Book stuff....

I still read a lot, although many times it is a losing battle. I've given up on a few books lately [I did finish THE PASSAGE only to find it is book one of a trilogy.]
I tried to read THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET and gave up. Just had other books to move on to, couldn't be helped. I gave up on the Harry Truman biography that I'd checked out from the library only to wind up buying it at a thrift store. I do that a lot with books that I know I cannot read within a month. I have yet to revisit it. A lot of time I spend reading THE BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITING series, I have two copies from 2000 and 2001 that I bought in thrift stores. They don't require the same level of commitment of a novel.

Just finished the third Larry McMurtry memoir, HOLLYWOOD. It's a good deal shorter than the prior two, but still has interesting stories about his screenwriting career, which he admits has more or less financed his bookseller and novelist careers which were covered in the prior two volumes. My favorite story is how they were expecting protesters galore at the Oscars when they were up for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but were disappointed to see nothing but a lone figure with a sign that read "NO HOMOS ON THE RANGE."

I am gearing up for Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM. Sounds right up my alley, and I really enjoyed THE CORRECTIONS, although it was one of those books that I finished only on the second attempt.

Reading Norwegian writer Per Petterson's I CURSE THE RIVER OF TIME. I love his books, but not for the usual reasons. I can rarely explain the plot behind any of his novels. He tends to have main solitary characters who spend most of the book thinking about the past, with most of the novel usually being a bunch of flashbacks. Usually the main character has experienced some kind of trauma, usually the loss of a family member or members. And many times the flashbacks involve World War Two, which apparently many older people in Norway feel highly conflicted about. This time the character is a bit younger so WWII isn't that big a part of it. The books always put a spell on me, and even though I can't usually remember much about what they are about, that makes it easier to re-read them.