If you love happy endings and total resolution in your reading matter, this one's for you. A wonderful story beginning in 1962 Italy and including Liz and Dick and the filming of Cleopatra. Wonderful characters, solid story. The chapter that is the beginning of a character's book is poignant. Try it, you'll be pleased.

4 olives

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, 337 pages; Harper, 2012.

For some strange reason I am always surprised by how much I like Cormac McCarthy's novels. He writes so beautifully about some of the harshest subjects. This is the story of John Grady Cole and his friend Lacey Rawlins who leave home and travel south to Mexico where they hope to find work as cowboys. Along the way they meet up with a strange boy named Jimmy Blevins. The boys meet up with a ton of trouble and Cole manages to fall in love with the daughter of a man whose ranch he is working on. Blevins kills a man. The rancher at first protects Cole and Rawlins but turns them over to the police after finding out Cole and his daughter were having an affair. There is a line that keeps running through my head, "They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.” It's just one example of the most beautiful language coming out of a story full of bloodshed and meanness. -JM

4 olives

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, 302 pages; Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

The Devil You Say

3 olives

Myrtle Bennett caused a national scandal in 1929 when she shot her husband dead over a poorly played bridge hand in an apartment on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. None other than local big shot James A Reed defends her in court. You also get the skinny on how Bridge became such a super-hot big deal.

 



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The Devil's Tickets: A Vengeful Wife, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age by Gary M Pomerantz, 328 pages; Broadway Books, 2011.

 

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life - Jen Sincero

 

5 olives 



Clearly, I could have written this book myself. But I didn't. And I have to live with that while remaining a badass. No problemo. Jen Sincero has written the most enjoyable and empowering self-help book. No startling revelations here, but rather good, solid advice given in a matter-of-fact way. Her voice is fun and relatable and you'd be crazy not to take advice from a former member of the band Crotch. I have already gifted several people in my life with copies, because don't we all want to be badass? -SL

 

You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, 256 pages; Running Press, 2013.

 

 

White Man's Problems

Great title. Including a great story you can listen to for free read by Matthew McConaughey called Summer Farmer. The author is his friend. Do yourself a favor and listen to this story. It's lovely. Here's a link:  Summer Farmer by Kevin Morris

 

Take Part

 

This one's easy. 

Find a baby, a kid, a partner, a dog, (pretty much any live being will do) and read aloud to them. 

That's all it takes. 

Shucks, they can even be an unwilling participant. 

Need suggestions? Goodreads Read Aloud Book Lists

Time To Get Serious

 

Enough with all the procrastination already! I'm apparently a reader who wants to be a writer but is too lazy to do the hard part. Believe me, plenty has been read since the last post here. Well, all of that is about to change. I've signed myself up for Camp NaNoWriMo and am going to write that novel. Ok, novella. But you have to start somewhere, right? I'm also going to be more diligent here. It behooves me to share the books I read with the world. My passion for reading touches many people in my life and I want to extend that to my virtual world as well. So, hold on tight. Away we go!