November 2011 Archives

In its day, the St. Charles Grill was one of the finest restaurants in Pomona. Located at 158 W. Holt Ave., a half-block west of Garey Avenue, the restaurant served steaks, chops, lobster and other delicacies, waited on celebrities passing through town (as they did in the pre-freeway era) and hosted service clubs and wedding receptions in its banquet room. There were even some apartments rented out up above.

St. Charles Grill opened in 1930 and faded out in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The space reopened as Alpine Haus (!) in 1973 and as Lucier's in 1979. (Thanks to the Pomona Public Library for the names and dates.) The building has been vacant for many years and is currently for lease sale.

I'll be writing a column about the place in the near future. You're encouraged to comment here with any memories of the St. Charles -- the food, decor, atmosphere, staff or whatever else you'd care to share.

Photo courtesy Growing Up in Pomona Facebook page

Wednesday's column (read it here) is based on Monday's Upland City Council meeting. I didn't think I had gotten much out of the meeting, but once I was writing the column Tuesday morning, it turned out I had more material than I'd thought. So, it made for another full-length essay out of an Upland meeting.

A Harvey Mudd College senior, Palmer Mebane, has won the 2011 World Puzzle Championship in Hungary, which the school says makes him the first American winner in 12 years. He beat a seven-time champ from Germany. Mudd's writeup is here.

Mebane doesn't do crosswords but rather logic puzzles. You can find a bunch on his blog. I took a look at a couple and my brain almost exploded. Thankfully I averted my eyes in time.

Headed to San Bernardino's National Orange Show recently, I was delighted to pass by a bowling alley. I made a stop on my way back.

And speaking of way back, Arrowhead Lanes is a pleasant throwback. The scoring machine looks like something from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, and it must baffle newcomers, because the woman at the counter routinely asks if bowlers would like her to enter their names for them. Meanwhile, the ball return sends balls into a teardrop-shaped bin where they swirl around like thoughts in Herman Cain's head.

The monitors above the lanes give you your score and nothing else -- no fancy graphics, no ads. Helpfully, if you bowl multiple games, it shows you the same frame from each game, so you can instantly compare, say, your fourth frame from this game to your previous two.

The lanes are in good condition and the balls are neatly organized, with all the balls of the same weight grouped together, all the same color. I really liked my experience there. I don't know how often I'll drive to San Bernardino to bowl (perhaps never again), but this place makes it tempting. A few particulars:

Address: 299 W. Orange Show Road

Number of lanes: 32

Owner: AMF

Neighbors: Maytag Superstore, Turner's Outdoorsman

Games: Billiards, video

Bar: Yes (with vintage "Cocktails" sign)

Ambience: Scarcely updated 1960s equipment and furniture; serious bowlers; working class vibe

Deal: $10 an hour beats $3.95 per game

Website: www.amf.com/arrowheadlanes

A slice of pumpkin supreme at Flo's Airport Cafe, Chino, shot as I occu-pied a seat at the counter recently. I visit once a month for a slice of pie. To save the drive, maybe I should pitch a tent in the parking lot.

Sunday's column (read it here) is one of my occasional books-oriented columns, in this case about my recent reading of Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad." (The Wikipedia entry on the book is here.)

I'm a little sheepish about these (perhaps rightfully so?) and slipped this one into print on a holiday weekend when news is scarce and many readers are probably otherwise occupied. I figure most of you dedicated enough to read my blog will think it's perfectly fine that I throw away a column now and then on a personal interest, but feel free to condemn me or buck me up.

I've written two or three Twain-related columns before (after "Roughing It" and "Connecticut Yankee") and will likely produce a handful more in the next few years, assuming I keep reading him as I intend to. Sheepish or not, in retrospect I wish I'd written one after reading "Life on the Mississippi," which may be my favorite so far.

Friday's column (read it here) isn't anything weighty, under the theory that almost no one is reading the paper today. I compiled three items sent in by readers, all inessential but all fun. Enjoy (if you're reading)!

In my latest controversial holiday-related post, I'd like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

What am I grateful for this time of year? I would say my job, my readers, comic books and pie, not necessarily in that order.

What are you grateful for? Let us know by posting a comment. We'd be ever so thankful.

