BS: Read any good books lately?

Subject: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: dulcimer42
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 11:50 AM

I just finished Alleluia America! An Irish Journalist in Bush Country. Fun reading about the perspective of an Irish lady as she travelled across America.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 11:52 AM

I am partway through an explorer's narrative book on early discoveries in the country of the Masai, East Africa, north and east of Mombasa, written in the mid-1800's.

Unfortunately I do not recall the name at present.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,Nigel Spencer (cookieless)
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 12:03 PM

Finally got round to reading Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' ... which I'd definitely recommend. I've avoided McEwan for years because I didn't get on with his early books. Just finished a secondhand copy of Bob Pegg's 'Rites and Riots' - a history of folklore rituals in Britain and Europe (seasonal rituals, mumming, begging rituals etc). Excellent stuff!

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 12:11 PM

My son, a junior at UNH, gave me a copy of Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates, at Hanukkah. We share a love of good writing and he was "blown away" by Yates's first novel - I hadn't read it, shame on me. It's well worth reading if you're at all interested in the evolution of modern American fiction, particularly the "novelists of angst" of the second half of the last century. Yates inspired the whole school of writers from the last decades of 20th century american fiction - Dubus, Carver, Ford, etc. It's tough sledding emotionally, but Yates is a master - reading a collection of his short stories now.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 12:15 PM

Yes.

Oh, you want titles!!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 04:12 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 04:58 PM

Do you have the author's name, Art?**BG**

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 06:48 PM

Richard Yates was a phenomenally good writer - especially of short stories: 'Eleven Kinds of Loneliness' is one of the best short story collections I've read - it's up there with Carver and Larry Brown's 'Big Bad Love and Chris Offutt's 'Kentucky Straight'. I think its now available as part of 'The Collected Stories of...'

What I want to know, though, is what the hell has happened to Harry Crews?

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 06:52 PM

James Kilts "Do What Matters". It's a book about business. It's not the only thing I'm reading, however. I'm also reading "Gentlemen's Blood," a book about dueling; "Irish Murders"; "Irish Ghosts"; "The Truth About The Leprechaun" by John Curran, and a few others.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: John O'L
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 01:21 AM

I almost had to force myself to keep reading Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, but was rewarded because the further I went the more I enjoyed it.

Before that I read Steven Carroll's The Gift of Speed, an excellent read with some truly exceptional moments, marred only by the misery being spread on unnecessarily thick at times. It has a brilliant ending. I like good endings.

At the moment I am reading a not-very-memorable book, but I've got Martin Cruz Smith's Stalin's Ghost on the bedside table lined up for next. I'm looking forward to that. Gorky Park was another very good book with a very good ending.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: open mike
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 02:09 AM

I am reading a book by a non-native woman who was welcomed into the tribal sweat lodge and pipe smokeing ceremonies (or sermonies as she calls them) This was written in the early 70's.

Recently i read one (by Diane Smith?) about a woman who was a botanist in Yellowstone in the 1880's. Letters From Yellowstone is almost entirely comprised of postal communications between the characters.

I am also reading about Sarah Winnemucca, daughter of a tribal chief
who travelled to Washington to speak for her people.

Oh yes and a story about Belle Starr...

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:24 AM

"Arthur and George" by Julian Barnes. A masterpiece of storytelling based on a true life investigation by Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: The PA
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:45 AM

'My Booky Wook' - Russell Brand. Couldnt stand the chap until I read his book (pressie from husband). Now I must say I see him in a whole new light, don't think I could have survived that type of childhood. Still not a great fan but I do have a bit more respect for the chap.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 06:24 AM

I have read a large number of books on World War 2, from the German perspective, I would strongly recommend, The forgotten soldier by Guy Sajer, this book describes in gory detail the war on the Russian front.
I would desribe this book as the best I have read on this subject,worth a visit to Amazon for a review.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: kendall
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 10:01 AM

The Street Lawyer by John Grisham. Hard to put down.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:19 AM

I'm finishing the fifth Harry Potter book. Order of the Phoenix. I read the earlier books out loud to the kids when they were younger, but this book came out after we had finally put an end to bedtime reading (they could both read very well, in middle school and high school, but we still all really enjoyed reading out loud every evening.) I also have a Nero Wolfe mystery on the bedside table, and several scholarly books in my "must read" stack in my office. But I haven't done any recreational reading for quite a while, so I'm enjoying kicking back with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

SRS

(I have the last two Potter books that I'll eventually get to, hopefully before the films come out)

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:53 PM

Let me see...

