WHAT have you finished reading recently? And There Was Light, Jon Meacham. A biography of Abraham Lincoln.
WHAT are you reading now? I am listening to The Rivalry, a play composed by Norman Corwin. It turns the Lincoln-Douglas debates into a two-hour performance delivered by Paul Giamatti (Stephen A. Douglas) and David Straitharn (Abraham Lincoln). I began this on the heels of watching Lincoln, in which Straitharn plays Secretary of State Seward against Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln. I was listening to a dramatization of The Hobbit but needed a break from the goblin/monster voices in general.
WHAT are you reading next? I need to read something that’s not history, but I am looking at both In Defense of Andrew Jackson by Brad Birzer and The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo as followups to my Meacham biographies. I also ordered With Malice Towards None, a much-hailed Lincoln biography.
And now, today’s prompt from Long and Short reviews, which is….”funny titles”. I’ve done this twice before , at five-year intervals, and will follow the same approach I did at my last interval. I’ll take the ‘current winning’ list and see if anything I’ve read in the last five years can unseat the current champions! As it turns out, there was only one change: Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid replaced Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff.
How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming, Mike Brown
Death from the Skies!, Phil Plait
Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein
They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? Christopher Buckley
The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head Gary Small
Hey, Mom, Can I Ride My Bike Across America?, John Siegal Boettner
Gang Leader for a Day, Sudhir Venkatesh
How To Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, Anthony Esolen
Prepare to Meet Thy Doom: And Other Gaming Stories, David Kushner
Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Biology of Climate Change, Thor Hanson
Reading Freely 
Some of these are pretty funny! Think you’re a week ahead, Stephen. Thought I’d woken up in the future… 🤣😊😊
…yeah, I am. I start prepping some of my posts a few weeks in advance. I guess next week I’ll post about my favorite TV show. XD
🤣 I do that too. There’s been lots of times I’ve realised just before I post. I Look forward to it, Stephen 😂
I have to admit, I’ve never read any of those… but the titles certainly are funny. I think my favorite is Cinderella Ate My Daughter… I might have to look for that one just because of the title.
It is the kind of title that leaps out!
I’ve read How I Killed Pluto. It was good!
Much better than Tyson’s Pluto book, I think.
Some of them sound like serious books by people with senses of humor. All Buckleys are must-reads!
Priscilla King
William F Buckly Jr wrote one called “Getting it Right” which I really liked — it was about a Randian woman and a Bircher man arguing during the 1960s and developing a relationship.
Those are some great titles. 😀
Here is my post.
Hilarious titles!
Last #book I finished: Greek Lessons, by #HanKang
Amreading: The Perfect Day, by #IraLevin
Amlistening to: Out of the Silent Planet, by #CSLewis
TBR Reading next: Guilt, by #KeigoHigashino
How is the narrator for Out of the Silent Planet? I love Lewis but that trilogy was a little weird — the second volume was the easiest to understand.
The narrator is fabulous. They say he is Geoffrey Howard, but he sounds so much like Ralph Cosham, whom I enjoy a lot as well.
After I wrote this, I decided to investigate, because I was really puzzled by the ressemblance of their voices.
And I found this:”Geoffrey Howard was a pseudonym used by the late Ralph Cosham (1936–2014) for many of his audiobook narrations. He was a British-born actor and journalist who became one of the most beloved voices in the industry.”
So thanks so much for asking!
How fun! I haven’t heard him but will try a few samples.
He is the one who narrated many books by Louise Penny, before he passed away. That’s how I knew so well his voice
I love that you are living in the future!
don’t these two titles go so well together:
How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming, Mike BrownDeath from the Skies!, Phil Plait
😂
Hah! Yes, they do. Pluto will have his revenge!
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