Wednesday's column (read it here) concerns an art exhibit in La Verne, of all places, devoted to John Lennon and Yoko Ono's peace activism, of all things. "Imagine Peace" is at the Harris Art Gallery. Hours and such are here.

I arranged to visit Monday, and I'm awfully glad I did. Of course the price is right (admission is free) but it's also a neat exhibit for John and Yoko fans. I'm enough of a fan that in reading the exhibit booklet it jumped out at me that (on p. 32) Yoko's daughter Kyoko is referred to as Kyoto. Please. We all know the name of Yoko's daughter by her first husband, right?

Ahem. Anyway...

Oh, here's a line considered for the column but wisely dropped:

The city has no obvious connection to the Beatles, although it's a little-known fact that "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was originally to be titled "Ob-La Verne-Di, Ob-La Verne-Da." Just kidding.

Rancho Cucamonga is not only the friendliest city in the Inland Valley (according to my newspaper's unscientific reader survey) and a Tree City USA, it's also an official Playful City USA, as this sign on Haven Avenue at 4th Street spotted by reader Bob Terry reveals. Check out the Playful City website. Anyway, looks like somebody's jumping for joy.

A shop named The Cupcake Shack is evidently on its way to South Thomas Street between Third and Fourth streets in downtown Pomona.

Sunday's column (read it here) compiles items on streets named for SoCal cities, airport hand-swabbing, divergent reactions to Wednesday's Upland column and some mini-items as well.

More items coming this week, I hope -- today's column did not exhaust my backlog of written or half-written items.

I attended Wednesday's Rancho Cucamonga City Council meeting because our RC reporter, Wendy Leung, is on vacation. Somebody ought to be there, I though.

Turned out to be pretty interesting, as the council passed the final version of rules regarding protests in the community (which happen now and then), over the protests of a few and to the confusion of many, including yours truly. Read the column here, and comment below if you like.

Koyla Indian Restaurant, 8140 Haven Ave. (at Foothill), Rancho Cucamonga; also at 1845 Holt Blvd. (at Vineyard), Ontario

Koyla opened earlier in 2011 in a former Daphne's Greek fast-casual spot at the Chaffey Town Square center, and it's a big upgrade. Koyla is swankier inside than expected, with muted lighting, white tablecloths and table service.

Dinner entrees are from $10 to $20 and encompass chicken, lamb, seafood and vegetable dishes. See the menu here. Of course they do a lunch buffet too, which seems to be a requirement for an Indian restaurant, at least the ones out here, but I visited at dinnertime.

A friend and I shared an appetizer, tawa mushrooms ($10); two entrees, chili fish ($15) and shrimp saag ($14); and an order of plain naan ($2), the Indian flatbread, and basmati rice ($4). A little of all the above is pictured at top.

The mushrooms were sauteed with onions, bell peppers and tomatoes; good stuff. The chili fish, chunks of deep-fried fish, came with tamarind sauce, onions, bell peppers and spices. A little spicy for my taste but I'm a sensitive Midwesterner. My favorite was the shrimp saag, which is a sort of creamed spinach; you can also get it with chicken, vegetables or lamb.

We liked all the dishes, although the chili fish stuck out a bit as an offering that didn't seem particularly Indian. We had a coupon that knocked a chunk off the bill as long as the total was more than $40, which it was.

Koyla has two locations, both aggressively located near longstanding Indian restaurants; the one in Rancho Cucamonga is a block from Haandi, while the one in Ontario is equally close to Bombay. I'd give Haandi the edge over Koyla, but Koyla was pretty good too.

My friend Caroline An, a former Daily Bulletin reporter, looked up the Daily Bulletin on her iPad on her recent honeymoon. She and Mason Stockstill, another DB alum and friend of yours truly (and the photographer of the above), were in Aix-en-Provence, France, on their honeymoon. Congratulations!

A new entrant in what's turning into a photo series documenting Items Found in Public Right of Way in Pomona (previous finds: donut, playing card).

Crossing Mission Boulevard at Garey on foot Sunday, I spotted this banana peel at the southwest curb. Careful! Don't slip!

I had no idea, but Claremont McKenna College has a Claremont Shakespeare Clinic that for a quarter-century has used computers to analyze the Bard's texts and reputed texts. This may be of interest now because of the current movie "Anonymous," which promotes in the multiplex the controversial academic theory that the Earl of Oxford was really the author of Shakespeare's plays.

