Missive #392 Published 20 November 2024
The book seemed to have been written to some formula. The plot was barely discernible and the characters appeared to be pale imitations of what they might once have been. I felt it was a sketchy novel, trying to link historical facts with rather weak links. Well-written but not exciting. — Customer review
Missive #391 Published 18 November 2024
A beguiling, surpassingly strange novel by the renowned—and decidedly idiosyncratic—author of Blood Meridian (1982) and The Road (2006).It's all vintage McCarthy, if less bloody than much of his work. I didn't like this book much but will read the companion novel and see if that is an improvement. Saving The Road for the last of his that I will read.
Missive #390 Published 17 November 2024
Continuing The Federalist Papers.
Federalist No. 34
The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
Missive #389 Published 15 November 2024
61. The Bread in the Pond
Nasruddin’s son was walking by the pond eating some bread. When he leaned over to look in the water, the bread fell out of his hand.Missive #388 Published 14 November 2024
This was Dos Passos's last published book, he died the same year that it was published. It was also not so much written by him as a compilation of seamen journals by those explorers that landed at the island starting with Cook. He only wrote a couple of chapters about his visit. It does provide some good island history so is worth a read.
Missive #387 Published 13 November 2024
Originally a volume in a series dealing with American Folkways from various sections of the US (the series was edited by Erskine Caldwell), Edwin Corle relates the tales and legends of the desert country of Nevada, Arizona, western Utah, and southeastern California. The story of the early explorations of Mitchell Caverns under the Providence Mountains in the Mojave Desert, Death Valley tales, reports of the Mormons in Deseret, yarns concerning various Indian tribes of the southwest, and of course mining adventures are all rounded up and revealed to the reader in the most casual, entertaining fashion. Historical fact is at the root of most of what's in this book, but only as a guidepost.<.p>
Missive #386 Published 11 November 2024
This book was not published until after Fraser's death although it had been written before the Flashman series. He could not get any publishers to buy it and tucked it away and started the Flashman series. It is a good historical novel but not in the 'picaresque' Flashman style as the book promo claims.
Missive #385 Published 10 November 2024
Continuing The Anti-Federalist Papers
Brutus XIV (pt. 1)
by Robert Yates
Missive #384 Published 9 November 2024
An elegiac essay on memory and the power of storytelling by a master of the art. Well-known as a Pulitzer-winning novelist (Duane’s Depressed, 1998, etc.), McMurtry turns less often to nonfiction. It’s usually a delight when he does. In this book-length meditation on the past—his own, that of his ancestors, and that of the corner of west Texas whence they hail—
Missive #383 Published 8 November 2024
60. The Burglar in the Well
Nasruddin awoke to the sound of a burglar outside. He crept into the yard but saw nobody, and then he looked in the well. Sure enough, he saw a man’s face in the water.