I made light of Ace of Spades HQ’s Perfesser Squirrel, the new sysop of the Sunday morning book thread, for going to a library book sale and buying only 12 books.
And this weekend, I went to the Clever book sale and bought… 13.
I got:
- Black Coffee Blues by Henry Rollins, a collection of writings from 1989-1991 by the Black Flag guy.
- The Overton Window by Glenn Beck. Fiction.
- The Big Black Book of Income Secrets. Heaven knows I could use some.
- Colorblind, a Jesse Stone novel by Reed Farrel Coleman.
- Old Black Magic, a Spenser novel by Ace Atkins. I didn’t have either of these because I’ve pretty much given up on the series, but hey, they were almost free.
- You Can Date Boys When You’re Forty by Dave Barry who had a brief resurgence on his Substack, but I haven’t seen anyone link to him recently. But it’s still there. Maybe I should add it to my blogroll.
- The Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. I listened to The Four-Hour Body a couple years ago. Apparently, my beautiful wife already has a copy, but her relatively few books are over there, not over here.
- Tales from the Green Bay Packers Sideline by Chuck Carlson and Green Bay Packers Stadium Stories by Gary D’Amato to prep myself for football season should I even care any more.
- Shōgun : A Novel of Japan by James Clavell. Enjoying a resurgence because of a fairly well regarded streaming series; I’m likely to pick it up because I just watched The Last Samurai.
- Fallout by Harry Turtledove. Because once I get through all of the historically accurate novels I have, including Shōgun (as well as the Sharpe’s series and the O’Brian novels and, I think, another Horatio Hornblower book somewhere), I might want to delve again into alt-history.
- 199 Useful Things To Do With A Politician, a collection of cartoons probably akin to 101 Uses for a Dead Cat.
In my defense, the room looked to be a table or two shorter than last year. And as it was bag day, I paid $3 total for this collection, not a dollar each.
So we know I will read 199 Useful Things To Do With A Politician first. What do you think I will read second? Probably one of the Green Bay Packers books or the Henry Rollins book, most likely. But time and the decades (I hope) in the future will tell.
1. Loved “Shogun.” Funny story: in an older version of the Book of Face, wherein it showed some of a person’s “likes” on the front page, I once upon a time typed in my own name and found it also being worn by a fellow in New Zealand. He, too, liked “Shogun.” I messaged him and we have been virtual friends ever since. He and his wife visited the States in 2023 and we found other shared affinities, such as a fandom of the family bluegrass band The Petersons.
2. Liked most of Atkins’ Spenser, did not like Coleman’s Stone. Curious to see your reactions.
3. Turtledove’s ability to create plausible alternative histories is almost unmatched.
I’ve read a couple of Coleman’s Jesse Stone books (Blind Spot, didn’t like it, and The Devil Wins, liked it better) and three of Brandman’s (Killing the Blues, Fool Me Twice, and Damned If You Do–probably a better television writer than novelist).
As you might recall, I’ve also read four of Atkins’ Spenser novels (Lullaby, Wonderland, Cheap Shot, and Kickback–I thought the earlier ones were okay, but I was less impressed with the other two).
Clearly, not impressed enough to continue looking for the work from the last decade unless I find it on bag day.
I’ve read two Turtledoves (ahut): Agent of Byzantium and Ruled Britannia. I was impressed enough that I’m sure I’ve probably bought more of his books than I’ve read.
And as for Clavel, he was really big, and then he was not, ainna? I cannot tell if it’s because people don’t read anymore or because they don’t read that kind of book any more. But the past is littered with a lot of authors who were really, really popular and then were forgotten. See also Frank Yerby.