Also I suppose a leak in the roof is better than a fire next time.
Last finished?
A burglar book, part roman a clef, with a thinly disguised Chelsea Hotel and a renamed Andy Warhol, though I don't recall there being 'a couple of musician suicides' at the Chelsea so much. Murders, yes a few. But the main figure is a reclusive writer whose first work was a staggering success ('it changed my life') and whose later works people don't want to read because they only want to talk about the first, because it changed their life. J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pyncheon, I wondered; he seems much too nice for Salinger and I know little about Pyncheon. The book's title was covered up by library stickers on both front and spine, but when I looked at the title page- yeah, well. 'The Burglar in the Rye.' Still too nice for Salinger, but it was published in 1999 and Margaret Salinger's memoirs came out next year. Nor can I see how Catcher in the Rye could change anyone's life. What, you started wearing a hunting cap?
On the go?
Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky because I need a little sanity and geniality in the mug of July.
Amitav Ghosh will be resumed when the weather cools.
Rivals of Sherlock Holmes still on the go; Marie de France, the Kalevala, and Kipling put on the back burner.
Next?
Dickinson's Skeleton in Waiting, sequel to King and Joker.
