NFR What Are You Reading

Non-fishing related
Just finished Cities of the Plain, book #3 of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy for the second time. His ability to print a vivid picture in your mind with his prose is something else. Also enjoyed the back and forth Spanish-English dialogue which will come in handy next month.
 
I bought everything I could find of Ivan Doig. I have read 7 thus far over the last 4 years . He is an old fashioned novelist telling tales in novel form of his days in Montana… starting “The Whistling Season” and so it begins…

“When I visit the back corners of my life again after so long a time, littlest things jump out first. The oilcloth, tiny blue windmills on white squares, worn to colorless smears at our four places at the kitchen table. Our father’s pungent coffee, so strong it was almost ambulatory, which he gulped down from suppertime until bedtime and then slept serenely as a sphinx. The pesky wind, the one element we could count on at Marias Coulee, whistling into some weather-cracked cranny of this house as if invited in.”( Chapter 1, first paragraph)
 
Just finished a Jeff Tweedy book called World Within a Song.... Picture choosing 25 songs tied to your memories- each song becomes a minichapter, a little vignette that sometimes lead to Tweedy's inspiration. It's the first book I've read while playing the songs off youtube in the background. Tweedy likes the Beatles and many of the songs he writes about kinda have a Beatles vibe. Given I am indifferent to a lot of the Beatles songs (and the deification of those guys, or of deification of anyone in general) and similarly indifferent to songs that sound like the Beatles, I found that most of the book evoked a similar "meh". Some of the vignettes are just mean without being critical, probably better to just keep that to yourself unless you can back it up with why the song/artist etc sucked.

If you think Tweedy is a genius you might like it.

It probably would work better as a podcast with a bunch of other folks being asked to share similar recollections. Bill Simmon's series "The rewatchables" does this really well with movies. Tweedy might have a more interesting conceit with songs discussed with a bunch of others ( including folks who think the Beatles are overplayed and dull) each brings their own insight to the song being discussed, their own anecdote, so there's a flow, a conversational thread. Maybe it takes some of the personal impact out of the experience but that's so much more pleasant and interesting for the one giving their attention...
 
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Re-reading Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes a no nonsense novel set during the Vietnam War following a marine company, powerfully written and just gripping.

Just finished another great novel, Stolen, set in Scandinavia about the Laplander people, culture, intertwined history with reindeer and integration or lack thereof with modern scandinavian world, biases, exploitation etc. Great read, murder/mystery.
 
To help me plan a trip in a few months: Fly Fishing Montana's Missouri River

Slowly re-reading: Coyote was Going There, Indian Literature of the Oregon Country, by Jarold Ramsey
 
Just finished "Second Murder" by Denise Mina, a Scottish author.

She does a good job of re-creating Philip Morrow for those of you who like some of the old time gumshoes.

I like Morrow the original and Mike Hammer too.

Therse old detective novels have quite a different approach than hose o today, a definite different feel.

Dave
 
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Flyfishing for Sharks, Richard Louv.

Not sure how I missed this when it came out in 2000.

Just cracked it open last nite. Rich and entertaining.
 
I really like Half Price Books and recently purchased Ray Ovington's Tactics on Trout and I am only starting it but it is really a wonderful book on strategy and it was written in 1969 and is very good in technique allinged with European Nymph fishing strategy way ahead of my awareness of that approach. I even took a workshop by Ed Angle on EU Nymphing years ago. This book was the best $5.99 I have spent in years. For what a beer cost in a tavern I can have a huge amount of reading of very relevant information whether it be review or whatever for $6.00. I have only gotten a few chapters in and its great. I had no idea of him as a writer or fishing guru. I think that its a book I will enjoy and want to give it to my daughter who I hope will enjoy all my fly gear should I not wear it out. I have almost 100 books on the sport at this point but I an a neandrophile and read the paper and book style of infomation versus online format. I am thrilled but apparently easily entertained.
 
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