I was hoping for more of a non-fiction history book

The Triumph of Conservatism by Gabriel Kolko is about TR's collusion with J.P. Morgan to create a regulatory system for natural monopolies. May not sound exciting on the surface, but it's a page-turner.

Also great: C. Vann Woodward's Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel (about one of the leaders of the Populist Movement in the 1890s), Lawrence Goodwyn's The Populist Moment (a larger view of the same era), Samuel P. Hays's The Response to Industrialism (a bit drier but still interesting), and Robert Wiebe's In Search of Order 1877-1920 is a generally-regarded definitive classic in history circles.

I'll second the recommendation of The Alienist. Since Caleb Carr is also an historian (Alienist was his first novel), it's steeped in the history of the time. Every time I read it, I expect to see a Jacob Riis photograph accompanying some of the passages.

I'll second the recommendation of The Alienist. Since Caleb Carr is also an historian (Alienist was his first novel), it's steeped in the history of the time. Every time I read it, I expect to see a Jacob Riis photograph accompanying some of the passages.

Yes, you really get the NY-the-way-it-was vibe. Why hasn't this been made into a movie?

Why hasn't this been made into a movie?

From a 1999 Timeinterview with Carr:

Only "The Alienist" [has been attempted to be made into a movie] and the attempts have been so bad that I have not yet sold "Angel" [its sequel] to the movies. What happened was that a producer bought the rights and then decided he had to completely change the characters in the book. We got into a huge conflict, one that is actually ongoing.

And from a 1997 Salon interview:

Q: What's happening with the plan to make a movie of "The Alienist"? A: It's dead. It's been a classic tale of futility. Q: What's the problem? Is it tough to bring a period movie to fruition? A: I don't know that they really understood what book they were buying in a certain sense. It's a period piece, yes, but that's not hard. Period pieces are coming out all the time now. It doesn't have to be that expensive, either. But it's an ensemble piece that doesn't happen to involve a love story. And that's where they're really tripping. They're trying to make it a star vehicle with a love story. Well, that's not the book they bought.

ETA: Upon looking at other articles, apparently the producer he's talking about is Scott Rudin.

sj, I was just reading Imperial San Francisco and it had all kinds of fascinating scuttlebutt about my hometown. Lots of skullduggery and wild scandal and blackmail and - curiously - lots of newspapermen shooting each other. The town is founded on two papers the Chronicle and the Examiner - and they were owned by the De Youngs (see, our main art museum) and the Hearts (see Citizen Kane). Anyway - shooting and killing people over editorials!

Also it does a great job of explaining how the newspapers pushed the "Yellow Peril" (at the turn of the century) which created the Pacific fleet, which drove the California economies (huge, huge military expenditures in ship yards and later aviation in both SF and LA).

You can see the context in which the Japanese internment happened because there'd been propaganda against Japan for 60 years before Pearl Harbor happened.

David! I meant to tell you yesterday, Lost Girls is absolutely brilliant. It's a work of art. And great porn. I need to go back and read it again -- there's a staggering amount of detail in there, and I know I didn't catch all of it.

(Jilli, if you're around, you must never, never read this book, as you would probably find it upsetting in ways you didn't even know were possible.)

sj, I was just reading Imperial San Francisco and it had all kinds of fascinating scuttlebutt about my hometown. Lots of skullduggery and wild scandal and blackmail and - curiously - lots of newspapermen shooting each other. The town is founded on two papers the Chronicle and the Examiner - and they were owned by the De Youngs (see, our main art museum) and the Hearts (see Citizen Kane). Anyway - shooting and killing people over editorials!

That sounds more like something I would be more interested in than Teacup Guy would be, but I will keep it in mind.

Edited, because I really can form sentences when I am not half asleep.

It's a work of art. And great porn.

What more can you ask for?!?

I finally got around to reading Ursula K. LeGuin's Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind last month. SO thrilled that they have the same "feel" as the original trilogy, as if these are folk tales passed down through generation after generation that I'm just now being told for the first time. Tehanu had me worried that I wouldn't like any of her more recent writing.

I am reading Howl's Moving Castle and loving it. Why did I not listen to everyone who told me about Diana Wynne Jones before this? WHY? What other books of hers do you all recommend?