Says student Patrick Paterson: "The Claremont Shakespeare Clinic has been pioneering the use of computer-based stylometric analysis for almost 25 years. ... It has found far too much stylistic discrepancy between Oxford's poems and Shakespeare's for Oxford's claim to be credible."

His piece on the movie appears below. Thanks for the guest contribution, Patrick.

Fifty years ago, a foursome from Pomona College competed on "GE College Bowl," a TV quiz show based in NYC and hosted by Allen Ludden, and beat all comers. The college's alumni magazine has a retrospective here. An excerpt:

"They returned home to campus acclaim, with hundreds gathered to watch as Pomona College President E. Wilson Lyon greeted them in a public ceremony ... Pomona's own press releases proudly noted that ours was the first team from beyond the Eastern Seaboard to win all five matches on the show."

Wednesday's column (read it here) is on Monday's Upland City Council meeting, at least nominally. I managed to write 600 words or so before really even getting to any of the official business. Hope you enjoy it.

At the Fox Theater's screening of "The Maltese Falcon" in Pomona on Sunday, a statuette of the black bird -- a replica of the one in the film -- was on display in the lobby. As I was in period garb, I was coaxed into posing for photos.

I should have given the Falcon rabbit ears.

Anyway, a lucky person in the audience won the figure in a raffle, others won copies of the novel or DVD, and we all enjoyed an excellent Bogart movie, the capper to the Pomona Public Library's Big Read. (Well, except for the related Chalk Art Festival, which was rescheduled due to poor weather Saturday to Nov. 19 Dec. 3.)

Photo: Elizabeth Casian

Meanwhile, yours truly and Joe Blackstock, the Bulletin's history columnist and an assistant city editor, were captured on the sidewalk afterward by library interim director Bruce Guter, with Joe holding a Progress Bulletin replica of the Fox's opening. After we were captured, we escaped and fled the scene.

Dollars to doughnuts this used to be a Winchell's. In this economy, better to recycle an old sign than buy a fresh one, I guess. Spotted in Victorville by John Evans.

I made a rare foray to a Chino Hills City Council meeting for Sunday's column -- and was glad I did. Nothing astonishing happened, just a series of amusing incidents, beginning with a protest that was less than it was cracked up to be. Read about the meeting here. And, if you like, comment below.

2nd on Second Street, 171 W. Second St. (at Thomas), Pomona

Opened in 2004 as the very good Second Street Bistro, serving French and Italian food, this location changed hands three or four times before becoming 2nd on Second Street earlier in 2011. If you think that's a strangely redundant name, join the club.

It may have the most pleasant ambience of any place in downtown Pomona, rivaled only by Sakura Ichi. Housed inside an 1891 storefront, there's exposed brick and a pressed tin ceiling, two slow ceiling fans, natural light and strings of carnival lights. The lights are new, as are a couple of flat-screen TVs that play silently, at least during lunch. Otherwise, the place looks as nice as ever. There's also a sidewalk patio and a shaded patio in back.

The food, though, leaves a little to be desired. (See the menu here.) My first visit, I had a pulled pork sandwich ($8.50) with cole slaw; nothing wrong with it, but nothing exceptional either.

The other day I returned with a friend. We each had the black and bleu burger ($8.50), a burger with bleu cheese crumbles, fries on the side. I asked for mine medium rare, my friend asked for hers medium, and both of us got burgers that were overcooked. That aside, the burger was okay, a half pound of angus, but a little dry, and I've had better for the same price.

Service was friendly but unskilled. The server kept trying to take the jacket with the check despite our having settled back for a long chat and the jacket having been untouched. After two attempts, I half-jokingly placed a saucer atop the jacket. Next visit, she tried to take both.

A friend says he likes the dinners, especially the soups, and the musician on Saturday nights. The fact that the restaurant is keeping regular hours again, and is open until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, is good news. I may even go back. But warily, and wondering if this version of the restaurant will last longer than the last few.

Photo: Will Lester

The American Museum of Ceramic Art, opened in downtown Pomona in 2004, has relocated a few blocks north to the former Pomona First Federal bank headquarters at 399 N. Garey Ave.

