April 26, 2021 at 2:25 am (Books, Explorers, Lists, Memoirs, Recommended, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, Grimdark, mysteries, novel, Obama, Paris, reading lists, science fiction, urban fantasy
From wsj’s Best Books of 2020/Science Fiction:
- The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal – So far, one of the best novels she’s read in 2021
- Ballistic Kiss, by Richard Kadrey – wildly inventive, self wasn’t so taken with the he/she/they gender politics of a major character
In a category by itself:
- Dark, Salt, Clear, by Lamorna Ash — A first book by a 22-year-old, E.S.A.D.
Kick-Ass Discovery of the Year:
- Eddie’s Boy, by Thomas Perry, the sequel to a 1982 novel, The Butcher’s Boy – That’s chutzpah, coming up with a sequel 40 years later. Kudos! Self added The Butcher’s Boy to her reading list.
from wsj’s Best Books of 2020/Mysteries:
- All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny — Self adored Jean-Guy Beauvoir and of course Paris.
- One Fatal Flaw, by Anne Perry — All hail the May-December almost-romance between 25-year-old Daniel Pitt and 40-year-old Miriam Crofft, daughter of his employer.
from The Economist’s Books of the Year 2020/Memoir
- A Promised Land, by Barack Obama — Beautifully written, can’t believe 45 was succeeded by Drumpf.
from The Economist’s Books of the Year 2020/Fiction
- SHUGGIE BAIN, by Douglas Stuart — an absolutely immersive experience, though her favorite character was not the title character but his unheralded older brother, Leek
from The Economist’s Books of the Year 2020/Business and Economics
- No Rules Rules — This one was a disappointment.
from wsj’s Books of the Year 2020/Travels in the New North
- Ice Walker, by James Raffan — another absolutely immersive experience, the ending almost broke self.
from Jonathan Strahan’s Notes from a Year Spent Indoors (Locus Magazine)
- the first two books in Joe Abercrombie’s (smashing) Age of Madness trilogy and her first Grimdark: A Little Hatred and The Trouble with Peace
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March 17, 2021 at 2:43 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Memoirs, Places, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Cornwall, COVID Reading, Daphne du Maurier, English writers, Fowey, Fowey Festival, memories, Obama, reading lists
Finished A Promised Land. Self never thought she would say this about a Presidential memoir, but it was a lot of fun to read. For example, Sarah Palin’s energy policy summarized in one quote: “Drill, baby, drill!”
44 displays some mighty clear-eyed thinking about bin Laden and the decision he made to authorize the Navy Seal mission. He had choices: he could have ordered a drone strike. But with a drone strike, they could never be absolutely sure they had gotten their man. The identification of bin Laden, to 44’s thinking, was paramount. And he was right.
Yesterday, self began reading Dark, Salt, Clear, Lamorna Ash’s memoir of her year spent living in a small fishing village in Cornwall. Self has been itching to read this book since forever. She, too, has taken that same rail journey from Paddington. Unlike Ms. Ash, she did not continue all the way to Penzance, she got off at Par. The not-quite-a-week self spent in Cornwall, in May 2019, was her homage to Daphne du Maurier after reading Tatiana de Rosnay’s marvelous Manderley Forever.
The prologue to Dark, Salt, Clear describes a life drawing class in which the male model “did not curve his body self-consciously across some chaise lounge but looked at us head on, legs apart, arms outstretched as if to say: Here I Am!“
- His body bore the marks of a life lived hard — his arms strong and sinewy, his face cross-hatched by wrinkles, his back and biceps scribbled all over with dark blue tattoos.
He was a Cornish fisherman.
Below, the harbor at Fowey, Cornwall, May 2019.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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March 16, 2021 at 7:11 am (Books, Memoirs)
Tags: COVID Reading, Obama, politics, reading lists, Trump, US history
44 remembers the exact date.
