Chapter Eighty-nine

It's October and the leaves are dropping but they haven't started to change color yet. Halloween is less then a week away and I noticed that there are fewer, less elaborate, outside displays this year. I have no idea what my Granddaughter's costume will be. I've been tempted to ask but I want to be surprised. This month, I bought the books I'm posting about from online, discount sites (this is what you have to do if you want something specific). I actually have a Holiday-related book to tell you about.

Miscellaneous

The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury ( $5.50/$4.29, copyright 1972, 145 pages, Paperback)
For years I would read Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" every October. Then my Granddaughter was born and I wound up reading books like "Where's Baby's Pumpkin" and "Daniel Tiger's Halloween". As she's getting older, I began to look into other books for her and found this for me. It's more of a Young Adult Book and deals with Tom Skelton and his friends getting ready for "Trick or Treating". But then their friend Pipkin is snatched away and Tom and his eight friends have to go looking for him. Bradbury uses the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud to teach the boys about Halloween across the ages. The writing is classic Bradbury but is aimed at a younger audience -  poetic with a touch of Dr. Seuss. It's short and it's fun and I enjoyed it.

"I Heard You Paint Houses" - Charles Brandt ($15.95/$5.65, copyright 2004, 307 pages, Trade Paperback)
I came across an article about Martin Scorsese's movie "The Irishman" (due out next year) starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci and it was being filmed here in New Jersey. I looked into it and found out that it was based on this book about Frank Sheeran (DeNiro), the Irish gangster, who carried out more than twenty executions on the orders the Italian mobster Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and the Union Leader Hoffa (Pacino). The title, supposedly, were the first words Hoffa spoke to Sheeran and means to kill a man. After the tense beginning, the book goes back in time to capture Sheeran’s life and you see how his experiences during World War II, his entry into the Mob, and his climb up that ladder shaped his life. This was all interesting but then Brandt speculates about the Kennedy Assassination and Hoffa's disappearance. Also, he's written most of this as a first-person narrative that I didn't think rang true. It was OK.

We're entering the Holiday Season and Thanksgiving is just about a month away. I don't know what the plans are but I'm sure my immediate family will be together. For now, I just got another book in the mail that I'll be checking out tonight. Enjoy and ...

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