Friday, December 28, 2012

Notes About Books

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Tomaso Egan,

On September 22, 2012 I wrote a short blog about this Sheridan Civil War book that I had read about in a Boston Sunday Globe, Terrible Swift Sword. I am very sure that I mailed the article to you. Maybe this is what sparked your idea for a Christmas gift for me. I am not sure.



I knew that this would be a great book to read, but for some reason I never moved on it. I have 66 books ready to be ordered from my $5-$6 Connecticut bookstore. Then, during our visit to your Wildwood Crest home in October, you told me your take on using a Kindle and buying books. Later a visit to our travel agent’s house on the Cape further confirmed that it was a really good idea. Janis said I could buy a Kindle for cost at Amazon, and that the books only cost $1.00 or so. She said she has never paid more than that. The deal was sealed and Sandy ordered two Kindles for us for Christmas.

I am planning on taking Sheridan to Mexico this February. You always get me the perfect book.

Thank you very much, Bird On the Head.                    


-Tocino



Chris got me the Lincoln Team of Rivals book for Christmas. The Boston Globe has it as #1 in non-fiction right now -- because of the new movie, I am sure. Chris's face dropped to my reaction when he gave it to me. He said, "Is it not a good book?”  I said, “On the contrary it is a fabulous book, but I already own it, and devoured it one summer in the casita. I am definitely saving it for Abel to read.”

Tomorrow I will go to Barnes & Noble and hopefully exchange it for some Kindle books for vacation. Kindle & Bacon. Somehow the words don't go together, do they?

Side note # 43    
Today Kezia's Daedalus Books catalog came. I needed something to read so I grabbed it. Years ago my friend Charles from New Mexico talked me into reading his favorite book of all time, One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read it on the playa on Isla Mujeres and hated it. Mea culpa (my fault). Well it is FICTION. I gave it a second try, years later on Isla also. It was just lying there for the taking in reception at Maria del Mar "Cabanas." YCMTSU. Many, many people had read and handled this particular book. I loved it. Well not the story as much as the writing and the words.

Years later in a rented house in the Bahamas one very hot night I checked out the vacation house library and found another book by him called Living To Tell The Tale and it just blew me away.



Today in Kezia's Daedalus I came upon yet another by him that I have been searching for called, believe it or not, Memories Of My Melancholy Whores. But it is going to cost me $2.95. I read somewhere that he is still alive and living in Cartagena, Columbia.

This could be the longest thank you that I have ever written. Did I even say thank you?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree with you more about the beauty of the writing in García Márquez' 100 Years. But we are both talking about the English translation. I have always believed Gregory Rebassa, the translator, deserves as much credit as the author here.

Interestingly enough, Spanish writers who are also skilled writers and speakers of English recognized the talents of Rebassa when 100 Years came out in English, and ended up making Rebassa's career. His queue of jobs was so immediately filled up that there was no room for García Márquez' later works.