It was Feb. 10, 2011, during Trump’s speech at the CPAC convention that year.
p. 675, Trump at CPAC:
- “our current President came out of nowhere . . . The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who it is. It’s crazy.”
It’s not like 44 goes around dropping exact dates of when this or that person said something negative about him. And the book ends at 705 pages. Yes, Obama did indeed serve up this nugget, a mere 30 pages from the end.
You don’t think 44 has a score to settle? Self thinks he has a score to settle.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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March 15, 2021 at 8:28 pm (Books, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, humor, Mondays, Obama, politics, reading lists
Back in 2007, the maverick version of John McCain, along with his sidekick Lindsey Graham . . .
— A Promised Land, p. 615
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March 15, 2021 at 2:50 pm (Books, Food and Drink, Holidays, Memoirs, Recommended)
Tags: Christmas, COVID Reading, memories, nonfiction, Obama, reading lists
Self will surely finish A Promised Land today. She’s on p. 609 (only 100 more pages to go). It’s been by far the longest book she’s read this year:
The holiday season also meant we hosted parties practically every afternoon and evening for three and a half weeks straight. These were big, festive affairs, with three to four hundred guests at a time, laughing and chomping on lamb chops and crab cakes and drinking eggnog and wine while members of the United States Marine band, spiffy in their red coats, played all the holiday standards. For me and Michelle, the holiday parties were easy — we just dropped by for a few minutes to wish everyone well from behind a rope line.
— A Promised Land, p. 609
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March 15, 2021 at 2:03 am (Books, Memoirs, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers)
Tags: Cornwall, COVID Reading, English writers, humor, Obama, politics, praise, reading lists
frame p. 505 of A Promised Land because everything you need to know about Lindsey Graham is there in two paragraphs.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Next book: a young woman decides to spend a year in Cornwall after a life drawing class in which the model is a fifty-something fisherman. Self heard the woman writes pretty well, too: Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Town, by Lamorna Ash.
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March 14, 2021 at 4:39 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Memoirs, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: COVID Reading, favorites, Obama, politics, reading lists, US history
- “In front of me, at least, McChrystal and the other generals dutifully . . . “ — A Promised Land, p. 438
Only 260 pages more, dear blog readers!
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March 14, 2021 at 1:36 am (Books, Memoirs)
Tags: COVID Reading, humor, Obama, reading lists, Saturdays, US history
Self only has 300 pages to go!
Sentence of the Day shows 44 at his most charming and self-deprecating:
One thing felt certain: A pretty big chunk of the American people, including some of the very folks I was trying to help, didn’t trust a word I said.
— A Promised Land, p. 406
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March 12, 2021 at 11:58 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Memoirs, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, Fridays, Obama, politics, reading lists, US history
Such arguments had nothing to do with facts. They were impervious to analysis. They went deeper, into the realm of myth, redefining what was fair, reassigning victimhood . . .
— A Promised Land, p. 274
Keep reading: p. 276 says this became the “template for Fox News and conservative radio . . . “
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March 12, 2021 at 2:49 am (Books, Memoirs, Recommended)
Tags: COVID Reading, Obama, politics, reading lists, wisdom
Only 500 pages more to go, people! If self remains completely focused tomorrow, she may finish A Promised Land without actually having to blog about it 20 more times.
McConnell is singing a different tune these days, praising Operation Warp Speed and blaming the Democrats for “wanting to take all the credit.”
Careful, Mitch, you’re in danger of turning into Lindsey!
A Promised Land, p. 259:
- They (The GOP) understood that any help they offered my administration in mounting an effective, sustained government response to the crisis would only be to my political benefit — and would tacitly acknowledge the bankruptcy of their own anti-government, anti-regulation rhetoric. If, on the other hand, they fought a rearguard action, if they generated controversy and threw sand in the gears, they at least had a chance to energise their base and slow me and the Democrats down at a time when the country was sure to be impatient.
Sounds like nothing’s changed in the intervening.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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