Books: What have people been reading recently?

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 May 10 - 11:39 AM

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 05 May 10 - 08:35 AM

As my nephew is living in Hungary with his Hungarian girlfriend I have been reading (in English!) Miklos Banffy's trilogy "They were Found Wanting" etc. Written in the 1930s about pre-WW1 Hungarian life and politics, in size and scope it is a bit like War and Peace and probably covers more on the parliamentary debates of the period than a non-Hungarian needs but the lives of the characters are absorbing.

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Janie
Date: 05 May 10 - 08:54 AM

I've read "A Distant Mirror" twice. Fine book indeed. I had similar thoughts to you, Gern, but instead of making me feel sad, I came away thinking that our own era could be worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 May 10 - 09:14 AM

Becca - I see where Robert B. Parker has a new book out. It must be something he was working on just before he died.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Rowan
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:05 PM

Just finished Tom Holland's magnum opus "Millennium; the end of the world and the forging of Christendom." It deals with the period from ~850AD to ~1100AD in Europe and Asia Minor. Interesting material but his writing style is atrocious; I suspect it is an attempt to appear academically respectable but I'd have sent his drafts back for serious restructuring if I'd been his editor. Then again, he's much more famous (and probably better remunerated) than I'll ever be.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Janie
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:29 PM

For the past 6 months I've been on my 1st serious fiction roll in years.

After finishing up Jim Butcher's "Dresden File" series, I started on his fantasy series "Codex Alera." Absolutely no redeeming social value, but lots of fun. Right now I am about 1/3 thru Book 5 "Princeps Fury."

Also listening to Ann Tyler's "Noah's Compass" on my work commute. What a wonderful writer she is - I love her tender and respectfully humorous portrayals of the lives of ordinary people, of which I are one.

Listened to "The Other Boleyn Girl" for my trip up to WV this past weekend. Not at all historically accurate according to reviews, but a good piece of fiction.

Am excitedly awaiting receipt of "A Species of Eternity" by Joseph Krastner. I read it years ago - now out of print - Krastner writes about the early American naturalists - Bertram, Curtis, etc. If I recall correctly, the latest naturalist included was Audubon. Excellent and non-romanticized biographical sketches of some pretty remarkable people during a pretty remarkable time in the history of development of scientific knowledge and methods, and the development of our current system of plant classification.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: maire-aine
Date: 06 May 10 - 11:19 PM

Recently finished "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein.

Now reading "Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy" by Joseph E. Stiglitz.

In between, did some light reading: tea-shop mystery stories by Laura Childs & garden shop mysteries by Joyce & Jim Lavene.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Amergin
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:42 AM

Bonzo3Legs...thank you for mentioning Lark Rise to Candleford. I didn't realise it was a book, but I know my mother has been enjoying the series on tv....so I found a copy of the trilogy in book format for her for mother's day.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 May 10 - 01:15 PM

It is always a gamble whenever I enter a book store- I most often buy something when I had no such intention.

The other day I stopped in to buy a ticket for the upcoming Ginny Hawker/Tracy Schwarz/Peter Schwarz concert in Juneau, saw this book and bought it: 'The Bridge' by David Remnick. A comprehensive look at where Barack Obama started and how and why he got where he is today.

I haven't been home much this last week so I've only just started the book but I have already learned some things I didn't know before or had forgotten. For instance, I didn't realize that Obama's father was one of those Africans who were given the opportunity in the Kennedy Administration to come study in America.

Choices. That's what it's all about.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: DougR
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:45 PM

An excellent new book that's been on the NY Times best seller list for some weeks: "Courage and Consequence," by Karl Rove. I highly recommend it.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:57 PM

Just got a copy of Year of Wonders. Thanks for the recommendation; looks like a great read!

Just finished No Great Mischief. It took me awhile to get used to his writing style, so lyrically beautiful descriptions of the land and conditions contrasted with plain telling of harsh life times, yet somehow making it blend so well and sound so filled with hope and fortitude. I didn't want it to end.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:46 PM

_Now Batting for Boston_ by Joe Hayes. Stories about growing up gay in South Boston (then a solidly Irish Catholic working-class neighborhood). He survived.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 May 10 - 11:48 AM

As of last night I left at home all the books that I've been reading and am starting a new batch at the place where I'm house sitting.

This one book is fascinating. It's by Thomas Cahill and titled 'How the Irish Saved Civilization' (The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe) Printed in 1995, I must say that parts of the inexorable fall of Rome sound alarmingly familiar.

That title may sound risible but it is not meant to. It is a serious treatment of Roman history, replete with all the nation states and barbarians surrounding it.

I haven't gotten to the 'heroic' role of the Irish yet; at this early point they are among the barbarian hordes.

It is so well written and almost chatty with its effortless translations of Latin writers to English prose, it is a new experience for me. I'm lovin' it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 May 10 - 07:57 PM

John Le Carre' "The Mission Song."