I reread "Alas, Babylon", "Level Seven", "A Canticle for Liebowitz", and saw the film version of "On the Beach". I also am ( still) reading the collection of Heinlein short stories that are not part of his Future History.

Just brushing up for July, 2009...

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: dulcimer42
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 10:18 PM

I agree with the comment that John Grisham's books are hard to put down. I've read them all. Street lawyer was probably my favorite.

I'd be interested in knowing the title of the book about the lady accepted into the native sweat lodges, etc.   Sounds interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:02 PM

Oh, here it is: "Through Masai Land", by Joseph Thomson, 1885, republished 1968 by Frank Cass &Co., Ltd. London.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Gulliver
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 12:51 AM

The Death of Achilles, by Boris Akunin, was one of the best reads I've had in years. That was the first of his books that I've read, and I'll be popping downtown at the weekend to buy another.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 02:20 AM

Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:33 AM

I'm just reading 'Fifty Degrees Below', the second volume in Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy on global warming; the other two are 'Forty Days of Rain' and 'Sixty Days and Counting'. Most of the characters are based in Washington DC and are involved in the science and politics of climate change. 'The Weather' makes ominous appearances throughout.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 05:44 AM

Gulliver, I've read several of that series & they're great fun. Boris Akinin also has another series of books about a (Russian Orthodox) Nun that I enjoyed.

Lining up all the books ready to go back to the library - all crime (& most of them Large Print - I do like being able to see the text clearly!)

Inspector DeKok series by A C Baantjer - Dutch police procedual. (speck Press, Denver)

Deacon Theodora Braithwaite series by D M Greenwood - murders in Anglican clergy circles! I've certainly learnt more about High Anglican church ritual than I ever I ever thought I'd know.

Gifts from the Pharaohs - How Egyptian civilization shaped the Modern World by Christiane Desroches Noblecourt (Flammarion)

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaimon (first & hopefully last Terry Pratchett I'll buy - I just don't have the room for all his books, but I love this one)

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 08:05 AM

"A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian", and "Two Caravans", both by Marina Lewycka and both hilarious. (And my claim to fame is that we were in the same class at school).

"The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khalid Hosseini, great storytelling and some wonderfully poignant moments.

"The Bookseller of Kabul" by a Swedish lady journalist whose name I forget. Factual and insightful.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:01 PM

A Gallant Little Army by Thomas Johnson and I am re-reading Danse Macabre by Stephen King. Neil

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:28 PM

Still reading "Lonesome Dove"

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:50 PM

Currently reading "Mortal Causes" by Ian Rankin.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Bee
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 05:05 PM

Just finished rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel garcia Marquez. Hadn't read it since about 1973. It is a lot darker than I remembered, but the beautiful, dreamlike imagery is intact, and i was unable to put it down until the end.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 05:27 PM

Out Stealing Horses

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 05:53 PM

'About Faerie Tales' by Alison Wanda Land was pretty good as was "Cannibalism" by Henrietta Mann.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 06:03 PM

Did I say good? I should have said extraordinary. Just typing the name has placed me into twenty minutes of reflection about the amazing aspects of that book. Short and seemingly simple, but complicated and powerful. Best book I can remember in years.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Zhenya
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 11:54 PM

Heric - Thanks for mentioning Out Stealing Horses, which I wasn't familiar with. But the title and your comments made me curious, so I looked it up on Library Thing and a few other places to see various reviews. It got very good comments everywhere I looked, and I read enough about it to decide I'll probably like it too, so I've added it to my future reading wish list.

As for my current reading, this year I've settled into a pattern of, at any given time, being in the middle of one classic book and one contemporary book. This approach has finally solved my dilemma about which type to choose. This way, I just pick up whichever one I'm in the mood for when I have a chance to read.

