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The seventh month of 2011 saw me observe the Rolling Rock birthday (“33″), attend an alleged high school class reunion (I suppose it was at least held in the community where we attended high school, unlike one ISU-related reunion held in Minnesota), and read several books which I shall now attempt to remember something about.

Bank of the Black Sheep, Robert Lewis. Fine, fine book, this. It’s a bit of an Elmore Leonard caper, a bit of a Guy Richie film, plus perhaps just a hint of a Paul Auster story, and more besides. In addition to being an entertaining crime novel, it’s also a deeply thoughtful examination of mortality, money and how they relate to what it really means to be living. I found the opening chapters, about the relatively-young protagonist’s experiences in a hospice center otherwise peopled by the ancient and forgotten, particularly affecting for personal reasons, but I believe they would make some remarkable reading for anyone.

1066 & All That, W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman. I’ve known of this book for quite some time, and when Robert Lacey, in his own excellent history of England, not only mentioned 1066 but basically said “go read this right now,” I put it on my list. And, well, it’s okay. Some parts were genuinely quite witty. One the whole, though, it fell rather short of “the greatest history book ever;” perhaps it was a case of excessive expectations. It may also be that to fully appreciate the humor, you need not only a familiarity with English history (which I believe I can claim, at this point) but a familiarity with traditional history curriculum as taught in English schools. Oh well.

Space Race, Deborah Cadbury. (more…)

Have you thought about going to a high school reunion? Good news: I attended one just a week ago, and you can share the benefit of my experience as you consider the prospect.

Note that I grew up in small-town Iowa, and graduated in a class of about 70, so your results may vary. That said, here’s a guide to who might, and might not, be at your reunion:

PEOPLE TO LOOK FOR:

Three near-interchangeable guys. Relatively different types 15 years ago, they seem to have converged since, like the tree of evolution in reverse. Now they’re all fairly mellow, affable suburban dads, with one or two little kids. They work middling white-collar office jobs; two of them even work for the same company. They live in a suburb of either the nearby city (e.g. Cedar Rapids) or the state’s other major city (e.g. Des Moines), but think about moving further out to someplace smaller, because the urban congestion of Clive makes them a little uncomfortable.

The girl you can barely even recognize. She’s put on some weight, but it’s more how her face has filled out; in combination with completely different hair and a lot of makeup, she wouldn’t have triggered the least notion of recognition outside of this context. As-is, you were only sure of her identity when someone  addressed her by name. If someone else told you, now, that “no, she wasn’t there, you must have mis-heard, that was so-and-so,” you’d think they might well be serious.

The girl who has not changed. Maybe Peggy Sue Got Married wasn’t quite that unrealistic, after all. After 15 years, this girl looks to have aged about a week; had her 33-year-old self shown up at graduation day, you aren’t sure anyone would have noticed. She also talks exactly as much as she did in high school, too, so you only heard her say about 25 words over the course of two-and-a-half hours.

The girl who shows every year and then some. By coincidence, she’s the sister of the preceding character, and you can’t help imagining some sort of Picture of Dorian Gray relationship whereby one sister does all of the aging for both. Though the fact that she has a 14-year-old daughter, already, and sits through the reunion with a cigarette in one hand and a can of beer in the other, may play some role as well. (more…)

With June behind us now, as well, I am halfway to fulfilling this particular promise/threat. Is 2011 softened up, now, and ready to just roll over for the remaining six months? Oh if only we could rely on that.

I’ve read some more books, meanwhile; let’s see if I can remember anything of them.

You Do Understand, Andrej Blatnik. Is the usual paperback novel too large for you? An average USA Today story too long? Then you need this book. It’s a very small book full of even-smaller stories, most of them not really even “stories” but rather vignettes, at most, and in some cases just stray thoughts no longer than your average Tweet. They’re often interesting vignettes and stray thoughts, though, and in one or two cases quite memorable even. For the small investment of time which the book requires, its return is certainly respectable.

The Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers. This is an entry in the small genre of pre-WWI British stories attempting to plod the complacent state into recognizing the threat of the Wilhelmine German Empire, the best-known example probably being The Thirty-Nine Steps. You have no idea what I’m going on about here, I suppose; never mind then. Think of it, perhaps, as a kind of boys’ adventure story with slightly older lads, lots of sailing amid treacherous, foggy North Sea waters, and espionage against a dastardly Hun plot. Honestly, I found it rather good; for being more than a century old it shows its age in very few ways, while on the whole seems quite captivating and “contemporary.”

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