What are you reading?

[ConchRepublican]

Cool covers J.J.! They do capture a slice in time . . . they remind me of books my dad used to have, I think Matt Helm had a similar style?

BTW, does anyone else hear Robin Masters, err, Orson Welles, voice when reading the adventures of Travis McGee?

A laser beam cut through the night like the singing sword, lighting the black with Merlin-like pyrotechnics. It was at that precise moment that Mark realized Madonna had tried to kill him. It was absurd, but all Mark could think was that the sound of the laser shattering the window was precisely like the tinkle of ice against crystal....

[Little Garwood]

Just finished Sherlock: Chronicles, a "making of" the BBC's modern-day Sherlock Holmes series. I loved the first two series, despised the third, but thoroughly enjoyed "The Abominable Bride" Christmas special that aired this year.

Now I'm over to Moab is My Washpot, an autobiography of actor Stephen Fry.

[Little Garwood]

Forgot to mention that I've also started on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and will read its sequels, as well. Douglas Adams had a singular wit.

[Little Garwood]

Currently reading Mr. Mike: the Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue. This was a library discard (from the Oceanside Library of NY) but it's a valued treasure in my personal library. In the lead up to my purchasing this book I must have found at least twenty online retrospective articles on Michael O'Donoghue. He'll never be a popular or well-known (or well liked) figure, but to me he remains a fascinating creative individual.

The book even goes into detail about the legendary Saturday Night Live season one "Star Trek" sketch (which O'Donoghue wrote), with Belushi as Kirk and Chevy Chase as Mr. Spock.

[J.J. Walters]

"I won't write for felt."

Would love to read that bio of O'Donoghue!

Speaking of Bio's, I'm currently reading (skim reading, really) Jay J. Armes's 1976 biography Jay J. Armes, Investigator: The World's Most Successful Private Eye (first edition, MacMillan). Saw it at one of my local used book stores recently (in very good condition) and couldn't resist picking it up. What a character this guy is! The only thing I really knew about him before reading the book was that he had no hands and he once rescued Christian Brando from kidnappers in Mexico (along with others from "The Investigators"). I get the feeling in reading the book that some of his cases are a little bit, umm, shall we say "embellished." The guy is a PR genius. But he's the real deal, no doubt; well-connected, smart, thorough, and he gets the job done as they say. Fascinating reading.

I love this blurb on the back of the book...

"On TV and in the movies, you see people whacking away at each other with bare knuckles all the time. In real life, they'd be out of action for a month, with broken hands. Armes doesn't have that problem. Barriers mean nothing to him, either. He can strike and shatter materials that would break even the conditioned hands of a karate master. The ordinary man cannot smash plate glass with his clenched fist, but Armes can. He can pry apart the links of a steel chain, pluck documents from a roaring incinerator, bash his arm through the heavy panelling of a locked door, casually pick up a red-hot blowtorch --and stay in business. For any other man, it would be emergency treatment at the nearest hospital."



The guy was even in an early episode of Hawaii Five-O ("The Hookman") and had his own action figure in the 70's! Bummer that he never appeared on Magnum. "The Hookman Returns" would have made for a killer episode!

[BWheelz54]

I was gifted a couple great books for my recent birthday. Enjoyed both of them so much that I wanted to share.

Dan Simmons again makes the thread! Here's another one from Mr. Simmons (just one of my top favorites). This one is a fictional tale of Ernest Hemingway chasing submarines off of Cuba during WWII. The protagonist and narrator is a member of the FBI who gets caught up in Hemingway's shenanigans. I think it's a good read for history buffs and literature nerds. It's also a bit of James Bond. Just a lot of fun. And from the research notes Dan Simmons includes at the end of the book, it's really something thinking how much of this tale is actually taken from Hemingway's actual journals and various historic documents. Here's an Amazon link:

The Crook Factory ~ Dan Simmons
http://www.amazon.com/Crook-Factory-Dan ... ok+factory

The other book is The Lost City of Z by David Grann, an account of the British explorer Percy Fawcett's excursions into the Amazon at the turn of the twentieth century. Fans of Indiana Jones will love this book. It's got adventure in spades. Got a kick reading about how so many of that era's explorers were amateurs that turned into celebrities with their daring, or foolish, journeys into all the uncharted places on the globe then. Have a feeling fans of Magnum PI might enjoy it. Perhaps Higgins has a story he could tell about a trip into the Amazon.

