The Thin Red Line

Yikes.   How did I manage to let a whole week pass without doing a single blog post?   It’s certainly not that I didn’t read any noteworthy books this past week.   But somehow or other I let the whole week go by without posting so much as a book cover.    And everything about this first book is late.    I am late getting around to reading it,  the library branch where I work was a full year late getting around to offering this particular title and I had not previously read any of Christopher Buckley’s much-praised earlier works.

Boomsday is the story of Cassandra Devine,  the young Yale hopeful who learns that her father has invested her tuition money in a dot.com start-up and therefore must serve in the Army in order to earn her way to school,  is a comic delight.   As Cassandra’s brief stint in the service throws her into the arms of a lecherous Congressman who speeds Cassandra’s way into a power broker position at a hot K Street firm in Washington DC,  where Cassandra will go on to offer a ‘modest proposal’   that the Baby Boomer generation agree to "voluntarily discorporate" by age eighty in return for some eye-popping tax benefits.    Leading on a shadowy league of activists via her blog at cassandra.net  Cassandra and her Congress Critter actually get the darned thing passed,  though with so many typically Boomer perks thrown in (i.e.  tax exemptions for purchase of Sedgways) that the onerous burden Cassandra had hoped to lift from her own generation is as burdensome as ever.    Absolutely laugh-out-loud funny,  a Real Treat.  Not to be missed.  

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This one is for Claire who asked for a book about hiking.   I realize that Journeys of a Lifetime is probably not what she had in mind,  but wait until you hear about the hikes I am recommending to her.

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After ‘ooohing and ahhing’  over the spectacular log mansions, I came across two more very eye-catching books,  that focus on very modern and high tech versions of the vacation cabin.   The Texas hill country vacation home pictured on the cover is a big glass box that’s been designed to be energy efficient and cool in the heat of the day.  It is just one of the oh-so-stunning vacation residences featured in Modern Cabin by Michelle Kodis.    Each featured vacation home is shown in multiple day and night exterior photos and multiple interior shots.   The floor plans for each home are also provided as are details of the use of recycled and eco-friendly materials and the incorporation of design elements and systems to make these homes low impact on unspoiled natural areas.

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My first thought on seeing this latest Rough Guides publication was that it was proof positive the brand is so diluted that the Rough Guides imprint and logo means nothing at all, where once it had clearly meant a line of destination travel guides with an attitude.

You’d have to have Lots of money and endless vacation time to ever be able to do all 1,000 of these things. For most of us, this is a kind of neat round the world brochure for some of the more amazing things this planet has to offer. A Rough Guide To The World (Recommended.)

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There was a time after I got laid off from Earthlink and before Joel got too sick to travel that we went on a kind of non-stop vacation. My current budget doesn’t permit me to travel very far at all these days, though I hope I will get the chance to roam again. And I also find I sometimes enjoy a bit of vicarious wandering through some of the excellent books about far away places that pass through our library.

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