Where have all the hobos gone

One nice thing about taking the train is it gives you a chance to catch up on your reading. On the way down from New York, I sat next to Scooter Libby (yeah that one), who was reading a Naipaul book, and I was finishing up a really enjoyable little book, Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster. I won't go into plot details, but there are a ton of moving passages on the great plains (the narrator spends a lot of time in and around Wichita) and on mortality. Well, the whole book is about living and dying, but mostly about the living. It's an easy, approachable read and I really recommend it.

On the way home I finished a book I got in Oklahoma last time called Land Of Bright Promise: Advertising The Texas Panhandle And South Plains, 1870-1917. This was just a punt, but I had a feeling it would be interesting to read about selling the Texas Panhandle, more interesting than the area itself at least! Unfortunately whatever promise it held wasn't really delivered. There was a lot of decent research and some good trivia, but not much narrative flair. Next.