Non-fiction book club

"Now I'd rather be almost anyplace on the planet--always excepting Rock Springs, Wyoming--than on the Long Island Expressway at rush hour"--Roads

Yesterday afternoon I met with Heather of the ROLT Meetup at the Butler's Pantry.  She and Jane were in a quarrel, and since I listened to Jane last week it was important to talk with Heather too so she wouldn't think we were uniting against her.  I think I made a good impression.

After finishing The Ascent of Money I decided to start reading Roads.  It's a book by Larry McMurtry--one of my favorite writers--about driving along some of the less famous American highways. I enjoy his discursive style:  in the first chapter he starts out recalling dining in a revolving restaurant in Duluth, and on his way to Wichita expounds on Nelson Algren, MTM sitcoms, the "adopt a highway" program, the "women in chains" genre of '70s B-movies, serial killers on the Great Plains, and Oklahoma City's obsession with oil production.

Last night I went to the Non-fiction book club at the Rosedale library where we talked about The Ascent of Money.  Niall Ferguson's best when talking about how the financial system came to be the way it is today; on what it'll be in the future, his writing tends to beg the bigger questions.