After a private reception Friday night, the museum opens Saturday to the public from noon to 9 p.m., part of the monthly Second Saturday Art Walk centered a couple of blocks south along Second Street. Visitor information is here.

My Friday column (read it here) is about the museum and its founder, David Armstrong. The first exhibit, "Common Ground: Ceramics in Southern California 1945-1975," is part of the Pacific Standard Time arts initiative exploring L.A.'s postwar arts legacy.

Seen above is a portion of the 77-foot-long Millard Sheets mural, "Panorama of Pomona." Here's an older view of the mural when the bank was in operation and one from last year, before the bank's renovation.

This should be the stuff dreams are made of: the 1941 cinema classic, in glorious black and white, on the big screen at the 1931 Pomona Fox Theater. Time: 2 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $5 adults, $3 children. As a bonus, mystery novelist Denise Hamilton will be there to sign books and introduce the film.

A few added details are on the Friends of the Fox website. Read here about the movie, which caps Pomona's Big Read programming around the Dashiell Hammett novel.

That's the name of a current exhibit at the Huntington Library in San Marino devoted to the Alta Loma woodworker, who died in 2009, and fellow Pomona Valley artists of his generation.

My Wednesday column (read it here) is about the exhibit, which opened Sept. 24 and runs through Jan. 30. Above is the chair discussed in my column; the exhibit itself encompasses several rooms and more than 100 pieces: Not just furniture but paintings, sculptures, ceramics and other forms by Maloof's fellow travelers. Well worth a visit.

The Huntington website gives more details about the exhibit and the institution's hours and pricing. Learn more here about Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, the umbrella title for a series of exhibits on L.A.-area art history, of which the Maloof exhibit is one.

In reading Dave Barry's "Dave Barry in Cyberspace," he makes a (circa 1996) observation about a certain kind of person we've probably all encountered:

"I carry my laptop computer everywhere, and I've found it to be an invaluable tool for getting into deadly no-escape conversations with friendly people sitting next to me on long plane trips. You know those disturbingly friendly, Forrest Gump-like people who get on cross-country flights with absolutely nothing to read or do, so that after they have studied the barf bag (this takes them about 20 minutes) they start to prey, leech-like, on the passengers around them for entertainment? I am always -- apparently it is an FAA regulation -- seated next to these people."

This doesn't generally happen to me, but I've watched strangers next to me dig into the in-flight magazine as if it were the New Yorker, stare into space or become instant friends with the stranger next to them. (I request either an aisle or window seat, lose myself in a book and am generally left alone.)

I've also been in a jury assembly room in Pomona while people who have arrived empty-handed strike up conversations with strangers. A judge there once polled potential jurors, including yours truly, on what we'd brought to read and only a couple of us had books. One had a magazine and another had spent the morning reading the jury pamphlet. "You read that?" the judge asked, amused.

Who are these gregarious, Forrest Gump-like people who know they're in for a long wait and yet show up with absolutely nothing to read or do?

It wasn't snow out my window this morning in Claremont below Foothill Boulevard, but it was white. Frost? Ice? Whatever it's officially called, I haven't seen it close up in years.

Here's some of it on my windshield; scatterings were also on my roof and under the landscaping. It was a co-o-o-old night, with heavy rain last evening -- the perfect conditions to turn wet stuff into crunchy stuff.

Did you have any where you are?

In SoCal, this should be a popular place. This insurance office is located off the 10 Freeway in Claremont, handy if you want protection before you enter the onramp. If you need surface street insurance, you'll have to keep looking.

I wonder what it's like inside the Freeway Insurance office. My guess is the Muzak is talk radio. OK, your turn.

This is the latest in our insurance name series, which so far encompasses insurance for gladiators and safaris and hammers.

Sunday's column (read it here) is about the national Wii bowling champions from Rancho Cucamonga's James L. Brulte Senior Center.

I went to Wednesday's RC council meeting because they would honor the team with plaques and I thought it would make a cute item. I interviewed three of the team members -- first two, and later a third -- in the lobby as they left the meeting. Also talked to two Senior Center employees who were also in the lobby. The fourth teammate seemed determined to stick it out in the meeting -- he had more staying power than me, at least -- so I left after an hour without speaking with him.

Anyway, the column item turned into a full-on essay, as sometimes happens. I wrote up some short items for the end but decided they would be anticlimactic and put 'em aside for next week.

