I watched the Ken Burns documentary about Lewis & Clark a chunk of years ago and picked up the book. Finally got around to reading it.
The beginning was a bit of a slog, and I was worried I'd end up skimming a lot just to get through it, but that wasn't the case. Really great. Now I'm going to get the documentary again through Netflix.
And then maybe next summer I'll finally get around to taking a road trip down to the Columbia River Gorge and other parts of Oregon.
Ambrose notes that their fort at Fort Clatsop on the coast was recreated by the park services some years ago, but I believe it burned down a few years ago.
Yeah, I read it some years ago. I really loved it! But I waited way too long to start book number two, and had to skim through the first one to refresh my memory. And then I didn't even get 100 pages in before I realized I was fine just having read the first book.
The only reasons I read this damn thing were because a friend bought it for me after recommending it, and we're going to see him this summer and he'll ask me how I liked it. Well, I didn't. A lot of it was where the white guy "lives" the life and comes to understand just "how bad it really is" for whatever group he wants to be a part of. Here, it's the Oglala Sioux. Then, there was a lot of history about the Sioux, which is fine, but I prefer historians to tell me that. And then there's the part that WAS ALL ABOUT HIM. And then there was the pathetic, drunk liar that he befriends and who gets this whole thing rolling. I don't find drunks entertaining in any way, so that left out nearly the whole book. And, if you want every last detail about a state championship basketball game from 1992, read the last three chapters. A little of it was interesting, but not enough for me to ever want to open it again.
A Study in Scarlet, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
My first Sherlock Holmes book. I thought some nice Victorian fiction, which I love, would be an antidote to the self-absorption of the last book. Well this goes along swimmingly, interesting, Victorian, fine, until the
40 pages of anti-Mormon diatribe
that somehow ridiculously set up the murder. Good Grief! It turns out that the only detective fiction that I like is Perry Mason, and even then. Maybe Doyle's better at short stories, but this thing's only 130 pages!
The opera last night was wonderful. Benjamin Britten managed to nearly redeem James and his lameness. It was lovely and beautiful, even for a ghost story that's pretty much about sexual abuse.
Yeah, I read it some years ago. I really loved it! But I waited way too long to start book number two, and had to skim through the first one to refresh my memory. And then I didn't even get 100 pages in before I realized I was fine just having read the first book.
My first Sherlock Holmes book. I thought some nice Victorian fiction, which I love, would be an antidote to the self-absorption of the last book. Well this goes along swimmingly, interesting, Victorian, fine, until the
40 pages of anti-Mormon diatribe
that somehow ridiculously set up the murder. Good Grief! It turns out that the only detective fiction that I like is Perry Mason, and even then. Maybe Doyle's better at short stories, but this thing's only 130 pages!
the short stories are and always will be where the real awesomeness is. all the novels read like that, whether its anti-mormon, anti-mason, or...well, the baskervilles isn't like that. that one's actually good. but seriously, the short stories are worthwhile. but then again, i've got this irrational nerd-love for sherlock holmes. i think it had something to do with being a very, very convenient refuge from actual schoolwork my senior year at umass (i had to find some other way to occupy my time when i wasn't doing my best to get banned from this board, ya know). either the 12th or 14th floor of the university library has the incredible floor to ceiling shelf of what seems like every single book written about holmes and the stories...essays, bound periodicals (quarterly bakerstreet irregulars magazine spanning several decades), everything for a total geek-out experience. i think guy warrack's sherlock holmes and music is the only thing of note that isn't on that shelf. which was such a bummer. not like there could possibly be anything in that book i didn't already pull out of countless essays/articles/culling of quotes pertaining to music in every single story. no wait. i didn't do that. i swear. ok, i did create that project for myself. and still have the absurd bibliography around here somewhere. but don't tell anyone.
damn, that's like the third time in the last week and a half where i've felt the need to divulge this brand of my dorkiness. really gotta stop doing that or something.
speaking of geek...i am still rolling through r.a. salvatore stuff.
