Reading log: February 2010
Books bought this month: "Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed," Harlan Ellison.
Books read this month: "The Thin Man," Dashiell Hammett; "Pulp Culture," Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson; "Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust," Nathanael West; "The Sign of the Four," A. Conan Doyle; "Best Music Writing 2002," Jonathan Lethem, ed.
Choosing to ignore Chairman Mao's dictum "To read too many books is harmful," I made it through five books in January and, as seen above, five more in February: two mysteries, a classic L.A. novel, a collection of music essays and a coffee table book about pulp magazines.
I've owned Hammett's "The Thin Man" for a very long time and have intended to get to it since reading his "The Maltese Falcon" in fall 2008. I liked "Thin Man" more than "Falcon," as it turns out, although this could be because the movie version of "Falcon" overshadows the book and because I've never seen the Thin Man movies (but now I want to).
I read "The Sign of the Four," Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes novel, in the 1970s and had long wanted to revisit it. From the first paragraph about Holmes' cocaine and morphine addiction, it's a grabber, moreso than "A Study in Scarlet." A noncompletist reader could start here.
"The Day of the Locust" is often called the best Hollywood novel ever, despite having been written in the 1930s; I haven't read enough Hollywood novels to compare, but despite some startlingly good passages, "Locust" is sour and grotesque. "Lonelyhearts," a 60-page piece that shares the book, is about an advice columnist and is even more disturbing. They're both okay but not my cup of tea. I bought this one used in 2008 in L.A. at Gene de Chene Bookseller (which has since closed).
"Pulp Culture," which I bought last summer at Rhino Records, is a collection of eye-popping, lurid and lovely covers to pulp magazines of the Depression era, when a dime or quarter could buy you a thick magazine of fiction on cheap pulpwood paper. "Culture" has wry captions (the authors don't take this stuff too seriously) and short chapters that give an overview of the various pulp genres. Breezy, informative and fun.
"The Best Music Writing 2002," bought used a year ago at Book Alley in Pasadena, might seem dated, but most of the essays are as interesting for a committed music fan as ever and aren't about music of that year anyway. Topics include Ralph Stanley, J-Lo, the Beatles, the Strokes, power ballads, the recording of "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and Korla Pandit, who was a turban-wearing organist on TV in L.A. in the '50s who is posthumously discovered to be black, not Indian. That one might be the best piece in the book.
As for the lone book I bought, I own almost all of Ellison's stuff, but this one's a rarity, a small-press collection of essays. Up until now it was known to me only as a listing in his "other books by the author" page. It was so far off my radar I didn't even have it on my want list. So when I found it at Book Alley, I snapped it up.
Now, a few words about strategy. To try to finish 50 books in 2010, I arranged to read five per month in January and February. With 10 books behind me, I can (if I choose) "relax" with four per month for the rest of the year. This might allow me to work in a handful of longer books to go along with the 200-page average I've been hitting.
My big book of the year may be Mark Twain's "Roughing It," his travel memoir of the Western U.S. of the 1860s; my edition runs 800 pages with textual notes and such and after a month of off-and-on reading I'm around page 200. I could devote all my reading time in March to it and might not finish, which would really blow my schedule (and result in a photo of a blank floor), but I'm going to read it as I can and try to finish in April or May.
So: Have you read any of the above? What are you reading now?
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A journalist for more than two decades, David Allen has been writing a column for the Daily Bulletin since 1997 and blogging since 2007.He lives in Claremont.
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Mystery is my genre of choice, and a few years ago I read both "Thin Man" and "Falcon." I may have seen one of the "Thin Man" movies, but not "Falcon," so I enjoyed both novels very much. Later I did see "Falcon" on cable, and loved Bogie's performance!
Reading Dashiel Hammett then led me to Raymond Chandler, who also provided movie vehicles for Bogie, including his second movie with Lauren Bacall. I really enjoyed all his stories, but I think what I especially love is the look inside the often seedy life in Los Angeles and environs during that time period. One of the books describes a gambling ship floating off the coast of (I think) Santa Monica!
