Missive #221 Published 16 February 2024
22. PAYMENT IN KIND…
Old West meets New West in this novel set in Southern California by early western writer Henry Herbert Knibbs (1874-1945). Most of the story, in fact, would happily take place in the 19th century. There is a ranch with cowboys on horses, gold prospecting in the Mojave, and a big gunfight outside a saloon. But for good measure, Knibbs also throws in a motor car, Los Angeles, and references to movie-making.
Missive #220 Published 14 February 2024
"In this semi-autobiographical novel, an American named Roland Lancaster has a doomed affair with a younger woman, Elsa, in Cuba during World War II. The love story, in its happiest moments, parallels the idyllic life that author John Dos Passos had with his first wife, Katy."
I didn't dislike this book but think that Dos Passo's nonfiction is better than his fiction. A semi-autobiographical book is only half way between.
Missive #219 Published 12 February 2024
Child of God established McCarthy's interest in using extreme isolation, perversity, and violence to represent human experience. McCarthy ignores literary conventions – for example, he does not use quotation marks – and switches between several styles of writing such as matter-of-fact descriptions, almost poetic prose, and colloquial first-person narration (with the speaker remaining unidentified). — Wikipedia
The book is all of that and may not be to everyone's taste.
Missive #217 Published 10 February 2024
This completes the Videssos Cycle of books which I read out of order. They were good reads; although reading them in story line order would probably be best publication order is probably the simplest.
Missive #215 Published 5 February 2024
I have read a lot of Berry's essays and liked them however this collection left me disappointed. That may not prove to be true of all readers since the Customer Review rating were good. It is long on discussing the poetry of other writers which I have little interest in reading plus the language used in the discussion is not one that I understand. He has some other books of his essays that I'll continue to read and hope that he does not focus on poetry.
Missive #213 Published 2 February 2024
20. BITING YOUR OWN EAR…
Edward Hamilton has reconstructed this amazing story of wilderness, forts and weapons. He takes the reader through each successive war with a surgeon's precision, utilizing some of the best maps ever constructed to detail the magnitude of the European engagement being fought on North American soil. Vital, thrilling and fascinating, the French and Indian Wars culminated an age old rivalry and set the stage for years to come. In the long view, this excellent account shows us exactly why we speak English today instead of French.
Missive #211 Published 30 January 2024
The novel that Aldous Huxley himself thought was his most successful at "fusing idea with story," Time Must Have a Stop is part of Huxley's lifelong attempt to explore the dilemmas of twentieth-century man and to create characters who, though ill-equipped to solve the dilemmas, all go stumbling on in their painfully serious comedies (in this novel we have the dead atheist who returns in a seance to reveal what he has learned after death but is stuck with a second-rate medium who garbles his messages).
Missive #208 Published 27 January 2024
This book may be widely read by high level Chinese political figures and bureaucrats but it is American political figures that need to be reading it. Tocqueville wrote about America after his visit in the 1830 and is frequently quoted but Wang Huning has not been. It is sad that he has not. He had more to say about America in the 1980s and what its future might be than what Tocqueville said. I recommend this book!
Missive #206 Published 24 January 2024
George MacDonald Fraser—beloved for his series of Flashman historical novels—offers an action-packed memoir of his experiences in Burma during World War II. Fraser was only 19 when he arrived there in the war's final year, and he offers a first-hand glimpse at the camaraderie, danger, and satisfactions of service.
Missive #204 Published 19 January 2024
18. NASRUDDIN VISITS THE PRISONERS
I liked this book because it discusses desert plants in that part of Arizona where I grew up. A lot of area covered is also in Sonora, MX which I have some familiarity. The information about the desert foods is also very interesting. The author has written a lot more books that I want to try to read.