Damon Runyon and fall of the Republic

I’m poking my way through The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century; a collection of short stories that looks a bit like an unabridged dictionary. I read Damon Runyon’s short story Sense of Humour while I was making dinner tonight. The characters made me think of Looney Toons’ Rocky and Mugsy, but I guess the inspiration went the other way 'round.

Great stuff, and it looks like thanks to Google books you can read the entire story online.

Over the weekend I finished Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, which Amazon says I bought on Jan. 1 of 2007. I have a pretty strong romantic fascination with the period covered in the last half of the book, thanks probably to Rufus J. Fears. Pompey, Cato, Cicero, Brutus, Crassus, Ceasar, Octavian, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra…

I want to move on to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire but it’s not cheap, even used, to get the entire collection. I’ll keep looking. Exciting.