One item, though, will be too old by then. It's probably too old now, for that matter. It won't appear in print, but I'll put it below.

VALLEY VIGNETTES:
* Two Pomona cops didn't bat an eye Monday night when approached by a man in a domino mask. Could be because he was their server at Mix Bowl Cafe, they were on dinner break at the restaurant and it was Halloween.

Red Chilli House, 9795 Base Line Road (at Archibald), Rancho Cucamonga

The Inland Valley has a lot of Chinese restaurants but only a handful that serve what might be called modern, authentic Chinese cuisine, a la the San Gabriel Valley. The short list is made up of Peking Deli and Good Time Cafe, both in Chino Hills, Foothill Bistro in Rancho Cucamonga and a recent addition, Red Chilli House, also in Rancho Cucamonga.

Red Chilli opened in June 2011 near the 99 Ranch Market. Other than kung pao shrimp and chicken in spicy garlic sauce, everything on the menu was unfamiliar. There's no chow mein or orange chicken or cream cheese wontons. They don't bring a basket of chow mein noodles to your table with a plate of ketchup and spicy mustard. Instead they have dishes like boiled pork intestines in chili sauce and stir-fried kidney with pickled chili. Yum!

Just kidding. Well, for all I know, those are delish. But don't be put off: They also have many non-frightening dishes. (The menu has 112 items.)

A friend well-versed in Chinese cuisine ordered for us: a plate of cold appetizers (seaweed, cucumber, beef with Szechuan peppercorns; price forgotten; pictured above right), something called crispy rice crust dishes with pork ($10, middle right) and Dan Dan noodles ($6, below right).

The noodles came in a bowl with a peanut-sesame sauce. The pork dish had vegetables and crispy rice. I liked both, as well as the appetizer, although the edge goes to the noodles.

Service was low-key but helpful; they refilled our water glasses regularly and answered questions. The dining room was pleasant if utilitarian. There's a boba shop a few doors down and an Asian market in the same center.

I meant to write this visit up weeks ago but delayed; I was considering writing a tie-in column about the place, or the whole shopping center, but that fell by the wayside. So, at last, here's the Restaurant of the Week version. For what it's worth, people on Yelp like the place.

If you want sweet and sour something, don't go here. As my friend said mockingly: "Chinese food is supposed to be slivers of white meat deep-fried in a sugary glaze!" If you want something that's not that, try Red Chilli House.

The painter and Chaffey High alum was honored at Tuesday's Ontario City Council meeting. Here are links to Friday's column and to his website. I shot this photo in the City Hall lobby.

In a self-referential bonus, below is a photo of me taking photos. Put the two angles on this scene together and the result could be almost Cubist.

Photo: Otto Kroutil

A suggestion was made here the other day in a comment by Shirley Wofford:

"David, how about setting up a permanent, little space on your blog devoted to comments on your newspaper columns? Those of us who have resisted social networking would then be able to give you some feedback."

I can see two ways this could be accomplished: I could post links here to my columns, either as they are published or to all three in one weekly post; or I could write an all-purpose "responses sought" post each week for general feedback.

(Either way could save, say, the Restaurant of the Week post from receiving comments on random subjects, archived permanently.) If someone has other ideas, I'm open to them.

The main question is, does anyone other than Shirley think this is worthwhile? Do you want to be able to discuss my columns here?

This came up once before and people preferred my column and blog be kept semi-separate; then again, this was before we moved to Facebook commenting on dailybulletin.com and the responses here were from only a half-dozen people. (I should note, too, that there are now other ways to sign in to comment on dailybulletin.com that don't involve Facebook.)

Wednesday's column is about the departure of the couple behind the M-M-M-My Pomona blog for the Bay Area. Meg Worley, the blog's primary writer, is pictured at right; photo by Deb Mashek.

Along the right hand side of this page, the "Other sites of interest" section has links to a few blogs and local newspaper sites. I've updated it to include all the blogs mentioned in Wednesday's column and a few more besides.

Like a newspaper, a blog can pull together content from other sources, provide a forum for readers to sound off and tip readers off to information or views you wouldn't have come across otherwise. That's serendipity: You find yourself reading stories because they look interesting, not because you sought them out.

