What are you reading?

[edinatlanta]

That was intense. Even if you solved the issue of Rikers it wouldn't really matter. I finished the book and then investigated volunteer opportunities for the local jail.

Now.... View attachment 2010223

Was reading this off and on for 14 months. Finally finished it. Starting this now:

 

[edinatlanta]

Finished dao de jing last night. Not sure what I read which may be the point. The value of a book is not the words on the page, but the kdeas surrounding it.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

Right book for the moment very insightful and informative read.

 

[ppk]

I am reading The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan which was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke award this year. The irony is that dystopias are always so efficient and effective in books (like this one), but our real-life one looks like it's going to be a sh*t-show.

 

[edinatlanta]

i will finish this this year. View attachment 1771923

This is the year that I will finish it this year. Only about 210 pages to go.
What always strikes me about Caro is how light and easy he is to read. The descriptions of how LBJ operated are quite literally thrilling. How Caro is able to distill so much about such a complicated man is phenomenal and draws you in. There's just so much to read that you need to take a break.

 

[Black Lotus]

A story crazier than fiction. Apparently, there is an adaption in the works.

 

[Oswald Cornelius]

I preordered The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne and read it when it was released a few months ago. There was some interesting stuff I didn't know but ultimately, it was just okay. Needed to be tightened up and a better editor, which are probably the same thing. The parts about his father, Dominick, are sweet. It's worth reading if you remember when magazines were actually good and looked forward to Vanity Fair every month. I gave it to my 22-year-old daughter who, for some reason, is interested in it.

Not exactly tangentially, I received Didion and Babitz last week when it was released. Joan Didion was Griffin Dunne's aunt, married to John Gregory Dunne, Dominick's brother. I haven't started it yet. It's written by Lily Anolik who did a fantastic podcast "Once Upon a Time at Bennington College" about Bret Ellis, Donna Tartt, Jonathan Lethem et al. My daughter will also take this one when I finish--she studied creative writing and publishing at Emerson...

 

[edinatlanta]

Lmao what an idiot

View attachment 1679510

Lets call it an even three years to the day.

And all the debts, sources, notes too. But not the citations. Had to have a limit.

 

[Oswald Cornelius]

The Caro/Johnson thing baffles me. I have no idea how Johnson could be so compelling. Not really a criticism, just sayin'.

 

[edinatlanta]

Well he was a president and virtually all of them are compelling people with dramatic political careers.

But also, Caro is adamant that this is really a study of power. Few people truly understood power better than LBJ and certainly no one used it better than him. Caro proves that. Proves where the drive for power came from. I mean even the descriptions of misery irons and how awful Hill Country life was is haunting and i read that almost a decade ago.

This is to say nothing about Caros relationship to civil rights legislation....

Anyway like the way the Preisdency and power were all LBJ strove for ("he just had to be somebody") and how torturously it was earned and then almost immediately lost several times over is incredible to read.

I'm still not even touching on how Caro discovered LBJ rigged his Senate election or electrified Texas....