Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

I was waiting to see if any pop culture reference from the 1970s would pop up in any of the books I read this month for ‘Stuck in the Seventies’. And then the real trick would be: what 70s icon or phenom would get mentioned twice! Well, I have my first winner, thanks to this book and The Neon Graveyward. Prominent enough in the 70s to get mentioned in two novels?: Bacharach!

I’m not having that rough a time, as some clearly had. This feels neither like a 1-star book, nor a 5-star book. We just had some action that lit the whole thing up, so that’s cool.

I’m not supposed to be reading this, this month. I’m only supposed to be reading novels from the 1970s. The way around that is to scrap my original plan of one nonfiction book from any decade, and sneak in this. Does it matter exactly how I cheat on my reading plan? Well, I dunno. Maybe I should worry the nonfiction gods will come get me - but I think the nonfiction gods are not nonfiction.

Well, if you go by one review - THE one review (at this time) - then this spy novel sucks. Then again, I’m coming from a novel that I was sure would be putrid, and it was good. Let’s try and do that again! In fact, let that happen every time! Okay, that’s a futile dream.

It already seems like it will be better than his other book I read - I! The Demon - so I'll hope it doesn't take a wrong turn.Nice to happen a book set in Hollywood for my Stuck in the Seventies March reading project. This is as late as I can go: 1979.

'A Speakin' Ghost' by Annie Trumbull Slosson was a wonderful ghost story. Did like that one!

Back to my ‘Stuck in the Seventies’ March reading project; I did say I might interrupt it twice - once to keep a Fantasy series rolling, and once for Nonfiction (soon). Anyway, time to put the “stuck” feeling into reading books from the 1970s - by that I mean making time for some low-rated specimens, one by an author I already had a rough time with (this Baxt fellow). We shall see how this and Kiriov Tapes play out.

I should be able to finish this later today, though I have quite a bit left. I'll be cut off from wrapping up the entire series until the last two books arrive - but they will be a priority once they get here. I want to remember things, this time, when I go to a next instalment.

The bit at the start of the book, that summarizes everything from the earlier books, is going to be tremendously helpful, in my case. It has been a while since I romped around in this realm. Two more books in the series after this one - so at least it did get finished.

pg. 82: ‘She looked about as helpless as one of them female spiders who wraps up the enchanted evening with a quick snack of hot husband.’.

‘Stuck in the Seventies’ reading project back on track, with an enjoyable book this time around. I like this. And I certainly feel like I’m back in the 1970s (though this is not the geography from my young years).

Off to a punchy, quick-witted start. I don't remember much from Hazell Plays Solomon - was it this endearing from the get-go? Anyway, I seem to be accidentally stringing novels together that mention Hitler, or have him lurking about the pages in some fashion. It will be nice when that stops; may be past it in this one - Hitler-y bartender in first chapter back again later? I won't miss him.

This is a fun collection of creepy stories - perfect for dipping into now and then, as opposed to running them altogether and having them seem the same.

I like it. If it does get offensive, I think I know what the insensitive, of-the-period stereotyping is going to be, which group or groups will be maligned. I dunno; we’ll see. It’s a 1974 British Crime novel dealing, in part, with sex crimes. Meanwhile, it seems there is a strange coincidence, me going to this book right after The Iron Dream…

My 'Stuck in the Seventies' reading project continues...I suspect this will be bleak, and cold, and typical of that 70s insensitivity I have come to know so well. Harsh edges - maybe even 'has not aged well' to the max. It's from Colin Wilson, so there's that, too. If I'm lucky, I get a good Crime novel attached to whatever else is going on.