What's everybody reading?

I've just been looking up source material for my blog and reading a title on Google books (do you have an account yet--free and online bookshelf) about that cool guy LS probably has heard about--Claude Grahame-White, who once buzzed the President's house. It's on my blog if you are interested, but here's the link to Grahame's book:

http://www.google.com/books?id=J4RCAAAAIAAJ

I am currently reading Where the Birds Never Sing. I Highly recommend it. Very easy to read, informative, and compelling.

My fiction doesn't seem to stray much farther than David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich lately. My non-fiction reading at the moment is Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, and Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words.

Bad Science is a fascinating look at some of the outrageous nonsense touted by charlatans, hacks and the deluded as 'scientific'. Antioxidants, fish oil, the MMR scare, MRSA, homeopathy, ear candles etc. all feature.

Bryson's book is a gentle reminder of how things should be written. I'm turning into a grammar pedant even though every time I write something concerning other people's bad grammar I make some kind of idiotic mistake.

Escapist stuff, as usual.

Last night I picked up Heavy Weather, after browsing through my copy of a Wodehouse biography.

I keep circling back and reading my favorite mysteries and 30s novels these days.


I'm not sure I even know where my favorite non-fiction books are. It would be good to re-read Berlin Diaries again.

http://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Diaries-1940-1945-Marie-Vassiltchikov/dp/0394757777

Right now, I'm reading the Age of Excess, nonfiction about Gilded Age America:

http://books.google.com/books?id=EGlWAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1

lindydiva wrote:

Escapist stuff, as usual.

Last night I picked up Heavy Weather, after browsing through my copy of a Wodehouse biography.

I keep circling back and reading my favorite mysteries and 30s novels these days.


I'm not sure I even know where my favorite non-fiction books are. It would be good to re-read Berlin Diaries again.

[url=http://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Diaries-1940-1945-Marie-Vassiltchikov/dp/0394757777

http://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Diaries-1940-1945-Marie-Vassiltchikov/dp/0394757777[/quote[/url]]

Evidently, you've been drawing from my own bookshelf. I struggled a bit through Berlin Diaries though. I don't know why.

the_librarian wrote:

Right now, I'm reading the Age of Excess, nonfiction about Gilded Age America:

[url=http://books.google.com/books?id=EGlWAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1

http://books.google.com/books?id=EGlWAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1[/quote[/url]]


That looks to be dry as a bone - is it a textbook? How do you like it?

Working on Agatha Christie's autobiography and a Dorothy Sayers mystery, Murder Must Advertise. The flu seemed like a good excuse to read, but I've felt too bad for it!

Mimi wrote:

Working on Agatha Christie's autobiography and a Dorothy Sayers mystery, Murder Must Advertise. The flu seemed like a good excuse to read, but I've felt too bad for it!

Ahha - You're in a Brit state of mind right now. How's the biography? Christie had a few interesting occurances/mysteries of her own in her life, if I recall correctly.

The flu is miserable. You don't feel like doing anything, except wishing you were better....

[quote="Dread Scott"]

the_librarian wrote:

Right now, I'm reading the Age of Excess, nonfiction about Gilded Age America:

http://books.google.com/books?id=EGlWAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1[/quote]


That looks to be dry as a bone - is it a textbook? How do you like it?

Yeah....I forgot to mention, I'm using it for background for a new blog I'm working on...my current blog is from 1900 and up. The one I'm working on starting is from 1900 and back. I'm primarily using the title to help me remember what I should have listened to in class!

I guess, what's cool about the book is the financial wheeling and dealing that went on, especially with the government....makes today's problems look almost quaint. check this passage:

"...The Pacific railroads had failed to pay current interest and in 1877 their indebtedness to the United States was estimated at 65 million...." (pg. 99)

I'm no student of currency, but I know that was a LOT of money back then!

But yeah....the book still is dry...

Need to find some Spillane to jazz things up!

