What Are You Reading Now?

[Gingersnap]

I'm reading the very end of 'Demons' edited by John Skipp ('Cherub' by Adam-Troy Castro is disturbing and compelling), I've started '77 Shadow Street' by Koontz, and I'm taking a break from the final Game of Thrones novel yet published.

In non-fiction, I'm reading music theory which is not interesting to those who don't play.

What's your current pleasure?

[Adam]

Trace Adkins: A Personal Stand.


I've had it for years and I never have cracked it. Not for any particular reason other than that I never got around to it, it got lost temporarily in the divorce, and I ran across it again the other day. It ain't Shakespeare, to be sure, but it's interesting reading about a local guy I've actually met in person a time or two, but never really spent any time with, but have always wanted to. I have to admit, even though it's "reading in the vernacular," it's kind of interesting to get into this guy's brain. And it's NOT what many would expect, including me.



I just wrapped up re-reading my brother's ghost-written The Suspect: A Memoir. Ran into Jeff a couple of weeks ago. For someone who's been through what he's been through, he's doing amazingly well. It caused me to re-read the book and to re-watch Demetria's awesome documentary.



I think I'm going to go back to Winston Churchill's WWII series when I get done. Or, I may go back and re-visit Thomas Sowell's excellent study of Migrations and Cultures.

[Gingersnap]

Tell us more about your brother's book!

[Adam]

Tell us more about your brother's book!

It's the story of the investigation of the Marica Trimble murder. This absolutely changed Nashville, from one end to the other. We literally went from a city where no one locked their doors or indeed even took their keys out of the ignition at the supermarket to a bunch of people who did not let their children play outside, overnight. Marcia's murder absolutely rocked this community. I remember being told that I had to come in well before dusk because my mother was worried that I may become the next Marcia Trimble; the same happened everywhere within at least a 100-mile radius at the time.



Watch Demetria's documentary:

Jeff Womack lived just a couple of doors away from the Trimble family and ultimately spent basically thirty years of his life being falsely accused over and over and over again of raping and murdering a young girl in his own neighborhood. Jeff has been been guilty of a few things in his life: being a teenager in the late '60s and early '70s; having a "Mrs. Robinson" sexual relationship with, well, a "Mrs. Robinson" across the street (nowadays criminally-chargable, but in the day, something that was was hushed under the rug and no one talked about it), smoking some pot, and having the word "fuck" written on his Keds sneaker in a day when that was just not really tolerated.


At the end of the day (and this is a bit of a spoiler alert for anyone not familiar with Nashville), a drifter sex-offender who had been convicted and then released just a couple of weeks before Marcia was murdered was found to be the murderer through a random DNA hit in about 2007 or so, convicted, and is now in prison forever.




The story, ultimately, is about how to handle the police if you are innocent, and how "small town" and even "big city" cops can manage to bungle a case beyond any imaginable belief. Names are named at the city, state, and local level, and their own incompetence is exposed rather severely. And it's the story of how the police and the local prosecutors can absolutely change the path of one's life, ruin it even, though Jeff would never agree to that latter assessment. Nonetheless, one can readily see how a bright, promising young teenager's life can effectively be derailed from things like college and higher echelons of life because of a vindictive and frankly stupid police force.

[Gingersnap]

Now on to "Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction"
by Steven Martin.

This is fascinating. It's not really a book about opium addiction (although that's a central theme), it's really a book about opium, collecting opium objects, and the social history of opium and opium addiction.

Let's just say that what you thought you knew about the Brit involvement was kind of wrong.

[Billy Jingo]

The Year of Dreaming Dangerously by Slavoj Zizek

[Michele]

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. Our daughter bought it for her dad but he's reading another book right now so I grabbed this one.

[Gingersnap]

Still deep into Sherlock Holmes but considering rereading the Game of Thrones series in anticipation of the new one.

[gary m]

Still deep into Sherlock Holmes but considering rereading the Game of Thrones series in anticipation of the new one.

Birdy Edwards is not his real name.

[Gingersnap]

Birdy Edwards is not his real name.

Gosh! I guess I'll just chuck all 1200 pages despite having read it before. 'The Valley of Fear' was the only reason I was reading it all, anyway.

"cries"

[gary m]

Gosh! I guess I'll just chuck all 1200 pages despite having read it before. 'The Valley of Fear' was the only reason I was reading it all, anyway.

"cries"

Valley of Fear would not be politically correct today.
When McMurdo tells McGinty about "shoving the queer" would put too many in a tizzy.

[Gingersnap]

Valley of Fear would not be politically correct today.
When McMurdo tells McGinty about "shoving the queer" would put too many in a tizzy.

None of it is politically correct. Thankfully.

[gary m]

None of it is politically correct. Thankfully.

True.
I can't imagine Watson asking Holmes "Which it is today, arugula or broccoli?" or Holmes having tricked a Jew broker out of 500 guineas buying his Stradivarius.

Of course today, that second one may still be ok with lots of folks.