My, how time flies

It's been a little while-- 18 months! -- since I've recorded any books here. I'm not going to be able to recover much, I'm afraid. But randomly, here's what I can remember:

Wodehouse: The Small Bachelor (meh), Love Among the Chickens (meh), all the Psmith books (awesome; had already read two or three).

Some not-so-hot Ian Rankin books: Hide and Seek, The Black Book, Mortal Causes, Strip Jack, and one -- Tooth and Nail -- which was so creepy I decided I was done with Rankin and Rebus, who I never liked much anyway.

Probably the best thing I read in 2010: Dombey and Son. Dickens was a genius who understood the human mind and heart. And what flat-out awesome prose he could produce:

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time - remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go - while the countenance of Son was crossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.

Sigh.

second reading comes to an end

I was sorry to see the end of Jonathan Yardley's Second Reading series, but all the reviews are available online. The Post didn't provide a link for each review, but I've linked up a few that I've read or would like to read. Here's the list:

-- "H.M. Pulham, Esq.," by John P. Marquand.

-- "The Daughter of Time," by Josephine Tey.

-- "W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes," by Robert Lewis Taylor.

-- "The Autumn of the Patriarch," by Gabriel García Márquez.

-- "Happy All the Time," by Laurie Colwin.

-- "And Then We Heard the Thunder," by John Oliver Killens.

-- "Reveille in Washington," by Margaret Leach.

-- "The Twelve Caesars," by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves.

-- "Cheaper by the Dozen," by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.

-- "Lucky Jim," by Kingsley Amis.

-- "The Clock Winder," by Anne Tyler.

-- "The Dreadful Lemon Sky," by John D. MacDonald.

-- "The Woman Within," by Ellen Glasgow.

-- "Tom Jones," by Henry Fielding.

-- "Paper Tiger," by Stanley Woodward.

-- "The Reivers," by William Faulkner.

-- "The Earl of Louisiana," by A.J. Liebling.

-- "Notes of a Native Son," by James Baldwin.

-- "Rebecca," by Daphne du Maurier.

-- "Someone Like You," by Roald Dahl.

-- "The Long Season," by Jim Brosnan.

-- "The Count of Monte Cristo," by Alexandre Dumas.

-- "Speak, Memory," by Vladimir Nabokov.

-- "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," by Carson McCullers.

-- "No Left Turns," by Joseph L. Schott.

-- "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill," by John Cheever.

-- "Penrod and Sam," by Booth Tarkington.

-- "The Boys on the Bus," by Timothy Crouse.

-- "The Sketch Book," by Washington Irving.

-- "The Catcher in the Rye," by J.D. Salinger .

-- "Crazy Salad," by Nora Ephron.

-- "A New Life," by Bernard Malamud.

-- "Cockfighter," by Charles Willeford.

-- "Cyrano," by Edmund Rostand, translated by Brian Hooker.

-- "The House on Coliseum Street," by Shirley Ann Grau.

-- "Appointment in Samarra," by John O'Hara.

-- "Victory," by Joseph Conrad.

-- "Pogo," by Walt Kelly.

-- "Office Politics," by Wilfrid Sheed.

-- "The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor," edited by Sally Fitzgerald.

-- "Generation of Vipers," by Philip Wylie.

-- "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant," by Douglass Wallop.

-- "The Death of the Heart," by Elizabeth Bowen.

-- "Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans," by Louis Armstrong.

-- "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin."

-- "Instant Replay," by Jerry Kramer with Dick Schaap.

-- "Look at Me," by Anita Brookner.

-- "Beat to Quarters," by C.S. Forester.

-- "The Fathers," by Allen Tate.

-- "Bleak House," by Charles Dickens.

-- "Sula," by Toni Morrison.

-- "St. Urbain's Horseman," by Mordecai Richler.

-- "Treasure Island," by Robert Louis Stevenson.

-- "Giant," by Edna Ferber.

-- "The Revolt of Mamie Stover," by William Bradford Huie.

-- "The Robber Bridegroom," by Eudora Welty.

-- "Fanny Hill," by John Cleland.

-- "Veeck -- As in Wreck," by Bill Veeck with Ed Linn.

-- "Poets in Their Youth," by Eileen Simpson.

-- "The Damnation of Theron Ware," by Harold Frederic.

-- "A Moveable Feast," by Ernest Hemingway.

