P.J. Tracy, Dead Run

P.J. Tracy, Live Bait

P.J. Tracy, Monkeewrench

P.J. Tracy, Snow Blind

*Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments

*David Baldacci, The Collectors

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."

-- James Baldwin

David Baldacci, The Camel Club

The story that begins here -- featuring a nice Secret Service agent, a man named Oliver Stone (who we later learn was a skilled CIA operative), a decidedly different terrorist plot planned by an American to achieve peace on earth -- is continued in a new book that my dad loaned me. I started it and realized that I couldn't remember anything about The Camel Club. So I reread it.

It's a good read, with more texture and depth than the standard murder mystery or international spy thriller. Almost up there with classic Ludlum, I think.

Still, I did call that the newbie Secret Service agent was actually Oliver Stone's daughter. Otherwise, the plot twists were unexpected yet deserved.

imports

From 10 March 2006:
quodlibet =free-ranging conversation on any pleasing topic

At least, that's the definition offered in A.J. Jacobs's delightful book, The Know-It-All, an account of his quest to read the Encyclopedia Britannica. I really like this definition.

Unfortuately, the OED's definition makes this word potentially much less useful. It says that a quodlibet is "any question in philosophy or theology proposed as an exercise in argument or disputation; hence, a scholastic debate, thesis, or exercise on a question of this kind." Also, in music, "a fanciful combination of several airs; a fantasia, medley."

Still, I think we should all indulge in quodlibet on a regular basis. :)


***
From 8 March 2006:
irenic = pacifc, non-polemic

Hmm, "irenic" is a good thing. I'd always given it a negative connotation.

For the record, I came across this in an article by Tony Judt, in "A Story Still to Be Told," New York Review of Books 50, no. 5 (23 March 2006), p.25. It's a review of John Gaddis's newest book, and Judt is rather disgusted with it and its idealization of U.S. foreign policymakers during the Cold War.

***
From 2 February 2006:

The idea which a Parisian has of a tree is that of a convenient appendage to a lamp.

— Henry Tuckerman, mid-19th century,
quoted by Robert Herbert, Impressionism, page 37

***

From 30 January 2006:

The test of an advanced society is not in how many millionaires it can produce, but is how many law-abiding, hardworking, highly respected, and self-respecting loyal citizens it can produce. The success of such a venture is a measure of the success of our national enterprise.

-- John Hope Franklin, Mirror to America,
quoted by Willaim H. McNeill, "The Man Who Changed History,"
New York Review of Books LIII no. 1(12 January 2006), 29.

Franklin here was talking about African-Americans and the rise of the civil rights movement. But his statement is much more broadly applicable. And rightly states the matter. If this "test" were adopted today, I think we'd have a much less materialistic society. Who knows? Perhaps politics would be kinder, too.

Take II

I've neglected this blog shamelessly over the past months, but I've got great plans. Also, in the interests of simplifying my life, I've decided to combine all of my "word" blogs -- what used to be A Reader's Tale, The Quote Log, and The Word List. Thematically, they all work together and all the posts tend to derive from the same sources. (Besides, the other two weren't all that substantial anyway.)

By the way, bibliophagia isn't a real word, though bibliophagist and bibliophagic are. They were, however, not available as names, and I like the way bibliophagia sounds. :)