MemeMachineGo!

When I began the blog, I expected to spend much more time discussing what I’m reading. But it routinely proves to be the case that the things I want to say about books are involved and get complicated, and to do them anything close to justice would take longer than I’m usually inclined to devote to writing them up.

Currently I’m reading Tom Robbins’ second novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It’s sheer delight. I found this passage, discussing Tule Lake , the WW II Japanese internment camp for the “disloyal”, to be chilling in light of the current situation .

Perhaps the author is telling you more about Tule Lake than you want to know. But the camp, in Northern California near the Oregon border, still exists, and while time, that ultimate diet pill, has reduced the 1032 buildings to their concrete foundations, the government yet may have plans for them which may someday be your concern.

Published in 1976.

I also recently read The Deep Blue Good-By, the first of John MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. A lot of sf writers are mystery fans, and I’ve heard several recommend this series. I was particularly struck by Tim Powers saying “Every day I would rather sit in the sun and reread an old John D. MacDonald paperback than work.” As a science fiction fan, I’m used to tendentious tones, but, man, MacDonald leaves even Heinlein and Eric Frank Russell in the dust. It was pretty good, but, based on the first book alone, I’m not especially drawn to the series.

Finally finished Ursula Le Guin’s translation, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching.

Though I’m trying to cut down on book purchases, when I visited The Other Change of Hobbit yesterday and saw Mojo: Conjure Stories, a new anthology edited by Nalo Hopkinson with stories by Neil Gaiman, Steve Barnes, Andy Duncan, my friends Barth Anderson and Nisi Shawl and more, and Custer’s Last Jump, and Other Collaborations, a collection of Howard Waldrop’s collaborations, I couldn’t resist. I’ve started reading both, despite still being in the middle of Cowgirls, and am enjoying both a lot.

Every day I’d rather sit in the sun and read than work, too.