Musgrove Family Blog Wandering the Parent Hood

Current Reading

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, this book is a great diversion, and a lot of fun, but in my opinion, not a great book. My favorite part of the book was the way each main character grew throughout the novel and drifted apart as they left college to follow their own paths. I found the main themes of what is evil and individuals cast as unwitting pawns in the machinery of evil to be a bit heavy handed, and without any novel insights. Camus‘ Mersault never says “Wow, life sure is absurd!” yet the reader is led to this conclusion in The Stranger. That being said, I will be reading the rest of Maquire’s books because in the end Wicked is a page turner and I hope the rest of his books will be as much fun.

The Double by Jose Saramago translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa , I have only read the first chapter of this novel, which is just enough to be surprised by the first sighting of “the double”. I am in love with Saramago’s writing style and since I can’t say a lot about the book yet here is my favorite sentence from the first chapter.

Sitting now on the bus that will drop him near the building where he has lived for the last six years or so, that is, ever since the divorce, Maximo Afonso, and we use the shortened version of his name here, having been in our view, authorized to do so by its sole lord and master, but mainly because the word Tertuliano, having appeared so recently, only six lines previously, could do a grave disservice to the fluency of the narrative, anyway, as we were saying…

For those that love Kurt Vonnegut’s off hand style or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ability to craft language into his own creations, you owe it to yourself to check out Jose Saramago.

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich, not much to say about this one yet, as I have not opened the cover. I really enjoyed Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, even if I had some issues with how she spent the money she earned. I think I could have stretched it a bit further, but this is from someone that had to survive on a five pound bags of Kroger’s Heat n Eat Taters, ketchup stolen from James, and the rare hand out from other friends for a week at a time.

If you are still looking for a New Year’s Resolution, I suggest adding “read more good books” to your list.

Dangerous Doses

I spent the majority of Saturday reading Dangerous Doses by Katherine Eban. The book explores the illegal and quasi-legal issues surrounding prescription drug counterfeiting, and gray market activities. Eban uses a string of cases researched, investigated, and finally prosecuted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement: As a way to explain the failings and dangers of the current prescription drug business model and regulatory environment.

If you read this book, you will probably no longer be able to pick up a prescription without spending an extra couple minutes taking a close look at the packaging, and the medicine within.

Reading List

I am not cool enough to have a currently reading bit on my web page, so just in case you are wondering…

Current:
Antique Maps by Carl Moreland & David Bannister; A great book if you are interested in antique maps, otherwise it will probably put you to sleep.
December issue of the Washingtonian always a winner
December issue of Metropolis; Cool articles on the Vancouver skyline and ads in NYC, plus great pictures and ads.
Summer/Autumn 2003 issue of The Elliot School of International Affairs, International Affairs Review; Good so far…

Recent:
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson; great book once you get past the first 100 pages.
Eating in America by Waverly root & Richard De Rochemont; Dry dry dry! With a lot of interesting facts, and a lot of 70’s era opinions regarding the American diet.
November issue of Harper’s Magazine; Two promising articles that quickly got tedious.
November issue of Washingtonian still a winner
November issue of Vegetarian Times great Thanksgiving recipes which I ignored.

World’s Oldest Blog

The diary of Samuel Pepys is up in electronic form here. Samuel Pepys a 17th century civil servant known chiefly for the aforementioned diary. Which documents such cheery incidents as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Interesting reading if you need to kill hours upon hours at work (not that I have that luxury).

I of course found this through the metaweb project associated with Neal Stephenson’s book Quicksilver.

If you are attempting to get through Quicksilver, it gets better after page one hundred and twenty or so.