He's Dead, Jim
I am again afflicted with the dreadful sick. I reckon I caught whatever this contagion might be from my father, who has been even more lethargic than usual for the past several days, & complaining bitterly to that effect. I have a very periodic cough, I am fatigued, & am possessed of a general sense that all is not well. I live in fear of a recurrence of last winter's diabolical fever, a malady so fearsome it necessitated my first trip to the sawbones in years; my fervent hope is that this is not that. How sick will I get? How soon will I recover? Only time will tell.

Cough up a lung, so to speak, & you are looked upon as if you've a narwhal's tusk growing out of your forehead. Let fly the most harmless, dainty little sneeze & persons from all quarters will fall all over themselves to say "Bless you." I've long thought that curious.

The Queue
The Honourable Schoolboy has jumped the queue due to my excitement over the new motion picture Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but I still intend to read The Thirty-nine Steps before Smiley's People. Then I shall read the S.I.S. counterpart to Christopher Andrew's brilliant Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of M.I.5, Keith Jeffery's The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949. I am uncertain what precisely I shall read after that jaunt into non-fiction, other than to say it will fall within (or very near) the espionage genre. More Deighton, such as S.S.-G.B.? More le Carré, such as Call for the Dead? If The Thirty-nine Steps pans out it will very likely be more from John Buchan, all but certainly Greenmantle. Or perhaps The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers?

I was rather accidentally made aware of the book The Art of Indirection in British Espionage Fiction: A Critical Study of Six Novelists: Amazonlink. I've no intention of reading the book; I'd rather read spy fiction than read about spy fiction. But I must say I am appalled by Stella Rimington's inclusion alongside the likes of Len Deighton, John le Carré, Eric Ambler, & Graham Greene (I omit Charles Cumming because I've not read his work; neither have I read Ambler or Greene, but consensus public opinion holds them in high regard). Dame Stella is rubbish as a novelist; to invert the old Reading Rainbow exhortation, take my word for it, I suffered through four of her six novels (& counting). Spare thyself, I beseech thee! My hope is that Rimington was included because of her high-profile career at the highest levels of British Intelligence, having been the first distaff Director-General of M.I.5, rather than her less than stellar career as a writer of "British espionage fiction."

Also, before Labor Day, or rather, even earlier than that, before the first Michigan football game of the year on Saturday, 3 September—home against the epithetless Broncos of Western Michigan—I intend to read The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium by Robert M. Soderstrom. I have no idea if Brady Hoke will pan out as our head coach, but win, loose, or draw (no longer feasible due to rule changes) it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. Go Blue!

I'm now № 52 in the Carte Blanche queue. I started at № 68 three weeks hence; sixteen places in approximately twenty-some days? I'd call that a satisfactory pace. I suspect the hot-of-the-presses volume is a two-week loan, rather than the usual four weeks; so, whenever my number is called courtesy to my fellows still in the queue will require me to set aside whatever I'm reading in favor of Carte Blanche.

Recently
Greg Rucka & various artists, Queen & Country: Operation: SADDLEBAGS & Operation: RED PANDA
E. W. Hornung, The Complete Raffles, Volume One: The Amateur Cracksman & The Black Mask
Anthony Hope, Rupert of Hentzau

Currently
John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

Presently
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps
John le Carré, Smiley's People
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium
...
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Mr First and the Gimme Gimmes, "Coming to America" from Have Another Ball! (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: It seems that Neil Diamond's song, of which today's R.B.D.S.O.T.D. is a cover, as is the case with all Gimme Gimmes songs, is titled "America," not "Coming to America." But it is more commonly known as "Coming to America" & this is how it is identified in the Have Another Ball! liner notes.

We are a nation of immigrants, a refuge from tyranny & poverty. May we always remain such.