Books and literature recommendations

[Econoline]

I read Cod and enjoyed it immensly. Been meaning to get Salt and read that too; thanks for the reminder.

Guin - re John McPhee: I agree completely!

[Sean]

If you fancy catching your own dinner I can recommend this one:

[Gob]

That looks good, may get a copy...

[Sean]

Apparently it's not easy to come by. I remember a TV documentary about it where some old geezer spent ages on the phone trying to source a copy...

[Gob]

Would it be any good for Aussie fish?

[Sean]

Not sure... It's written in an English accent so Aussie fish may not understand some of the commands.

[Sue U]

Guin - re John McPhee: I agree completely!

I grew up reading John McPhee's pieces in The New Yorker and he was one of the primary writers who shaped my idea of "good writing." Of course, he wrote the seminal natural history of my (and his own) back yard:

Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens.

The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover the area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The few people who dwell in the region, the “Pineys,” are little known and often misunderstood. Here McPhee uses his uncanny skills as a journalist to explore the history of the region and describe the people—and their distinctive folklore—who call it home.

Another of his I highly recommend:



Whatever you imagined about a life at sea, this will set you straight.

[Guinevere]

I didn't read McPhee until college, but then his Encounters with the Archdruid changed my life. I've read everything he has ever written, and own most of it.

From Amazon.com:

Amazon.com Review
Born in 1915, the mountaineer and outdoorsman David Brower has arguably been the single most influential American environmentalist in the last half of the 20th century; even his erstwhile foes at the Department of the Interior grudgingly credit him with having nearly single-handedly halted the construction of a dam in the heart of the Grand Canyon, and he has converted thousands, even millions, of his compatriots to the preservationist cause through his work with the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and other organizations.
Brower was in the thick of battle when John McPhee profiled him for the New Yorker in a piece that would evolve into Encounters with the Archdruid. McPhee follows Brower into unusually close combat as Brower faces down a geologist who is, it seems, convinced that there is no sight quite so elevating as that of a fully operational mine; a developer who (successfully, it turned out) sought to convert an isolated stretch of the Carolina coast into a resort for the moneyed few--and who provided the title for McPhee's book, wryly opining that conservationists are at heart druids who "sacrifice people and worship trees"; and, most formidable of all, former Interior Secretary Floyd Dominy, who oversaw the construction of a structure that for Brower stands as one of the most hated creations of our time, Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. McPhee offers up an engaging portrait of Brower, a man unafraid of a good fight in the service of the earth, making Encounters an important contribution to the history of the modern environmental movement. --Gregory McNamee

Review
"The importance of this lively book in the unmanageably proliferating literature on ecology is in its confrontation between remarkable men who hold great differences of opinion with integrity on all sides. Mr. McPhee, not pushing, just presenting, portrays them all in the round, showing them clashing in concrete situations where factors are complex and decisions hard. Readers must choose sides."
—The Wall Street Journal

"For those who want to understand the issues of the environmental crisis, Encounters with the Archdruid is a superb book. McPhee reveals more nuances of the value revolution that dominates the new age of ecology than most writers could pack into a volume twice as long. I marvel at his capacity to listen intently and extract the essence of a man and his philosophy in the fewest possible words."
—Stewart Udall

"Brower and his antagonists are revealed as subtly and convincingly as they would be in a good novel."—Time

[rubato]

I've read most of John McPhee at some time or another. A great gift of language and a great writer and does a singular job in areas not really his own, like geology. passion and effort can take you a long ways.

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

Not recommended;

"Who am I", by Pete Townsend, a contender for the "most boring rock star autobiography ever" award.

[Sean]

My autobiography recommendation would be Frank Skinner's. Brutally honest but (naturally) very funny.

[Gob]

I loved that. (Bottle of Pernod beside the bed!)

If you liked that one Sean, Keith Chegwin's is very similar.

[Sean]

Isn't it called 'Cheggers can't be boozers'?

Great title!

[Gob]

One for Guin, I'm half way through this now, really enjoying it!

Grace Fox poisoned her husband in January, 1953. Or did she? Though she was tried for murder and subsequently hanged, Grace remained a silent and enigmatic figure to the very end.

When Chris Lowndes returns to his native Yorkshire to live in the isolated Kilnsgate House nearly sixty years later, in the wake of his wife’s untimely death, he wants only to be left alone to compose his piano sonata after years of soul-destroying, though lucrative, work writing film scores. Soon, however, as he learns the troubled history of Kilnsgate, he becomes fascinated by Grace’s story. The more he discovers about her life and her work as a Queen Alexandra’s nurse during the war, the more certain he becomes that she couldn’t have murdered her husband.

As Chris searches for other explanations of what might have happened on that snow-bound January night, through rumours of half-glimpsed figures, mysterious strangers and a missing letter, his quest to prove Grace’s innocence becomes entangled with his own need to sift through the ruins and loose ends of his own life in search of some kind of meaning and order, and his new relationship with local estate agent Heather Barlow.

http://www.inspectorbanks.com/books/bef ... ison-2011/

[Gob]

Just finished this...



Dear god, there are a few funny episodes, and some interesting tales. But the thing that kept me reading was how seriously he took the music. I had to keep checking it was Kiss he was writing about, not Radiohead.

[Guinevere]

I spent the long holiday weekend on the beach, reading this:



Horrifying yet gripping, like a bad wreck you can't turn away from.

[Jarlaxle]

So...is this next on the reading list?

[Guinevere]

Nope. Enough Bulger for one lifetime. Up next the Steve Jobs bio.

[Jarlaxle]

I picked up a book by accident (mistook him for LEE Child) and have gotten hooked on Lincoln Child's Pendergast thrillers...just finished Relic and Reliquary...next, The Cabinet of Curiosities.

[Guinevere]

It's Beach Reading season ---- time to update your booklists for the summer (and you *other* hemi types, for reading in front of the fire)!

I read this the other week (after waiting many long years for it to come out) and loved it. Gabaldon is back!:




And have just finished these:

Good but not great



Meh (although one great scene which takes place out in Boston harbor, just off of my beach)



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