Books and other stuff I feel like discussing
By education and experience - Accountant with a specialty in taxation. Formerly a CPA (license has lapsed). Masters degree in law of taxation from University of Denver. Now retired. Part time work during baseball season as receptionist & switchboard operator for the Colorado Rockies. This gig feeds my soul in ways I have trouble articulating. One daughter, and four grandchildren. I share the house with two cats; a big goof of a cat called Grinch (named as a joke for his easy going "whatever" disposition); and Lady, a shelter adoptee with a regal bearing and sweet little soprano voice. I would be very bereft if it ever becomes necessary to keep house without a cat.
Mood:
Reminiscing
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Book Signings
Tattered Cover bookstore here in Denver has at least 6-7 a week at their three locations, and if I'm interested in the author I try to go.
I'm not that interested in keeping books, so I usually listen, ask a question or two and come home satisfied. But sometimes I've been accumulating books by an author (only three or four actually) and I would like to have them inscribed.
About 15 years ago the office where I worked was quite near a little paperback exchange type of place and I regularly stopped in and looked over what they had available. I picked up HUNTING MR HEARTBREAK by Jonathan Raban, and was immediately hooked. Raban is a Brit and for several years he traveled in the US and then returned home and wrote about us. He gets Americans - the persons in his non fiction and characters in his fiction are very real and very understandable. He currently lives in Seattle and is an occasional columnist for The New Yorker, I think, and has begun to publish fiction. And usually waiting for the trade paperback, I've been buying and keeping his books ever since I read that first one.
Friday he was at Tattered Cover over in east Denver, so of course I was there, too. I got all of my backlist signed, and enjoyed listening to him in person. The latest book is SURVEILLANCE, described by him as a comic, ironical look at Americans in a post 9/11 world. The library should have it for me in a week or two, and I'll report back on what I think.
His comments included a rather rueful observation that so many of the invasions of our privacy involve things we would be loath to give up - the convenience of a credit or debit card for example. And the importance of approaching life, not exactly with a sense of humor, but with a well developed sense of irony.
Like we all do more often than we would like, after I got home, I thought of a couple of questions I wished I would have asked.
I would have liked to know:
What does he enjoy reading? What was the last book he found memorable, and who wrote it? Is there an author who is always on your "don't miss" list, in the way you are on mine?
Five years plus after 9/11, that day and its aftermath are beginning to enter current literature. I know of three, and now four, (assuming SURVEILLANCE will qualify) books which treat this event and its continuing echoes in our society. Have you read any books of fiction which treat this event that you could recommend to us?
Next time he comes, I'm asking!
I'm not that interested in keeping books, so I usually listen, ask a question or two and come home satisfied. But sometimes I've been accumulating books by an author (only three or four actually) and I would like to have them inscribed.
About 15 years ago the office where I worked was quite near a little paperback exchange type of place and I regularly stopped in and looked over what they had available. I picked up HUNTING MR HEARTBREAK by Jonathan Raban, and was immediately hooked. Raban is a Brit and for several years he traveled in the US and then returned home and wrote about us. He gets Americans - the persons in his non fiction and characters in his fiction are very real and very understandable. He currently lives in Seattle and is an occasional columnist for The New Yorker, I think, and has begun to publish fiction. And usually waiting for the trade paperback, I've been buying and keeping his books ever since I read that first one.
Friday he was at Tattered Cover over in east Denver, so of course I was there, too. I got all of my backlist signed, and enjoyed listening to him in person. The latest book is SURVEILLANCE, described by him as a comic, ironical look at Americans in a post 9/11 world. The library should have it for me in a week or two, and I'll report back on what I think.
His comments included a rather rueful observation that so many of the invasions of our privacy involve things we would be loath to give up - the convenience of a credit or debit card for example. And the importance of approaching life, not exactly with a sense of humor, but with a well developed sense of irony.
Like we all do more often than we would like, after I got home, I thought of a couple of questions I wished I would have asked.
I would have liked to know:
What does he enjoy reading? What was the last book he found memorable, and who wrote it? Is there an author who is always on your "don't miss" list, in the way you are on mine?
Five years plus after 9/11, that day and its aftermath are beginning to enter current literature. I know of three, and now four, (assuming SURVEILLANCE will qualify) books which treat this event and its continuing echoes in our society. Have you read any books of fiction which treat this event that you could recommend to us?
Next time he comes, I'm asking!
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