Matthew

Gosh, I missed it! A belated happy birthday!!

G. K. Chesterton: A Biography by Ian Ker. As always with Ian Ker, a well done, professional biography; this one on Chesterton makes a good companion to Ker's bio of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Though, I do find myself getting annoyed with Chesterton's worship of "common sense" -- not everything is quite clear, and obviously true as he makes out at times.

The Ambassadors by Henry James.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. I always find this an interesting watch.

Island of Lost Souls (1932). Nicest version to my mind, Charles Laughton is very good, and seemingly very young.

Vacation From Marriage aka Perfect Strangers. Nice little movie with Robert Donat (who is one of my favorite actors), Deborah Kerr, and a wonderful Glynis Johns. Mousey married couple at the start of the war, he joins the Royal Navy, she becomes a WREN, they become stronger people, thanks to the military. Now that they are different, will their marriage survive? Handled with a nice, light touch, nothing earthshaking. I wonder how a tired-of-the-war UK viewed the movie? it was made in 1945. Probably wry comments on the premise of the uplifting of life through the benefits of life in the Navy.

Frank Foster: The House That Love Built. What a beautiful rendition.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Like many others, the death of Moore has caused me to revisit TMTMS, and I'm watching with a tinge of melancholy -- it was a wonderfully human show.

My favorite Dick Van Dyke Show picture.

RIP to a great actress

Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction by Murray Stein

Relativity (Book one of the Goddamned Lonely Universe Saga) by Henry Abner.

Bud Selig in the Hall of Fame, what total and complete BS.

Nature; Address and Lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson: The Mind on Fire by Robert Richardson. Great book that I'm visiting again, inspired by the reading of American Philosophy: A Love Story, where Emerson is an important part of the main character's outlook on life. Richardson is one of my favorite biographers, and his bio's on William James and Henry David Thoreau are also well worth reading.

American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag

Restless Pilgrim: The Spiritual Journey of Bob Dylan by Scott M. Marshall with Marcia Ford

Dylan Redeemed: From Highway 61 to Saved by Stephen H. Webb

I'm with Paul on this, ARod burned his bridges many years ago. A sad end to what should have be a glorious career.

A Canterbury Tale.

Been shifting my bedtime reading between these two books: Dante Gabriel Rossetti -- Collected Poetry and Prose: Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson I'm enjoying them both a great deal. I'm starting to come around on the Victorian writers, I have to admit that I pretty much gave them a dismissive blow-off for most of my life... a serious mistake on my part.

I'll have to check the Knox biography out, I just finished reading the sermons of Ronald Knox, and they're interesting. Sounds like an interesting family. I need to look into the novels also.

Edward Bourne-Jones: A Biography by Penelope Fitzgerald. A very interesting biography, the first one by Fitzgerald that I've read, and I need to get her others.

The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor. O'Connor seems to be a forgotten writer nowadays, as this book, and The Edge of Sadness are the only two books of his that are readily available. He wrote on themes that turned out to be transitional, Boston-Irish politics, and with TEOS, the priesthood. Both books well worth the read, though The Edge of Sadness is a book about a time, Catholic Church, and a priesthood that has completely changed. Both books have a strong current of melancholy to them, which given the topics, is understandable. There are two other books by O'Connor that I'll have to buy, as they are cheap off Amazon.

Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg. Always wanted to read this, as I heard so much about this biography when I was growing up. On volume one, and it is a smooth, enjoyable read.