What I'm Reading This Week (February 12, 2024)

 

My past reading week would best be described as one in which I made some steady progress while beginning a couple of new books that I'm finding it really difficult to pin down. I finished three books again, and seem to be pretty much settled into that pace (probably just jinxed that though): My Side of the River, The Chatham School Affair, and Writing to Learn. I will share my thoughts on Writing to Learn in a few days, but I do want to say that despite a few reservations about Zinssler's style, the book has already changed the way that I read - and surprisingly, despite the extra effort required to do it Zinssler's way, I don't think my reading pace has slowed significantly at all.

I'm finally on the verge of finishing the two longest books I've been reading, being almost 450 pages into Larry McMurtry: A Life and about 300 pages into The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic. I'm also well into Ex-Libris: 100 Books to Read and Reread, and I've begun more new books at the same time than I have in a long time. Unfortunately, the additions have come at the expense of me last week not picking up That Affair Next Door and What to Read and Why. Both of those are on my own shelves, and shelf-books are always the ones easiest to table for a while when others with due dates and/or promises attached come along.

I'm a big fan of short story compilations, and seldom has a collection of stories by a single writer disturbed me as much as Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica. I've read four of the twenty stories now, and I've found three of them to be rather disturbing, one so much so that I don't even know how I would ever discuss it in public and manage to remain in good taste while doing so. Bazterrica is a powerful writer, and I'm really wondering now what's ahead in the final sixteen stories.

Sarah Bernstein's Study for Obedience is my eleventh of the thirteen 2023 Booker Prize nominees, and it's another book that still has me stumped. The book's narrator has to be the most passive character I've ever read about, bar none, and as such, she is irritating the heck out of me. I have no idea where this story is heading, but one-quarter of the way through I'm ready to strangle the narrator and her entire family just to stop the pain the rest of them inflict on her. Just can't decide which I'd strangle first. To say that I see why the Booker judges ever chose this one would be a lie at this point, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

I hadn't realized before beginning Galway Confidential just how much I've been missing Irish author Ken Bruen. Those of you familiar with his writing, already know that Bruen is just different from most crime writers. His style is very minimalistic, even to the appearance of his printed pages, with some pages consisting largely of a list of thoughts, other containing a single word, and most being dominated by dialogue only occasionally augmented by descriptive passages. Bruen's novels, too, are among the saddest and the funniest ones I've ever read, especially now that series narrator Jack Taylor is an old man in despair, who just keeps on ticking despite his self-destructive behavior. I love this series way more than most.

I grew up watching Perry Mason on TV and reading Earle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason legal thrillers, but it's been a while since I've read one of the books. The Case of the Empty Tin looked like a good one to reacquaint myself with Gardner's style, and though I've only read its first chapter, I'm not at all disappointed, finding that the book holds up pretty well to my pleasant memories from back in the day - and in comparison to the imitators who followed Gardner's tremendous success.

I'm a fan of Tom Clavin's books from way back, so this one about the Dalton Gang of outlaws that plagued portions of the country right up until they met their fate in Kansas in 1892 intrigues me. It's kind of mind-boggling to me to believe that men on horseback were still robbing banks at that late date, but the Daltons were still at it right up until the day in Coffeyville, Kansas, when four of the five gang members were killed in an epic gunfight outside the bank there. Unbelievably, in 1931, the gang's one survivor, Emmett Dalton, who himself sustained 23 gunshot wounds during all the shooting, came back to Coffeeville as an honored guest speaker.

Among the most likely books up next, are these:

Anyway, that's the plan. What really happens remains to be seen. 

Happy Reading Week to all! Thanks for your input and for sharing your thoughts about your own reading discoveries.