I loved Just Kids by Patti Smith. At age 20, she left college for Manhattan and began a relationship / lifelong friendship with another artist Robert Maplethorpe. Cool story about 2 starving artists as they traverse the seedy areas of NYC, hang in the circles with prominent artists of the time and navigate Robert’s sexuality on their way to becoming renowned artists themselves.
Currently reading The Master and Margarita.
next genre, Action / Adventure, and flying, so need smaller in size
King Rat - Clavell
I think that’s the book that made me take up smoking haha
I lived in Brisbane Australia right after college for half a year while my brother did study abroad. We lived in a 12 person house with a lot of people our age who smoked. It was (is?) very common in Australia to roll cigarettes because pre-rolled (tailored) packs are taxed like crazy. The book really romanticized smoking iirc and was one of the reasons I caved. Great book series though.
Great book and great movie
“My Grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry.” Bachmann. I like his other books.
Wife’s book club.
That was my first Backman book.
The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, 2020 political history book by American journalist and author Vincent Bevins.
CS alerted me to this book earlier in this thread. It is a powerful criticism of US foreign policy carried out by the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s against left wing movements in the Third World. The book discusses CIA interference in about a dozen countries but the main focus is Indonesia where the CIA’s support for Suharto resulted in about a million murders of Indonesians. Anyone with any connection to the popular, democratically elected PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) was at danger of “disappearing”.
Western media bought the CIA’s propaganda campaign against the PKI despite the lies and vileness. There was generally praise for the CIA’s and Suharto’s success in destroying the PKI.
Book is well-written and a good summary of CIA campaigns in other countries, including assistance with the assassination of many popular, left wing leaders. While I was familiar with most of them the number of Third World countries targeted was staggering when they are all referenced in one book.
I had this on one hold, waited too long to pick it up. So waiting again.
I don’t read much but I was at the library and saw this, read the first chapter and decided to check it out. Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley. About halfway through.
The disinformation campaigns by the CIA were disgusting. Sadly, people believed the demonization of people the CIA wanted to see destroyed. People unfortunately are still easily swayed by disinformation.
Finished The Master and Margerita. I was so excited for this one but didn’t end up loving it.
My Dad just loaned me West with Giraffes, which is a historical fiction inspired by a true story of the first transporting of giraffes across the US.