Just picked up an excruitiatingly slim little volume by James Finn Garner, entitled Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. Howlingly funny. In this version of Little Red Ridinghood, Ridinghood and the wolf end up killing the woodcutter--...er, woodchopper person or log-fuel technician -- for being such a chauvinist as to assume Little Red would be helpless enough to need aid against the wolf. The emperor who had no clothes declares that his kingdom is now clothing-optional and everyone rejoyces. Ando so on.
Ingathering: the Collected Stories of The People, by Zenna Henderson.
Going on a trip tomorrow. I've got a novel by Robert Parker (forget the title but he's retelling the gunfight at the OK corral), a mystery by Lawrence Block, two guidebooks to Hungary... I'll need something else as well. Maybe some Heinlien... always a good friend. Maybe I'll re-read Ahab's Wife.
If you remember that Robert Parker title, Seal, I'd be very interested. (Personal aside: had a dream last night about the Beef&Ale being open again under new ownership and it had turned into a real dump. Weird.)
Gunmans Rhapsody is the Parker book.
Confederacy of Dunces tops my list of books I'm surprised they haven't made into movies yet. But I guess Ignatius would be very hard to cast. Actually I think I'd make a movie of the author's (John Kennedy Toole) life before I attempted Confederacy. That could be a great movie. There is a biography of John Kennedy Toole available, called
Ignatius Rising. And also his other book,
Neon Bible, written when he was sixteen.
John Kennedy Toole books at Amazon
Thanks mac - can't wait to see who they get as the lead.
The Ignatius statue!
I thought you'd like that, Larry!
Merry, Larry was right.
Been liking Mr. Parker for many a year. Back when I was young and stupid (as opposed to now, not so young but still stupid) I had a job as a manager in a parking garage in Harvard Square (that's Cambridge Mass, USA to you!). I see Robert Parker walking through...
'Excuse me, but aren't you Robert Parker?'
'Yes. I look exactly like the picture on the back covers... dammit!'
Fountainhead by Ayn Rand--i first read it over 45 yrs. ago as a teenager in high school and it inspired me to try to become like the hero-to think independently.act heroicly and live according to your goals only, oblivious to peer pressure and world opinion.
Recently i started to reread it after all these years and although the style is somewhat dated, i am amazed at the strength of mind that she had in the forties when the world was so different and so naive.
Hi, bzgootch! Welcome to the forum and A2K!
Thank you and glad to be here.
Welcome to A2k bzgootch.
Right now I am reading two books The Aesthete In the City: The Phlosphy and Practice of American Abstract Painting in the 1980s by David Carruier and The Spit and the Structure by Rudolf Arnheim: Twenty Eight Essays by Rudolf Arnheim.
Hey Joanne, show some backbone and stop reading that trashy pulp literature!
(I'm reading a mystery and a children's book)
Perdido Street Station by China Meiville. A young writer displaying amazing chops.
A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre, one of my favorite contemporary writers. For some reason I gave up on it after 30 pages when it came out in '86, but am now giving it another chance and loving it.
"Middlesex" - Eugenides - for the A2k book club - LOVING it!
Larry, I read that book back in 1987. I loved it, but because of a busy life I put it down and never got back to it. Last week, we rented the BBC series and found it to be very well done. I wish I'd finished the book.
Last Orders, Graham Swift
I started Lanark and am liking it already.
lenark
Piffka... cool. I've been trying to get people to read that since it collided with my head two years ago.
As you will see, it is a one of a kind...
enjoy!
