doom and sticky sickness. Always worth a reread. Hunter got money to cover the Hawaii Marathon and turned it into a vacation of hellish proportions. Epic.

Halfway thru French Lt's Woman. Incredibly well-written with postmodern touches [the author speaks directly to the reader now and again] like comparing 1867 to 1969.

The story and his language are both excellent. A worthy entrant on all the Top 100 novels lists.