Guten tag!

This "tag" stuff plagues journals the same way Nigerian money scams plague email. If it wasn't for Scott and Paula being such fine people, I wouldn't do it.

I mean, this is about listing the five books one has most recently read, and since you haven't actually seen my bookshelves, I could make the whole thing up to disguise my illiteracy....

So anyway, I've been on a bit of a biography kick lately, interspersed with various kinds of novels meant to pull my thoughts away from life's unending flood of sewage.

1. The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr Li Zhisui.

Dr Li was Mao's personal physician for the last 20 or so years of his life. Because Dr Li was in near-constant attendance on the Great Helmsman, he had an incredible view of what made Mao tick. Between 1949 and his death in 1976, the Chairman was a screwed-up individual indeed, without conscience, self-absorbed, selfish, conniving, a masterful liar and in some significant ways, not tremendously well-educated. He was also a sexual predator. Except for the latter, his attitudes remind me in remarkable ways of both Bill Clinton and Jorge Bush. It's a fascinating book, to put it mildly.

2. Goldwater by Barry Goldwater and Jack Casserley.

Another fascinating read. Goldwater was more honest than you might expect in telling his life story. He comes across as honest, patriotic and never self-important. It's a damn shame the nation doesn't have any conservatives of his kind today; some of the beliefs he was criticized for in the past he never held, and others he outgrew. A great man, especially when contrasted with the political pygmies of today.

3. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

One of the most remarkable non-fiction works I've read, this book weaves the story of the creation of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair -- a fascinating tale of heroism and tragedy in itself -- with the saga of "Dr" H.H. Holmes, a notorious serial killer who committed many of his crimes in Chicago at the time of the Fair. A strange combination, but it works.

4. W.C, Fields by James Curtis.

Fields was a fascinating man. Stories about his behavior, quotes of his most famous lines and tales of his life are common, but many don't separate fact from fiction. With the help of the Fields family (who gave him access to family papers and sat for interviews), Curtis cuts through the forest of legend and creates a human Fields. Despite the debunking of the occasional myth, the Fields who emerges is funnier, more human and more tragic. The best Fields book yet. Maybe, considering the loss of people who actually remember the great comedian, the best ever.

5. The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D MacDonald.

I must have a dozen of MacDonald's Travis McGee books, and am always on the lookout for more. Each one is masterfully written. McGee is no whipped, jargon-spouting "sensitive" feminist with a bad temper like Robert B Parker's Spenser, but then MacDonald was so much better a writer than Parker that he had no need for psychological clap-trap. If you like adventure and occasional strange but entirely logical and believable plot twists, these are the "thriller" novels to read first.

I have to buy some new books for my Connecticut trip. If there's anything good, I may update the list when I get back.

As for tagging five more peeps, it's just not my thang. You wanna tell me what you're reading, I'll be interested to know.