[I've read Chandler's "The Big Sleep" twice but haven't made it any further. I intend to. Maybe I'll read more Hammett first. -- DA]
I can't drive through the westside or Hollywood without thinking of "The Day of the Locust" at least once. Seeing a member of my own family having extreme yet brief highs writing comedy for TV and then being "Graylisted." It's not a glamorous life for most people and "The Day of the Locust" really gets that.
As always, an impressive month's worth of reading, Mr. Allen. [And bonus points for adding a cover as wonderful as the one that graces "Pulp Culture" to your collection.]
I knocked back two books last month, bringing my 2010 total to five (and remaining true to my "do 1/2 of whatever Dave does" objective for the year :-)
My February reading consisted of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein and "Dino," Nick Tosches's mid-1990s biography of Dean Martin. I found "Moon" to be a step or two down from the greatness that is "Stranger in a Strange Land," while the Martin bio was simultaneously bleak and enlightening (bleakly enlightening? enlighteningly bleak? either way, sounds like my mindset during most of the 1990s).
March is looking like it might be a three-book month for me -- but given your plans to slow the pace a bit, I may have to reconsider :-)
[You might want to hold it to two. No need to overdo it. Oh, and with classic SF and a Dino bio, your list is more than half as eclectic as mine. -- DA]
This month's impressive list and subsequent reader posts contain two items that remind me of a couple of my favorite quotes:
"Best Music Writing 2002": Frank Zappa once said (and it probably doesn't apply to works in this book) "Rock journalism is people who can't write, talking to people who can't talk, writing for people who can't read."
Dean Martin bio: Someone once said of the Rat Pack, "Sammy Davis Junior wanted to be Frank Sinatra, Sinatra wanted to be Dean Martin and Dean Martin wanted to be home watching TV."
My ambitious goal for the year is to read all 12 of your monthly reading reports.
[Ha ha! Somewhere out there, someone is vowing to do half of what Bob House does. -- DA]
Hey, I totally had that edition of the Thin Man back in college! Along with the corresponding edition of The Maltese Falcon. They got lost somewhere along the way, so I've replaced them with the new cool retro-cover editions put out by Vintage/Lizard Press. I also have all the Raymond Chandler books! And the DVD box set of the Thin Man movies...
I may not know anything about sports or cars or anything, but if it's 30's/40's private eye novels/film noir you want to talk about, I'm your guy. Funny how that doesn't really count for anything in your average bar. (Not that I would actually know what goes on in your average bar. I imagine it involves people who know things about sports and cars punching people like me in the face, but maybe not.)
Fun note on the Thin Man movies... Hammett (the author of the book) wrote the story, though not the script, for the second Thin Man film, so although he never wrote another novel after The Thin Man, suffering from massive writer's block for the rest of his life, watching the second film is kind of like seeing what he would have written for a sequel. He submitted a story for the third film, but they rejected his idea, and that was that in terms of his involvement in the films/characters.
And! (Slight spoiler:) The Thin Man is actually the victim of the crime in the first book/movie, so all the sequels, with various forms of "The Thin Man" in their titles, are kind of fudging the point. But by that point audiences associated "The Thin Man" with the main detective character, Nick Charles, played by William Powell, so it's all good.
I could go on about pulp novels, or Sherlock Holmes, but man, I've rattled on enough. I'll settle down till April's update. Fun times!
[Next time you go into the average bar, bring a Hammett character to watch your back and punch people in the face and you'll be fine. I did not know Hammett had come up with another Thin Man story or two exclusively for the movies. Will you really settle down until April's update, Doug? Will you? -- DA]
I am a big mystery fan, too, usually reading one a day. I bring home a handle bag full of books from Barnes and Noble each month and plow through them.
In a departure from the usual, I read two other books, both of which I highly recommend — Glen Beck’s "Arguing with Idiots" and Sarah Palin’s "Going Rogue." Beck’s book of course reflects his bombastic style, but it poses some interesting hypotheses, looking at history to explain what is going on today. Palin’s book was very readable, detailing her pressure cooker political life and what it was like to run in a presidential campaign. It is a revelation. Regardless of your political philosophy, both books are riveting reading.
["Usually reading one a day"? You should be writing this blog, not me! Suddenly 50 in a year seems so inadequate... DA]