A terrific read.\u00a0 About Winston Churchill in the dark days of 1940, replacing Chamberlain as Prime Minister with the country in imminent danger of German invasion.\u00a0 It\u2019s about his crew, Beaverbrook and Tree and so on, his loyal family, his determination to bring America in, via Roosevelt during two years of one hundred and fifty German bombers overhead. \u00a0The cruelty of the Blitz, and the nightly raids which killed thousands of Brits is particularly relevant in the age of CV.\u00a0 There are indeed worse things.<\/p>\n
Why Michael Skakel spent over a decade in prison for a murder he didn\u2019t commit.<\/em><\/p>\n Robert F. Kennedy sent me this, because, unbelievably, the murder of Martha Moxley took place during the first ever broadcast of Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus on PBS in 1975 and several of the protagonists were racing home to watch it.\u00a0 More importantly, I was convinced by this book that a major injustice took place, prodded by Dominik Dunne and Mark Fuhrman the OJ Cop, when Michael Skakel was suddenly accused of and shockingly convicted of the murder three decades later, despite never having been a suspect and having a cast iron alibi.\u00a0 I think he is out now.\u00a0 I hope so.<\/p>\n A Memoir of a Dark Season<\/em><\/p>\n I have been searching for years for this book and I finally found it at the Pasadena Book Fair. It was certainly worth the search.\u00a0 A very fine semi-autobiographical novel of a writer and his nervous breakdown in Vegas. Sharp, funny and sometimes cruel.\u00a0 I loved it.<\/p>\n I\u2019d forgotten just what a damn good writer Hugo was.\u00a0 The French Dickens.\u00a0 This abridged version was really good.\u00a0 Completely captivated me.\u00a0 Musical anyone?<\/p>\n Lake Geneva 1816 and Mary Shelley is writing her classic on a wet weekend in Switzerland with Byron and Shelley and meanwhile in Brexit Britain a man is making robotic sex toys<\/p>\n Much as I love him he didn\u2019t grab me with this odd tale of a bunch of Frogs in Angleterre in the summer of 1885. The Belle Epoch in London and of course very gay Paree.<\/p>\n A fine book on the Orange Monster.\u00a0 But after a while I no longer wanted to continue reading about how crazy this terrible tyrant is and I put it away.\u00a0 He is making everyone nuts.\u00a0 Poor America. Will it ever recover?\u00a0 The Trump Presidential Library is going to consist of nothing but books exposing what an insane malignant narcissist can do to democracy, when tutored by Putin and Roy Cohn.<\/p>\n He seems to be very good at these short novellas, perhaps inspired by Simenon.\u00a0 This is great.<\/p>\n Another brilliant one.\u00a0 The great thing about the novella is it\u2019s hard to run out of steam, as so many novels do.\u00a0 Even great ones.<\/p>\n The same bleak view from a loser.\u00a0 Compelling writing and total honesty.<\/p>\n Wonderful short letters from a Chicago nightclub singer to a better.\u00a0\u00a0 Became the basis for the Rogers and Hart musical.<\/p>\n Fine character.\u00a0 A rogue lawyer.\u00a0 Really interesting and very well told. I had picked up a large priont format but it was already very easy to read.<\/p>\n \u2026but not for long.\u00a0 Slight resemblance to another story of his, where he learns in advance a crime is to be committed. This one really surprises him and he hesitates to call the outcome.<\/p>\n Fabulous memoirs from the two great writers (and Director). I loved every second of it.<\/p>\n Likely Lads, Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March The Splendid and the Vile\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Erik Larson A terrific read.\u00a0 About Winston Churchill in the dark days of 1940, replacing Chamberlain as Prime Minister with the country in imminent danger of German invasion.\u00a0 It\u2019s about his crew, Beaverbrook and Tree and so on, his loyal family, his determination to bring America in, via Roosevelt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Vegas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Gregory Dunne<\/h2>\n
February<\/u><\/h1>\n
The Hunchback of Notre Dame\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Victor Hugo<\/h2>\n
Frankissstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jeanette Winterson<\/h2>\n
The Man in the Red Coat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Julian Barnes<\/h2>\n
January<\/u><\/h1>\n
A Very Stable Genius\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig<\/h2>\n
The Catch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mick Herron<\/h2>\n
Maigret and Monsieur Charles\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon.<\/h2>\n
Serotonin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Michel Houellebecq<\/h2>\n
Pal Joey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John O\u2019Hara<\/h2>\n
Rogue Lawyer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Grisham<\/h2>\n
Maigret Hesitates\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/h2>\n
More Than Likely\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais<\/h2>\n