BOOKS THREAD

Just finished "American Lightning," Howard Blum's succinct description of the demolition of the LA Times building in October, 1910 through the eyes of three individuals: standout detective Billy Burns (the founder of the Burns Detective Agency), Clarence Darrow and DW Griffith.

Through their eyes, Blum gives a nice -- albeit not as detailed as I like -- description of early 20th century LA, complete with rape of the Owens Valley and founding of the San Fernando Valley by Times founder Harrison Gray Otis and Co. He uses the labor-vs-capital argument to frame the overall story.

I'm still not sure why Griffith is brought in, except as a prop to portray how the motion picture industry took off. Still, the anecdotes on how he began telling stories on film in a fashion akin to novels was interesting.

A quick, interesting read.

 

Just finished White House Ghosts by Robert Schlesinger about White House speechwriters from FDR through GWB. I think the book gives as much insight into each president as it does the speechwriters. Each chapter really was a microcosm of how each administration worked because the fights the speechwriters had were the same ones throughout the administration and how the president managed the speechwriters mirrored how they managed the nation (is anyone surprised that Reagan's speechwriters broke down as pragmatists versus true believers or that Carter eschewed large themes, but sent his writers a long list of grammar reminders?). A pretty good read if you are interested in presidential history.

 

Tales of a Czech taxi driver in NYC. Great reading for the throne.

We just dropped over a grand on new bookcases and there's a major shift underway. I found this one practically crushed.

 

I just got the entire Alex Cross series (James Patterson) plus about five other books for $26, no shipping. I got them at www.cozybookcellar.com. I don't know if that site has been mentioned here or not, but it's great. They are used, at least I think they all are, but the books I got look great. They look 1000x better than when I'm done with a paperback. Some of them don't look like they've been read at all. Anyway, if you spend $25 with them, you don't have to pay anything for shipping. Buying $25 worth of books is a little harder than you might think though, because the prices are so cheap. For $26, I ended up with 20 books.

I didn't mean for this post to sound like such a commercial. I just wanted to let you know about the site.

 

Charlie Pierce has a book coming out in June.

Idiot America: How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780767926140

I guess it'd be an expansion of his outstanding Esquire pierce of the same name from 05.

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0207GREETINGS

 

Am almost finished Judith Moore's memoir "Fat Girl". Angry, honest, funny (in a very dark way). I can't recommend this highly enough.

 

I just read the memoirs of Christopher Plummer (Baron Von Trapp in the Sound of Music, as he no doubt would hate to be identified).

Funny in many ways, intended and not. Intended -- his description of the drunken world of Broadway and NY in the 1950s. Unintended -- he's utterly oblivious as to what a self-absorbed prick he was at times. And when he is slightly aware of it, he tries to toss it off with insincere self-deprecation.

But it's entertaining, I'll admit.

 

Got through three books in my holiday travels. All were exceptional.

Lush Life, by Richard Price. Long, particularly in the back third. But he's a brilliant writer of dialogue and scene. And gets modern-day Manhattan right on.

Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. Long on my list. Glad I finally read it. Fascinated now with Daniel Burnham and turn of the century Chicago. A bit less fascinated by the serial killer aspect. But the Chicago stuff more than made up for it.

Joe Gould's Secret, by Joe Mitchell: Two New Yorker profiles of a Village character. The second one put Mitchell on a career-long bout of writer's block. But it was awesome. A great story about a writer and his subject, very well-told.

 

I read "Big City, Bad Blood" and "Trigger City" by Sean Chercover. They are about a journalist turned PI. Not bad reads but they are murder mysteries. The final chapter of Big City Bad Blood is the first in Trigger City so it is almost a given you have to read both. I enjoyed the first one more than the second.

 

Anybody use Shelfari or a similar Web site? I find it is a convenient way to keep track of all the books I want to read and share them with family and friends (not an advertisement, I promise, just a site I enjoy).

 

My family and I use GoodReads. It is a pretty cool web site.