SPEAKING OF NETFLIX, THEY HAVE THE WHOLE SHARPE SERIES:

Into it: Bernard Cornwell:
Bernard Cornwell, bestselling author of The Sharpe Series, what are you ... (CS Monitor, 2/10/06)

... Reading?

The Third Reich in Power by R.J. Evans, a history of Germany between 1933 and 1939, i.e. pre-war. It's a quite fascinating book on how the Nazis imposed their will on Germany and the way they approached religion, education, entertainment, the film world, music. They took control of absolutely everything. It's an extraordinarily chilling book on how a society can be hijacked.

I just finished Mao by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, which I thought was a stunning book. I realized that I knew absolutely [nothing] about Mao beyond the fact that he produced a little red book and was "the great helmsman." I was just left thinking, "What a monster." Not the most cheerful of books, but I've been reading some more cheerful one's as well. About two weeks ago, I finished a wonderful book called The Peregrine by J.A. Baker. It's a British book. It was published in the '60s, and New York Review Books Classics just reissued it. It's about a man who gives away very little about himself. He lives in Essex, somewhere out on the marshes.... He becomes utterly obsessed with peregrine falcons, and he spends his days following them to the point where he begins to identify with them and they accept him. The guy can write! I think it's the only book he ever wrote. I Googled him and came away with absolutely nothing. I liked it so much that I ordered a first edition.

Woody Allen?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2006 6:38 PM