FF: Continuing
Part of the View Outside My Office
This week my reading is mostly electronic formats, so I offer picture of one of Jim and my pets: the garden. Every plant you see, we put in. This corner used to be all sterile sand and construction junk. It’s looking good now. It will look even better when the hollyhocks, yarrow and desert willow start flowering
For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines. The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.
Recently Completed:
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie. I could probably recite some of these aloud, but I needed something both absorbing and yet familiar to read before bed.
Pasttime by Robert B. Parker. Audiobook. Held up well. Less a detective story than a mediation on how relationships between parents and children shape the adult, seasoned with gunshots.
David Bowie: The Oral History compiled by Dylan Jones. Stronger before the editor decided to have the last word on Bowie. Rather a contradiction, given that the inherent message of the book is that no one, probably not even Bowie, could have the last word. But isn’t that true about all of us?
The Father Brown Mysteries radio dramas adapted from several short stories. Well done. Obviously audio!
In Progress:
The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham. Audiobook. Yep. Another re-listen.
Also:
This latest Smithsonian magazine, while slim, had some good articles. I’d recommend.
