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Nov. 5th, 2003 06:57 pm(thunk thunk thunk)
Testing.. testing. Is this thing on?
Wow! The LiveJournal of Hafoc (or Havoc or Bill) is on the air! Prepare to be bored. Thanks (and blame?) to Athelind for the invitation.
In Cold Blood
One blessing of the tourist industry is this little town can support a good bookstore. Saturn Booksellers, right downtown next to the Alphorn Shop-- you can pick up the latest Stephen King and a fine new Browning pump shotgun with only a fifty-foot walk between them. Anyhow, Saturn is a fine bookstore. If you're there, tell Jill or Jackie I said to say hi. They won't have the slightest clue who I am.
It's a mixed blessing, Saturn Booksellers, because I do drop a bit of money there. I do love my books.
But sometimes it's not so much what's in the book, but rather the book itself, that I love. Every so often, for reasons I don't understand, I want a book that has a certain look, a certain feel, a certain weight and size. Usually something small but substantial. I call them rain books because this mood usually hits me when the weather is beastly (which it often is; we haven't had a day with more than two minutes of sunshine in more than two weeks) and I want to sit in the rocker by the fire and leave town far behind-- inside my mind, at least.
I tend toward "classics," too. I'm a sucker for the Modern Library and Everyman's Editions, those old, not-so-old, and semi-old books that major publishers keep in constant print. For one thing, they're often a heck of a buy; three Cormack McCarthy novels in one hardbound edition for twenty-odd bucks, or three Dashiell Hammets, or perhaps something semi-annoyingly quaint from Sir Walter Scott.
There are the classics you read because you think you should-- or at least I do, I can't speak for anyone else. Then there are the "classics" you read because they're better than anything on the current New York Times bestseller list. Like Hammet. I'd never read any Hammet. He's marvelous.
But over the past couple of years I've bought most such books from the classics shelves at Saturn. I've even special-ordered a few. Selection is getting kind of slim.
So on the last beastly-foul, rain and sleet day-- Monday, it was-- I finally broke down and bought a copy of a book I've been avoiding: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
It really surprised me. Damn! That whining, annoying little publicity hound could actually write well, when he set his mind to it! I was so put off by his obvious hunger for celebrity that it never occurred to me that he might have genuine talent!
In case you've never read it: Back in 1959, four members of a well-to-do Kansas family, the Clutters, were murdered in their home one November midnight. They were wealthy, respected, liked. Nobody knew how murder could fall upon them from a clear Kansas sky.
Capote went out there and spent quite a while-- I forget how long-- talking with everyone involved. Neighbors, suspects, cops, everyone. He took the facts and wrote them into what he considered a new literary form, the "nonfiction novel."
Which, in spite of his innovation and creativity, turned out to be very good! It had me reading so late that I missed a lot of sleep over the past two days.
It just goes to show that not only can you not judge a book by its cover, you can't even judge it by its author.
Testing.. testing. Is this thing on?
Wow! The LiveJournal of Hafoc (or Havoc or Bill) is on the air! Prepare to be bored. Thanks (and blame?) to Athelind for the invitation.
In Cold Blood
One blessing of the tourist industry is this little town can support a good bookstore. Saturn Booksellers, right downtown next to the Alphorn Shop-- you can pick up the latest Stephen King and a fine new Browning pump shotgun with only a fifty-foot walk between them. Anyhow, Saturn is a fine bookstore. If you're there, tell Jill or Jackie I said to say hi. They won't have the slightest clue who I am.
It's a mixed blessing, Saturn Booksellers, because I do drop a bit of money there. I do love my books.
But sometimes it's not so much what's in the book, but rather the book itself, that I love. Every so often, for reasons I don't understand, I want a book that has a certain look, a certain feel, a certain weight and size. Usually something small but substantial. I call them rain books because this mood usually hits me when the weather is beastly (which it often is; we haven't had a day with more than two minutes of sunshine in more than two weeks) and I want to sit in the rocker by the fire and leave town far behind-- inside my mind, at least.
I tend toward "classics," too. I'm a sucker for the Modern Library and Everyman's Editions, those old, not-so-old, and semi-old books that major publishers keep in constant print. For one thing, they're often a heck of a buy; three Cormack McCarthy novels in one hardbound edition for twenty-odd bucks, or three Dashiell Hammets, or perhaps something semi-annoyingly quaint from Sir Walter Scott.
There are the classics you read because you think you should-- or at least I do, I can't speak for anyone else. Then there are the "classics" you read because they're better than anything on the current New York Times bestseller list. Like Hammet. I'd never read any Hammet. He's marvelous.
But over the past couple of years I've bought most such books from the classics shelves at Saturn. I've even special-ordered a few. Selection is getting kind of slim.
So on the last beastly-foul, rain and sleet day-- Monday, it was-- I finally broke down and bought a copy of a book I've been avoiding: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
It really surprised me. Damn! That whining, annoying little publicity hound could actually write well, when he set his mind to it! I was so put off by his obvious hunger for celebrity that it never occurred to me that he might have genuine talent!
In case you've never read it: Back in 1959, four members of a well-to-do Kansas family, the Clutters, were murdered in their home one November midnight. They were wealthy, respected, liked. Nobody knew how murder could fall upon them from a clear Kansas sky.
Capote went out there and spent quite a while-- I forget how long-- talking with everyone involved. Neighbors, suspects, cops, everyone. He took the facts and wrote them into what he considered a new literary form, the "nonfiction novel."
Which, in spite of his innovation and creativity, turned out to be very good! It had me reading so late that I missed a lot of sleep over the past two days.
It just goes to show that not only can you not judge a book by its cover, you can't even judge it by its author.
