8: Thinking in Pictures, Temple Grandin

Oliver Sacks led me here.

The book is all over the place, with bits on cattle behaviour and care, bits on autism and autism treatment, bits (by far the worst) on religion and science, and personal accounts. Interesting, but the last two chapters are rather foolish.

Interesting facts:

gentle pressure on the sides of a piglet will cause it to fall asleep

and

Japanese researchers have found that pressure on the skin produces a relaxed muscle tone and makes animals drowsy. Pigs will roll over and solicit scratching on their bellies when rubbed.

Grandin mentions Papi's Animal Homing, and I rather want to read it, but it's absurdly expensive.

7: Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger

I like how Salinger writes. I like his descriptions of rooms and characters' actions, in particular.

6: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, G.K. Chesterton

Borges mentions Chesterton a lot in interviews. I bought this at Kepler's before leaving for Holland, as something to read on the plane.

It's very good, up to the very end, where it goes all screwy and silly. The penguin edition I have is beautiful, with a white-black-red cover of rough paper.

4, 5: Moord op het Maanfeest and Halssnoer en Kalebas, Robert van Gulik

Bought two Judge Dee while in Holland. I had borrowed both many years ago from the library, but did not remember them well.

3: Skellig, David Almond

Hornby mentioned it in one of his Believer columns. Young adult fiction, so quite a quick read. I finished it on the plane to Holland and Audrey read it while we were there. Pretty good.

2: Shakespeare Wrote for Money, Nick Hornby

The third, and last, collection of Hornby's columns for Believer. I think it's the weakest of the three, but it's still quite good.

1: The Magician and the Cardsharp: The Search for America's Greatest Sleight-of-Hand Artist, Karl Johnson

Dai Vernon's search for Allen Kennedy, the center dealer.

Not fantastically well-written. I enjoyed Phantom at the Card Table, about the search for Scott, the second dealer, better.

2009!

Time to catch up again.

37: Jazzmen, edited by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. and Charles Edward Smith

Not very good. It's interesting to read the little verbatim bits from the letters of Bunk Johnson, but the rest is rather poor.

Finished some time in December.