Good books
Totally off topic but I wanted to pass along a book (actually books) recommendation to Chitown and possibly others here. I read a lot, typically about 3 books a week, mostly novels that for some reason or another are usually classified as mysteries. My favorites are a series by William Tappley about an off-beat Boston lawyer named Brady Coyne. Chitown, if you haven't read one of these I recommend them highly, I think you'd really enjoy them. These are not your typical lawyer/courtroom stories.
A couple things that puzzle me though. Why are some books classified as fiction and others as nonfiction? Every work of fiction I've ever read contains a ton of factual information. And every so-called nonfiction I've ever read contains a ton of guesses and assumptions by the author that are clearly fictional. How does one decide which is which? Similarly why are some novels classified as mysteries? Aren't all novels mysteries? Just another couple of things that I don't understand about our world.
A couple things that puzzle me though. Why are some books classified as fiction and others as nonfiction? Every work of fiction I've ever read contains a ton of factual information. And every so-called nonfiction I've ever read contains a ton of guesses and assumptions by the author that are clearly fictional. How does one decide which is which? Similarly why are some novels classified as mysteries? Aren't all novels mysteries? Just another couple of things that I don't understand about our world.
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I'm trying to think if there's ever been a mystery that features a strip club. A couple books by Carl Hiaasen featured strippers. Seems to me I also remember a new author about 10 years ago whose first book took place largely in a strip club but I don't remember his name. Anyone else? I'd by happy to serve as technical consultant if anyone wants to write one.
"King of pain, I will always be, King of pain..."
That was just too intriguing, so I googled "Brady Coyne"
"Boston lawyer Brady Coyne is not your average high-powered, headline grabbing attorney. In fact, he rather be fishing than practicing law, but it is the practice of law that permits him ample time to fish. The middle-aged, divorced (but hopeful), low-key Coyne has found his niche by handling the mundane legal matters (like wills) of a small & select clientele of Boston's wealthy & elite, who appreciate his both his discretion and his willingness to look into any number of unpleasant personal matters plaguing their lives. It is these "private" investigations that invariably make Coyne's life anything but mundane, in fact, they make it downright dangerous."
So I guess we replace fishing with strip clubs and keep him married... LOL. Not to say this IS you Chitown, just I like the idea of the character.
Thanks for the recommendation. I ordered "regular postage" on the shipping options (less money for postage...more for lap dances), so it will probably be another week or so before I get it. MIght be good reading to distract me from the houseful of Mrs. Chitown's relatives I get at Christmas.
Chitown, I hope you enjoy the Tapply book. I should have suggested that you start with the first in the series, "Death at Charity Point" since they read better in order. But I doubt if you'll read them all anyway, there are about 20 books in the series. Let us know how you like it, my guess is it'll probably be a little on the light side for your taste. But he's a fun read.
Took a while for me to finish that thought.
COntrast that with the version that came out near the turn of the last century, in which I think Dominique Swain was about 12.
Does anybody know if that movie was ever released?
I also have an interest in history but I prefer to get my information from novels, many of which are very well researched. I'm too lazy to read all that heavy stuff.
Give that man a Blue Ribbon!
However, I have an attitude toward the book which makes me a traitor to my normally fairly concrete, small town Midwestern politically conservative sensibilities. I don't see the book as a pornographic one. I see it as a story of longing and obsession. In this case, the longing and obsession happen to be Humbert Humbert's for Lolita--and Clair Quilty's pursuit of H.H. If I were a college literature professor, rather than a lawyer, I would like to construct a course that would study Lolita, Moby Dick, Proust's _Remembrance of Times Past_, as well as the films "Citizen Kane" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", which all have this common theme...how people become obssessed with an idea to the extent that it takes over their lives, sometimes to the point of destroying their lives. In _Lolita_, sex destroys everyone, including Lolita, who, as the last chapter briefly mentions, as a young woman long after the principal events of the book, dies in childbirth.
This was how Nabokov saw _Lolita_, and he was shocked when the only publisher who would originally take it was a noted pornographer. Although the book is about sex, it is not intended to be sexually tittilating or pornographic. HUmbert's obsession just happens to be about sex, in the way that Ahab's is for the whale (symbolizing the quest of man to subdue nature), and Charles Kane's is for his carefree youth.
I certainly understand the sensitive nature of the book, and I don't begrudge anyone who wants to stay away from it because of its subject matter. I knew that a movie had been made of the book about five years ago, but I thought that it was never released for lack of any company that was willing to promote distribute it.
I'm not a proponent of pedophilia, and I certainly don't promote the book as a manual for right living, any more than I would suggest a bunch of Boy Scouts use _Lord of the Flies_ to plan their next camping trip. But I appreciate the psychological aspect of the book, and Nabokov's use of the English language.
Folks, if 12 could just get together and lend parodyman--> 2 IQ points each, why might actually see him post non-gross, FUNNY (what he really wants to gain the social acceptance he is missing in his FREAKish life) posts.
I meantime I can't get engaged in a thread with him, b/c I don't want to bother reading 12 posts about excertion or whatever his pea-brain is hung up on the moment.
I first read it when I was fifteen, and all my knowledge of sex was hypothetical. I didn't see what the big deal was.
I next read it when I was a freshman in college, with some sexual experience. I thought it was a little racy.
I next read it when I was a young lawyer, with a moderate amount of experience with women. I thought, and still think, that it is the dirtiest book I have ever read.
As I looked at the transcripts, it became clear to me that the prosecution's case was built strongly and sufficiently on documents, and the year's worth of testimony was really just window-dressing. As you think about this trial, doesn't show how foolish all the people were who said the OJ Simpson case was the "trial of the century?"
When I was in college, my heroes were the prosecutors. As I went through law school and into law practice, I realized that the real heroes of the trial, from the point of view of lawyering, were the guys who got acquittals for their clients and, above all, Dix, Speer's lawyer, who got 20 years for his client. Nobody would have thought twice if Speer had hanged.
By the way, Speer died at the age of 66 of a stroke he sustained while pounding his girlfriend in a London hotel room. So let no one say that he had no admirable qualities.
I hesitate to make this comparison, but the same is true every time I re-read "Lolita", whixh is every five or six years.
My reading tastes tend more towards history. About six months ago, I saw the German movie, "Downfall," and a video of an HBO miniseries, "Nuremberg." I became intrigued by the theme in both movies of Albert Speer as "the good Nazi," so I have since then re-read both of his autobiographies, as well as a psychobiography of Speer by a Hungarian historian named Greta Serveny that came out about ten years ago. This also led to re-reading of Speer's trial testimony, which is on the Internet (as well as a trancript of the entire trial.)
Maybe it is a good time to leave the debris of the Third Reich and try a little fiction....
AN, if you like Elmore Leonard, try Donald Westlake, very similar stuff. I also recommend Lawrence Block highly - he's like 3 or 4 different writers, depending on which books of his you read, they go all the way from very dark (the early Matthew Scudder books) to very light and humorous (The burglar Who ... series.)