-- "The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

-- "The Mountain Lion," by Jean Stafford.

-- "Black Like Me," by John Howard Griffin.

-- "The Ox-Bow Incident," by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.

-- "My Life and Hard Times," by James Thurber.

-- "The Woman Warrior," by Maxine Hong Kingston.

-- "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," by Eric Hodgins.

-- "Morte d'Urban," by J.F. Powers.

-- "The Stardust Road," by Hoagy Carmichael.

-- "I Was Dancing," by Edwin O'Connor.

-- "Little House in the Big Woods," by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

-- "Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's," by Frederick Lewis Allen.

-- "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," by Joan Didion.

-- "Lie Down in Darkness," by William Styron.

-- "My Young Years," by Arthur Rubenstein.

-- "Cannery Row," by John Steinbeck.

-- "Scott Fitzgerald," by Andrew Turnbull.

-- "The Rector of Justin," by Louis Auchincloss.

-- "The Shooting Party," by Isabel Colegate.

-- "The Elements of Style," by William Strunk and E.B. White. (related post here)

-- "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," by Hunter S. Thompson.

-- "Dale Loves Sophie to Death," by Robb Forman Dew.

-- "About Three Bricks Shy of a Load," by Roy Blount Jr.

-- "Act One," by Moss Hart.

-- "Black Boy," by Richard Wright.

-- "The Young Lions," by Irwin Shaw.

-- "The Proud Tower," by Barbara Tuchman.

-- "Never Love a Stranger," by Harold Robbins.

-- "The Spawning Run" and "My Moby Dick," by William Humphrey.

-- "Newspaper Days," by H.L. Mencken.

-- "Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austen.

-- "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," by Mark Twain.

-- "Pomp and Circumstance," by Noël Coward.

-- "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," by Thornton Wilder.

-- "The Second Happiest Day," by John Phillips.

-- "The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor."

karen

by Marie Killilea (her mom)

Published in 1960. Story of a girl with cerebral palsy. Inspiring.

review of dickens biography

Michael Dirda, Washington Post:

Many modern readers, I think, rather neglect Dickens, disdaining him as melodramatic and sentimental. Instead, we revere Jane Austen for her subtle wit or turn to Henry James for his delicate analyses of human motivation. But Dickens really is our prose Shakespeare. For proof, try almost any of his novels or just watch a DVD of the Royal Shakespeare Company or the BBC dramatizations of "Nicholas Nickleby," "Oliver Twist" or "David Copperfield." When Thackeray, whose "Vanity Fair" was then being published to wild acclaim, first read the scene of young Paul's death in "Dombey and Son," he famously -- and rightly -- cried out: "There's no writing against such power as this -- one has no chance!" For anybody who wants to know more about this dynamo of Victorian letters, Michael Slater's superb biography is the one to read.

catching up

Reading:

Shop Class as Soulcraft
*Update: finished this -- highly recommended.

Recently read:

Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians

Crazy for the Storm

Huck Finn
Tom Sawyer

Big Trouble by Dave Barry (don't bother)

sword of honor trilogy

by Evelyn Waugh

I enjoyed revisiting Brideshead so much that I'm now reading this, for the first time. Just finished Men at Arms and have started the second book, Officers and Gentlemen.

with God in russia

Recently read this and recommend it.

With God in Russia by Walter Ciszek, SJ

True account of a priest's decades as a prisoner in Lubyanka and Siberian labor camps. Have passed it on to teenage sons. Important historical and political lessons packed into a compelling and inspiring biography.

brideshead revisited

I'm revisiting this. It's wonderful. I have the urge to type or paste in long favorite passages. Maybe later.

the prince and the pauper

Just read it. Worse than I expected in some ways and better in others. Overall very good. Lots on British legal system. I'd like to see the old Disney version again. I guess that's what I was expecting.

children of men

by PD James

Finally, finally reading this. So far I'm impressed with her prose and happy not to be dealing with the tedious Dalgliesh.

man and wife

by Andrew Klavan

A psychological mystery. Had a bit of a Josephine Tey vibe, a la Brat Farrar. I'll read more Klavan for sure.

point of impact

and Black Light by Stephen Hunter

These are guys' books about a Marine sniper. Slightly ridiculous at times, and more about guns than I ever wanted to know, but page-turning fun. I will probably read more.

