What are you currently reading?

[Karl Henning]

I am re-reading this:

[asin]138970503X[/asin]

While reading this in parallel:

[asin]1593930437[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

I am re-reading this:

[asin]138970503X[/asin]

And this is the review I have just posted on Amazon:

The Fortune Cookie That Got Away

It isn't enough to say, this is the More Sugar you've clamored for all these years. We've all yearned for that second tub of slaw, and here the justly celebrated and certified pre-cloned Philip Proctor has drawn the curtain at last to reveal the flaming Ford.

Has he told us too much? You'll never know until you follow the yellow rubber line to your seat. As we begin reading this Psychic, Psurrealistic Pstory with all its rich detail, the author's winning, humane tone (which grounds the elemental force of his quicksilver sense of humor), and with the seemingly inexhaustible cast with which the stage of his life has been peopled, the good Proctor's head-spinning autobiographical no-regrets vignettes have us by the thrusters.

My mind, too, by design owes more to the 4 or 5 Crazy Guys than my analyst could, without violating confidences, attest to, let alone relate. Had I stumbled upon the vast alien warehouse in which my several grammar schools have been tidily crated & stacked (and I know they have, I just haven't found the warehouse yet) the awe thus inspired would scarcely vie with the candid tour of his life whereon Phil P. leadeth us.

In writing his stories and novels, P.G. Wodehouse arranged his narrative so that the reader would be sure to find a laugh on every page. Mr. Proctor does this, and more; for I find not only amusement on each page, but something educative, as well. ("Unless you're careful," as my late Dad was wont to say, "you'll learn something new every day.")

With all good-faith attempt not to spoil anything for anyone – nowhere else, but in Gospodin Proctor's non-noir memoir, have I learnt:  the real purpose of Soviet-era movie-houses;  the flight path of Og's pants;  the true story behind "Yale Distorts";  how a theatrical professional copes with the irresistible reflex provoked by the appearance of a cross-eyed cat wrangler;  just how tough Vaughn Meader's luck was;  the product which an industry paid out $650K to bury forever – "Nasal Hipstick";  and much else which propriety and fairness to the author suggests I ought to leave it to you, Gentle Reader, to buy the book and find out for your own self.

All right, so I've absorbed a great load of learning, and was amused practically beyond human endurance in the process, but is it any use?  Is anything any use?  As Bartholomew Fayrsijn, the great Phleggmish philosopher and mutton confectioner argued, "Just dig a hole deep enough, and if you're not in orbit in those dark times then, when will you ever be?  Folk you, too."  Sure, you could be sealed in a steel box just like Nino, but what chance do you stand of thinking your way out again, if you don't read this book?  Twenty years later, and it will still knock you out.

From here, the story is visualization.  Reading this book did what I asked of it, but it did far more, and we're still trying to put the kitchen garden back in order, a week later.  What did I expect of the book?  That it would fill me in on the History, Linear and Otherwise, of The Firesign Theatre;  that it would instruct me in a great deal else of Philip Proctor's activity, at least of all that has so far been declassified;  and that I would know more of Phil (I call him "Phil," though he'll wring my neck if he catches me at it) as a person, as a Mensch, как человек, as a result.  Well, seekers, I have been informed, at my hotel.  I was re-grooved, without the need of being taken away, no zizzing or dripping.  But if I expected a Groupon for appetizers for two and a pitcher of apple-cinnamon mojitos at Ernie's Chock-o'-Taqueria in San Clamarón, well, I've got another think coming, and I can wait.

If I have not yet left you with the semi-delible impression that this is the best book I have read this year, let me conclude with the straightest poop of all, an instance of instant inspiration from one of innumerable, hefty slices of life under which this literary pie plate groans so copiously.  We learn that Phil's maternal grandmother's family, the Stivers (this is in the chapter which, in an unauthorized pirate edition, was headed "Encounter in Goshen") were makers of furniture and coffins.  In a flash, it was revealed to me:  And what is a coffin, but the last piece of furniture you'll ever need?"