So I'm almost finished right now with a 19th century novel, The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. I somehow had missed his writing altogether, but started reading it on dailylit.com (books in email installments) because the title looked interesting. I've been enjoying the book immensely, and ended up buying my own copy of the book. A friend told me it was a movie as well, so I've bought the DVD, but won't watch it until I finish the book. I now plan to read other books of his as well. This seems to be billed as the first detective novel – it also has wonderful characters, a suspenseful story, and quite a bit of sly humor along the way.

The contemporary book I'm reading, and well into, is In the Country of the Young, by Lisa Carey. I discovered that book and author based on readers' comments on LibrayThing.com, and I'm enjoying that one as well. It starts off with the shipwreck of an Irish famine ship off the coast of Maine, and the death of a young girl, who shows up 150 years later to continue on with her life, officially as a ghost, but soon enough as a live person. It's got a nice touch of magic in it, which I tend to like in books. It switches back and forth between 3 different time periods and places while tying the stories together. And there's even a wee bit of Irish fiddle playing in the book!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: heric
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 12:57 AM

One thing I'll bet the reviewers didn't mention is this: It had a river that flowed in a semi-circle. It flowed in from Sweden and into his life - then it flowed back into Sweden. Extraordinary.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 01:40 AM

Those who are reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Kite Runner are enjoying two excellent novels.
I just completed Updike's The Centaur and found his writing fascinating. The story is a re-telling of the myth of Chiron the Centaur who was mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow, and of his son Prometheus, who brought fire to mankind, set in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. If that sounds bizarre, it is. The novel impresses me as also somewhat biographical concerning the boy, who may be Updike as a youth, and his schoolteacher Father.

Here is Updike's description of a snow storm

"The cars on the pike travel slower, windshield wipers flapping, headlight beams nipped and spangled in the ceaseless flurry. The snow seems only to exist where light strikes it. A trolley car gliding toward Alton appears to trail behind it a following of fireflies. What an eloquent silence reigns! Olinger under the vast violet dome of the stormstruck night sky becomes yet one more Bethlehem. Behind a glowing window the infant god squalls. Out of zero all has come to birth. The panes, tinted by the straw of the crib within, hush its cries. The world goes on unhearing. The town of white roofs seems a colony of deserted temples; they feather together with distance, go gray, melt. Shale Hill is invisible. A yellowness broods low in the sky; above Alton in the west a ruby glow seeps upward. From the zenith a lavender luminosity hangs pulseless, as if the particular brilliance of the moon and stars had been dissolved and the solution shot through with a low electric voltage. The effect, of tenuous weight, of menace, is exhilarating. The air presses downward with an unstressed sibilance, a pedal note, the base C of the universal storm. The streetlights strung along the pike make a forestage of brightness where the snowfall, compressed and expanded by the faintest of winds, like an actor postures- pausing, plunging. Upward countercurrents suspend snow which then with the haste of love flies downward to gravity's embrace; the alternations of density conjure an impression of striding legs stretching upward into infinity. The storm walks. The storm walks but does not move on."

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,Cluin
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 01:59 AM

Rumpole and The Reign of Terror

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Zhenya
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 04:33 PM

Heric - No, none of the comments mentioned the river. Now I'll really have to check this out for myself!

By the way, have you (or anyone else here) read Popular Music From Vittula by Mikael Niemi? That one takes place in Northern Sweden, near the Finnish border. I read it about 2 years ago, and really liked it.

I don't think I've read much literature from Scandinavia - all that immediately comes to mind is Isak Dinesen. Yet another thing to explore...

LonesomeEJ - I read The Centaur in a high school English class. I remember liking it, but not that much about it, so, considering how long ago that was, I think it's time for a re-read. Thanks for bringing it to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 05:11 PM

Audiobook classic:, Treasure Island and its companion prequel, The Adventures of Ben Gunn. Room for a third in the group if anyone wants to write it. PM me for details.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 12:59 AM

If being on dialysis has a good side, other than keeping me alive, it's that I get to read alot. I discovered Elmore Leonard - no particular book of his - they're all good. Mostly, though, I read histories, currently one called American Mafia, a history of organized crime in the US from the 1800's to the present. I also re-read Salem's Lot by Stephen King. In my opinion, it's his best.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 03:48 PM

'Strange Loyalties' by William Mcllvanney.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:07 AM

I recently finished Exit Ghost by Phillip Roth.

