Sunday, March 29, 2015

The WhitesThe Whites by Harry Brandt


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While I admired Price's Lush Life, The Whites did not grip me as thoroughly although my traveling companion liked it a lot. It was fine for sleepy vacation reading and the author (otherwise known as Richard Price) is a stellar writer, tossing out admirable metaphors and description like "In the middle of the cramped living room, Horace Woody, deep into his sixties but DNA-blessed with the physique of a lanky teenager, stood hands on hips in his boxers, the taut skin across his flat chest the color of a good camel hair coat. But his eyes were maraschinos, and his liquored breath was sweet enough to curl Billy's teeth." And this bit right out of a 30's film noir:
She'd been a golden girl once and she took her tumble hard.
"Hey how's it going?" Billy said as he took a seat.
"The meat's so tough that it got up off the plate and beat the shit out of the coffee, which was too weak to defend itself."
The plot, relationships, grudges and murders befuddled me but the writing and character sketches kept me going, a reversal from the usual thriller.

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The Discomfort Zone: A Personal HistoryThe Discomfort Zone: A Personal History by Jonathan Franzen



Entertaining, well-written memoir from the author of The Corrections and Freedom. If you're not interested in the growing up story of Jonathan Franzen and his nerdy, bookwormy Midwestern youth and beleaguered, irritating parents, read it for the marvelous descriptions of birding in the last part of the book. We listened to it on a road trip and it was excellent fare.

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Monday, March 2, 2015

Self-Pity by D. H. Lawrence

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Self-Pity#sthash.NQDfTfZ8.dpuf