What are you reading this week of November 13, 2016?

[TexasProgresive]

I finally got back on DU. As bad as I was feeling about the election, I think losing DU was most troubling. I know that sounds selfish but I was feeling cut off from my community. All the people near me except my immediate family are like the cat who ate the canary.

Back to the subject of reading. I finished Bad Boy by Peter Robinson and was about to start his Cold is the Grave. Before I could my friend emailed be about a couple of non-fiction books by bicycle racers and I couldn't resist buying them as kindle downloads. I read the forwards and 1st chapters of both and continued to read A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium by Joe Parkin. I'm not quite sure I understand what the Belgic idiom a dog in a hat means. I I do have an inkling


This cover image has a lot of artistic license. Joe like most road racers' lower body was extremely developed but his arms rather not.

From the Back Cover

"The most authentic book ever written on making a living as a pro cyclist in Europe." -- Bob Roll, Versus TV cycling commentator

"I saw my first pro kermis race during my first week in Belgium, and it felt like trying to escape a hall of mirrors but not being able to read the exit signs. Everything was larger than life and more grotesque than I had imagined. But kermis racing was not all about the drugs. If the grand tours are like classical music, kermis racing is punk rock, Belgian-style.

At some point during the season, our team was invited to a stage race in France, but our team director had made an agreement for us to race a big kermis in Brugge. My buddy Cocquyt decided that we should go as hard as we possibly could from the gun in the kermis, team time trial style, and then peel off at the end of the 11-kilometer lap, laughing at all the guys we had tortured as we took off for the other race. Of course, we all coughed up blood for the entire trip to France, but it was strangely worth it, as if we had smashed our guitars, poured beer on the audience, and walked offstage before the end of the first song." 

Joe Parkin's life changed when he left America to become a professional bike racer in Belgium. In this brutally frank memoir, Parkin celebrates the glory of racing but doesn't flinch from the cold reality of that life--the drugs, the payoffs, the betrayals by teammates, the battles with team owners for contracts and money, the endless promises, and the sheer physical pain of racing day after day.

Set in the hardest place in the world to be a bike racer, A Dog in a Hat is one rider's story of his love affair with professional cycling.
https://www.amazon.com/Dog-Hat-American-Betrayal-Belgium/dp/1934030260

[gollygee]

1. I am re-reading The Grapes of Wrath because my kid is reading it in school

And I was so excited that their class was reading it that I decided to read it again. It's been 25 years or so since I read it and I don't remember it as well as I'd like to. My memory sucks. Having a kid in high school English is bringing me back to all my favorite books.

[TexasProgresive]

2. I was reading books way above my age that I enjoyed very much.

As an old man, I have reread several of those old treasures and found out that while I got something out of them at 10 there was a much deeper understanding at age 66.

[northoftheborder]

4. Good idea.....

My father was not stern nor authoritarian as a parent. BUT - he took deep interest in my reading habits and scorned Nancy Drew, Wizard of Oz, and the like. I was required to read classics such as "Tale of Two Cities", "Treasure Island", etc. as a pre-teen before I had the history background to appreciate them. I should re-read or listen on Audible.

I finished "Underground Railroad" yesterday. Excellent. Am back into English Tudor history with "The Children of Henry VIII" and then a biography of Elizabeth the 1st.

[japple]

6. Have you seen the movie? It is one of my favorites but probably because

I just loved Ma Joad and thought Jane Darwell was brilliant in that role. Henry Fonda was amazing as well.
With the drought we are having in parts of Georgia, I am thinking of re-reading this myself.

[gollygee]

7. I have!

Love that movie. I really like Henry Fonda in general.

[japple]

8. I've always liked Henry Fonda because he was such a natural. He

never seemed like he was acting.

[hermetic]

3. Thanks and welcome back

Happy to see you. I decided to forego the thread this week since many of our group are not star members. Plus everyone is kind of grumbly, myself included. But I'm glad you did and I pinned it, as per usual.

Happy to hear of your relevant finds. I just bought 5 new old books myself.

Hope we are all feeling much better soon. And if we're not, well then I'm sure glad we have each other to talk to.

[TexasProgresive]

5. I woke on the 9th shocky

I regained some mental balance by doing a hard fast bike ride. That doesn't make it go away but gave me a sense of perspective.

[japple]

9. Shocky is a good term to describe it. I went to bed early, thinking I would

get up when I woke around midnight to check the returns. I did and couldn't sleep the rest of the night. I went back to bed but couldn't sleep. Tried to read but couldn't. DU was gone and I didn't know where to go. It was awful.

I've regained some of my balance by throwing myself into our Friends of the Library Fall Book Sale, which I was obligated to do regardless of the election results. It was a relief to have something to focus on other than the election.

[TexasProgresive]

10. I did exactly the same. Went to bed, woke up around midnight and tried to sleep unsuccessfully.

It is good that you had the obligation to do the Friends of the Library sale.

Off Topic: is that your kittie? We just love those black and white cats that some call tuxedo cats. Everyone that has lived with us has been a sweetheart. We call the Magee cats because our first was named Lightin' Magee. He had a lighting shaped slash of white across his mostly black face.

[japple]

11. It was like I went to sleep on Tuesday night, Nov. 8 and never

woke up.

Re: your B-W kitty. Yes, that is my Mildred, a/k/a Willie. She is my darling child. She is a zen master and a great bed warmer. There has never been another cat like Mildred.

Tuxedo cats (tuxies) are unique. Even the dilute, striped, calicoed, or tortoiseshelled tuxedo cats of all colors and stripes seem to be very self-possessed and dominant personalities. TUXIES ROCK!!!!!

[TexasProgresive]

12. I'm glad you have a friend like her. She will heal you.