The Lost City of Z ~ David Grann
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_ ... ooks%2C187

[Little Garwood]

Dan Simmons again makes the thread! Here's another one from Mr. Simmons (just one of my top favorites). This one is a fictional tale of Ernest Hemingway chasing submarines off of Cuba during WWII. The protagonist and narrator is a member of the FBI who gets caught up in Hemingway's shenanigans. I think it's a good read for history buffs and literature nerds. It's also a bit of James Bond. Just a lot of fun. And from the research notes Dan Simmons includes at the end of the book, it's really something thinking how much of this tale is actually taken from Hemingway's actual journals and various historic documents.

I'm a longtime Hemingway fan but I'd never heard of this book until your post, so thanks.

There's now a "Hemingway Detective" genre, isn't there? Have you read Hemingway Deadlights by Michael Atkinson? Apparently there's a second book in the series, Hemingway Cutthroat, set after the Spanish Civil War (a conflict Higgins probably just missed out on).

This link has an interview with author Atkinson.

[Little Garwood]

"I won't write for felt."

Would love to read that bio of O'Donghue!

Some more memorable O'Donoghue bons mots:

"Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy."

"Life isn't for everybody."

"There's no moral, Uncle Remus. Just random acts of meaningless violence."

However, O'Donoghue's earlier humor is subtle--to the extreme. Especially his "Phoebe Zeit-Geist" stuff (which I have in the Evergreen Review magazines; purchased decades ago) but O'Donoghue really brings out the knife in his National Lampoon days and of course, as "Mr. Mike" on Saturday Night Live.

The book is excellent. I'm already halfway through it now.

[BWheelz54]

Hey Harwood! Just a quick thanks of filling me on the other Hemingway detective fiction. Getting ready to order a couple new books, so I'm going to pick the first book up that you mention. Very fun.

[ConchRepublican]

Dan Simmons again makes the thread! Here's another one from Mr. Simmons (just one of my top favorites). This one is a fictional tale of Ernest Hemingway chasing submarines off of Cuba during WWII. The protagonist and narrator is a member of the FBI who gets caught up in Hemingway's shenanigans. I think it's a good read for history buffs and literature nerds. It's also a bit of James Bond. Just a lot of fun. And from the research notes Dan Simmons includes at the end of the book, it's really something thinking how much of this tale is actually taken from Hemingway's actual journals and various historic documents.

I'm a longtime Hemingway fan but I'd never heard of this book until your post, so thanks.

There's now a "Hemingway Detective" genre, isn't there? Have you read Hemingway Deadlights by Michael Atkinson? Apparently there's a second book in the series, Hemingway Cutthroat, set after the Spanish Civil War (a conflict Higgins probably just missed out on).

This link has an interview with author Atkinson.

Crook Factory is an excellent read, we touched on it a few pages back in this thread. I have become a big fan of Dan Simmons' work. Just finished The Abominable a couple of weeks ago. A different, interesting read. I'm in the middle of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and have The Terror coming up soon with Florida Straits by Lawrence Shames on the shelf as well, gifts from Santa.







Just ordered the latest Randy Wayne White Doc Ford novel - Deep Blue - and the latest from Tom Corcoran - Crime Almost Pays. Getting ready for summer.

[J.J. Walters]

Sounds like a great book LG!

I like your taste in reading material Conch! Dan Simmons and Randy Wayne White are two of my favorites! You ever read any of of RWW's early "Randy Striker" or "Carl Ramm" paperback originals from the early 80's? I used have a couple of the Striker's when I was a teen. Really fun adventure series featuring Dusky MacMorgan, an ex-Navy SEAL living in Key West. Very Magnumeque! Wish I had held on to them, because both of the series are now highly collectible and hard to find (especially in good condition). If you ever see one, grab it!



