Summer Reading?

they do, but it's, well -- let's just say pullman wouldn't work for the pseudo-missus and me...

Sympathy from here, Patiodog. I thought I answered this topic once, I must have obliterated myself again again. Life is long, art is longer, or something like that. I have had two and two thirds careers, none of them particularly remunerative, but interesting. Do you both not like Pullman?

Back in aught one, or whatever year long ago, a fellow female lab tech who was into marine biology esp around Hawaii told me we needed to go back to school, and I sort of laughed. (I had tried hard to be premed when women weren 't being admitted but I was a little slow in learning that, circa 1962-3.) So she was saying this around '67 and was right, places were admitting women by then, but in the meantime I was gradually getting less interested. Perhaps I wouldn't have been right as an inveterate researcher, things may have worked out for the best. But... I did go back to school, much later in something entirely different.

She applied all over the place and did get admitted to a veterinary school, and I think it was in Washington. Her interest was not general veterinary med but in immunology, since that was the field in which we were techies. She eventually did get her phD and go sailing along.

What am I saying, there are other Veterinary schools, no? Ah well, the more we know the more we know. Worlds open up.

Pseudo-missus, faux spouse. The way we were....

Sorry, tangent from summer reading.

On summer reading, I just finished a police procedural set in Berkeley in the early eighties called Murder on the Air. It was co-written by Ralph Warner and Toni Ihara. Only problem was, the book, which I had bought used, kept falling apart as I turned the pages...the glue must have broken down over time. For a change, the last page was literally the last page in a page turner.

There's a wonderful program on as I write -- on NPR -- about summer reading. For those who missed it, go to NPR's Talk of the Nation, hour two, Monday 5/26. Great discussion -- critics and call-in readers. Here are some of the books recommended:

Steinberg's Cannery Row

Pynchon's intro to the new collection of Orwell

Burdett's Bangkok 8 (this one sounded neat) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400040442/qid=1053977716/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-2779032-6990514

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670031763/qid=1053977793/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-2779032-6990514 (apparently very well written)

Love in Idleness http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385507763/qid=1053978055/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2779032-6990514?v=glance&s=books



Also mentioned was shopping for books in that notorious book town (every shop is a bookshop) Hay-on-Wye. Thought I'd add some links, including one to the annual book festival:

http://www.booksearch-at-hay.com/

http://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/bookshops/frameset.htm

http://www.hayfestival.com/2003/DOCS/index.htm

If I may make a suggestion for summer reading,I would suggest the earth children series by Jean Auel.
These books include...Clan of the Cave Bear,Valley of the Horses,Mammoth Hunters,Plains of Passage,and the newest one Shelters of Stone.
I have read them all and find them extremely well written.

Okay. I'm going low-brow on this. End of May, still rainy and cool (sometimes cold) - I'm reading mysteries. Preferably legal or police procedural, and I usually know within the first 40 pages if I'm going to continue or not. Gave away some signed copies of James Patterson (my older daughter worked for him a while(because it's hack writing., and strictly formula). Some serious reading, too, and............a book called The Lovely Bones. Three people called to ask me if I'd read it, and then today my daughter-in-law said she had it, and if I wanted it, I could have it. So I came home with it, and will probably get around to it.

Reading in the summer? I also do a bit of it outside, and I also go the iced tea route, and it just feels good that way. I also love winter reading when there's snow outside.

As for the magazines - I am now re-cycling. I am taking them to various doctor's offices in order to enlighten the public. What happens here is that they tend to get piled up, and along comes the cat on a flying leap, and everything slides to the floor. I think she does it on purpose. I tend to save the New Yorkers I can't bear to throw out.

I don't think it qualifies as "summer reading," but I'm now reading "The Map That Changed the World" by Simon Winchester. It's about William Smith, the fellow that founded the science of Geology in the UK. It's a book I found on the boat, the Millenium, while cruising the waters of the Galapagos, and barely finished a couple of chapters. I borrowed the book from the local library when I got home, and will probably finish it sometime next week. c.i.

OK, I knocked off another one, a strange and wonderful police procedural set in Spokane called Land of the Blind by Jess Walter. The binding adhered on this one; it was an "Advance Readers Edition", whatever that means. Whether it was a good example of police type mystery writing, well, I won't argue that, but I liked the book for its coverage of the dot com scene in the northwest US, and deliverance of sense of place in Spokane, which I visited a year ago. It is a bit discursive about the apparent villain's winding personal trail over a few decades but I didn't get bored with it.

I'm part way through "Sir Vidia's Shadow" by Paul Theroux. I had a feeling I'd enjoy it (all about Theroux's friendship with V.S. Naipaul), but I had no idea how funny it would be. At least the first section is, set in Uganda. I mean laugh-out-loud funny...

Tartarin, is that Pynchon intro to Orwell for "1984" specifically, or for a more comprehensive Orwell edition?

I heard it as an anniversary edition of Orwell and for some reason got the impression of collected works...?

Ohmigod, D'art! You're not going to read something by Pynchon, are you? How inferior of you.

Yeah, I know. Despite all the correction I've received in this regard, I still like him. File it under guilty pleasure, I guess...

Re the Orwell collection: That's interesting, because I recently bought an Everyman edition of collected essays. It's a beautiful book--even has a sewn-in place holder. The essays seem well-chosen, but I've barely dipped into it...

The critic who recommended the Pynchon intro did mention that it was "controversial." Probably he's been scanning A2K's book discussions...

Gee, I read that intro--seemed straightforward to me. But the critic may be hearing other voices, as you suggest...

I remembered yesterday evening, a long weekend back in the mid-'80s, when I had just moved to a new town and knew no one. July 4 weekend, no one to see, nothing to do except (goody, goody!!) read! That was the last time in memory I "gulped" books -- transfixed, occasionally getting a sandwich, falling asleep with book in hand. And one of those books was Richard Ford's "The Sportswriter" which I loved. Haven't read it since, but may to back to it. On the basis of that memory, I recommend it!

I loved "The Sportswriter", too! And the sequel, "Independence Day" is also worthy. I haven't read anything else by Ford, though...

I plowed through "Sir Vidia's Shadow", finishing it yesterday. I've never been disappointed by Theroux, but I'm afraid I'll view Naipaul through a different lens now...

When Ray Carter died, I went to his memorial service in NYC. That whole generation of writers was there -- it was fascinating. It got me started (I was back in the US after 20 years absence) on a generation of writers who were new to me. I became quite a Richard Ford fan. I enjoyed Independence Day too, but curiously can't remember a word of it!! Sportswriter is etched on my brain -- possibly because I was sitting in Princeton reading it and that's the area it was written about.

I'm curious to hear about Ray Carter, because I'm drawing a blank on the name. Please enlighten me, Tartarin!

Raymond Carter, Port ?Angeles?, short stories, Tess Gallagher, poet. I'm drawing a blank on where he lived, but it was close by. (In another connection, I'm a fan of the NW and its writers. I can't personally go to Washington because my astrograph tells me it's highly dangerous terroritory for a Pisces born at a particular time!!)