I read this book (I first saw it in the author's own hands, not in vain but in Washington, D.C.), I love it – the book, not the District – and I encourage any of you who can still read, at any time when you come down out of the tree where you've sat to learn how to play the flute, to read it and love it yourselves.

Read it, love it, read it again.

Karl Henning
Boston, Mass.

[The substitution Folk was made because the original text caused the Amazon algorithm to reject the review at first.]

[kishnevi]

Extending the theory to music works for me....
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/why-you-should-stop-feeling-bad-about-all-those-books-you-buy-dont-read.html

[LKB]

Space Chronicles by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[milk]

[nodogen]

A Guide to the Good Life (the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy)

- William B. Irvine

A very readable introduction to Stoic philosophy. Stoicism is a very practical, rational, suck-it-up philosophy of life and Irvine tries to show how it is still as relevant today as it ever was in times past. I'm not fully on-board with all of it, but then Stoicism expects critical thinking ☺️

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Just ordered Wilkie Collins's "No Name". I can't wait to get my hands on it, The Moonstone was absolutely wonderful.

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[milk]

In Butler's post-apocalyptic future (c. 1983), a populist presidential candidate has the following slogan: "Make America Great Again."

[Jo498]

Just ordered Wilkie Collins's "No Name". I can't wait to get my hands on it, The Moonstone was absolutely wonderful.

Check out "The woman in white". It is more romantic mystery than crime mystery, compared to the Moonstone and it lacks a narrator as entertaining as the Robinson-Crusoe-obsessed butler, but it is pretty good and has a remarkable villain character.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

And has a remarkable villain character.

Yes, I've heard much positive about Count Fosco.

[Crudblud]

Gore Vidal - Virgin Islands

Very enjoyable essay collection with subjects ranging from American literary figures to presidents to policy at home and abroad. On the strength of this I would like to get my hands on the much larger (and indeed large in general) United States collection.

[Ken B]

Check out "The woman in white". It is more romantic mystery than crime mystery, compared to the Moonstone and it lacks a narrator as entertaining as the Robinson-Crusoe-obsessed butler, but it is pretty good and has a remarkable villain character.

TWIW is incredibly readable. I read that and the Moonstone back to back one weekend.

[Todd]

Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President.  Due to a bargain basement price for this recently reprinted bio, I ended up with a bio of a lesser president.  It's a slim volume, but even so there are extended sections that cover the political scene of Fillmore's era and location rather than the president himself.  Not that there's a huge amount to cover.  Domestically, the Compromise of 1850 is the major thing he is remembered for, and that was more the work of the political giant Henry Clay (which reminds me that I need to get to a bio on him).  The book was written in the 50s, and some of the writing style is dated, and some if it is kind of clunky.  Also, I believe this is the first time I've seen the word "bailiwick" used twice in a bio.  There aren't exactly shelves full of works on Fillmore, so this will have to do. 

[kishnevi]

Got this today

[aligreto]

Got this today

I hope that you enjoy that. I read a lot of Dylan Thomas when I was younger and always liked his energy.

[kishnevi]

I hope that you enjoy that. I read a lot of Dylan Thomas when I was younger and always liked his energy.

The way he forces the reader to stop and unpack the meaning of his phrases is what attracted me....

[Crudblud]

Re-reading The Crying of Lot 49. As is typical of Pynchon, a second reading offers greater clarity on things you noticed previously but may present yet more new questions.

[bwv 1080]

Re-reading The Crying of Lot 49. As is typical of Pynchon, a second reading offers greater clarity on things you noticed previously but may present yet more new questions.

Wonder how Trystero would have managed all the Amazon.com Christmas deliveries?

[bwv 1080]

Kotkin convincingly portrays Stalin as a rational (and ruthless) ideologue rather than some sort of deranged psychopath.  All he did was obstinately apply Leninist ideology, refusing any concessions or compromise.