Whitman

I enjoy a good biography, and have a keen interest in American history, so I don't know why it's taken me so long to get around to Walter Isaacson's 2003 Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. I'm not that far into it, but Ben is already good company. Even as a boy and young man, what a remarkable fellow! Also (if it counts as "reading") while on a road trip over the past week I listened to an audio book of Colm Tóibín's The Magician, a sort of fictional biography of the writer Thomas Mann. I say "sort of fictional" because a lot of the facts of Mann's life are accurately presented, but Tóibín embellishes those facts with (entirely plausible) imagined detail. I am presently through 10 of 14 CDs that run a total of 16 hours. I'd switch to book form to finish now that I'm back home, but I don't have a copy (and neither does my local library--although that's where I got the audio book).

Did I miss a post about @honcho, a regular poster and welcome presence here for a long time? He hasn't signed on to the Forum since last October. If anyone is in touch, it would be great to hear he's doing well.

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