Now reading...

[BruceH]

For my reading group:

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, by Garry Wills.

Wills is an American treasure, and this might be his finest book.

His new one (Head and Heart: American Christianities) looks very good too.

[rostasi]

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Roland Flicket!

MG

[T.D.]

Michael Dibdin, End Games. Jacket says it's the last Aurelio Zen novel. Quite good, too.

Bill James, Easy Streets and Wolves of Memory. Recent installments in the Harpur and Iles series, continuing the pattern of not being as strong as earlier installments. Streets was more enjoyable, Wolves perhaps overly psychological (little explicit action).

[AndrewHill]

Liner notes to Jim Hall's Jazz Guitar.

Okay, done with that now onto...

[Jazzmoose]

Started on a Toni Morrison kick this week. Finished Sula yesterday; just started Beloved.

[rostasi]

Roland Flicket!

MG

and it's a "handy" guide too!

[BruceH]

The Accidental Time Machine---Joe Haldeman

Just finished this a little while back. Has its moments but in the main: Very disappointing. Not really worth the, if you'll pardon the word, time.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Finished Heinlein's "Number of the beast" - very fannish indeed.

Then went on to his "Glory road", from seventeen years earlier. He was even more right wing in 1963 than in 1980! And there's a bit of SF fan stuff in this one too. But I liked that one better.

MG

[BruceH]

Finished Heinlein's "Number of the beast" - very fannish indeed.

Then went on to his "Glory road", from seventeen years earlier. He was even more right wing in 1963 than in 1980! And there's a bit of SF fan stuff in this one too. But I liked that one better.

MG

Glory Road is a strange Heinlein novel---there are some elements in it that, more pronounced, would make his later novels all but unreadable, but briefer here and more entertaining. This also has to be one of the first novels that melds sword-and-sorcery fantasy with science fiction, and pretty successfully at that. Still, a strange one.

As for the right wing stuff, yes his occasional patriotism-on-the-sleeve diatribes are here, but he also seems to be against what would soon be called the Vietnam war.

[rostasi]

Continuing in my reading of a series of tasteful tomes...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Finished Heinlein's "Number of the beast" - very fannish indeed.

Then went on to his "Glory road", from seventeen years earlier. He was even more right wing in 1963 than in 1980! And there's a bit of SF fan stuff in this one too. But I liked that one better.

MG

Glory Road is a strange Heinlein novel---there are some elements in it that, more pronounced, would make his later novels all but unreadable, but briefer here and more entertaining. This also has to be one of the first novels that melds sword-and-sorcery fantasy with science fiction, and pretty successfully at that. Still, a strange one.

As for the right wing stuff, yes his occasional patriotism-on-the-sleeve diatribes are here, but he also seems to be against what would soon be called the Vietnam war.

Well, it's not so much the patriotism that gets to me as the anti-tax and anti-Government stance, which I think is quite pronounced. If you hadn't noticed it, it must have slipped past you, as it was intended to.

MG

[BruceH]

Finished Heinlein's "Number of the beast" - very fannish indeed.

Then went on to his "Glory road", from seventeen years earlier. He was even more right wing in 1963 than in 1980! And there's a bit of SF fan stuff in this one too. But I liked that one better.

MG

Glory Road is a strange Heinlein novel---there are some elements in it that, more pronounced, would make his later novels all but unreadable, but briefer here and more entertaining. This also has to be one of the first novels that melds sword-and-sorcery fantasy with science fiction, and pretty successfully at that. Still, a strange one.

As for the right wing stuff, yes his occasional patriotism-on-the-sleeve diatribes are here, but he also seems to be against what would soon be called the Vietnam war.

Well, it's not so much the patriotism that gets to me as the anti-tax and anti-Government stance, which I think is quite pronounced. If you hadn't noticed it, it must have slipped past you, as it was intended to.

MG

Oh, I noticed. And I don't really mind it too much as long as he doesn't lecture about it too much. But the later the Heinlein book, generally, the longer the lectures, until it becomes insufferable. I think it started getting bad with The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, although I have to admit I never read Farnham's Freehold. Another thing I don't care for is the adolescent approach to love and sex. Maybe this was considered progressive in someone of Heinlein's generation, but it just seems embarrassing now. The main female character in Glory Road is one of the first on a long line of Heinlein "characters" who are really just male wish-fulfillment wet-dreams. Might seem cool to a 13-year old reader but hey, Heinlein was, what, in his mid-fifties when he wrote this? Grow up, Bob.