He says it's his last book in the Nathan Zuckerman series of books he has written. And I can see how that would be so. The book highlights the enigma and the illusions of aging and losing ones youthful powers to the passing years. Terry Gross on NPR interviewed Roth and she didn't seem to get it at all. But she, of course, is a young woman, and not a declining, aging, ailing, elderly man. Here Zuckerman is a man who still can get an absolutely huge "crush" on a younger woman! As delusional as that is, he knows full well that on so many levels he can't live up to his desires! But it feels so f.....g good to feel those desires and emotions once more. Eventually, reality seeps slowly in---and then HE KNOWS. Joseph Campbell used to talk about the eyes being the scouts for the more carnal side of us. I can vouch for that. Even us old men like "looking" and hoping for the actual insanity of the feeling one gets that you are embarking on the lovely path of love --- even though nothing actual can be accomplished. I think the "ghost" of the memories and the actualities of youthful adventures is what is departing as a ghostly presence in the title of this recent book by Roth.

It is a fine read---if you are ready for it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:27 AM

Also---The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It concerns holding onto family values (a father and a son) in the face of the ultimate desolation and bleakness of the ashes of America.

Also, along those same lines, albeit, this time a desolation caused by a nearly total plague --- EARTH ABIDES by George R. Stewart. It, too, focuses on the few survivors.
It is only the best science fiction book ever written me thinks.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:57 AM

Your comments on Exit Ghost are remarkable, Art. I'm putting it on my list.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 01:01 AM

There was a long review of the Roth book in The New Yorker a few weeks back. You might want to look it up, it gave an overview of the series.

I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now on to some Rex Stout before I hit some serious reading again.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 06:25 PM

Mommy, what's a book?
Be quiet sweetie and just keep pressing flowers.

Do people really use books for what they were intended...to be read?

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 07:28 PM

Not on the Sunset Coast it seems!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 07:54 PM

gimme a book anyday, especially one with large print.

As much as I love my iMac & the world it opens for me (especially Mudcat!) I can't do a lot of reading on screen. My eyes don't particularly appreciate small black letters on a screen, but give me a book propped up on my reading stand & my fantastic 'Daylight' desklight (it's a brand which uses tubes which give good light that's just like natural light) & I'm happy. Especially when I'm surrounded by books, including 20 from the library.

sandra (soon off to the Library to replenish my supply)

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:29 PM

Sorry, Art, I thought I had my tongue in cheek, but apparently I had my foot in my mouth.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 11:04 PM

No, John, I'm sorry. I overreacted. But I do wonder how good things get away from us so easily -- like books, the 8-hour day, drinking tap water, and so many millions of passenger pigeons that their numbers made afternoon seem like night. On our watch, they slipped away from our grasps so easily. Where are Maxwell Perkins and Thomas Wolfe when we need them so badly? Some folks who might fill their shoes are probably surfing Ebay or creating a new penultimate virus.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 12:41 AM

Oh how I do agree with you, Art!
About fifty years ago I, as a member of the UCLA Daily Bruin, had the assignment of interviewing English Dept. faculty regarding their research projects. One--I forget who--was publishing the correspondence of and between Wordsworth and Coleridge (I think that's who). I marveled that such would have been saved, collected and commented on two centuries later. In the age of the telephone and Skype, I'd be surprised if such personal correspondence of today will be retrievable in another two hundred years.
But on the bright side--and I know this is a long digression--last week I did come across, on a blog, six exchanges between two authors
discussing a topic of mutual interest about six years ago. Interestingly, it began with some antagonism on the part of the initiator, but by the last posting they had reached mutual respect for the other's position, while yet disagreeing with each other on many points [ah that that could happen at Mudcat more often!]. I printed it out because I was intrigued both by the topic, and by their literate arguments So, maybe such correspondence can be available for future study.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 03:55 PM

Over summer:
Jasper Fforde's The Eyre affair sequelae
Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander ditto
John Wyndham's Chocky and Jezzle

On Sunday last:
Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book