February Reading

Somehow it feels like I've already reviewed these? That combined with a recent environmentally influenced reticence prove to make me taciturn. Which is likely just as well. Today I've been reminding myself that often it's best to say nothing.

1. Grace and Power: the private world of the Kennedy White House, Sally Bedell Smith

For whatever reason, there is an undeniable mystique to the Kennedies. This is an honest look, neither raising them on a pedestal nor trashing them. I appreciated that the author, while honest about JFK's philandering ways, did not descend into tabloid-style journalism. I like to know how people lived, but not all the sordid details, if you please. 

2. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

Brilliant, witty, strange, hilarious, eminently quotable. Deserves its recent surge in popularity. Should be more popular than it is.

3. Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

A re-re-re-read now, is it? It was good. It breaks my heart. It causes reader stress.

4. The Remarkable Ride of the Abernathy Boys, Robert Jackson

A small book for two small boys on a big journey. In 1910 Bud and Temple Abernathy rode alone from Oklahoma to New York on horseback at the ages of 10 and 6. Then they bought a car and drove home.

5. A History of Everyday Things in England, Marjorie and C. H. B. Quennell

Old, rather quaint, imminently useful if one happens to be needing information such as this.

6. The Queen's Fool, Philippa Gregory

I like her storytelling style, always seeing history's famous people from the vantage point of some relatively unimportant bystander. It also does more than any other such book I've read to make Queen Mary a sympathetic character. (These books are generally not for younger readers, btw.)

7. Living Beautifully Together, Alexandra Stoddard

I have so much to say about this book that it is going to become a Long and Thoughtful post later, when I have regained my desire to communicate in a long and thoughtful manner. It's not because it was such a perfectly wonderful book, but neither is it because it was a terrible one.

8. Five Equations that Changed the World, Michael Guillen

The writing style began to bug me towards the end, but the history was good. Quite interesting. As a consequence, I finally understand what blood pressure numbers mean.

catch-22

Before I left work, I changed the language on the fancy-shmancy copier/scanner/I'll-do-everything-but-make-you-a-cup-of-coffee machine to Italian. Then to Dutch. Then Russian. Then French. Then Italian again. 

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Coming home late tonight, I almost kept driving through the darkness until I came out somewhere on the other side of the night. 

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It was the song on the radio.