Udaipur in India.
Discordian Camden Benares in a 1980s news program. At Historia Discordia, somehow I missed this earlier, thanks to Jesse Walker for pointing it out.
Matthew Yglesias: "The fact that Biden got 100 times more scrutiny for ending a failed war than any of his predecessors got for continuing it will never cease to infuriate me."
Nebraska has legalized medical marijuana.
I mentioned in a recent post that more classic novels, ones published in 1929, would be coming into the public domain.
Standard Ebooks, which puts out carefully edited free ebooks of classic books, has just announced it is immediately putting out editions of 20 books which have entered the public domain this year.
See the link for the full list, but it includes The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis and Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe.
The 1920s were an exciting time in American literature and the decision by Congress to allow books to start going into the public domain again have made many books available free. More books by Ernest Hemingway will be coming into the public domain, but in the meantime, Standard Ebooks has The Sun Also Rises and a short fiction collection as well as the new book. The Sinclair Lewis offerings now included Dodsworth, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith and Main Street.
Only three books this time, low for me, but I did also read large chunks of Moby Dick and The Sex Magicians for the two online reading groups. In fact, I need to read more Moby Dick today!
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur Clarke. Another reason I read fewer books this time was that the Clarke book is very long, 966 pages in paperback, and I was determined to finish it by the end of the year. It apparently has every piece of short fiction he ever wrote. A large number of the stories hold up, and I really enjoyed the book. The only section that disappointed me was the section of the final stories. "A Meeting With Medusa" and "The Wind From the Sun" are really good, but at the end of his career, Clarke also wrote many rather slight short-shorts that essentially traded on his name.
The Last Murder at the End of the World, Stuart Turton. A mystery novel but also a science fiction novel, about the last remaining survivors of a world apocalypse. Pretty good, something to read if you want something different. A nominee for the Prometheus Award, so that's why I read it.
The Fourfold Remedy: Epicurus and the Art of Happiness, John Sellars. A short outline of Epicurean philosophy, recommended by Emily Austin, a philosophy professor who writes about Epicureanism. Austin is the author of Living for Pleasure, probably the best modern introduction to Epicureanism.
As in past years, I am posting what I read during the year. I read about the same number of books every year; 59 this year, versus 49 last year, 54 in 2002.
A couple of the books this year are re-reads, i.e. Cosmic Trigger 2, the third book of Lord of the Rings. I also re-read the first tour Matthew Scudder novels by Lawrence Block, I'll likely continue that project this year.
My favorite fiction this year was Mania by Lionel Shriver, Playground by Richard Powers and Arthur C. Clarke's collected stories. Good nonfiction books included Gangster Hunters and Chapel Perilous. The Peter Swanson books are recommended if you like murder mysteries, but first read the previous book in the series, The Kind Worth Killing.
1. Theft of Fire, Devon Eriksen.
2. Queen Wallis, C.J. Carey.
3. Lion of Light: Robert Anton Wilson on Aleister Crowley, Robert Anton Wilson.
4. House of Gold, C.T. Rwizi.
5. Tending the Epicurean Garden, Hiram Crespo.
6. The Kind Worth Saving, Peter Swanson.
7. Julia, Sandra Newman.
8. Black Hats, Steve Wire.
9. Prophet Song, Paul Lynch.
10. Ohio Jazz: A History of Jazz in the Buckeye State, David Meyers.
11. Lord of a Shattered Land, Howard Andrew Jones.
12. The Long and Winding Phone, Helen Marketti.
13. Liminal by Cameron, Cameron (Joseph Matheny).
14. Sviatoslav Richter: Pianist, Karl Aage Rasmussen.
15. 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War, Andrew Nagorski.
16. The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder, Lawrence Block.
17. Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe, Judith Herrin.
18. Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science, Benjamin Breen.
19. The Sins of the Fathers, Lawrence Block.
20. Reality is What You Can Get Away With, Robert Anton Wilson.
21. Mania, Lionel Shriver.
22. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler.
23. Swim Among the People, Karl K. Gallagher.
24. Time to Murder and Create, Lawrence Block.
25. The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien.
26. In the Midst of Death, Lawrence Block.
27. Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults and Cover-ups, Robert Anton Wilson.
28. A Stab in the Dark, Lawrence Block.
29. The Magician, W. Somerset Maugham.
30. Hello Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio, Anthony Rudel.
31. Epicureanism, Tim O'Keefe.
32. A Midwestern Heart, Poems, John Kropf.
33. The Vineyard of Liberty, 1787–1863, James MacGregor Burns.
34. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Christopher I. Beckwith.
35. On the Nature of Things, Lucretius. (Ian Johnston, translator).
36. The Travels of Marco Polo. Translated, with an introduction, by Ronald Latham.
37. In the Belly of the Whale, Michael Flynn.
38. A Dead Marshal, a Manless Wedding and a Forgotten Baseball Team: Three Episodes in the History of Miami and Ottawa County, Oklahoma, R.H. Coiner Jr.
39. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante.
40. The Sex Magicians, Robert Anton Wilson.
41. One of the Good Guys, Araminta Hall.
42. Self-Help Is Like a Vaccine: Essays on Living Better, Bryan Caplan.
43. The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned, John Strausbaugh.
44. Selected Poems, James Tate.
45. Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth, Robert Anton Wilson.
46. Playground, Richard Powers.
47. A Few Days in Athens; being the Translation of a Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum, Frances Wright.
48. The Demon Breed, James H. Schmitz.
49. Polostan, Neal Stephenson.
50. Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, Gabriel Kennedy.
51. Singularity Sky, Charles Stross.
52. The Norman Conquest, Marc Morris.
53. Gangster Hunters: How Hoover's G-men Vanquished America's Deadliest Public Enemies, John Oller.
54. A Talent for Murder, Peter Swanson.
55. Machine Vendetta, Alastair Reynolds.
56. Earth to Moon: A Memoir, Moon Unit Zappa.
57. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur C. Clarke.
58. The Last Murder at the End of the World, Stuart Turton.
59. The Fourfold Remedy: Epicurus and the Art of Happiness, John Sellars.