I'm currently reading Stephen King's Secret Windows, a Book-of-the-Month club exclusive from 2000. It's a companion piece to his fantastic non-fiction book On Writing. Somewhat hard to find. Good stuff.

[ConchRepublican]

I never read any of the Striker RWW books, I'll keep an eye out when I'm in South Florida.

I need to get a book or two from Mr. King into my rotation as well, we're talking about a road trip to Maine in August so I'll need to reacquaint myself with Castle Rock.

[J.J. Walters]

Hoo! Nice Conch! I've been wanting to take a trip to Maine for years! I've read so much SK (and know so much about him) I feel like I know the state like the back of my hand. But it's not quite the same as being there in person.

If you are going to Bangor, you should definitely swing by his house (address easily found online). It's in a public neighborhood, right on the street. Beautiful Victorian with a gothic wrought-iron fence. There's also a really good SK Bangor tour run by Stu Tinker who used to own Betts Bookstore in Bangor. I've heard from many people who say it is fantastic. He takes you around to all the SK Bangor landmarks (Bangor is the fictional city of Derry in many King books): The Standpipe, Paul Bunyon statue, Mount Hope Cemetery (used during the filming of Pet Sematary), Bangor's version of "the Barrens" (from IT), the laundry where King worked after college and some of his early residences, as well as places in Bangor that King and his wife helped construct or expand (the community swimming pool, youth baseball field, Bangor Public Library. etc.). I think it's like $45.

In between Portland and Augusta there is the quaint little town of Lisbon Falls, where SK lived in his HS years (Lisbon Falls High School, Class of 1966). Lisbon Falls is the inspiration for Castle Rock and features heavily in 11/22/63.

Univ. of Maine at Orono, Bridgton (The Mist), Old Town, Center Lovell... and on and on.

"Ayuh!" (Maine speak for "yes; okay; sure; that's right")

[Little Garwood]

Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live



After finishing the superb Michael O'Donoghue biography, I've continued my exploration of SNL history with this. I'm already 100+ pages in and am learning a lot about the way the original cast---let's just say that Dan Aykroyd "got around" more than Fred Garvin.

Once the book reaches the mid '90s era, I'll be less interested since that was when I stopped watching.

[ConchRepublican]

Hoo! Nice Conch! I've been wanting to take a trip to Maine for years! I've read so much SK (and know so much about him) I feel like I know the state like the back of my hand. But it's not quite the same as being there in person.

If you are going to Bangor, you should definitely swing by his house (address easily found online). It's in a public neighborhood, right on the street. Beautiful Victorian with a gothic wrought-iron fence. There's also a really good SK Bangor tour run by Stu Tinker who used to own Betts Bookstore in Bangor. I've heard from many people who say it is fantastic. He takes you around to all the SK Bangor landmarks (Bangor is the fictional city of Derry in many King books): The Standpipe, Paul Bunyon statue, Mount Hope Cemetery (used during the filming of Pet Sematary), Bangor's version of "the Barrens" (from IT), the laundry where King worked after college and some of his early residences, as well as places in Bangor that King and his wife helped construct or expand (the community swimming pool, youth baseball field, Bangor Public Library. etc.). I think it's like $45.

In between Portland and Augusta there is the quaint little town of Lisbon Falls, where SK lived in his HS years (Lisbon Falls High School, Class of 1966). Lisbon Falls is the inspiration for Castle Rock and features heavily in 11/22/63.

Univ. of Maine at Orono, Bridgton (The Mist), Old Town, Center Lovell... and on and on.

"Ayuh!" (Maine speak for "yes; okay; sure; that's right")

Thanks for the heads up about the King related info in Bangor, it is something I wanted to research, you helped narrow things down appreciably!I'll keep you up to speed how things progress.