Scheduling conflicts forced us to skip a meeting, so we ended up discussing two books at the same dinner, not a desirable thing to do but it worked out well. We had a voluble discussion about one book and pretty much shunned the other. The spy book was uniformly praised as an informative, interesting, and intriguing account of the Hollywood-like exploits of the WWII/Cold War spymaster, Kim Philby, who was the leader of a group of loosely-affiliated, idealistic Cambridge students in the 1930s. Written in a breezy style, the only questions unanswered by the book were why did Philby follow his youthful communist vision in the face of Stalin's outrages, and how did he fool so many of those closest to him?
The other book, set in contemporary North Korea, reminded us of other novels describing life in totalitarian societies, like 1984, but was so confusingly organized that we almost lost interest. Most of us plugged on, trying to see the spark of brilliance the Pulitzer committee saw in the novel.
We met at a place we previously visited 15 years ago--and despised. This visit was better, but the large portions of richly-sauced pasta still didn't quite make it. The Cioppino, however, was pretty good.
Our next book is Tom Reiss, The Black Count, the story behind the Count of Monte Christo. Other titles discussed were Evan Thomas, Ike's Bluff, and Jon Mecham, Winston and Franklin. We'll meet on April 29. Here's the batting order: Don is up next, followed by Jim, then Roger.
