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The exclamation point is because I finally remember what I'd been meaning to write about last week: what I've been reading.
I'm not sure I believe in the idea of "guilty pleasure" books. Maybe that could be the enjoyment of a truly trashy book. But I gave up trashy books a long time ago - life and reading time are both too short. But I guess there's a certain divide between commercial books and literary books, or scholarly books and non-scholarly books, or even more challenging and less challenging books. But there's nothing I read that I'd be embarrassed to be seen reading (if indeed the Kindle had book covers).
So what I read were three Douglas Preston books (I think two were Preston and Lincoln Childs) in a row: Gideon's Corpse, Riptide, and The Codex. All really excellent, although I believe the Gideon book is part of a series and not the first one. I've probably mentioned how much I've enjoyed the (many) Preston/Childs Agent Pendergast books. Even if the characters are not tremendously novel (a lot of similar protagonists and love interests), the plots tend to be vastly interesting and always include a lot of science, archeology, art, and some pretty compelling descriptions of the trappings of wealth. This is all wrapped in mystery, suspense, adventure. Maybe not the most challenging reading, but very enjoyable.
Right now I'm reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld, recommended by Bob Steiner. It's a murder mystery set in 1909 New York City, imagining that during his NYC visit, Freud helped to solve a crime. So far, it's not quite The Alienist (a great work of historical fiction set in the same general era), but it's a very good imagining of the Freud/Jung/Ferenczi New York visit.
Still waiting to hear about the job for Barry - he was told about a week ago that they were going to send him for fingerprinting and do a background check, which is what happens right before hiring. But this place moves very slowly.
I called Wendy at the Village Scandal on Monday and she hasn't returned my call yet. I'll try again tomorrow.
Our home computer was on the fritz - seemed like it caught a virus so big and bad that my anti-virus and anti-malware products couldn't stop it. It seemed like a hard-drive hardware problem, so we took it into the shop, but all they had to do was wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. We got it back yesterday, and I downloaded anti-V and anti-M again, plus Firefox and Adobe Flash, and was going to do the others tonight - except it died today and Barry had to take it back to the shop. Burns my butt. At least I have a computer here at work, cause I'd be losing my mind otherwise. I know I lived without the internet for some 30+ years, but I have no idea how I managed.
I'm not sure I believe in the idea of "guilty pleasure" books. Maybe that could be the enjoyment of a truly trashy book. But I gave up trashy books a long time ago - life and reading time are both too short. But I guess there's a certain divide between commercial books and literary books, or scholarly books and non-scholarly books, or even more challenging and less challenging books. But there's nothing I read that I'd be embarrassed to be seen reading (if indeed the Kindle had book covers).
So what I read were three Douglas Preston books (I think two were Preston and Lincoln Childs) in a row: Gideon's Corpse, Riptide, and The Codex. All really excellent, although I believe the Gideon book is part of a series and not the first one. I've probably mentioned how much I've enjoyed the (many) Preston/Childs Agent Pendergast books. Even if the characters are not tremendously novel (a lot of similar protagonists and love interests), the plots tend to be vastly interesting and always include a lot of science, archeology, art, and some pretty compelling descriptions of the trappings of wealth. This is all wrapped in mystery, suspense, adventure. Maybe not the most challenging reading, but very enjoyable.
Right now I'm reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld, recommended by Bob Steiner. It's a murder mystery set in 1909 New York City, imagining that during his NYC visit, Freud helped to solve a crime. So far, it's not quite The Alienist (a great work of historical fiction set in the same general era), but it's a very good imagining of the Freud/Jung/Ferenczi New York visit.
Still waiting to hear about the job for Barry - he was told about a week ago that they were going to send him for fingerprinting and do a background check, which is what happens right before hiring. But this place moves very slowly.
I called Wendy at the Village Scandal on Monday and she hasn't returned my call yet. I'll try again tomorrow.
Our home computer was on the fritz - seemed like it caught a virus so big and bad that my anti-virus and anti-malware products couldn't stop it. It seemed like a hard-drive hardware problem, so we took it into the shop, but all they had to do was wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. We got it back yesterday, and I downloaded anti-V and anti-M again, plus Firefox and Adobe Flash, and was going to do the others tonight - except it died today and Barry had to take it back to the shop. Burns my butt. At least I have a computer here at work, cause I'd be losing my mind otherwise. I know I lived without the internet for some 30+ years, but I have no idea how I managed.
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