What I have been reading lately #54

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)-- Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling, a writer/actor on The Office and, currently, Fox TV's The Mindy Project, recently wrote a book about her life growing up in Massachusetts, going to college at Dartmouth, and becoming a writer in Hollywood. I enjoyed this book.

Good Ol' Snoopy--  Charles M. Schulz

This book collects a number of early Peanuts cartoons related to Snoopy. A lot of them revolve around Snoopy's unhappiness at being called "Fuzzy Face" by Lucy.

Good-Bye To All That-- Robert Graves

I read, for the second, third, or maybe fourth time, Robert Graves memoir of growing up in England in the final days before World War One and his subsequent service as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers on the western front. Everyone should read this book.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness-- Edward Abbey

Sometime in the 1950s, Edward Abbey worked as a ranger at the Arches National Monument; a few years after that, he wrote a book about the experience. In this book Abbey discusses, among other topics--

• the desert
• his ideas for reforming the national park system (eliminating roads and cars mostly)
• a uranium-finding/murder/survival story
• going on a cattle drive
• his thoughts about Native Americans (admiration/they need birth control)
• water (and quicksand)
• trying to capture a long-ago escaped horse
• floating down the Colorado River through Glen Canyon one last time before it was dammed
• almost getting trapped forever in a canyon
• searching for and finding a dead body
• climbing Mt. Tukuhnikivats
• exploring a group of canyons known as the Maze.

Similarly to Good-Bye To All That, everyone should read this book.

What I have been reading lately #53

Hillsborough: The Truth-- Phil Scraton

In April of 1989, at the start of an FA Cup semifinal match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on the terraces at Hillsborough Stadium. Despite what some thought at the time, the deaths were caused not by drunken hooligans but by a combination of poor planning, incompetence, and inaction primarily by the South Yorkshire police. Phil Scraton's disturbing book, a comprehensive narrative covering the entire event and its aftermath (i.e. the attempted police cover-up) , was the first book I read this summer.

The Day of the Hillsborough Disaster: A Narrative Account-- compiled and edited by Rogan Taylor, Andrew Ward, and Tim Newburn

Why read just one book about a horrible sports-related, crushing disaster caused by government and corporate complacency when you can read two? This book was an oral history of the events at Hillsborough and complemented Scraton's book very well. Needless to say, my summer was off to a rosy start.

Above and below: Scenes from the Hillsborough disaster 

The Education of Hopey Glass-- Jaime Hernandez 

The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S.-- Jaime Hernandez

I am not sure why I read things like this. All I can say is a) it seemed like a good idea at the time, and b) neither of these graphic novels involved people being crushed to death in pens while police officers stood idly by and watched.

The Catcher in the Rye-- J.D. Salinger

I take great satisfaction from the fact that I still own the copy of this book I first read in high school (not pictured above, although mine looks almost exactly like that)

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga (2008 edition)-- Stephen Davis

Growing up in suburban St. Louis in the early 1980s, I tried very, very hard to learn to like Led Zeppelin. (It didn't work.) This book did go a little ways towards reminding me that Led Zeppelin are, despite everything, actually a pretty good band.

LZ - '75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour-- Stephen Davis; photographs by Peter Simon

Why read just one book about the most overblown and preposterous rock band of the 1970s when you can read two? This book covered just one of Led Zeppelin's US tours, and it was actually quite enjoyable-- the photographer, Peter Simon, turned out to be singer Carly Simon's brother. Additionally, this book raised an important question for me-- is it possible for an author (in this case, Stephen Davis) to plagiarize their own work?

On High Steel: The Education of an Ironworker-- Mike Cherry

By far the best book I read all summer (and the summer of 2008 and the summer of 2004)-- everyone should read this book. Good luck finding it, though (and no, you can't borrow my copy).

A live version of Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine"

Someone doing a cover version of Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine"


For all you guitar players, Bob from Toronto, Canada teaches how to play Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine" on your own

What I have been reading lately #43

Journey to Topaz - Yoshiko Uchida

Journey to Topaz is a novel about a Japanese-American girl named Yuki who is interned along with her family during World War II. I read this book out loud to my class of fifth graders.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

This was Arthur Conan Doyle's first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. Notice that the title does not have the word "the" in it.

I'm Not Scared - Niccolo Ammaniti

This novel is about a boy and his friends growing up in a remote part of Italy during the late 1970s. It is a thriller, and, despite the title, I found it to be very scary.

Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China - Guy Delisle

From the author of Pyongyang and Burma Chronicles, this book is about when Guy Delisle spent some time in China working for an animation studio. It is the last of Delisle's books like this.

The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle

This is probably my favorite of the Sherlock Holmes novels (as opposed to the story collections). Notice that it only has one "the" in the title.

What I have been reading lately #42

A Dog In a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium by Joe Parkin

Joe Parkin raced bicycles in Europe (mostly Belgium) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This book talks about his experience. There are actually fewer stories about performance-enhancing drugs than I had expected and more stories about outright cheating. For example, I did not know that in small kermis races it is (or, at least, was) common for riders in the final stages of the race to makes deals with and offer money to other riders to be allowed to win. Also, it is (or, at least, was) common for riders to be helped and pushed along by team officials riding in nearby cars when no one was around to see.

Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

Guy Delisle is a French-Canadian animator. He spent a few months working in North Korea for a French animation studio and then wrote a comic book about it. Later on, he went with his wife and child to Burma while his wife was working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). He wrote a book about that as well.