[porcy62]

The main female character in Glory Road is one of the first on a long line of Heinlein "characters" who are really just male wish-fulfillment wet-dreams. Might seem cool to a 13-year old reader but hey, Heinlein was, what, in his mid-fifties when he wrote this? Grow up, Bob.

I never read a Heinlein's book, but mid-fifties is exactly the common age for wishing such wet-dreams. Of course normally you talk about it with friends at pub after a few pints, or with your psychiatrist, you don't write it in a serious book.

[aparxa]

Democracy will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom

Is a strong seed

Planted

In a great need.

I live here, too.

I want freedom

Just as you.

[jlhoots]

Denis Johnson: Tree Of Smoke

[Jazzmoose]

Personally, I think Heinlein's best work was his juvenile series in the fifties...

Just started Morrison's Paradise tonight for the first time. Not what I expected at all.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The main female character in Glory Road is one of the first on a long line of Heinlein "characters" who are really just male wish-fulfillment wet-dreams. Might seem cool to a 13-year old reader but hey, Heinlein was, what, in his mid-fifties when he wrote this? Grow up, Bob.

I never read a Heinlein's book, but mid-fifties is exactly the common age for wishing such wet-dreams. Of course normally you talk about it with friends at pub after a few pints, or with your psychiatrist, you don't write it in a serious book.

Ah, but Heinlein's books AREN'T serious. That's why the right wing politics gets up my nose; because he just slips it in and people get it into their heads without really noticing.

MG

[MoGrubb]

MISSING PERSONS, by Stephen White

It's a NY TIMES bestseller, is good, but it's hard to get into after the LINCOLN LAWYER.

[ghost of miles]

Kahn's book on Impulse Records, a book of interviews about jazz and literature put together by a friend and ex-Bloomingtonian (ASK ME NOW... Sascha Feinstein), and DEADLY EMBRACE (sounds like a bad thriller, but it's actually a book about the 1939-1941 Nazi-Soviet alliance).

[BruceH]

The main female character in Glory Road is one of the first on a long line of Heinlein "characters" who are really just male wish-fulfillment wet-dreams. Might seem cool to a 13-year old reader but hey, Heinlein was, what, in his mid-fifties when he wrote this? Grow up, Bob.

I never read a Heinlein's book, but mid-fifties is exactly the common age for wishing such wet-dreams. Of course normally you talk about it with friends at pub after a few pints, or with your psychiatrist, you don't write it in a serious book.

Ah, but Heinlein's books AREN'T serious. That's why the right wing politics gets up my nose; because he just slips it in and people get it into their heads without really noticing.

MG

That FIEND!!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The main female character in Glory Road is one of the first on a long line of Heinlein "characters" who are really just male wish-fulfillment wet-dreams. Might seem cool to a 13-year old reader but hey, Heinlein was, what, in his mid-fifties when he wrote this? Grow up, Bob.

I never read a Heinlein's book, but mid-fifties is exactly the common age for wishing such wet-dreams. Of course normally you talk about it with friends at pub after a few pints, or with your psychiatrist, you don't write it in a serious book.

Ah, but Heinlein's books AREN'T serious. That's why the right wing politics gets up my nose; because he just slips it in and people get it into their heads without really noticing.

MG

That FIEND!!

MG

[BruceH]

Who the Hell's In It: Portraits and Conversations---Peter Bogdanovich

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

"Mande popular music and cultural policies in West Africa", a PhD thesis by Graeme Counsel. I'm not expecting to learn anything much big, because I've been familiar with the general outline of this since the early nineties - but the detail! That's fascinating.

MG

Forgot - I'm reading it on the computer - here's the link

http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/arch.../PhD_thesis.pdf

Edited October 16, 2007 by The Magnificent Goldberg

[Kalo]

Who the Hell's In It: Portraits and Conversations---Peter Bogdanovich

For the audiobook version does he do all the voices?