Books

Over the last few days (mostly evenings), I've been chatting with my friend, Tali, in São Paulo. The conversation winds from school studies, to family, family vacations, food, friends, music, movies, and books.

She introduced me to a few new (at least to me) authors. Malba Tahan. That's Tali's great-grand-uncle. Another author is Gabriel García Márquez. He wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. The third author that she mentioned was João Guimarães Rosa. I've already ordered one of Malba Tahan's books from a neighboring county library. I look forward to reading it.

Yesterday, Tali said that she read two books in five days. "It was good for the soul." Reading is good for the soul.

It made me review what I've been reading recently. Here's what I've read in 2007...

• Dan Patrick's Outtakes
• Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo 's Baseball Confidential
• Harry Shearer's Man Bites Town
• Mike Greenberg's Why My Wife Thinks I'm An Idiot
• John Mortimer's Rumpole and the Reign of Terror
• James Lincoln Collier's Rich and Famous
• Elliott Roosevelt's The President's Man
• Alan Ross's Echoes from the Ballpark
• Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone's Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales

I'm just finishing up Murders' Row, a collection of original baseball mysteries, edited by by Otto Penzler. I'm also slogging my way through Alberto Manguel's A History of Reading.

I should probably move away from the lighter fare and dig or re-dig into some meatier books.

Thank you, Tali, for having this discussion with me. Now, if I can just get Angie to read The Hobbit.