| Author |
Message |
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Wednesday, May 04, 2016 - 10:43 am 
Juju, besides bookbub, find bookgorilla.. they also let you tailor the types of free and bargain kindle books to include in your emails.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Wednesday, May 04, 2016 - 12:28 pm
Gary Indiana (the writer, not the city) is someone I wasn't familiar with until I came across his memoir, I Can Give You Anything But Love. I must have read a rave review of it somewhere and that's what probably put it on my TBR list - I finished it last night.
Wow! What an experience. Mr. Indiana has led a pretty fascinating life since his birth in 1950 in a small town in New Hampshire. He was 37 when his first book was published and he's written nearly two dozen since then (none of which I'd ever heard of).
Anyway, the memoir takes the reader through the various stages of his life in New Hampshire, then L.A., then New York and finally in Havana. He writes brilliantly - very clearly and very candidly, especially about writers he thinks are awful (these include Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald). He explains (explicitly) why he thinks they're awful from a very intellectual and humorous point of view.
He also writes graphically about his life growing up gay, so there's that to consider if you feel inclined to check it out. But, again, he writes so concisely and in such a brutally honest way - I wish everybody wrote that way!
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Wednesday, May 04, 2016 - 10:14 pm
Thanks, folks!!! I knew I could count on my little imaginary buddies to steer me the proper course on this new (ancient) venture. I renewed my library card today and downloaded three books that expire in three weeks. My library, or whoever they are affiliated with, sends them to Amazon, and then I download them there, and they magically appear on my Kindle. It is a miracle!
Ain't it great being old? Since you have to remember everything you have already known or be dismissed as a worthless old person. And then you also have to know everything new, which increases at a rate of about 500 to 1 daily. OUT OF MEMORY! Aiiiieeeee!!!
BUT, I am off tomorrow for about a month of cruising the Atlantic Ocean and touring the UK, which is also a perk of being old, so it all works out in the end.
And when I return, I will come back here for the Kindle books tips. Thanks again, everybody.
Smoochies,
Juju
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Rupertbear2
Member
07-15-2015
| Thursday, May 05, 2016 - 8:32 am
Hmmm, your review of Gary Indiana has piqued my curiosity, Rick.
I shall request him in the near future, on one of my trips to the library.
You should write reviews for a living! 
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, May 05, 2016 - 11:04 am
So sweet of you to say, RB2! I'm really too undeserving of that compliment, but thank you. My reviews aren't as good as Mamie's and Sea's, for example -- mine are fairly general, I think.
Anyway, I hope you like the Indiana memoir if you can get the library copy. What's most fascinating to me is that he was just a regular old schlub working menial jobs (and seemed resigned to that fate). But he kept at it (his writing) and things finally fell in place for him. Just another reminder about the graphic nature about the sex stuff - it's not outrageous, it's very matter-of-fact and constant, though. 
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Rupertbear2
Member
07-15-2015
| Thursday, May 05, 2016 - 1:32 pm
I like stories about everyday Joes. I find it interesting and I'm not a prude, so no worries there Rick, lol.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Thursday, May 05, 2016 - 1:53 pm
Ah, thanks Uncle Ricky 
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, May 05, 2016 - 6:55 pm
Oh I don't write reviews.. just report in here.
And you, Ric, certainly bring a lot to your.. well whatever you want to call them.. but they inform about books for sure.
Mamie of course writes reviews.
I'm still reading Alzheimer's Daughter .. she really gives a robust description as time went on, of her feelings, family, etc. Unique in that both parents were diagnosed together and were totally in denial. Her father's sister also suffered from Alzheimer's and they suspect his brother had it.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 4:09 pm
I'm just glad we're constantly updating one another about all of our reading adventures!
Last night I finished the memoir by Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike. It's called Shoe Dog and I was extremely surprised by how good it is. I was thoroughly engaged in it from page one. I had no idea the company went through so many trials and tribulations during its formative years. Mr. Knight goes into gory (and highly entertaining) detail about all the rough patches (and there were quite a few of those).
I had the honor of being his guest for lunch up at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon (in 1995) and I recall how fidgety he was (but charming and polite too). In the memoir he describes how uncomfortable he is around people he doesn't know very well, so that helped me understand (all these years later) why he fidgeted.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 4:29 pm
You've certainly met some famous people! It's entertaining hearing what they were like in person.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 5:49 pm
Thanks, Jimmer, I'm glad you think so. I've been very fortunate, yes, with my celebrity "run-ins." I forgot to include this in my earlier post (in case you might be interested) - it's a pic from the lunch that day:
https://twitter.com/munoz_ric/status/730124937860546561
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Rupertbear2
Member
07-15-2015
| Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 6:22 pm
Hey Rick, you're a cutie!
