Yeah, but you're an amateur fry cook and I come from a long line of fry cooks that don't live past 25.

Buffy ,'Showtime'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


msbelle - Feb 23, 2004 3:45:12 pm PST #949 of 10002
I remember the crazy days. 500 posts an hour. Nubmer! Natgbsb

I was getting some scrap paper from an old notebook and came across a wordlist I made for bookclub. We were reading The Professor and The Madman in January of last year and while I enjoyed the book, I found myself reading over words that I really couldn't define if I had to, so I kept a list, and mostly looked them up. 141 total.


Calli - Feb 24, 2004 9:04:35 am PST #950 of 10002
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs

I got To Kill a Mockingbird.

Could be worse.


Jesse - Feb 25, 2004 9:35:00 am PST #951 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I'm in the middle of an old (re-released) Ed McBain book, The Pusher, and the thing that strikes me the most is that the only thing that dates it at all is prices. It's about cops (obviously) and junkies and hookers, but mostly about heroin. It's a little different from his "typical," I think -- there's a personal tie between one of the cops and the crime(s) -- and it's really good.

Oh, and when I say "old," I mean 1956.


Vortex - Feb 25, 2004 9:39:34 am PST #952 of 10002
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

I love McBain books. they hold up.


Jesse - Feb 25, 2004 9:41:34 am PST #953 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Yeah, they're always a good time. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, I always love (re)reading Rex Stout, but they feel much more dated, for whatever reason.


erikaj - Feb 25, 2004 9:58:40 am PST #954 of 10002
Always Anti-fascist!

People don't write 'em like that anymore...McBain is like crime on prime time...personally I like both styles...duh. Hi, I'm Erika, have we met?


DavidS - Feb 25, 2004 11:11:52 am PST #955 of 10002
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

It is a commonplace in certain quarters that Ed McBain was the model for Hillstreet Blues and consequently has had longstanding influence on all police dramas since.


Jesse - Feb 25, 2004 11:14:46 am PST #956 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I'm no literary historian, but who else has been doing procedurals like this for so long? I mean, maybe he wasn't the first, but he's had a damn big influence. Due to the awesomeness, of course.


DavidS - Feb 25, 2004 11:46:52 am PST #957 of 10002
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

I'm no literary historian, but who else has been doing procedurals like this for so long?

Nobody. But Joseph Wambaugh had a huge impact on crime fiction when he hit in the seventies. It was just so grounded in Wambaugh's experience as a cop.


erikaj - Feb 25, 2004 11:53:48 am PST #958 of 10002
Always Anti-fascist!

Whee, I'm like Hec at a hair gel convention...ok, not that excited, but... I still think of the small hours of the morning as the "Witching Hour" cause Wambaugh said that's when the liquor wears off and the nightmares start.Everything starts with the right attitude.Wambaugh writes, or did, anyway, true-crime, too. "Lines and Shadows" about the Border Patrol? Broke my heart. "The Onion Field" was great too...there's a movie of that one.