Books, bed and me in These titles mean nothing.

This is something I watched last night on youtube. It’s an mutual interview between two writers - Ann Patchett and Amor Towles. In the book they talked about her book - These Precious Days and mentioned his book The Lincoln Highway.

And guess what? Both of those books were in the my current bed-library so I took the picture below. They are at the left of the front row. There is a sticker on These Precious Days saying I paid $27 for it from Dragonfly Books in Decorah. My copy of The Lincoln Highways seems like a new soft bound copy but I don’t know where I got it. I’m sort of sure I didn’t buy it new, but I may have.

The YouTube is nice and clear and entertaining whether you are fans of the authors or of their books, and you might well be fans of them. They write good books and I know some of you read them.

Below is a picture of the books currently in my bed. I arranged them for the photo and I’ll have to disarrange them when I want to go back to bed.

Let me tell you about them first though.
Starting at the bottom left -
1. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett. Essays to tell us about her and ourselves at the same time. There is a long one about her decision not to have children. I think that is close to many of us. Did we make the ‘right’ decision? Of course we did. We have kids, how many we have, how we’ve cared for them, how we relate to them as adults - it’s all a big part of our lives. The has a sweet story about her three fathers, and there are other pieces on lives connected with her own. If you read this, you will understand more about her. I liked Commonwealth and The Dutch House, and she’s written a lot more.

Oh and sestinas - I gotta try one of them one of these days.
*A sestina is a fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern. * - wiki.

1. The Lincoln HIghway by Amor Towles is a story about a young boy and his friends in Kansas and perhaps other places in the early 1950s. It’s worth reading, especially if you like that kind of thing. Towles is charming in this video.

Books three and four in the front row are both WWII experiences.

1. Rare Encounter by J.K. Hall, another new book from Dragonfly that I spent a whole $27.95 on. I haven’t really tried to read it but I feel an obligation to at least try.

2. Then there is Solat, Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936- 1949 by Siegfried Knoppe & Ted Brusaw. I did not pay much for this, there is no price on it, so it must have been a twenty five cent library or thrift store accession. I read most of it and I plan to read more, The fascination of our ‘enemy’ fighting a war they ‘lost’ is interesting to me.

3. is a ratty little paperback of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy’s Times to Remember. It is striking and familiar, yet every page tells you something too. Their years in England in particular. There are a lot of good small pictures.

Second row:

1. A Promised Land, by Barack Obama, the first volume of his presidential memors, which I have not read at all, but I might. From the library book sale so it couldn’t have cost more than $1.

2. Whistle by James Jones, the third novel in his WWII series, about seriously wounded/damaged soldiers from the war in the Pacific. Most of it happens in a town called Luxor, based on Memphis, TN where there was a large military medical facility. It’s a good book. WWII stories were a big part of my youth. I have Thin Red Line and I need to get From Here to Eternity. Also from the library books sale, also cheap.

3. My newest book - my only purchase in July!! - The Collected Stories of Dylan Thomas. I paid $8.50 for it at Pearl Street Books. I have tried to read it a little but haven’t gotten much of anywhere.

4. The old old hardcover is Ashendon or the British Agent by Somerset Maugham. It’s a library book from the 1920s and if it hadn’t been so used might be worth a little bit of money. Maugham was a spy during WWI, and these are his stories. He writes beautifully, easily, and they are fun to read.

5. War Within and Without diaries and letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh 1939, 1944. I have almost all, maybe all of her writing. I have a fascination with the Lindberghs and I can read a lot of what they have to say.

Third row:

1. Hannibal by Thomas Haarris. A novel I started ut I doubt I’ll finish.

2. Second Year Latin, a text book that came from I know not where - I didn’t steal it from St. Pats.

3. Wallis and Edward, Letters 1931 - 1937 The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Another limitlessly interesting couple from the twentieth century.

4. Letting Go by Philip Roth. An early Roth novel partially set at the Iowa Writers Workshop - where Ann Patchett got her MFA and where I will be in my next incarnation. -

I might come back maybe in the middle of the night - and give you the top sentence on page 72 of each of these.

I listened to the YouTube while I typed this and it’s good. Give it a chance.

Last updated August 09, 2024