5 best psychological crime novels, working from home, exercising, a new book, and some coffee…

I was up at 8:00, getting a good eight hours of sleep, while having some very desirable dreams. I’ll just leave it at that.


Last night, before falling asleep, I read Kevin’s (av8rdude‘s) Wall Street Journal and was delighted to see, in their “Five Best” column in their “Books” section, “Five Best: Andrew Klavan on the psychological crime novel at its most engrossing”—a list containing these entries:

Book Author Year
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky

1866

The Lodger Marie Belloc Lowndes

1913

The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain

1934

The Tiger in the Smoke Margery Allingham

1952

The Secret History Donna Tartt

1992


What was exciting about this was that I’ve read two of them and consider them two of the best books I’ve ever read. What I remember most vividly after reading Crime & Punishment was thinking, “That’s the first time that it’s ever occurred to me that you could receive more punishment for committing a crime by not going to prison for it than by going.” It was a notion so counterintuitive and foreign to me, and I love when my mind is expanded like that.

The other one that I’ve read is The Secret History, and as I’ve intimated, just loved. And perhaps what’s most exciting to me about the list is that Andrew and I evidently have similar taste, so I now have three more books to look forward to reading some day! I’ve made an entry in my PDA in my “Books to Read” entry with these titles.


I worked from home today. I began an edit on an installation and configuration guide by a writer whose work I haven’t edited before.

Kevin (av8rdude) arrived home at about 10 or 10:30, after spending the night at Carl and Jay’s. I’d already had breakfast, so he had his, and we shared a pot of coffee.


I fear for the future of our language and our young people. From a craigslist classified:

outback restaurant guy – m4m – 18 (garner)

soo u were a really chatty guy and i got the fealing that u kept giving me looks of interest lol u were the waiter in the yellow shirt really hott to but yea dont know if u were gay or not but ur were hott soo and if u cant place me i was the one on my phone and u were like hey wheres ur party at and im like out side then i also made a comment about not liking clam chowder and u were like i know i dont like it either lol ohh yea i was the one in the yellow shirt to lol

Note: Poster obviously trained in the Catherine Tate school of Valley Girl talk. [Work Warning: Serious cuss word at the very end of this 45-second clip.]


Today was Free Pizza Monday (the first Monday of the month) at our gym (Planet Fitness), and as we do, Kevin (av8rdude) and I planned our workout to finish shortly after the arrival of the pizzas at 5:00. Today was a lower body and cardio day for me. I also threw in some crunches for good measure.

Exercise Type
Minute Duration

Resistance (Lower Body)

30

Exercise Type
Minute Duration
Sets
Reps
Total

Strength (Crunches)

15

10

30

300

Exercise Type
Minute Duration
Calories Burned

Cardio (Treadmill)

32

380


The new, cool website 30Threads, announced its second “Blog of the Week,” and guess what! It’s mine! Sweet! I like the write-up @waynesutton wrote about it:

A Day in the Life is a great title for this blog being that the author John, aka nematome on Twitter, has been blogging for 6 years and hasn’t missed a day in the last 4.5 years. WOW. Sticking with the title ‘A Day in the Life,’ this technical writer blogs about topics ranging from his exercise routine, daily meetings, dinner and cool things he finds on the web. Additionally if you get a chance to hang out with John, you may see your name in a blog post shortly after.

I ran to the Cameron Village Library to pick up the book I have on hold, as it’s the last day before the hold is released. It’s the next book for our Mostly Social Book Club (MSBC), and it’s called [Warning: link may contain spoilers], “The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother.

Just now updating that MSBC link, I notice that we’re on a pretty good pace to tie or beat our all-time reading record for a year. We don’t really read that much. I mean, we are the mostly social book club. Go us!


Getting to, and running in and out of, the library at minutes before its closing at 9:00, I next went to the Cup A Joe’s on Hillsborough Street, where after a few minutes, Kevin (av8rdude) joined me. We like to patronize independent coffee shops, of course.

From the wall of the men’s room in said establishment, comes this graffiti:

Biscuit loves Frosty Buns

and

Fuck Starbucks!


Cup A Joe closed at 10:30, and we headed home, where I started The Color of Water before lights out.

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