what are you reading?

[Joyful Uke]

I've read in more than one account that John was a misogynist. And yet, he wrote my favorite song, Imagine. George was my favorite. He was a peacemaker. I don't believe he ever caused any friction in the group.

Imagine was written by John and Yoko, not just John. She now has songwriting credit for it as of 2017.

I'm not sure what year this interview is from, but John says of "Imagine::

LENNON: Actually, that should be credited as a Lennon-Ono song because a lot of the lyric and the concept came from Yoko. But those days I was a bit more selfish, bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution.

https://www.npr.org/2017/06/17/533368546/yoko-ono-joins-john-lennon-with-credit-line-for-writing-imagine

I think that Ringo was the peacemaker in the group and the other 3 caused some friction, though most likely John and Paul far more than George. It had to be incredibly stressful to be a Beatle, though. Young men in an abnormal life due to their fame and the expectations on them.

 

[Joyful Uke]

I just finished The Innocent by Harlen Coben. His "thing" is definitely plot twists and I've enjoyed each book of his that I've read. His books are kind of like potato chips. They're pretty easy to consume and they make you want more. I'll be reading more of him in the future.

I see that my library has a bunch of his books. What would suggest as a starter book of his?
I'm wanting to find some fiction that is a fun read.

 

[mikelz777]

I see that my library has a bunch of his books. What would suggest as a starter book of his?
I'm wanting to find some fiction that is a fun read.

I've read 5 of his books so far. There are none that really stand out from the others but I've enjoyed them all. Of the 5 I've read I'd start with
Tell No One, No Second Chance, or Gone For Good.

 

[mikelz777]

Yes, he seemed really amiable. I think that perhaps because he was so low-maintenance emotionally, so low drama, some people underestimated him musically, as just a necessary appendage of the three geniuses. To me, he was one of the all-time great drummers.

I would agree with you that Ringo was one of the all-time great drummers. He really didn't fit the definition of what many people think great drummers are. He wasn't technically great, bombastic or a soloist but he was PERFECT for what the Beatles needed. He would sit back and play what the song needed while at the same time making his distinctive "voice" heard. He served the song rather than trying to push in and bring the focus to himself or his playing.

I love this video and wish it had gone on much longer.

Another excellent video on Ringo's drumming. (much longer)

 

[Patty]

I've read 5 of his books so far. There are none that really stand out from the others but I've enjoyed them all. Of the 5 I've read I'd start with
Tell No One, No Second Chance, or Gone For Good.

I started with Tell No One, maybe 8 or 9 years ago, and was hooked. I try to read (as an ebook) each new one. My favorites are about Myron Bolitar and his friend Win.

 

[mikelz777]

I started with Tell No One, maybe 8 or 9 years ago, and was hooked. I try to read (as an ebook) each new one. My favorites are about Myron Bolitar and his friend Win.

I'll have to check out his Myron Bolitar series, I haven't read any of them yet.

 

[Joyful Uke]

The library had Tell No One, so I just checked it out, (ebook, so I can start reading it tonight.)
It will be a change from all the non-fiction that I read, and that's what I'm looking for.
Thanks!

 

[mikelz777]

I've read in more than one account that John was a misogynist. And yet, he wrote my favorite song, Imagine. George was my favorite. He was a peacemaker. I don't believe he ever caused any friction in the group.

This just popped into my head this morning. Look at the lyrics to "Run For Your Life" written by John.
"I'd rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man...." The whole song is pretty bad as far as subject matter goes.

 

[Joyful Uke]

Tell No One was a great recommendation. One of those hard to put down books.

 

[mikelz777]

I just finished Elmore Leonard's Pronto, the first Raylan Givens book. In this case I'm glad I saw the TV show (Justified) before I read the book because it really fleshed out the Raylan Givens character for me more than the book would have and the book gave context to the great opening scene of the TV series. Of course Timothy Olyphant's portrayal was what I saw in Raylan throughout the book. It kind of seemed like Leonard didn't know what he had in Raylan. The book seemed more focused on Harry when Raylan was the more interesting character. Pronto was an easy, entertaining read and I enjoyed it enough to order the next Raylan book Riding the Rap.

 

[Patty]

Should I admit this? I just finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. I had never read them. Really fun! Some of the conversations between Alice and the various characters are truly hilarious.

Edit: It’s best not to think about how pervy Lewis Carroll was.

 

[ploverwing]

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. It's a retelling of Norse mythology. I really enjoyed it.

 

[Patty]

Tonight I finished Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northrup. A true story, this is a fascinating and harrowing slave narrative by a free Black man from Saratoga, NY, who was kidnapped in 1841, robbed of his papers, and eventually sold into slavery in the bayous of Louisiana. He underwent tremendous suffering and misery but managed to survive.

He worked on cotton and sugar plantations, and provides detailed descriptions of how the cotton & sugar crops were planted, cultivated, harvested, and processed in mills (all by slaves, of course). I never realized that the same juice pressed from the cane yields not only white sugar but also brown sugar and molasses.

The story of how he struggled to get a message to his family and friends in NY, and how his rescue was managed, is a nail-biter.

 

[bbkobabe]

Judy Blume... the original banned YA author!

Just finished Here's to you, Rachel Robinson. Blume's books read quickly but are oddly satisfying. Now one has been made into a movie I hear.

 

[bbkobabe]

Just started Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury... I can't believe I've never read it before. Book censorship has been on my mind lately so I thought I'd give it a go...

 

[Patty]

Just finished A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan, and now I’m on her later novel, The Candy House. Both fabulous.

 

[TimWilson]

It kind of seemed like Leonard didn't know what he had in Raylan. The book seemed more focused on Harry when Raylan was the more interesting character.

