@superdave This is a Wendy’s. Why are you dropping photos of girls soliciting you in the “Our reads 2025” forum?
Sometimes, whomever is texting you is an AI. Sometimes they are people being trafficked and essentially held hostage by mafia/crime syndicates where the govt gets a cut or isn’t strong enough to do anything about. Sometimes it is what we imagine. But all the same, you rarely post in here. Still seems a strange choice?
it started because I had commented on the Smith memoir in here, and then used that book to suss out that the other person was fake and it went from there. Now it’s not funny anymore
The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoevsky. You either love or hate this novel. It's the tale of young Arkady Dolgoruky, an illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner. We'll see if this book is good.
Ulysses - James Joyce Very slow going, it took me almost 2 months to finish. I liked it more when I read it in college. “—Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.”
Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof, a book that lives up to its subtitle in terms of thoroughness (the musical isn’t even conceived until page 110 or so, after Alyssa Solomon has explored the background of Jewish life in Central European shtetls and the rise of Yiddish literature and theater which eventually imports itself to NYC at the turn of the 20th century, focusing on the writings of Sholem Aleichem and his European success and his attempts to cash in on the boom in NY (with limited success). However, his creation of Tevya and his family had legs, being adapted to stage multiple times before the landmark musical came to be. As scholarship, this is an amazing work, made even more so by the fact that it’s highly readable.
I am reading the final chapter in Jonathan Moore's so called San Francisco trilogy. The Night Market It shares with The Poison Artist and The Dark Room a neo-noir tone, a San Francisco setting and one minor character that appears in all three novels. The style is familiar from the prior entries in the trilogy, though the near future setting and science fiction subplots aren't quite as effective at grabbing my attention and interest as the more straightforward pulpy crime writing of the first two books.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe Classic “New Journalism” account of the adventures of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in the sixties. When I read this as a teenager, I thought the Merry Pranksters were cool. Now I think they were just kooks.
Like a lot of French revolutionary history, this is less an actual history than a political treatise. Still a fun read though
The Tower: A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre - Kelly Cordes Cerro Torre is only a couple miles away from Fitzroy in Patagonia Argentina, and like Fitzroy is one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Good account of the history of ascents (or were they ascents?).
The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman, a biography in the "life and times" mode (that is, there's A LOT of history here) about the author of what many consider the best Soviet Era novel of them all, Life and Fate. Damn fine work by John and Carol Garrard, especially digging up the Russian sources of Grossman's life as a war correspondent (he was embedded with Soviet soldiers during the Seige of Stalingrad, survived that, and then marched with the Soviet army all the way into Berlin. This exposed him to events that post war Soviet Union did not want to be known, period. So, long story short, his most famous novel wasn't published until right around the fall of the Soviet Union, 25 years after his death. An amazing coincidence in regard to my last book about the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Grossman grew up in Berdychiv, which was the site of an early Nazi mass murder of jews (including Grossman's mother, though he didn't know until 1945 exactly what happened to her and, literally, everyone he grew up with). Berdychiv was the model for Anatevka in Chaim Aleichem's stories (where it is much more fleshed out than it is in the musical).
Pic - Jack Kerouac “Dr. Pepper allus did make a spankin’ good fizzle for folkses moufs.” Narrated by a 10-year old recounting his trip with his brother from North Carina to New York, and then to California.
Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler The invaders die from bacteria
Keep in mind superdave might be going with the bastardized ending made famous by the radio broadcast.
I'm not sure how many people still read Frederick Forsyth, who sadly passed away in June. Back in high school, I was a huge fan of his work. I’m sure some of you remember The Day of the Jackal—a true classic. The Odessa File, was written in the early 1970s. It tells the gripping story of a German journalist on a dangerous quest to track down a former SS officer. I must have read it in High School 40 years ago.