I’m blanking on the name, but the only JFK conspiracy book I ever read that held together posited that Oswald did in fact act alone to fire the initial shots. However, the final shot cvs SME from a Secret Service agent accidentally firing as he drew his weapon. This explained that no conspiracy was present beforehand but that the government then acted to cover up the accident.
I want to read James Ellroy’s American Tabloid next, but my library hold hit a week into my loan on Libra, and I’m not sure I’m going to get through 700 pages in seven days.
American Tabloid is a great book. Ellroy’s prose is is terse and staccato. Some people don’t like his style of writing but he is a fantastic story teller. He is one of my favorite writers.
Then after American Tabloid you will want to read the Cold Six Thousand, followed by Blood’s a Rover. Then you’ll want to read the LA trilogy, a part of which is the book L.A. Confidential.
I’ve never read any Ellroy, so thanks for the recs!
Oddly, I’ve been reading Pearls of Wisdom, a book of life lessons from Barbara Bush compiled from friends and family. It’s not something I’d normally buy, and I wouldn’t exactly recommend it, but I was at the dedication of the Barbara Bush Literacy Plaza at the Central Houston Public Library last year and it was given to the guests. It’s been sitting on my desk ever since. I decided I either needed to read it or get rid of it, so I started reading it.
It’s short, 200 pages, and small, and I’ll likely finish it today. It’s taken four days to read, and like I said, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. It’s easily one of the least likely books I’ve read, and she was pretty great. It’s a good little book about a good life.
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I believe this is my first recommendation of a reading subject. I was gifted Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denk. It is excellent and I highly recommend it.
Was it as good as Good Boys Do Fine Always?
I believe that was bassed on Leslie’s book.
It appears that way on its FACE.
I do not know the answer to your question.
It was a joke about EGBDF and GBDFA
I know.
I think Good Boys Do Fine Always was a much deeper book.
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Do you think the author used a Ramon a clef?
I’ll provide a serious reply by saying I heard an interview with him on Fresh Air and he and the book seemed very interesting.
Absolutely not. That would have been base.
I love memoirs, especially by musicians. I’ll look for it.
There’s a book making the rounds of fly-fishing circles that’s surprisingly good, Eager, by Ben Goldfarb. It’s a natural history of the beaver, not that beaver idiot, the rodent. The premise is that before European colonization, beavers were ubiquitous and controlled how water flowed on the continent. Beaver trapping for pelts was an ecological disaster because it opened feeder streams and ended water storage. It reviews current science about the reintroduction of beaver as a strategy to deal with Western drought and salmon restoration.
It’s a very good book, and a fun read.
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A discussion in General Movies Thread reminded me that this one’s sat fallow for a spell. But I’m currently reading Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, which so far has surprisingly kind of a lot to do with Comanches. I’m a devoted spoiler-avoider (never watch trailers, never read dust jackets) but this is about par for the course for Stephenson, I’d say, as I’m just getting a feel for what this thing is about at now about 250 pages.
Finished Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, (The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End) this year. The translator is different for Death’s End and it is by far the most readable, least exotic (by which I mean Chinese) of the trilogy. It’s also a total head trip. I think in the final analysis I liked the second book the best, though it took awhile for me to really get into it. Having a couple long days of travel from East Coast to West and vice versa certainly helped.
In more sci-fi news, have been greatly enjoying the MurderBot series by Martha Wells this year. Have read the first four novellas, I think, or five. MurderBot is frequently pretty goddamn funny, and never disappoints. I also read/listened to Ender’s Game for the first time.
Got around to reading Heart of Darkness at long last this year. Am currently reading an extremely unusual (for me) book about surgical history called Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher. It’s about Robert White, who wanted, and I guess maybe somewhat succeeded for a moment, in doing a body transplant (or head transplant, depending on how you look at it). A customer who is a retired professor writing a book about the ethics of head transplants (or body transplants) recommended it to me.
Other favorites from the year so far include State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, Transit by Rachel Cusk, Everyone Knows Your Mother Was a Witch by Rivka Galchen, Ross Gay’s poetry collection Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, Emporium by Adam Johnson and You Think That’s Bad by Jim Shephard (both books of short stories), The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman, and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
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