Sunday, June 25, 2006

Reading Into the Past: Week of 6/18

I'm rolling high again this week: a 12, which means I head back to the books I was reading this week in 1992. I'll start slightly early, because I want to wonder at my reading on 6/10/92:
  • Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (6/10)
    It's not as good as Roughing It, but it's an incredibly entertaining look at a bunch of 19th century yokels wandering around the old world. Anyone who likes Dave Barry's books should read this to see where it all started.
  • Philip Mann, Wulfsyarn (6/10)
    A SF novel that I remember liking, but not much else. I think this might be the one about the sole survivor of a space mission being questioned after the fact.
  • Hartmann, Sokolov, Miller & Myagkov, editors, In the Stream of Stars (6/10)
    Big book of space art by both US and Soviet artists -- probably intended to foster some greater understanding and so forth. Decent pictures of stars, but nothing more than that.
  • Jon Winokur, editor, The Portable Curmudgeon Redux (6/10)
    A short book of grumpy quotes -- not quite as good as the first one, but better than the later brand extensions.
  • Jorge Luis Borges, Seven Nights (6/11)
    I don't remember what this is exactly -- maybe lectures?
  • L.E. Modesitt, Jr., The Towers of the Sunset (6/13)
    This has the archest opening of any fantasy novel I can think of -- it begins with two unnamed people having a dialogue in an undescribed place, and, after a few pages, we learn that their titles are the Marshal and the Marshalle. I don't remember much more of it than that, but the opening has balls to spare.
  • Martin Amis, Money (6/14)
    My favorite Amis novel -- London Fields is a better book, and Time's Arrow is more audacious, but this is the most fun. A sharky up-and-comer tries to make a movie with someone else's money, and then...
  • Joseph Bulgatz, Ponzi Schemes, Invaders From Mars and More Extraordinary Popular Delusions (6/17)
    Intended, as I recall, as a sort of sequel to Charles Mackay's classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which I'd read about a year before. I don't recall it half as well as the Mackay.
  • Lois McMaster Bujold, The Spirit Ring (6/17)
    Her first fantasy novel, set in a fantasized Renaissance Italy. That's about all that's stuck, twelve years later.
Finishing this off at about the time I'm usually typing up the list for the new week; I think I need to hurry myself up in future weeks. Let's see if that happens.

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