What I've been reading

... not that I think anyone cares.

Have you ever started a post, then decided that it wasn't very interesting, went to delete it, but couldn't quite commit yourself to doing so? Well, I've done that three or four times now with this one over the last month or so. The only thing that's prevented me from clicking on the little garbage can is knowing that I did spend a few minutes taking the pictures, and editing the photos for the books in this post. And I really dislike the thought of having done that for nothing. So, I'm gonna try it again, this time with more pictures. After all, a month has gone by, and more books have been read, or in some cases, attempted to be read.

I really know how to get people excited for my posts, don't I?

And I'm not sure how far back this group of reading material goes, maybe two months, at the most. It doesn't feel like it's been that long, but I will just go with it for the sake of transitioning out of this awkward opening.

I keep a list of books that I'd like to read, and this one had been on there for years now. I could've bought it online, as it's not very expensive, but I was always just hoping that I could find it out in the wild someday. Finding it at the Book Cellar a couple of months ago felt rather fortuitous, as I didn't have nearly as much time as I had wanted to look around in there on that particular day. Because of this, I was skipping the history section (among others), but did glance over at the books on the end cap as I was walking by, and wouldn't you know what was sitting right in the front of that day's display, West with the Night. I have seen so much praise heaped upon this book over the years, so now that I had a copy, I was almost beyond excited to finally tear into it. I think that may have been my downfall, my expectations were too high. 

To say that I was disappointed would be a an understatement. I flat out hated everything about this book. Beryl's (for those that may not know, she made the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic) writing style, which receives most of the praise from reviewers of this book, did absolutely nothing for me. And what's worse, her non-fiction book reads like fiction in many places, which is often a compliment, but not in her case. The dialogue from incidents that took place 40-50 years prior feels like it was made up at the time of the books writing, and some of it just downright bad; especially the parts where people are talking up how brave she is/was, which is frequent. There's no doubt that she thought very highly of herself, and according to her, so did everyone else that she ever met. Everyone. Apparently she was the baby Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and Henry Winkler all rolled into one.

I was only able to make it a little over halfway through before pulling the plug on this one. Thank goodness I only spent two bucks (in credit) on it.

Being a former long-time Coast to Coast AM listener, I'm very familiar with Jenny Randles, but had never read any of her books before. Now that I have read one, I'd be willing to read more. There was a lot of stories that I hadn't heard before in here, and couple of her possible explanations at the end were pretty interesting, one more so than the others.

My mom got me this one last summer at book sale. The only reason it took me so long to get to it was, that I knew it was gonna pull on my ancestral heartstrings, and I was right, it did. Seems like the older I get, the more the motherland is calling. The way things have gone thus far, it doesn't appear that I'll ever make it there; thankfully it doesn't cost anything to dream though. Awesome book by the way, highly recommended if you're into this sort of thing.

I went to McKay's about two months ago, during a brief dip in the gas prices, and did pretty well book-wise while I was there. I didn't do my usual recap if only because, well, I just didn't feel like it. I was there again a couple of days ago, and will do recap in the next post. Anyway, I got this during the previous trip, and it was yet another book that I had been wanting to read for awhile, that was also a massive letdown. I finally find a cheap copy ($3 in credit), and it was the absolute shits. I don't know what it is with Stephen King and his obsession with putting children in kind of fucked up sexual situations, but he did it again here (not as extreme as in It, but still uncomfortable to read as an adult), about 50 pages in, which took me right out of the book. Having wanted to read it for so long, I tried to power through, but was taken out again around the halfway mark. This time for good. There are still a couple of books of his that I wanted to try, but I think I'll just pass on those after this latest disappointment.

I got this book during the same stop at the Book Cellar that I got Jenny Randles' book. I've been going there about every two weeks, and have been having quite a bit of luck finding these. I was already very familiar with the stories behind a couple of these discoveries, but didn't mind reading them again. All of these discoveries took place back when there was still adventure and romance in archaeology, which is the kind of archaeology that I fell in love with as a kid. There is no adventure (or romance) in archaeology anymore, now it's just satellites and computers, which is all terribly boring to me. A lot of other people like it though, so it's probably just a me thing.

I vaguely remember, Ms. Shaw, my 1st grade teacher, reading this to the class over a week or two period way, way, back when. That faint memory was enough for me to grab this on whim at McKay's for 25¢. And I'm glad I did. I didn't remember anything about the story itself, and none of it came back to me as I was reading it, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it considerably more than I could've imagined I would. I don't know if they are, but I sure hope kids are still reading this one, or at least having it read to them. They'll be the better for it. I learned too from the forward that Mrs. Burnett was a transplant to here in Tennessee from England, and wrote this book while living here as well. I wouldn't have cared about that before I lived here, but now that I do, I find it kind of interesting.

I was surprised to find this one at the Serenity thrift store last month, as they don't usually have any books for me. It's a shame, because they have a flat per-pound price on books, so they're pretty cheap if you can find them. This was like 60¢ after tax. 

Like a lot of other celebrities from her era, Betty's life away from the big screen was anything but glamorous, and this book pulled no punches while discussing hers. Good book though, that is unless you don't like having the curtains pulled back, then I'd say to try and avoid it. 

I already showed this off a few months ago when I got it, I'm even recycling the old picture. This was a very dense book, and it took me a bit longer to get through it than normal. It started to bog down in a couple of the chapters that focused on politics, a few of which I ended up skipping. Speaking of politics, David let his creep into a few of the chapters, which I could've lived without, but at least it wasn't as bad as a lot of more modern books (this was released in '93) where the author has to put a spin on, or try to revise, everything that goes against their beliefs. Not a bad book, but I wouldn't recommend paying too much for it.

When I started this post up again last week, I was gonna end it here with these finds from the free boxes at the Book Cellar. I felt a little weird taking some free books on a day when I didn't buy anything, but I've bought plenty of stuff on other occasions and didn't take any of the free offerings, so it probably balances itself out. I thought I might've had the In Search of, but I didn't, and I've since tried to read it, it sucked. Apparently NBC did this special that was loosely based on Erich Von Däniken's work, and this book was a follow up/behind the scenes written by the producer. It's mostly about him and his journey into the things that EVD already covered in his first book. This guy was not very interesting, so I tried to skip the " all about me" parts and just read the sections about the actual things, but they started blending together too much for my liking so I just called it a day. It'll be going back to the free box. As for The Aeneid, I think we might've read that in high school, but I can't remember for sure at this point. I haven't gotten to it yet, but will be doing so in the very near future.

Since another week has gone by, I've started, and am mostly through yet another book...

This was in the last McKay's post that I did, so I won't rehash all of that again. I will say though that it's been everything that I hoped it would be, and then some. Although, to be fair, I kind of knew that this one couldn't let me down.

As mentioned somewhere up top, I did go to McKay's again last week, and while I don't know if the stuff that I brought home is any more interesting than the stuff I got last month that didn't make it into a blog post, I feel like posting about it this time, so I will be; probably at the end of the week if all goes well.