Herman Melville

Remember when I was readying Tom Jones?  It was in January, which seems like a lifetime ago, but it was when I was trying to be proactive towards completing goals set back before time seems to existed.
Anyways, we have a shelf of books we didn't send to Half Price Books and they're things I intend to finish or re-read. I took a slight reading hiatus after Dale Carnegie, but I did read some Block books from the library in March. I read all the time, but it's clutternet stuff that means nothing, but thankfully the shelf is in a location that begs exploring.
I started to read Thomas Malory, but my Middle English is rusty, so I've gotten to The Confidence Man.
Never read Moby Dick, but after reading the editor's preface to The Confidence Man, I might.
Confidence Man is rather short in the sense that I had it for a class that included these three: Tom Jones, Vanity Fair, and The Life and Times of Tristan Shandy. I know I finished it back in the day and that I wrote a paper on it, but much of it is vague to me in that I know I liked it, but I don't recall why.
Anyways, I'm reading the editor's comments and finding myself feeling like writing my own novel. It's been years since I had the bug to write, but I find myself in a position of having a mindless "job" that clears the mind of clutter (perfect recipe).

Neeson is Scudder

Started following Lawrence Block when I saw he had an active account, so I was able to see that A Walk Among the Tombstones was in production with Liam Neeson starring as Matthew Scudder.

Interestingly, there's been a newer book in the series I haven't read. Hadn't thought he'd write another after All the Flowers are Dying, I was wrong.

Nothing against Block, but his books get redundant and predictable to be overtly excited about new things coming out.

I would like to read another Evan Tanner, but that may be another 14 years from now.

Joy of heartburn

Another sporadic day of peeling vinyl and scraping glue has ended. Still a ways from getting it cleared for tiling, but I got a good steam going today and stopped mostly to rest my back. I don't want to be too grimaced during my interview in the morning. For whatever reason, I'm truly tired and also mildly hungry. Both are things I don't follow upon regularly so I'd be sleep deprived and starved if I had other things to do beyond stuff around the house. I look forward to being such. Being home has its benefits, but I'm recovered from the stress I had from my previous life as a career center director. Am I a masochist for being nostalgic about a job that was wearing me down? I know I'm hungry because I have a certain type of heartburn that I get when I have eaten something delicious like a Frito Chili Steak Burger at Steak'N Shake. I wish they would bring the burger back, but my heart probably is better without it.

A long line of dead Chargers?

Saw in my Thursday Dayton Daily News that Junior Seau, 43, was the 8th member of the Chargers' Super Bowl team to die, and that all were under the age of 45. With the previous players' deaths being attributed to heart attacks, to a plane crash and to a lightning strike, the plot to a book came to me.
Specifically, Lawrence Block's A Long Line of Dead Men came to mind. In the book, which ironically was published in 1994, a group of 30 men who meet for an annual dinner start to die off mysteriously very much like a certain group of Chargers.
There was a time that I read all the Matthew Scudder books. I like mysteries, and Block's are a quick read. I might remember all the stories, but they blur over time. A Long Line of Dead Men was unique enough that I had no problem coming up with the title, from all of the various novels from the series.
I didn't like that particular Chargers team because they beat my Steelers in the AFC Championship game, but it is sad when anyone dies prematurely.