tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5489685783704493755.post8944579549235673191..comments2023-07-26T09:55:48.093-04:00Comments on S. R. Wood: A few moreS R Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934872671798326776noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5489685783704493755.post-71460415737723790662008-06-23T11:31:00.000-04:002008-06-23T11:31:00.000-04:00Currently in my "Jack Bauer Bag" along with my "Ja...Currently in my "Jack Bauer Bag" along with my "Jack Bauer Tools" is "Retribution" by Max Hastings. More WW2 stuff, this time about 1944/45 in the Pacific. Remarkable not as a synthesis of disciplines like Ferguson but rather as a treasure trove of little-known incidents and insights. Example: the strategic bombing of Japan wasn't about winning the war (cutting off their supplies by torpedoing their merchant ships and mining their harbors was doing that) or even racist animus against the Japanese, but rather mainly because we'd sunk all this money into the B-29 bomber and we just COULDN'T let it go to waste. A good book but not as good as the last book to reside in my bag-- "Nixonland." About how our whole modern culture and increasing political polarization is derived from the results of the 1964 elections. That description makes it seem dry, au contraire, it's filled with rioting students and hardhats, clouds of marijuana and looming over it all a veritable shower of sweaty Nixonian duplicity (that's two separate, unrelated "24" references. Upstairs bathroom reading: the best of H.P. Lovecraft (still recommended as a model of how to develop an atmosphere of crawling horror). Downstair bathroom reading: "I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski", a massively detailed concordance to the movie that won the Oscar for Coolest Movie Ever.Kennethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15811409158464040479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5489685783704493755.post-79776934004422141722008-06-19T13:38:00.000-04:002008-06-19T13:38:00.000-04:00A couple of weeks between chocolates? That's, um, ...A couple of weeks between chocolates? That's, um, an interesting approach.<BR/><BR/>But I know what you mean. Patrick Leigh Fermor, for me, is too rich to read more than a few pages at a time. But man, can that guy write.S R Woodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08934872671798326776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5489685783704493755.post-27125805074248129452008-06-19T13:04:00.000-04:002008-06-19T13:04:00.000-04:00I just finished reading "Tits Up in a Ditch", a sh...I just finished reading "Tits Up in a Ditch", a short piece by Annie Proulx in the New Yorker fiction issue. Great exposition, though you can tell her sensory experience is of Wyoming and not Iraq. Interestingly, her secondary characters have much more depth and reality than the main character, who is almost an empty vessel into which the story is poured. Maybe on purpose, maybe not. <BR/><BR/>Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass by Gary Paulsen is awaiting me on the bedside table. Like a box of fine chocolates, each page is rich and savory, and a couple weeks or months between readings enhances the flavor. Yum!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com