Robert Strupp > Recent Status Updates

As I stated I was going to skip chapters that couldn't possibly help me in writing book reviews on 'social media. Big 'Learns' were to give my opinion, not review books of relatives, (sorry Zach), friends or enemies or stinkers, (aka: my DNF shelf), not attack punctuation, and keep it short, 600 words. It was odd while reading the book and realizing the 21 chapters were all penned by folks now dead.

Since I'm jumping around in this book of short stories, reporting a page count doesn't make any sense.

I hope I can remember what I'm reading when I review books for the "internet" and, mostly, Goodreads and Storygraph.

Just an easy reading book, nothing special happening. Not bored, but not exciting either. Still don't comprehend why The Memory Police are erasing memories. I have no idea where on planet Earth this island is located.

I'm getting involved now. Asking GPT-6 Luna A.I. to advise me rather than trying to locate the mentioned person in the book. I'm starting to recall names and situations mentioned prior. Boy! things sure were different 100 years ago.

Not much going on of note, other than, obviously, The Memory Police.

I WAS having a hard time getting thru the first 23 pages. Then, I writing down who was who, and their relationships to the others who I also scribbled down. While contemplating all this I began to read the novel at probably around half my normal reading speed of 284(?) WPM and found the writing superb and delightful. Savory. Granted the language is still quite dated being it's set in 1870.

Another "must read" classic. Penned over 100 years ago, but set in the 1870's of New York City, it's quite readable when assisted by my print dictionary and the A.I. GPT-6-Luna advising me what certain arcane 19th century phrases mean. Doesn't seem like it will be a 'Happy Ending' experience.

Easy reading, never boring. Warning there are intricately described heterosexual intercourse scenes. An incredibly peaceful and urbane Islam conquers 2020 France through the ballot box. In my mind, a very sad ending... Duh ... hence the title of the work.

The book is geared to those in 1978 wishing to become paid book reviewers in magazines and newspapers. As I've said, although I will count the entire book as "read" for my 2026 Book Challenge, I'm skipping chapters that don't apply to me such as: 'Reviewing Books for Children' and 'The Function of a Book Editor.' Not certain how much Book Reviewing will help my social media reviews, but it can't hurt, eh?

Just a story of a fairly average 1950s, 2-kid, non-church going family. Lots of cigarette smoking and drinking...and driving. Infidelities on both sides for 2 very different reasons. You really get to know the folks involved, especially Alice and Jack, the protagonist pair, whose thoughts are often revealed. The ending was like a kick to the chest to this 75-year old. I shed no tears, but I was left stunned.

(Since this is a massive volume of short stories, I'm going to skip around, so the page count isn't possible.)?
To get in shape to read the Must Read classic of Melville's 'Moby-Dick,' I'm enjoying his short story 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'

Very easy read. Michel is a funny guy. Just experienced the most explicit sex scenes since I attempted to read the massively misogynistic and sadistic '50 Shades of Grey' in 2012. This time it was much more pleasurable. I even managed to keep my hands out of my pants. The subject of the book, the prediction of Moslems being voted into power in France in 2020, for the French Jews and higher education, is not good.

I went 'back' and read the 15 page introduction, it is a small 7.5" X 4.5" book, by Anne Fremantle, which cleared up some things but, being a Christian, and having more understanding of the Catholic religion than the majority of it's practitioners, I still comprehended little of what the story entailed.

A 48 year old text on book reviewing. It has dozens of examples, it seems, of what professional book reviewers had written half a century ago. I will be skipping certain sections as they pertain to folks who want to seek book reviewing as a profession. However, I will count the book as 'read' when I am at the end. It's quite quaint as it talks about newspapers which have virtually ceased to exist in 2026.

Translated from the French, this 2015 novel tells the tale (the book cover reveals) of the 2020(?) take-over of France by the Moslems. Several passages had me laughing out loud. Author Houellebecq can be hilarious.