My least favorite thing about Elmore Leonard is that he finds the criminals as interesting as he does the heroes, and the heroes are rarely actually good guys. For a while there, I got to the point that I was reading only half of his books, skipping entire chapters focused on sadistic lowlifes. The sadism was more true of his stuff in the 70s and 80s, and leveled off a bit in his 90s golden era, but the principle is the same.

I agree with your general observation. We interviewed Dutch (as he was introduced to us by another author we'd interviewed) just before Pronto was released, and it was interesting in retrospect how little he mentioned Raylan. He really did see all of these characters as having equal weight.

Graham Yost carried this forward to great effect with characters like Boyd, Mags, and Raylan's father among many others...but he very rightly placed the balance on Raylan. He also carried through the notion that Raylan was both good, and not especially good at some parts of his job. He had been sent to Kentucky as punishment, let dentist Roland Pike (brilliantly played by Alan Ruck), hardly a master criminal, escape TWICE while Raylan was distracted by ice cream, etc.

Leonard knew he had something with Raylan, featuring him again in Riding The Rap, but the real payoff is in book 3, which he wrote while Justified was in production, based very much off the TV Raylan rather than his own books (!!!), and including several characters from the series that weren't in his books. I don't know that I've ever seen this dynamic before, but it's a lot of fun for fans of the series to see that Leonard was so much of a fan that he basically wrote a fanfic reaction to a show rooted in his own work!

Keep going! You're in for a ride. 🙂

 

[mikelz777]

My least favorite thing about Elmore Leonard is that he finds the criminals as interesting as he does the heroes, and the heroes are rarely actually good guys. For a while there, I got to the point that I was reading only half of his books, skipping entire chapters focused on sadistic lowlifes. The sadism was more true of his stuff in the 70s and 80s, and leveled off a bit in his 90s golden era, but the principle is the same.

I agree with your general observation. We interviewed Dutch (as he was introduced to us by another author we'd interviewed) just before Pronto was released, and it was interesting in retrospect how little he mentioned Raylan. He really did see all of these characters as having equal weight.

Graham Yost carried this forward to great effect with characters like Boyd, Mags, and Raylan's father among many others...but he very rightly placed the balance on Raylan. He also carried through the notion that Raylan was both good, and not especially good at some parts of his job. He had been sent to Kentucky as punishment, let dentist Roland Pike (brilliantly played by Alan Ruck), hardly a master criminal, escape TWICE while Raylan was distracted by ice cream, etc.

Leonard knew he had something with Raylan, featuring him again in Riding The Rap, but the real payoff is in book 3, which he wrote while Justified was in production, based very much off the TV Raylan rather than his own books (!!!), and including several characters from the series that weren't in his books. I don't know that I've ever seen this dynamic before, but it's a lot of fun for fans of the series to see that Leonard was so much of a fan that he basically wrote a fanfic reaction to a show rooted in his own work!

Keep going! You're in for a ride. 🙂

I already have Riding the Rap in the wings and it will most likely be one of my next 2 or 3 books read. I lent Pronto to a coworker who really liked the show Justified so I'll be interested to hear what she thinks about it. I told her that the end of the book is the opening scene to the TV series and that the book will give that whole scene some context and she seemed intrigued.

I think it's really cool that the TV show inspired and likely changed how he would have written the 3rd book! I like that it showed him that Raylan needed to brought more into the forefront and makes me look forward to reading it even more.

Have you read George V. Higgins', "The Friends of Eddie Coyle"? I think I saw that book in Raylan's hands or on his desk a few times during the TV series.

 

[TimWilson]

I told her that the end of the book is the opening scene to the TV series and that the book will give that whole scene some context and she seemed intrigued.

And if you haven't read the short story that introduces Raylan, you definitely need to do that too! It's called Fire In The Hole, and is pretty much the dinner scene from the first episode. In the short story, Boyd ends up dead, which isn't a spoiler, because you know that he does NOT die before the end of the first episode of the series. LOL

The publisher used to have it on their website, as part of a collection of other Leonard stories and novellas originally called When The Women Came Out To Dance. It's wall to wall great stuff, but there's no question that Fire In The Hole is the standout...so the publisher wisely re-released the collection under that name. Here's the Amazon link, but it's available in all the usual places.

I've mentioned elsewhere (maybe even on this thread?) how much I enjoy the character of Karen Sisco, featured in the novel and movie Out of Sight (both terrific), as well as the too-shortly-lived TV series starring the magnificent Carla Gugino and Robert Forster (played by Jennifer Lopez and Dennis Farina in the movie) -- there's a dandy story starring her here too.

Have you read George V. Higgins', "The Friends of Eddie Coyle"? I think I saw that book in Raylan's hands or on his desk a few times during the TV series.

Another one where both the book and the movie are worth checking out: the book from 1970, and the movie from 1973, starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle going hammer and tongs.

I don't KNOW this, but I suspect Raylan reading it was a tribute to Leonard's praise of the book as the greatest crime novel ever written. Noting that Higgins hated being called a "crime writer" -- he was a State Attorney in Boston at the time the book was published, and unlike the hazy romanticism of a lot of gangster depictions, he really REALLY leaned into the "lowlife" aspect of these guys. He was prosecuting these guys, and did not, uhm, find them admirable. LOL Not a shred of romance here. I remember this line from a review describing Eddie as "hopeless, hapless, tragic, doomed."

Leonard was quite articulate on this point "[Higgins] saw himself as the Charles Dickens of crime in Boston instead of a crime writer. He just understood the human condition and he understood it most vividly in the language and actions among low lives."

Some more great stuff on all that here.

 

[DJ Mango]