Another One Bites The Dust

I have been driving all day today. After listening to the end of a book, I listened to music on my iPod. And there was Queen with Another One Bites the Dust. Love that song. More than that, it captured my day and recent events. The worst is that Clif and Lynda have been laid off from The Times. Horrible. Clif was the last man standing from our Helpdesk. He took care of all executives and their assistants as well as every Blackberry issue at The Times. Lynda worked 6 days a week to take care of IT Security. Gone. I'm not there to miss them, but it does make me sick.

The book I finished was Twenty Years After, a sequel to The Three Musketeers. Mr. Dumas sure knew how to write a gripping story. All four are back, older and none the wiser. Still strong and clever and impeccable French gentlemen. Their feelings about English people are hilarious. They are involved with everything, sort of like Zelig. Cromwell, Charles I and Louis XIV are all involved. Do you have to know the history of the age to appreciate the book? No. Same with knowing the geography. But it adds to my enjoyment. Really liked the book.

I am in my 49th state tonight; New Hampshire. Another one on that list has officially bitten the dust. However, I have a couple of days to explore what makes New Hampshire unique. So far, I have Shakers and Robert Frost on the list. We'll see what else I can find.

Views From Two Wars

The Irregulars is a book about a group of men who did some spy work before and during America's participation in World War II. The hook is that it focuses on Roald Dahl, the writer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and friends. The friends include Ian Fleming (James Bond writer), Roger Ogilvy (Ogilvy & Mather PR firm), Noel Coward (Design for Living - and other things, but we just saw that play), and many, many more. They were all lovely, tall, good looking Brits who had some difficulty behaving in uniform. They were sent to the US to push the British point of view, spy on German sympathizers, and plant false information. The spy stuff is very limited in this book. It is mostly about who they knew and slept with, what they drank, how they messed up. If you know any of this stuff it is not very interesting. I kept waiting for them to DO something. It is a long wait with little payoff.

The other book is In Morocco by Edith Wharton. Wharton is invited to tour Morocco during World War I. The war is not happening here, but it affects things a bit. She is there in 1917, the French are hip-deep in the war, but they are the colonizers of Morocco, so their presence is felt. It would be great to take this book on a trip to Morocco to see how things have changed or remained the same. She has interesting insights into the history, religion, culture, architecture, geography, etc. of the region. One of the reasons is that there are no travel guides of the area at that time. She says this can't be a travel guide because her circumstances are a bit different, friends in government, etc. and she is moving too fast. The moving too fast is due to the war. But she covers a lot of the country and has insightful comments. I'd love to hear from someone who has been to Morocco recently (and reads this book) to tell me how things compare now. I bet they all have Tivo and Iphones.

Recent Books

I have been reading too many brutal mysteries lately. I don't know if this was affecting my better nature, but it couldn't be good. So I am in the middle of cleansing my soul with Victorian melodramas. Two were written at that time. I'm in the middle of both of them, so I can't tell you how they end. Sure. What is Wikipedia for if not to find out the end of books? They are a lot of fun, even if you know the ending. The Small House at Allington was written by Anthony Trollope in 1864. Yes, that 1864. The Civil War was just drawing to a close. It is so interesting to read what was going on in the more settled England at the same time. What was going on was that people were deciding who to marry based on what money the other had. Lily is loved by two men, one without potential (who eventually made lots of money. I'm reading on to find out how.) and one with a little more potential and a smarmy charm. This is one of the Barchester Chronicle books, so if I really find that I care about these people, there are more folks to get wrapped up in. I might just put them on my "palate cleansing" list. Imagine cleaning up with shallow people after reading too much about brutal people.

Portrait of a Lady was written in 1880. The Los Angeles Times was first published the next year in that rough and tumble town on the West Coast. Things were now much more civilized on the East Coast, but we still had many dirt roads and orange groves. This book is about an American, but takes place primarily in England and the continent. Foolish woman with money marrying the wrong man and facing sorrow and despair. Lovely. I'm in the middle of this one, too. I think it will have to wait for me to finish The Small House, because I'm starting to get these silly ladies mixed up. Oh, there are silly men, too; but, who cares?

Rounding out the trio of Victorian books is one written by Ken Follet, A Dangerous Fortune. This is one of the books I got for Eric and me to listen to on our trip to Philadelphia. Follet wrote The Eye of the Needle, at one time one of my favorite books. That one is full of spies and intrigue and the source for two good movies. This one is more like the two books mentioned above! Oh crikey, I just realized that he also wrote the insipid Words Without End and Pillars of Dearth. Or something like that. Actually, this wasn't bad, especially if you are already reading two books with almost exactly the same theme. This is more from the man's point of view; lots more fumbling for women's breasts. Can't imagine Trollope or James mentioning that. It is an interesting addition to this trilogy of marriage in the time when money and class was everything. It was written in 1993 and includes a bank failure and a good banker who tries to pay off all his creditors. Must be fiction.

So what murderous tripe was it that I was trying to escape? Well, Reacher, of course. The Hard Way wasn't as misogynist as some of this others of his that I've read recently. The bad guys are just psychopaths. Nice. Eric and I started this on our trip. I had to finish it so I could tell him all about it. Maybe I didn't have to finish it, but I did need to know how it ended and what lead up to that end.

The other silly mystery was A Letter of Mary. This is a series about a young woman who married a much older Sherlock Holmes and solves mysteries with him. Oh dear, I know; such a silly premise. And such a silly book and story. Please smack my hand if I think I might read another of these books, ok?