Dr. Seuss' Oh Say Can You Say?

One of those books is set in Soviet gulags. And it's depressing. The main character is constantly hungry, going to sham trials, and on the verge of being killed by freezing or brutal guards or overworking or other prisoners. And prisoners sometimes kill other prisoners just so they can go to trial and thus be spared from work for a few months.

They are also so sparse with food that they inspect the outhouses and if there is shit with undigested food in it they would wash the shit off, cook it again, and eat it (again).

I finally finished listening to The Hobbit after some series binges.  Now on The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Yellow Sign by James Hodge

I'm having such a good time. Everything I'd want from a King in Yellow novel.

(September 16, 2023 at 2:11 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: One of those books is set in Soviet gulags. And it's depressing. The main character is constantly hungry, going to sham trials, and on the verge of being killed by freezing or brutal guards or overworking or other prisoners. And prisoners sometimes kill other prisoners just so they can go to trial and thus be spared from work for a few months.

They are also so sparse with food that they inspect the outhouses and if there is shit with undigested food in it they would wash the shit off, cook it again, and eat it (again).

"A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?"

No, it is by some random commie, and this is who Stalin mostly persecuted: other communists.

(September 16, 2023 at 2:11 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: One of those books is set in Soviet gulags. And it's depressing. The main character is constantly hungry, going to sham trials, and on the verge of being killed by freezing or brutal guards or overworking or other prisoners. And prisoners sometimes kill other prisoners just so they can go to trial and thus be spared from work for a few months.

They are also so sparse with food that they inspect the outhouses and if there is shit with undigested food in it they would wash the shit off, cook it again, and eat it (again).

I'm glad it's depressing. A novel about the gulags shouldn't be light and breezy.

Boru

Midway through Little Green by Walter Mosely. I'm working my way through his Easy Rawlins mysteries.

Revisiting an old friend: re-reading my Sherlock Holmes collection.

Boru

Holmes is great fun. I first read all the stories one summer in high school. Took a summer lit class that used detective fiction to emphasize close, critical reading and several of the Holmes stories (Scandal in Bohemia, Study in Scarlet, Five Orange Pips, Speckled Band....) were examples we covered. That was about 1991 or so.

I picked them up again around when my daughter was born - 2012 - and they were as fresh as day once again. I lost myself in it.

Here we are a decade hence and I think I'll do it again. It reminds me of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - There's an unreliable narrator who reveres Robinson Crusoe and returns to it for wisdom. The Holmes stories are like that.