Logging

It is somewhat embarrassing to list the number of books I am in some stage of reading.  Why don't I finish one before starting another?  I don't know.

2666, part 2, 3, and 4 by Roberto Bolano:  I was loving this book and then got to The Part About the Crimes.  I stopped reading.  I just got tired.  And in a 900 page book, it is tough to start slogging through only to get to another 300 page section.  I hope I will pick it up again and finish.  I like the idea of reading hard things as well as easy things, although I imagine you could easily waste your entire life this way.

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming:  I once read Dr. No and thought it was terrible.  I figured the Bond movies were better than the Bond books.  But I enjoyed the recent Bond film and decided I wanted to check out some new spy books and Fleming's name kept popping up.  I can't believe how good this book is.  I'm going to read at least two more Bond novels afterward:  Moonraker for sure (which is acclaimed as the best one) and possibly the short stories or Goldfinger, we'll see.

This book is strangely dark and hard boiled.  It is racist and misogynistic -- one of the characters talks about how women have fantasies of being taken off into caves and being raped.  Foreign characters are often portrayed negatively with exaggerated racial features.  And I think these elements are why Bond books are pooh-poohed by critics and academics and just generally not read much anymore.  But the writing and storytelling is wonderful.  And Fleming's descriptions of the world are born out of experience -- the man interacted with the types of people he writes about.  It isn't politically correct, but I prefer this kind of candor to the mealy mouthed politically correct "opinions" that are not born out of experience living in the world, but rather experienced by hiding within the walls of academia and suburbia, taking cues of the way the world is by Benetton ads as opposed to seeing it for oneself.

Apparently, the Bond books are of mixed quality.  From Russia with Love and Moonraker are supposedly the best two.  Fleming would write one a summer while he vacationed in Jamaica.

Suspects by David Thomson:  Going to read this one slowly.  You could call it noir fan fiction.  Thomson imagines the lives of famous movie characters from Jake Gittes to George Bailey from beginning to end, outside the lines of the films.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain:  Pretty fun and easy read so far.  Kind of a must read for those of us interested in the behind-the-scenes element of the food world.  I generally don't like reading memoirs very much and this will suffer from being one of those.

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl:  See above.  I may have already logged this one before.  Can't remember.

Tiger Trap by David Wise:  How America does battle with Chinese spies.  Really strong, grounded book thus far.