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 May 10 - 06:11 PM

_A Map of the Harbor Islands_ -- a novel by the same Joe Hayes. A nice, bright, pious, athletic high-school boy is hit hard by a baseball, which renders him antisocial, mystical, and (perhaps) a saint. I'm not very far into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Janie
Date: 16 May 10 - 08:35 PM

I'm on a Jim Butcher roll. Just finished "Precep's Fury" from the Codex Alera series. When I went to buy book 6 "First Lord's Fury" B&N had sold out - but Lo! he came out in April with another in the "Dresden Files" which they did have. Guess what I'm reading.

Also re-reading "The Best of the Hillbilly" an anthology of the late humorist, Jim Comstock.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Eiseley
Date: 16 May 10 - 11:21 PM

I'm re-reading The Shadow of the Wind and starting The Angel's Game, both by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Barcelona is enchanting!

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Rowan
Date: 16 May 10 - 11:57 PM

'How the Irish Saved Civilization'

Definitely an interesting read, Ebbie.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Becca72
Date: 17 May 10 - 09:52 AM

Ringinslinger,

Robert B. Parker had a couple waiting in the wings when he passed. I think there are 2 more books waiting to be released and then that's all she wrote. I'm still sad.


Right now I'm reading "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West". It got off to a rather slow start, but I'm about half way through now and it's gotten much better.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 May 10 - 10:32 AM

In reading How the Irish Saved Civilization, for the first time I understand something of how and why Patrick was/is? so revered in Ireland. As I said, fascinating stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 May 10 - 12:00 PM

Ebbie, are you familiar with the Sister Fidelma series? If you click on Fidelma's World, you can read the author's explanation of the way it was in Ireland in the seventh century...talk about enlightened!

I loved Year of Wonders, thank for the recommendation. I am in the middle of House of Sky...I wish I'd had that much material to write about my dad; it is an incredible book...so beautifully written.

Next in my pile is Ruled Britannia..can't wait to start it.

So, thanks to Mudcatters I keep getting such great books to enjoy.

Forgot, I also just finished the two most recent in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency. I love those books!!

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 17 May 10 - 12:26 PM

Just finished The Life and Death of St Kilda - Tom Steel - the story of a remote island off the Outer Hebrides, its people and the loss of their way of life as travel to the island became easier.

It was a fascinating look at a completely different way of life, one shaped over may years by the coming of religion and one that was still, in many ways, tied the the feudal system as late as the 19th century.

Just started The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 May 10 - 01:25 PM

No, I haven't read that series, kat. Thanks for the link. I'll see where my tastes take me next.

Something fascinating in the Cahill book is that he goes back to when Rome was in decline and shows by their own writings and actions that they didn't even know it. And he brings in Augustine, and shows how drastically he veered from being the sensitive thinker to becoming the Father of the Inquisition, eventually bringing in the undereducated empathic Patrick who arguably showed the Irish how their traditional way of life could blend and morph into the mores of Christianity.

I haven't been home much lately so I haven't finished the book yet but the end is approaching. I'm going to be sorry to finish it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 17 May 10 - 01:41 PM

Becca - I don't know why I find Parker's prose so compelling, but it is good news that there are still a couple of books in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: CET
Date: 18 May 10 - 05:39 AM

As is my wont, I have a clutch of books on the go. Beside me as I type is "The Adventures of Ibn Battuta" by Ross E. Dunn, about the Moroccan scholar who left his home in Tangier in 1325 to do the hajj to Mecca and ended up travelling all the way to China. He didn't return to Tangier until 1349. I picked that up in the bookshop of the Smithsonian Institution Natural History Museum a couple of days ago. Also acquired during our current holiday in the U.S.: "Island of the Sequinned Love Nun", by Christopher Moore and "And I was There" by Admiral Layton, who was Nimitz' intelligence chief throughout WWII, about the breaking of the Japanese codes.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 May 10 - 08:13 AM

Currently on Dervla Murphy's "Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys", a travelogue-cum-history about former-Yugoslavia at the end of the 90s, after the NATO bombings. Very insightful, but difficult reading because of the tiny print in the John Murray paperback.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 May 10 - 06:09 PM

Another series you might enjoy, Ebbie, is the Marcus Didius Falco novels by Lindsey Davis. Satirical, historically accurate, they are great reads with all kinds of everyday minutiae not normally taught about ancient Rome...what the ordinary people lived like...written in such a grand and fun style. I highly recommend them!

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Rowan
Date: 18 May 10 - 08:12 PM

A TV series Travels with a Tangerine", based on "The Adventures of Ibn Battuta" was recently broadcast on Oz ABC. He certainly got around.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 May 10 - 09:21 PM

kat, nothing against novels - and I do read some - but there is so much nonfiction that I haven't gotten to yet that I rarely seek out fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 May 10 - 10:12 PM

Right now I am reading my brother Richard Thieme's latest book. Called MIND GAMES, it is ostensibly science-fiction, but if you are one of the many who think life is everywhere, and that THEY have been coming to visit us for a long time, these short stories will absolutely fascinate you! Google on his name. You might be amazed!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: maire-aine
Date: 18 May 10 - 10:28 PM

Hey, Kat. I'm also a Fidelma fan. I've been reading that series for years.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 May 10 - 10:58 PM

There are some rave reviews of his book, too, Art...check if out: Click. You two certainly bear a family resemblance..neat photos of him on google.