Nice to put a face to the name.
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Rieann
Member
08-26-2006
| Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 7:03 pm
Ric needs to write a memoir!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 8:55 pm
Ric is a celeb in his own right.
I'm reading a book about.. well by this woman who decided to eat food as unprocessed as is possible for a year.. And she explores what IS processed and what matters.
Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food by Megan Kimble.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Wednesday, May 11, 2016 - 11:11 am
RB2, Rieann, and Sea - thank you - you're too nice!
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 11:38 am
Several months ago we got to talking about Roxip's co-worker's husband, Ben Fountain, and how his book was being adapted into a film by Ang Lee. It comes out in November and this is its first promotional trailer:
http://deadline.com/2016/05/billy-lynns-long-halftime-walk-trailer-ang-lee-kristen-stewart-vin-diesel-1201754246/
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 12:02 pm
Uncle Ricky - great pic of you and Phil.
You posted once that you knew an editor at Soap Opera Weekly... I had a couple of columns there in the 80s. Wonder if we knew the same editor?
Also, just now I 'followed' you in Twitter. I invite you to do likewise, although I rarely post there since I hate Twitter. LOL.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 12:20 pm
I just finished 2 wonderful books (Our Deathbeds Will Be Thirsty, & POST HASTE a book of quotes from his poems on detachable postcards) by my all-time favourite spoken word artist - SHANE KOYCZAN who is most famous for these two poems:
We Are More (from his appearance at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWZwIpvGQXw
We are more (another version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIDXOYBmCr0
To THIS DAY - at a Ted Talk for Youth. (His most famous poem.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1iS1MqUy4
I was excited and privileged to hear him perform in Toronto about a month ago. One of the few times I went alone and glad I did as I wept through most of it and would have embarrassed my +1. Afterwards I bought two books at his book signing. Very excited to get his autograph AND a handshake. (Too shy to ask for a hug, and I regret that.)
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 12:33 pm
Thanks, Mame! I just followed you back - my pleasure! And I totally get hating Twitter. My husband hates it, too, primarily because of the 140-character limit. He's a diehard Facebooker (and I, of course, hate Facebook).
As for the friend I had at Soap Opera Digest, his name is Robert Rorke. He now writes for the New York Post and is thriving there. Alas, I had to drop him as a friend because it got to be too exhausting to be his friend. I hated to do it because he was (and probably still is) one of the funniest people I've ever known.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 1:19 pm
Oooh I like your hubby! ;) I have a professional page on FB and you guys are welcome to pop by there. (I also have another FB page, where I know I post way too much cuz I am unfortunately addicted to FB.)
I didn't write for the Digest I wrote for their tabloid-sized sister publication Soap Opera Weekly. I certainly remember Robert's name as I also read the digest for years.
I understand about dropping 'friends', I've had to do that quite a lot over the past few years for my own sanity and self-esteem. But the friends I've kept are treasures.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 2:44 pm
Addicted is the perfect word. Seth will be the first to admit he's an addict. I guess that makes me a Twitter addict.
I'm sure I must have read some of your stories because I read the Digest and the Weekly devotedly. During the years I was pals with Robert, I was his guest for a couple of the Soap Opera Digest Awards TV shows when they were held here in L.A.
That's how I got to meet my all-time favorite daytime divas: Beverlee McKinsey (Iris Carrington on "Another World); Kim Zimmer (Reva Shayne on "Guiding Light"); and Elizabeth Hubbard (Lucinda Walsh on "As The World Turns") -- those were really thrilling moments for me and I have Robert to thank for giving me the chance to meet them. He's on Twitter, too, and he links all of his NY Post stories there - he's still the same hilarious writer critiquing current nighttime TV shows.
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 4:55 pm
Finished "Calico Joe" by John Grisham. It's mostly about baseball, but it was better than I expected. I read another Grisham book that was not about court cases several years ago, "Painted House", I think. It was really good.
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Reenie
Member
06-24-2006
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 7:52 pm
I finished "I Let You Go", and enjoyed it! Twists and turns!
I am now on to "Britt-Marie Was Here" by Fredrik Bachman and am enjoying that as well!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, May 12, 2016 - 8:07 pm
I'm on Team Twitter
Thanks for those links, Mame!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Friday, May 13, 2016 - 10:06 am
I am so glad you liked it Reenie! There were twists I did not see coming.
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