M-M-M-My Pomona offered a window into the Lincoln Park neighborhood and the wider world of Pomona, especially in the blog's earlier days. Many of the community of blogs in Pomona have gone dormant; the form seems to have peaked in 2009 or 2010.

It's a little strange to think of something as new as blogging as having already fallen out of favor, but that's the way the changing media landscape bounces. The form still seems to have a lot of untapped potential locally.

The Goddess of Garey Avenue wrote a post (read it here) with an explanation of blogs, descriptions of several local blogs and a how-to guide for starting your own.

If you have a local-interest blog that you actually maintain, feel free to post a comment with your link.

Meg says M-M-M-My Pomona will continue under other writers; I hope that's the case. In the meantime, for her fans, she has a personal blog, often on literary and cultural topics, which can be found here.

Books acquired: "Last Night at the Lobster," Stuart O'Nan; "The Green Ripper," John D. MacDonald; "Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever," Ellen Weil and Gary K. Wolfe; "Two Years Before the Mast," Richard Henry Dana; "Tarzan the Terrible" and "Swords of Mars," Edgar Rice Burroughs; "Their Eyes Were Watching God," Zora Neale Hurston.

Books read: "Short Stories," Mark Twain; "Supreme Courtship," Christopher Buckley; "Stan's Soapbox: The Collection," Stan Lee; "Dave Barry in Cyberspace," Dave Barry.

October was a sibilant month, with each title I read having two or more S's or S sounds. Seems silly? Well, anything for a theme, and after deciding to finally finish the Twain and read the Stan Lee, I found two matching titles to round out the month.

"Short Stories," more commonly found as "The Signet Classic Book of Mark Twain Short Stories," is 700 pages was read off and on for 14 months. As the short story wasn't Twain's metier, these sketches, fables, tall tales and sentimental fiction won't make anyone forget Poe and Hawthorne. Yet Twain was a born storyteller. "The Invalid's Story," about a man in a train's baggage car who mistakes a shipment of Limburger cheese for a rotting corpse, is a jaw-dropper. So is the scathing "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg," which takes aim at human folly and scores a bull's-eye.

"Supreme Courtship," published in 2008, is about a president whose choices for a Supreme Court vacancy are rejected by the Senate for petty reasons. He then nominates a wildly popular Judge Judy-type TV figure whom the Senate wouldn't dare vote down. Hijinx ensue. As a rule, I'm wary of fiction intended to be funny, but Christopher Buckley won me over within a few pages. From the president who loves to bowl to the Washington eminence with four Ns in his surname, the characters are well wrought and the constitutional crisis plausible, in a comic way. I like the way Buckley slips in a quote from his dad, too.

"Stan's Soapbox" is a slim compilation of every Stan Lee column from 1967 to 1980 from the pages of Marvel Comics, plus a timeline and contextual essays. I've read all the columns before but it's nice to have them in one place, plus it was produced as a benefit for aging comics creators. It's not without problems, though. If this is meant as a loving tribute, why did no one bother to proofread the Soapboxes after retyping them? There must be one or two mistyped words per page. Sheesh. (The worst is when an upcoming comic, "Odyssey," is called, in succession, "Oddyssey" and "Ossyssey.") Other than that, a nice little book for comics nostalgists, although Stan's tendency in later years to push product makes his monthly columns tougher to take when read one after another.

"Dave Barry in Cyberspace" is a book by the humor columnist, who turned out to be a computer geek, and was published in 1996, before computers and the Internet were ubiquitous. In 2011, a book like this is dated in ways Barry's other books aren't, which he sort of anticipates when he writes that its information "would be of immense practical value if not for the fact that it all became obsolete minutes after I wrote it." So this is something of a time capsule and not among his best. Still, it's often funny, many of his observations hold true (even in 1996, it seems, having an AOL email address wasn't cool anymore) and his surprise short story (!) about two ordinary people who meet online in a chat room is a successful stretch.

For those who like to know where and when I got the books, the Twain was purchased at Cameron's Books in Portland in 2010, the Buckley was a birthday gift in 2010 (hi Caroline!), I bought the Stan Lee book online earlier this year and the Dave Barry book was bought used a few years back, details forgotten.

This brings me to 54 books read for 2011, with hopes of getting to 60.

What have you been reading? And have you read any of the above? Post away, bibliophiles.