The Downtown Arcade 6 - Stuff I Read Edition
Today I'm 1) lighting a candle for Ukraine and 2) updating you on some recent selections from my bookshelf. As always, just reply to this email if you want to check in.
Keith Richards, "Life" (2010) The Rolling Stones guitarist writes a graceful memoir. You knew about the music and the drugs, but did you know that once, while fishing, he fought a giant snapping turtle for his catch? "It was like confronting a dinosaur."
Julia Wertz, "Drinking at the Movies" (2015) The comic artist's graphic memoir charts a 20-something's move from San Francisco to Brooklyn, where she draws, imbibes and supports herself working crummy jobs. I laughed a lot reading these self-effacing vignettes.
Michael Palin, "Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years" (2008), "Diaries 1980-1988: Halfway To Hollywood" (2014), "Diaries 1988-1998: Travelling to Work" (2015) These smoothly readable journals by the Monty Python comic have been my go-to nightstand material for a long time. He writes, performs, tools around London, hangs out with George Harrison and, more often than you might think, takes the supersonic Concorde to New York (jealous).
Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley, "Jack Benny and the Golden Age of Radio Comedy" (2017) Fuller-Seeley, a scholar at the University of Texas, presents an unsparing look at the mid-century media icon. Some of his material has dated poorly, but he always makes me laugh when he goes "Hmm?"
Michelle Edwards, "Go Away Birds" (2021) In the South African author's debut novel, a Cape Town restaurateur flees a scandal and takes refuge at her family's farm. South Africa fascinates me, and one way I learn about it is reading graceful books like this one.