NoMeansNo

The Poisoner's Handbook - 'Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in
Jazz Age New York' by Deborah Blum

"A beguiling concoction-equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller.

A fascinating Jazz Age tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten era. In early twentieth-century New York, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Science had no place in the Tammany Hall-controlled coroner's office, and corruption ran rampant. However, with the appointment of chief medical examiner Charles Norris in 1918, the poison game changed forever. Together with toxicologist Alexander Gettler, the duo set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work, triumphing over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry."

This book is very interesting so far and I hate that I have to go to work
and put it down.

Feast Of Snakes-Harry Crews

Lee Edelman, "No Future"

Some Japanese books are on their way to me in my father's suitcase..one of which is "A Complete Manual to Suicide"!

The Secret Life Of Houdini : America's First Superhero

I checked some of the stuff mentioned in this thread over the christmas/new year time, namely China Mieville's "City in the city", that was o.k., but the part about "unseeing" things does not quite work with me... but nomeansno get a mention in the book, which is probably why it has appeared in this thread.
I also bought and read Neal Stephensons "Cryptonomicon" and that was a good read and I understand this is the "Alan Turing" year, so it fits. This geeky stuff is right for me and I will try "Anathem" next, the topic sounds interesting.

Right now I've started Umberto Ecos "the prague cemetary" but I think I'll leave it with the ~50 pages I've read. I get the feeling that he is overdoing his own style. Also, there is so much and detailed description of food, that I come to imagine that the author, as an established and probably wealthy older man, is taking much of his everyday "eating out" experience into this book, which sucks.

I finished Stephen King's 11.22.63 this afternoon. It was fabulous. Direct references to the events in It, strong echoes of The Dead Zone, nods to Christine, a Pet Sematary-esque shadow towards the end, and I went from beginning to end without thinking how much better he used to be.

Loved it.

Just started reading Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

11.22.63? That's Numberwang! Let's rotate the board.

OOooh, let me know how you like it--it's on my long list of potential readables...

I've just finished my 7th or 8th Jim Harrison in a row.
Just before it was all I was able to find by Pete Dexter, and before again, by Harry Crews.
And before, by Selby.

You Americans are crazy, aren't you?

Waffle! Have you read Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews? Southern Horror Gothic...doesn't get any more white trash.

Sure!
It's one of my favourites - if all Harry Crews are not my favourites...

For example,
Car
The Hawk is Dying
The Gypsy's Curse
The Knockout Artist
Body
The Mulching of America
...

The first one I read was The Gospel Singer - so sick and fascinating!
Every single character of HC is a kind of white trash Don Quixote.

best description ever.
A buddy of mine lent Snakes to me and said "I dont recomend this book to everyone...you are sick enough to get it though"
I did.

Recently I finished The Brave Japanese by Kenneth Harrison, a memoir of his wartime experiences as an Australian POW of the Imperial Japanese Army.

He was sent to the Burma Railway at Hellfire Pass, and near the end of the war was at the shipyards of Nagasaki, wondering why the US bombers were leaving the city unharmed. I was just reading this article about Hiroshima's Memorial Park, and this sentence is pertinent:

So unknown was the bomb's potential to kill and maim, that Hiroshima had been deliberately spared by the extensive allied fire-bombing campaign for several months.

Ken Harrison and some colleagues were the first foreigners to enter Hiroshima after the bomb, and afterwards travelled to Nagasaki - they'd been moved away from the city before that bomb dropped, and knew nothing about it.

It's a very good book, not well known (not cited in Wikipedia articles for Hellfire Pass, for example), but currently very inexpensive as a Kindle e-book. The title, incidentally, is sincere.