Really easy to read. Even being a very low EQ 'Aspy,' I can tell this story is not going to end well. As I've written prior, it's not like I'm reading a book, it's like I've become part of a story.

I found this book/pamphlet in the 'Free Books' cart outside our local bookstore. I thought I'd be clever and not read the 15 page 'Introduction.' I've gotten to Pg. 14 in the book and have little idea of what I've read. So, my next reading will include the 'Introduction.'

So easy to read. It's like you're there and, well, you really don't want to be there. Frank, the married, two kids protagonist, during a long lunch has just boned his secretary. So far his wife has not found out. She's made plans for them moving to Paris where she'll work as a highly paid secretary for NATO while, she insists, Frank remains home to 'discover' himself. Even this Aspy can tell this will not end well.

50/50 action versus philosophizing. Muller was an ambassador to the 1st alien race Humanity found. He lived with them years, never exchanging a word. They found his mental emanations disturbing, so they altered his brain. After he left, his new mental vibes painfully drove away any human nearer than 25'. He exiled himself on Lemnos, 19 light years from Earth, living in the center of a booby trapped city-sized maze.

Interesting pretty much all the way through. It's amazing what these young men did from 1941 to 1945 by giving their lives in battle so that the American Way could be maintained and the almost entirely black members of 2 WNBA teams could leave the court rather than suffer our national anthem. (I do believe there was another U.S. war fought having something to do with blacks.) The afterward had me in tears.

Just a good old science fiction story. No politics, no 'message,' just adventure and conjecture of what the future may bring.

The novel is so well written that one is no longer reading, but is there in the pages. I have to be careful not to read it immediately prior to bed time so that it's depressingly real story doesn't infiltrate my own dreams.

After finishing 'Vertical City,' by its 1st time author, the writing in 'Revolutionary Road' is so sweet, so eloquent. The fact that it begins involving a theater group of 30-ish aged adults helps, since I too was involved in such group, around that age. The reader's quickly drawn in by the humanity and the everyday dreams and struggles of its everyday 1950s husband and wife. This is going to be a great read.

So far pretty action-filled. If one stops to ponder about what these hero's did and all those that died doing it, you are incredibly humbled and grateful. After the chapter 'Battle of Midway Part 3,' I see we've got his life after WWII which is sure to be not very exciting. Sigh.

Finished the 27 paged 'Introduction' by Richard Ford, penned in year 2000, 26 years ago. After reading the introduction, 'Revolutionary Road' does not seem to be a happy read as it describes U.S. family life in the very decades in which I grew up. Yes, this is another book in my Classic TBR list. I see there were 179 editions, so, at the very least it's been popular.

VC, for the last 100 or so pages, slowed down while intricately delineating plans and hopes for the Vertical City. Then the unlabeled epilogue was way too long. As my loyal followers know, both of them, I look forward to a 2 or 3 page wrap-up. Reading 'Vertical City' alongside my Classic TBR 1920's 'Return to Brideshead' really exposes the enjoyable difference between a seasoned writer and a baby one.

Finally got to a point where I looked forward to reading it. The fact that it was "contemporary," yet 100 years old, hindered my reading, plus the fact it was in England, a country 'unknown' to me and the fact I had to to look up the definitions of so many words, made it less enjoyable than it might have been.

Sometime after page 78, it became interesting. So many characters, had to use the DDG 'ChatGPT' to confirm who was who. Handy. Well, if you're going to read classics you'll spend time looking up words. Here's a few: Michaelmas, muniment, legitimist, putative, astrakhan, crapulous (great word!), five-bob, raffish habitues, gated, cant, bondieuserie, articulateness, contra mundum. Some words I thot I knew. Nope.

I'm finding a few misspellings. One 'error' I circled was the word, on page 206, of "skilful." I'd noted that the book was written using the "English" not "American" dictionary. This being the author is a Caucasian from that sad, sad South African nation. So skillful with one "L" after the "I" IS the English spelling. Oops. Edgar is getting help from an elite in government, but I'm suspicious.