Whatcha reading?

Sweet action for kids 'n' cretins. Marjoram and capers.
Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115978
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
11 Sep 2018, 2:24am
Dr. Medulla wrote:
09 Sep 2018, 1:07pm
New audiobook
Image
I've seen the movie, of course, but it's been so long I barely remember it. But I came across this and decided to give it a spin. Only a few chapters in so far, but it's super breezy writing.
How Chevy Chase is the character?
With the caveat that my memory of the movie isn't strong, I don't see/hear Chevy Chase in this novel. Chevy always has a goofy quality to him, whereas the novel's Fletch is more cynical and alienated, and the humour (dry as it is) comes from his being outside society's norms. Somewhere closer to Norm Macdonald, I'd say.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115978
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Almost done Fletch—it's entertaining enough but more than a bit contrived, and the title character is a dink—so tomorrow I'll be embracing my inner SM by engaging with an audiobook about a lesser US president. I've had this one at the back of the queue forever but on a whim promoted it today.
Image
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35799
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Flex »

JQA lives forever as John Quincy Adding Machine.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115978
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Image
I finally gave on that Bruce Caen novel. Sub-Hunter Thompson rambling and often incoherence. Whether intentional or not, I lost interest in the characters or events. So, instead, I recently learned that Dan Epstein published another book about 70s baseball, so I bought a copy, which I'll be starting tomorrow.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
12 Sep 2018, 9:07pm
Almost done Fletch—it's entertaining enough but more than a bit contrived, and the title character is a dink—so tomorrow I'll be embracing my inner SM by engaging with an audiobook about a lesser US president. I've had this one at the back of the queue forever but on a whim promoted it today.
Image
I like when he's no longer President and spends all his days fucking with the slaveholders in the senate.

The Story of Crass - George Berger. A fine companion piece to Ralph's Clash 2 book, well written and draws the counter cultural line between 60s culture and punk. It's critical in all the right places, respectful of its very interesting subjects while calling them out in their own individual bullshit. It also does a good job of zooming through the early eighties political scene. Recommended.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

56) The Compleat Rifleman Harris - Benjamin Harris, as told to & Transcribed by Captain Henry Curling, 52nd Regt of Foot. The adventures of a soldier of the 95th rifles during the peninsula campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. I don't ever give a shit about military history, but Gwen, my friend and neighbour from over the road forced this into my hand and demanded I read it. Gwen's a cool sixty-something . She lives with her ex-husband, an actor who has appeared in vampire films, and she writes for BBC radio. What I like about this book is the language. It's the verbatim transcription of an old country working class fellow telling his war stories and it has the ring of genuine human speech that the high falutin, elevated prose of novelists in the Georgian period would have been unwilling and unable to access. There's bravado and baths and unexamined prejudice but it's a genuine primary source document that's rare for the period. Glad I don't have to read it any more, but I did dig the discursive style.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by eumaas »

Silent Majority wrote:
19 Sep 2018, 12:33pm
56) The Compleat Rifleman Harris - Benjamin Harris, as told to & Transcribed by Captain Henry Curling, 52nd Regt of Foot. The adventures of a soldier of the 95th rifles during the peninsula campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. I don't ever give a shit about military history, but Gwen, my friend and neighbour from over the road forced this into my hand and demanded I read it. Gwen's a cool sixty-something . She lives with her ex-husband, an actor who has appeared in vampire films, and she writes for BBC radio. What I like about this book is the language. It's the verbatim transcription of an old country working class fellow telling his war stories and it has the ring of genuine human speech that the high falutin, elevated prose of novelists in the Georgian period would have been unwilling and unable to access. There's bravado and baths and unexamined prejudice but it's a genuine primary source document that's rare for the period. Glad I don't have to read it any more, but I did dig the discursive style.
Ah yeah, that book inspired the Sharpe series.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

eumaas wrote:
19 Sep 2018, 12:50pm
Silent Majority wrote:
19 Sep 2018, 12:33pm
56) The Compleat Rifleman Harris - Benjamin Harris, as told to & Transcribed by Captain Henry Curling, 52nd Regt of Foot. The adventures of a soldier of the 95th rifles during the peninsula campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. I don't ever give a shit about military history, but Gwen, my friend and neighbour from over the road forced this into my hand and demanded I read it. Gwen's a cool sixty-something . She lives with her ex-husband, an actor who has appeared in vampire films, and she writes for BBC radio. What I like about this book is the language. It's the verbatim transcription of an old country working class fellow telling his war stories and it has the ring of genuine human speech that the high falutin, elevated prose of novelists in the Georgian period would have been unwilling and unable to access. There's bravado and baths and unexamined prejudice but it's a genuine primary source document that's rare for the period. Glad I don't have to read it any more, but I did dig the discursive style.
Ah yeah, that book inspired the Sharpe series.
I can see that.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by eumaas »

I always get excited for Halloween too early, so I am reading Salem’s Lot.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

eumaas wrote:
20 Sep 2018, 2:19pm
I always get excited for Halloween too early, so I am reading Salem’s Lot.
I like it. King at his early best.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35799
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Flex »

Salem's Lot holds up, great stuff.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

white man
User avatar
Graffiti Bandit Pioneer
Posts: 1855
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 6:12pm
Location: Penshaw Manor

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by white man »

Americana - Ray Davies

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115978
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

New tub book:
Image
I still have a romantic blind spot for Robert Kennedy. I recognize any number of disagreements/flaws—e.g., liberal, American interventionist, Cold Warrior—but in the last several years of his life, especially culminating in his brief presidential campaign, his fundamental humanism and moralism, his championing of the many groups that make up the underclass, and his deep belief that people can actually be better make him the only major political figure of postwar America that I genuinely respect and admire. A guy born to privilege who, in his gut, identified with the marginalized and was genuinely angry about their exclusion. To me, JFK's assassination wasn't the watershed moment; RFK's was. It all goes to fuck after him and that's no coincidence.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35799
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Flex »

Yeah, I'm in the same boat with RFK. Let me know how the book is.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Silent Majority
Singer-Songwriter Nancy
Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
Location: South Londoner in the Midlands.

Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

1177BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed - Eric H Cline. Audiobook. A rundown of about as much information on ancient near Eastern and Mediterranean bronze age communities as could be fit into an arcing narrative. Not an engrossing writer, Cline also has to flit around more narrow, interesting stories which kind of deserve books of their own. Short & sweet, I guess.
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

Post Reply