I’m through the first six pages of Living It Up and I have been laughing almost constantly. I have a feeling this book is going to be tough on my abdominals…
I finally finished In Joy Still Felt this evening, after nearly 2 weeks of reading it. As always, it was a great book, one of my favorites, as are all of Isaac Asimov’s autobiography volumes, and once again I was sad to have it finished. The next two books I’m sneaking in because I simply…
I got the June issue of F&SF (Fantasy and Science Fiction) yesterday and it just reminded me of how for behind I am on periodical reading. The one magazine that I always try to keep up on (and to which I have been subscribed the longest) is SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. To illustrate just how far backlogged…
There should be a law of some kind that says that written fiction cannot be derivative of visual media (I sometimes long for the reverse too, but realize that would be impractical.) In other words, put an end, by general acclimation, to all Buffy and Star Wars and Star Trek and Smallville books. Etc. I…
Smithsonian Institution, of which I am a national member, has a program called “Adopt-a-library” to which I have been contributing for several years now, and today I mailed in a check to “re-adopt” two libraries for the coming year. The program provides the libraries with subscriptions to NATURAL HISTORY magazine for a full year. It…
I began reading, last night, my 352nd book since January 1, 1996 (In Joy Still Felt by Isaac Asimov). Some quick calculations this morning lead me to the following conclusion. At my present pace of reading, I will read my 1,000th book sometime in 2024. This is rather depressing, considering I will be 52 years…
This coming October, Ray Bradbury is coming out with a new novel called Farewell Summer, which is, apparently, a sequel to Dandelion Wine, and which Bradbury has been working on for several decades. What I could find online seems to indicate that the book is once again about Doug Spaulding, and is a coming-of-age tale…
I got out of the office for lunch today, foregoing my usual nap, and instead, headed over to Pentagon Row, found a chair in the sun, propped back with my book in my lap and read for a while. The weather is a beautiful 75 degrees with a slight breeze. The sky was clear, thanks…
I got back home from New York at around 3 PM. The train was almost empty and there was a library like silence in the quiet car that made it a very pleasant ride back home. I finished up I. Asimov on the way back and will start in on In Memory Yet Green later…
I don’t like free verse poetry. I think that I’ve known this subconsciously for some time, but it hit the surface tonight while I was skimming through the most recent NEW YORKER. (Although I am a subscriber to the NEW YORKER, I rarely do more than skim each issue.) Each issue has several poems in…
I got my 1,000th book today. I picked up James Morrow’s The Last Witchfinder at Borders. Given my current pending reading list, I probably won’t get to this book until sometime over the summer, but I’ve been a big fan of James Morrow’s previous books and I felt this was a worth book for number…