Month: September 2004
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Book: The Unknown Shore
Patrick O’Brian clearly enjoyed writing The Golden Ocean. Three years later, in The Unknown Shore, he used the same source material. The true story of a 1740 Royal Navy squadron sent to the Pacific to take a Spanish galleon becomes the platform from which O’Brian creates a separate story. One of the vessels, the Wager,…
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Not enough adherents to be a cult
I’ve spent a lot of time rowing. Not recently, unfortunately, but it was a major focus for a decade or so. So I could smile at these two quotes from the September issue of Rowing News. I don’t even know which article they are from, since I ripped the page out of the magazine solely…
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Hot, hot, hot
I’ve spent the afternoon indoors, mostly, but San Francisco is hot today. Up over 90 degrees. Felt great during my run this morning, when it was probably a few degrees cooler, but this is startling. September is often the best month, weather-wise, but what a contrast to the hurricane season lashing Florida right now. I…
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Movie: The Bourne Supremacy
Matt Damon does the sequel right. The Bourne Supremacy keeps moving, and was a worthy evening of entertainment in Lake Placid, New York a couple of weeks ago. The movie Bourne doesn’t have all the darkness and complexity of the book Bourne, but who wants that anyway, in a movie. The performance of the Russian…
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Book: The Bourne Legacy
More vacation reading from a few weeks ago. After my speculation about who’s writing the Ludlum books that keep coming out, at least The Bourne Legacy, the newest one, acknowledge that the author is someone else: Eric Van Lustbader. The cover screams “Robert Ludlum’s Bestselling Character Jason Bourne,” but does say “A new novel by…
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Book: The Golden Ocean
Since Stacey’s didn’t have volume 18 in the Aubrey-Maturin series handy, I picked up a couple of other Patrick O’Brian’s, including The Golden Ocean. This novel was written earlier (1956) than the series which made the author famous, but it’s in print now thanks to his other success. The Golden Ocean is a historical rewrite…
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Bachelor Days
The kids and wife have been out of town all week. Life is different on your own, running your schedule without accounting for other people. That doesn’t include the office, of course, but I avoided spending all my extra time at work. Phew. My mania for consuming media — so much easier than creating it…