Recent Reads

A Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse.  Six short stories about a young man with more money than he knows what to do with and the women he trys to spend it on.  It's not long and is really kind of delightful.  Then again, I don't think you can go wrong with Wodehouse.

My Father as I Recall Him by Mamie Dickens and American Notes by Charles Dickens.  The first of these is a slight book of remembrances by Charles Dickens' daughter.   Okay not great.  The second is Dickens take on America in 1842.  I'll give you Dickens as a great author of fiction, but I do not find him agreeable as a person.  His home life was messy (completely glossed over by Mamie who took his side over her mother's).  In American Notes Dickens says some good things about the US, but he really comes off as a snob looking down on those dumb Americans.  Towards the end there's a chapter where he blasts slavery (supported by ads from newspapers about runaway slaves) and then basically says but what else can you expect from these degenerates (supported by newspaper articles from across the country about murders.Yes, slavery was horrific, but British Imperialism wasn't exactly free from oppression.  And people got murdered in England, too.  The book ends with a postscript added after Dickens revisited the US after the Civil War which praises the US as wonderful, so at least Dickens was a man willing to change his mind.  Mostly worth reading as an historical curiosity.

Drumbeat by Robert J. Trout.  This is a junior fiction book written by my fifth grade teacher.  Set during the Civil War, it's about a boy who joins the army after his brother returns home wounded (which army is only revealed a few chapters in).  It's a pretty good kids story, but my favorite bit was the postscript where Mr. Trout told how he came to write the book and encouraged kids to find their own interests to write about.  Once a teacher, always a teacher.

The Perfect Host by Theodore Sturgeon.  I've heard about Sturgeon--writer of Stat Trek's "Amok Time" and inspiration for Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout.  I was disappointingly unimpressed with this short story.  It's about an entity that possess people which starts of kind of interesting but bogs down with author's notes in the middle.

The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson.  Free and suggested by Amazon (probably because of all the W. W. Jacobs I downloaded).  Sailor goes on a doomed ship haunted by shadows.  A little long, a little too technical on ship structure.  Would have been better as a short story and would make an awesome movie (Pirates of the Caribbean minus Johnny Depp).

The Fly Swatter by Nicholas Dawidoff.  This is a personal biography of economist Alexander Gerschenkron written by his grandson.  I'd never heard of the man before I read this.  Gerschenfron escaped from Soviet Russia in the 1910's and from Vienna in the 1930's when he washed up in America and became a Harvard professor.  He's irascible and opinionated in the way people in live solely in academia can become.  Despite the fact he thinks he's always right, you kind of come to like the guy.  If you're going to read a biography of someone you know nothing about, I'd recommend this one.