h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In that case you'll shortly spot the reference.

Well thanks to Ed, I'm just back from the shop with 'The Great Gatsby' and also the usual bargain box item - this time 'Christ in Concrete' by Pietro di Donato - "this genuine American classic ranks with Grapes of Wrath" says the blurb. It's about Italian construction workers in New York shortly before the depression. Preface by Studs Terkel (what a fantastic name!).

Studs Terkel - not only a wonderful name, but also an all-round wonderful human being. A cultural treasure of the highest importance. I have several of his books of interviews with ordinary and noted people on such topics as work, war, poverty, race. If you don't know him, I suggest that you look out some audio inteviews on the www. It's important to hear his radio voice.

Thanks again, Ed. Studs Terkel sounds like the Real McCoy.

Just had a listen to a 1971 Studs Terkel interview with an ex-coal miner, Buddy Blankenship (B. was shot dead in Uptown Chicago shortly after giving the interview). Terkel sounds just as I imagined him! Thanks again for the excellent tip, Ed!

Finally finished captain corellis madolin.

i loved it once i got into it.

thats 2 books now in the last month or 2 which have proved to me why i always finish a book i start!

reading jesus says go now

Halfway through Hunter's novel 'The Rum Diary' - phew! it's a wonder those wino-journalists managed to get anything written. It's a fine barstool yarn; sun, sand, news and booze.

I think I have a small hangover after dealing with the escapades of the band of alco-journalists sponging around Puerto Rico. No wonder Hunter S Thompson's ashes were finally fired from a cannon and into a firework celebration. It's all an amazing lifestyle.
I wonder what The Great Gatsby has in store? More of the same or a mere shadow of such excess? We'll see! It's next on the list!

Already caught that line in The Great Gatsby that Ed mentioned. It's quite early on. What a stylish piece of writing this is. I'm luxuriating in it!

Yup. That's Fitzgerald. Stylish.

"I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes."

>> I haven't bothered with anything past the fourth HP book. But one of the reasons I don't like them is that JK Rowling is so damn rich <<

What, exactly, does that have to do with anything? That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard since…since…since Tony Blair last said anything!*

But…I see you’ve been kicked already for this opinion, so moving on swiftly:

So, I read the Ukrainian Tractor book on holiday. Thinly-disguised autobiography. It fizzled out somewhat at the end, whilst tying up all the “loose ends” which weren’t really loose to begin with. Quite well-written, but it didn’t exactly set me on fire. More of a chick-lit book, maybe? (Runs and hides .)

I also read Restless, by William Boyd. Now this is a much more meaty book with two strong female protagonists…yet again it fizzles somewhat towards the end. It’s good, but it suffers from the same thing that most William Boyd books suffer from: he wrote The New Confessions and Any Human Heart**, so it seems slight by comparison. Of course, most other writers would trade major organs to have written anything like as good as this. Go read it.

RF

* and I care not what he said. The man now has 0% credibility.

** Until Boyd wrote Any Human Heart, all his other books suffered from comparison to TNC.

JKR being rich annoys me slightly because there are penniless, but far superior authors out there. And that's just one reason. And a light-hearted, careless one at that . Filthy stinking rich people tend to annoy me anyway because of the inequalities in income which exists across the country and the world as a whole. But that has nothing to do with what I'm reading, so...

I've just got hold of a copy of Kafka's 'The Castle' for when I next feel like a break from Wilde. I have only had a quick look through it, but it looks interesting, anyway.

I read soem of Boyd's earlier stuff (eg Stars and Bars; An Ice Cream War). I decided they were pointless. Intriguing at first, but they became tedious when one realised they weren't going anywhere.
But then I read Brazzaville Beach, which I thought was wonderful. Rich, multilayered, well-integrated themes.

The Castle...I've probably already described visiting Prague Castle with an Italian friend. He stopped suddenly at the main door and said "This is *exactly* like Kafka described it!" And he was right. Huge intimidating cliff-like face...one could picture Kafka finding his way blocked by guards.

Read half of P.G. Wodehouse's 'Jeeves in the Offing' on the bus today. It is very funny; perhaps not "laugh-out-loud" funny, though I've found few books that are, but very funny. It is also extremely well written and I must concur with the opinion I've often heard that Wodehouse is probably the most underrated English prose writer. He seems to be labelled as a 'genre' writer rather than being appreciated as a writer.

Anyhoo, that's what I'm readin

When did you go to Prague, Ed? I was there a few weeks ago. There's now an amazing Kafka Museum there. It's on the river in that old quarter, they call the left bank, just below the bridge everybody walks over. It has a dark room containing black filing cabinets, with one open, and a black telephone on the wall, of course it's silent, and lots else. There's a terrific piece of modern sculpture outside the front door. There's a bookshop and cafe' etc. Very good value. It was very quiet when I went which added to the surrealness of it all - I almost felt trapped in there. Super stuff.
Also I went in the castle and looked out of the windows they used to throw the people out of, directly over that great cliff. It's a bit creepy in the castle too. Some strange portraits of old faces staring down. Shivery!
By the way I'm halfway through The Great Gatsby.

I recently finished my book about the Medicis and the one about Elizabeth I. Both mentioned Catherine de Medici, so I got out 'Catherine de Medici' by Leonie Frieda. I read it a year or so ago but it's so good I'm reading it again.

I've now read 'The Great Gatsby', my 'thin' book, which kept bringing to my mind Graham Greene's 'Doctor Fisher of Geneva' - similar theme I guess. He's a great writer of the dramatic scene is Fitzgerald.

My basic reading system is to read one 'thick' book and one 'thin' book more or less at the same time. I like to carry a 'thin' book around in my pocket for whenever I have 10 minutes to spare. The 'thick' book resides at home. Now I must find another 'thin' book.

Staying in New York I'm plumping this time for 'Christ in Concrete' by Pietro di Donato, the book with the Studs Terkel preface and the Fred L Gardaphe´ introduction. It's been compared to 'Grapes of Wrath' and is the story of Italian builders working in New York in the 1930s. It's what you might call a lost 'classic'. Well, we'll see.

I'm increasingly suspecting that we must have been separated at birth, LLl. I'm a major, MAJOR Greene fan. '...or The Bomb Party' is one of his less typical ones.

(I *think* I'm right in recalling it was James Mason's last film).

"Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut, 1973. Pretty strange, but fun. Eccentric sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout and going crazy car dealer Wayne Hoover wander thru life, with author Kurt Vonnegut also entering the scene occasionally. Lots of comments on "issues" - racism, suicide, penis size comparison, pornography, ... "and so on". As one reviewer points out, "(Vonnegut) writes as if for an extraterrestrial audience to whom humanity is utterly alien." No wonder they haven't visited us.