the natural

by Bernard Malamud

I like baseball fiction and wanted to like this. But I couldn't. The main character was ultimately too damaged, and unredeemable. I couldn't connect to the women. The whole thing left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I haven't seen the movie but can't imagine it's much like the book.

tripods books

by John Christopher

Just re-read the first book, The White Mountains, and have skipped to the prequel, When the Tripods Came. This is a first-rate series. I read it something like 12 years ago. I'm interested in the idea of people willingly surrendering their will to the tripods.

two additions to my stack

The Song is You by Arthur Phillips (reviewed here)

I'll Make You an Offer You Can't Refuse by Michael Franzese

dirty money

I read Dirty Money, the follow-up novel to Nobody Runs Forever by Donald Westlake/Richard Stark. I might read more of these if only the characters had souls.

everybody kills somebody sometime

Sounds cheesy and it is. I was childishly delighted when Steve brought this home from the library


But it just wasn't very good. I won't bother with the others, even Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die.

westlake/stark books

I've read four of these so far:

As Donald Westlake:
The Hot Rock (the first Dortmunder book)
The Hook

As Richard Stark:
The Damsel (a Grofield book)
Nobody Runs Forever (a Parker book)

Each of these is different in tone. The Hot Rock is the lightest, most comic. Not quite my kind of humor but amusing; Westlake is a skillful writer. I'm not surprised this book was made into a film, though I wouldn't have imagined Robert Redford in any of the roles. But that's Hollywood.

The Damsel, which borrows a character (Grofield) from The Hot Rock, is more adventure/thriller, and the more compelling read for me. But still fairly light in tone. I could almost see Cary Grant playing the lead, though he was born too early for that, and has about a hundred times the charm quotient of Grofield (whose name isn't Grofield in this book, but I digress).

Nobody Runs Forever is one of Stark's Parker books. He's a cold-as-ice thief and killer. The story of their planned heist is not told from the victim's or the detective's point of view, but mainly from the criminals'. (This is true for all four of these books.) It reminds me in tone of an old Cagney or Bogart film. I'm not an expert on hard-boiled detectives a la Hammett or Chandler, but maybe Steve will give his opinion, since he's read lots of these. He rates Chandler at the top, I think.

The Hook was, for me, the most compelling and disturbing of the four by far. It's set not in the world of habitual or professional crooks but in a literary one. The main characters are novelists. More psychological than the other books. Not a pretty take on humanity.

Westlake is a masculine writer. Plot is king, and men (mostly) propel it forward. I know a book needs both, but I usually care more about characters than plot. Westlake's plots are so well done, though, that even I notice and enjoy them. The four books contain some women but I just don't find them as convincing as the men. That's not unusual and not a deal-breaker in this case.

Four books comprise a tiny sample of Westlake's output of over a hundred books. So I'll read some more, and try to read the earlier books first.

some favorites

• Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series
• PG Wodehouse: many many titles
• Jane Austen's 6 novels
• Ring Lardner: You Know Me Al
• Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair; Brat Farrar
• The Provincial Lady in America by E. M. Delafield
• George Smiley books by John le Carre
• A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• Colin Dexter: Inspector Morse mysteries
• Agatha Christie (esp. Miss Marple)
• Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone; The Woman in White
• Ngaio Marsh mysteries
• Bruce Marshall: The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith
• Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight
• James Herriot: All Creatures Great and Small series
• Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
• Charles Dickens

best books I read in 2008

*I've affixed asterisks to the best titles.*

Mysteries: These were good but not great. I'm still looking for a great new mystery author, and have high hopes for Donald Westlake.
Elizabeth Ironside: Death in the Garden and The Accomplice
Barbara Vine: Anna's Book
Ian Rankin: Knots and Crosses

Sea books: Patrick O'Brian is the best, followed by CS Forester. Ramage will suffice if you need a fix of salt air and a couple of broadsides.
Dudley Pope: Ramage series
Nordhoff and Hall: Mutiny on the Bounty

Classics:
CS Lewis: Till We Have Faces, The Screwtape Letters*
Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda and sequel

Best-kept secret:
Louis Hemon: Maria Chapdelaine*

Baseball:
Rind Lardner: You Know Me Al*

Politics:
Mark Steyn: America Alone*

Parenting:
Neufeld and Mata: Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers*
Robert Karen: Becoming Attached*