Dread Scott wrote:

Evidently, you've been drawing from my own bookshelf. I struggled a bit through Berlin Diaries though. I don't know why.

H'mm. Well, it's one you can pick up and put down. I also found that it's better as you move through. Her writing improves, for one thing, and she's becomes unspoiled. Things got rough. She was even in on some of the 21 July plot.

What else have I got...well, Benchley and some Thurber (though I find him something of a misogynist). 30s novels.

Today we found a few out thrifting. I'm very happy.

I also found "2002 Household Hints", 1933.

lindydiva wrote:

H'mm. Well, it's one you can pick up and put down. I also found that it's better as you move through. Her writing improves, for one thing, and she's becomes unspoiled. Things got rough. She was even in on some of the 21 July plot.

Well, well, well wellwellwell... I'l have to give it another shot.

lindydiva wrote:

What else have I got...well, Benchley and some Thurber (though I find him something of a misogynist). 30s novels.

Thurber... something of a misogynist? I think the only thing that keeps him from perhaps being definitively described as such is the probable fact that he was also a misanthropist. I still like his humor, though. I love Benchley, and have reprints and original printings of his books.

lindydiva wrote:

I also found "2002 Household Hints", 1933.

Wait... a 1933 book of 21st century helpfulness? But... What?

Ha! I had a similar reaction about the hints book. I did a double-take, because the front is so Deco.

Just like a modern one, they put the same hint in 6 or 7 times and count it every time.



As for Thurber, I can take him only in small doses, but I agree with your summary.


Berlin Diaries is one of my favorite books. Wait till you read about the wedding she attended at a German Schloss (castle). More displaced aristocracy and royalty than you'll believe possible.

Not to mention how she decides not to get a perm, as she thinks it would be better to have a hairstyle "better suited to air raids". She grows up!

My fiction reading is still fluffy.

I've been re-reading lots of Elizabeth Peters. Mostly the Amelia Peabody mysteries, but also some stand-alone novels.

And my husband surprised me with a copy of the newest Stephanie Plum book, one of the between-the-numbers, called Plum Spooky. It's farce, as always. Very girly, very funny, quite stupid, and mindlessly entertaining.

Fluffy is just fine.

Wodehouse is intellectually acceptable fluff, really. Detective fiction is generally just that too, really. Not a thing wrong with either.

Currently, I am reading Hell's Highway, about Operation Market-Garden during WWII. Good so far. For my fluff, I read a little of a Bennett Cerf joke book or some vintage newspaper comic collections.

We don't include magazines here do we?

We could include magazines, though there are whole threads dedicated to them here.

I bought a copy of Look to the Lady in a new edition this weekend. It's an Albert Campion (author: Margery Allingham). This was first published in 1931.

I tried to read it slowly.

Oh, well, there are more! I've only read one other in the series, and liked that, too. This one was terrific, though. Her characters, writing and plot lines are all completely absorbing.

That's a good one. I really like the opening in grimy London.

Wonderful.

By page two I was determined that Val make it through somehow.

One could do worse than her style.

I've found a wonderful site that has loads of public domain, free audio books to download. You can read them online too if you prefer.

At the moment I've got a Mark Twain, an H.G. Wells and one Dickens on my miniature electrical sound reproducer.

Audio Books

P.S. miniature electrical sound reproducer? Thank you to whomever has the word/phrase replacement thing going...LOL!

That would be me.

More of The Saint.

Simon is a tonic!

I agree about the Saint, LD. My personal Favorite is "the Saint in New York". The film version is pretty good, too. Somewhat Proto-James Bond in effect. At least, that's my memory - I haven't seen it in a long time.

I'm very lucky to have a stack of the originals. My husband found them at a local used bookshop last year.

I haven't seen any of the movies, believe it or not! I think it's time to look them up.

I would , LD, esp. the Saint in NY... I am, of course, refering to the vintage films.