Public library is closed today and tomorrow. College library I used closed Friday at 3:00 and reopens January 2nd. I'm set for reading, but could really have gone for a season or two of Downton Abbey.
Really enjoyed this - started it after I went to the (closed) library, and spent a nice evening and following morning with it. Newberry Award winner by Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book. Great illustrations scattered throughout as well. Obviously as a Newberry winner it is primarily a children's book, but it is fairly sophisticated.
Spent a bit of Christmas unpacking my books after our move. Sort of like opening presents that I bought myself anywhere from a couple of weeks ago to three decades back. Got one set of bookshelves up and loaded. Three or four to go... Currently reading from the top shelf... Allen Ginsberg: Howl and Other Poems, And... Allen Ginsberg, Reality Sandwiches
The Letter of Marque is done and dusted (loved it, of course). Got this one for Christmas and can't wait to get started:
Working on this: Dennis Lehane's The Given Day, which is set at the tail end of WWI in both Boston and Tulsa. Seems like a time in history I would not like to have lived during. I like the book well enough, but it's a long one - I am 200 very small font sized pages in and far short of halfway still. Seems like I am happiest with books that top out at 300 pages max these days. I will keep reading but want to shake things up a bit. Oh well - off to the library I go, since it is finally open again.
The Mirror of Her Dreams -- Stephen R Donaldson I've read this before. It's very good. I had asked for his Last Chr0nicles for Christmas (since I was tired of being 30th on the library waiting list) and got this instead. It's a two parter, and at the end of this book, the outcome looks bleaker for the good guys than in any other book I've ever read. Even including the deaths of Gandalf or Aslan or Baron Atreides. The second book of Mordant's Need isn't as good, but hey, I didn't get it for Christmas....
From the 2012 thread... Heard this interview with Kenneth Goldsmith on On the Media last night... http://www.onthemedia.org/story/274599-plagiarism-maybe-its-not-so-bad/
I'll have to give the Goldsmith thing a listen. I don't think much of his "writing," but he did found http://www.ubuweb.com, which has some interesting things, if you like conceptual art and experimental music. Currently reading Kaddish and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
Surely the last book I will finish in 2013? Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate. I saw the movie more than 20 years ago; the book and the movie line up almost exactly as nearly as I can tell. An author's note at the end of the book indicates that Esquivel had been a screenwriter before publishing this, her first novel. Makes sense.
I really liked this. Recommended. Race relations, the labor movement, the flu pandemic, anarchism and Bolshevism, ethnic identity, and more all in the context of Boston in the late teens. Also: the Boston Red Sox own Babe Ruth as the main focus in a couple of chapters.
Picked up Mrs Scouse's library book over the weekend. "Just One Evil Act" I've read a few over the years She's the type of author who can delight you one minute and frustrate the crap out of you the next. This was no exception to that rule but the delight outweighed the crap by a couple of troy ounces. Needed help from a good editor. "Barbara is at a loss: The daughter of her friend Taymullah Azhar has been taken by her mother, and Barbara can’t really help—Azhar had never married Angelina, and his name isn’t on Hadiyyah’s, their daughter’s, birth certificate. He has no legal claim. Azhar and Barbara hire a private detective, but the trail goes cold. Azhar is just beginning to accept his soul-crushing loss when Angelina reappears with shocking news: Hadiyyah is missing, kidnapped from an Italian marketplace. The Italian police are investigating, and the Yard won’t get involved, until Barbara takes matters into her own hands — at the risk of her own career. As both Barbara and her partner, Inspector Thomas Lynley, soon discover, the case is far more complex than a typical kidnapping, revealing secrets that could have far-reaching effects outside of the investigation. With both her job and the life of a little girl on the line, Barbara must decide what matters most, and how far she’s willing to go to protect it."
Tim Leong -- Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe Easily the most fun read I've had from a Christmas book in quite a while. You gotta love a guy who can give you a venn diagram of three of the most enduring comic hero tropes: tragically dead parents, cape and wearing underwear as outerwear... And for fun, he even throws in Richie Rich, Charlie Brown and Calvin and Hobbes. Just a lot of fun.