firecat

Lousy morning and afternoon full of paperwork and cleaning. Began getting better in late afternoon when I had a chance to relax for a bit and continue re-reading The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin.

In the car on the way to SF finished listening to A Family Affair by Rex Stout, on tape. This line goes into my quote file:

Confound it, quit scorning my diction. -- Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout)

Evening with my sweetie Maggie (aka

kyubi -- check out her great interest list): dinner at ~~Godzilla~~ Rain Tree, hanging over the retaining wall at Ocean Beach, and drinking sweet hot things at Simple Pleasures Cafe. Much conversation.

Current Mood: a bit hopped up on chai

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lcohen

rex stout! i was rereading nero wolfe short stories before the trip to dallas. i know, i know--the sexism is rampant, but who cares--it's all so perfectly conceived--the exact word meaning the exact thing that he wishes to convey. i return to them again and again.

From:

firecat

yes yes. I am feeling the urge to acquire the whole set so I can mine them for my quote file.

It's fun to listen to them on tape because the reader does a very good job on Wolfe's voice.

From:

lcohen

i own all of his nero wolfe books and i think all of his other mysteries, but not everything that he wrote in other genres. sometimes i reread the nero wolfe ones in order (it's fascinating to watch him find archie's voice--the first one is all wrong and by the fourth, he's got the tone that archie will have for the rest of the series), sometimes i pick out faves. *happy sigh*

who does the reading on the tapes. i wonder if one of these would be fun for a car trip to cleveland or something sometime.

From:

firecat

How many Nero Wolfe books are there?

The ones I've listened to are read by Michael Prichard and are from Books on Tape.

From:

lcohen

i just did a quick count and came up with 35 novels, some of which have a short story included, and 12 books of short stories. of those 12, 11 have three short stories and one has four, but one of the books with three stories is somewhat recycled material--a rewrite of a book that had a different detective as an NW/AG book (i forget which was the original version, but it was first published as a book with the other detective, tecumseh fox), an expanded version of another short story, and an earlier version of a third story. the book with recycled material is death times three, and was published after stout's death. i hate, loath, despise, and otherwise abhor the books that were written by someone else (robert goldsborough--i just looked it up) using the NW/AG characters. other than that, i have no strong opinions ;-) .