BOOKS THREAD

I'm re-reading "Into the Wild." Kind of an escapist antidote to the office-dwelling life.

 

When I first read that, I kind of thought McCandless was a dope who had it coming. Some of the subsequent reporting led me to believe otherwise, including this one by Krakauer last year in The New Yorker
How Chris McCandless Died: An Update - The New Yorker

 

Krakauer desperately wants to prove that McCandless died of something other than starvation due to his own naivete. And perhaps he's onto something.

I'm mostly an admirer of the kid regardless. I know that today's mantra is experiences over possessions. But he took that on before it was a status symbol. And he took it on very authentically. There's a lot of layers to the story, not the least of which is whether we've kind of reached the point where it's just unrealistic for a rich kid from suburban D.C. to re-commune with the road and with nature to the degree of our ancestors. It's also a nice reminder - though an ultimately tragic one - that we haven't tamed everything yet.

 

Starting Noah Hawley's "Before the Fall"; anyone read this?

 

it's in my queue, but i haven't started it yet.

 

I'm halfway through and enjoying it. Let's discuss in PM after you finish.

 

Read Phillip Norman's massive new McCartney bio which stands alongside his Lennon bio as what might be the definitive works on the subject. James McBride's new book on James Brown is highly recommended.

 

Re-reading Moby Dick. I know some of the middle of the novel bogs down with digressions about the make-up of whales and the like, but I'd forgotten how largely fast-paced the narrative is, with mostly short chapters. And the writing is just terrific. Amazed by how many of my reader friends have never read this, most likely because it's 600 pages and they encountered it in high school or some survey course in college.

 

Finished The Liar's Club last weekend.
Eh.

 

I kept thinking I should have liked "The Liar's Club" more. No. It was a leftover bowl of oatmeal of a book. Right now I'm roughly a third of the way through "The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress" by Ariel Lawhon. It's keeping me reading, but the subject is not really in my wheelhouse. Someone who is mad for the Jazz Age and what happened to Judge Crater would probably love it.

 

Finished "Remember Mia", a thriller. Enjoyable, story of a mother with amnesia who cannot remember what happened to her 7 mo. daughter; was it post-partum depression?

To change it up, now starting "3 days in August", the Bissinger/LaRussa collaboration.

 

"Rocks," an autobiography of guitarist Joe Perry (with a ghost writer)

Not the hugest Aerosmith fan, but lots of interesting stuff about the rock biz in the 1970s. He doesn't pull any punches about his drug woes, either.

And there's a long appendix about his guitars, amps, effect pedals, etc. for the guitar geeks out there.