THE ICEWIND DALE TRILOGY 1 The Crystal Shard 2 Streams of Silver 3 The Halfling’s Gem
THE DARK ELF TRILOGY: 1 Homeland 2 Exile 3 Sojourn
LEGACY OF THE DROW: 1 The Legacy 2 Starless Night
3 Siege of Darkness
4 Passage to Dawn
PATHS OF DARKNESS:
1 The Silent Blade
2 The Spine of the World
3* Servant of the Shard
4 Sea of Swords
THE SELLSWORDS:
1* Servant of the Shard
2 Promise of the Witch King
3 Road of the Patriarch
already did go through the cleric quintet, and all the stuff that i can read after the sellswords is kind of irrelavent to me right now. i'll get to it eventually. but my buddy has a box of some other 14 or 16 part series by...i forget...that, in addition to the new old republic-timeline star wars book that's supposed to be out soon, is a bit further up the reading list. and i'd just as soon jump to ed greenwood and read the elminster stuff. getting a little sick of that particular dark elf.
but only because of the 4 and a half books still standing between me diving into the sellswords, which is where i really wanna be because i so want me some artemis entreri mid-life crisis trilogy action.
picked up the compiled drizzt-related short stories that got put into one place fortunatly for late-comers like me. was going to go through and read the stories that are supposed to fall between what i have read, and then show some restraint and ignore the rest til i got to where they fit in. but entreri is my current fictional character obsessionfixation fascination, that all went out of the window and i read through those instead when i got home. someone in this thread has got to appreciate the hilariousness of this exchange:
(jarlaxle) "why the foul mood, my friend?"
(entreri) "personality trait."
i could probably go into a short essay as to why i'm so enjoying anything involving that character at the moment, but i'm sure i've bored you all sufficiently enough. plus, do i really need to explain anymore that i am mildly insane?
I'm in the middle of this. I got to the part where the old soldier guy is telling a long story, and I got a little bored and put it down. Need to get back to it soon, as I've borrowed it from a friend.
I previously had read Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World, which I really loved. And I would like to check out Norwegian Wood before the movie comes out here.
I very much recommend the one I mentioned above, but from what I did read of Wind-Up, I'd say the former is a little more abstract? But if you like the guy's style, it's not too different.
Don't make it a priority over more Tom Robbins, though!
I've read a few memoirs of Americans living in France, and they're usually pretty good. This one, about the author, her husband and her three young kids moving to the Auvergne region, started with her sending her little darlings off to French school, and I thought "oh god, is this book just going to be schlocky schmoop about her kids?"
But no. It was charming, often hilarious, and even really moving a few times.
I haven't even gone to Ireland yet, and I'm already thinking that France might need to be my next overseas trip.
A love story about white people living in Nairobi in the 90s. Out of Africa, with occasional cocaine use, annoying people and genocide in Rwanda.
With that premise, this really could have been an irritating book, but it was actually quite lovely. Not just a 'love story' at its central plot, but an 'in love with Africa' story.
I read a couple of books by this author a few years ago, and I enjoyed the writing enough to be able to get past the fact that all of the characters were completely awful assholes acting appallingly. But the writing itself was fun and breezy.
So I figured I'd give this one a shot, as it wasn't part of that earlier series. I have now come to the conclusion that this author is incapable of writing a sympathetic, likable character. Still a quick read, but lacking any charm or wit.
Two more Angela Thirkells in the Barsetshire series.
The Brandons was the first Thirkell I ever read. This copy still has the sticker from Harrod's on the back. I like this one because it has some genuine laugh out loud moments, quite a few really. Even Steve laughed when I read them to him. It's full of landed gentry and their servants in England in 1939, and in the end, those who find they're in love get engaged.
Before Lunch is a little more melancholy and has an annoying couple of characters, both men. One of the men eventually snaps out of it, and the other turns out to be as completely drawn and complex as all the rest of her characters. Two of the couples find that they are engaged at the end, but this one has a married woman and a bachelor falling pretty hard for each other, with nothing that can be done but the man going off to Manchester to supervise the performance of the ballet he's written the music for. I wonder if the dawning war had anything to do with the more subtle tone of this novel. It was written in 1940, so maybe it does.
you know when you finish a book (well, fictional, anyway), move on to the next one, but it takes forever to get into it because you still want to be reading about the characters from the last book you read? i hate that. turns out it's even worse when said character(s) has been of the recurring nature periodically in the last oh, 18, or so books you read over the past few months.
Near the end of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, fun book, best phrase ever "Oh fuck, not another phylum!" Science is cool folks, very cool.
Does anyone have any other good science reads? I've done Stephen Pinker's How the Mind Works, which was another enjoyable read, though I have likely forgotten most of the concepts.
Have you read any of Mary Roach's books? she writes about odd subjects with a lot of humor. I really liked Stiff (about death and dead bodies, if I recall correctly) but haven't gotten around to Bonk (sex) and the most recent, about space travel.
Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
Eh. It wasn't my favorite of his, although there were a few essays I really enjoyed.