Maryanne, kewl!

Ebbie, ah, I understand. In case, may I recommend A Lady's Life in the Rockies? I also have her one abut the Yangtze Valley and Beyond, but haven't tackled it yet. If you go to the author page Amazon has for her, you will see she was an intrepid explorer mostly on her own as a "proper" Englishwoman in the late 1890s.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 May 10 - 09:18 AM

I'm a Patrick O'Brian fan, and am almost ready to begin again his Master and Commander series, all twenty books of it. Wonderful!

But for "what I've been reading recently", I just finished O'Brian's great non-sea novel, Testimonies.   

O'Brian had written and published one earlier novel, when he was fourteen or fifteen, which showed some of his abilities which were to blossom so greatly later, but Testimonies was his first novel as an adult (that is to say "grown up", as opposed to erotic) writer. It's marvelous.

Testimonies is told in segments of narrations out of the mouths of various characters in the overarching story, each telling, in the words and personality of that character, and from that character's knowledge of the story facts, so that you get a sort of simultaneous overview of what's happening. O'Brian does this very well.

Mr. Pugh, the protagonist, is a middle-aged scholar and writer, retired from the Oxford University faculty after receiving an inheritance, who takes a house in Wales, where he expects to work on his book on medieval literature. You see his gradual acclimatization to Welsh culture over a period of time, including falling in love (mutually) with the wife of a neighbor (but with no adultery).

Without trying to set out the plot development in details, I'll just say that the whole thing eventuates in a tragic ending, with the lady either poisoning herself or being poisoned by her family.

For lovers of fine novelistic writing generally, as well as O'Brian fans in particular, I cannot recommend this novel highly enough.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 19 May 10 - 06:18 PM

Stieg Larsens Millenium Trilogy, starts with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Excellent set of books with some good twists and turns. Pity he died shortly after publishing the last in the trilogy.

Simon Schammers History of England, nice fresh look at English History.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Cats
Date: 20 May 10 - 05:32 PM

For a bit of light relief and good fun try 'Katy Carter Wants a Hero' by Ruth Saberton. It's a chicklit so not what I would normally read but made me laugh out loud. You'll never look at lobsters in the same way again and it will make you wonder what your vicars wife does when she's not being a vicar's wife!!!! Long Live Pinchy!!

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: Rowan
Date: 21 May 10 - 12:40 AM

Millenium Trilogy, starts with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Definitely a series worth reading! I saw the film of the first in the series the other night and recommend that people read the series before viewing the film. The film makers do an excellent job of keeping the necessary elements of the plot so that it makes a good film, even though they change details of how the element works, but a lot of the richness of the book is lost. They also throw in repetitions of a scene that properly belongs in the second book.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recent
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 21 May 10 - 02:42 AM

Reaching onto the collection of book-ends of the family history.

Having wrapped up all grandfather's history books,pre-1900....
Currently in the middle of great-grand-dad's copy of
McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader (2nd Ed) 1857

Most pleased with the Welch example "The Well of St. Keyne" a copy
of which and multi-format tune is in the Digital Tradition.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

The marginal notes and morality are as valid today as then. And humor is timeless.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: GUEST,Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 22 May 10 - 03:42 PM

Niall Ferguson's economic history, _The Ascent of Money_, and Chris Wattie's account of 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, in Kandahar in 2006, _Contact Charlie_.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 May 10 - 03:57 PM

Just finished House of Sky which will be one of my all-time favourites and revered books. The quality of writing, intricate and lyrical expressions and truthful relating without getting overly-sentimental is of a rare and unique quality, imo...as the Chicago Sun-Times said, "Doig is to be considered the premier writer of the American West," and then some, imo. THIS is the book I wish I'd had enough material to even attempt when it came to working my dad's stories into a book. I could never match the ability of expression as Doig, though, so there ya go.

This, near the end of the book, took my breath away and pierced my heart: Split the tongue of the silence that beats in you when you first know that a parent is dying, and it will begin to recite everything unsaid across a lifetime.

Just started on Ruled Britannia. So far, so good.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 12:02 AM

Ivan Doig's "The Whistling Season"...excellent.

"Skeletons on the Zahara" by Dean King. A true account of Americans sailors shipwrecked and sold into slavery in West Africa in 1815. An extraordinary journey, the book combines much of the memoirs of two survivors, the captain and the master.

Reading another Doig right now: Dancing At the Rascal Fair. Quite good.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: GUEST,Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 08:26 AM

I really like Ivan Doig. Read "Dancing at the Rascal Fair" sometime back. Love regionalists in general, actually.

    But right now I am reading "The Mission Song," by John Le Carre.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 04:18 PM

"Azincourt" by Bernard Cornwell

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: GUEST,Big Ballad Singer
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 04:49 PM

I just finished reading "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" and am currently into "The Irish Republic", a comprehensive history of the struggle for Irish Independence up to and including Collins, DeValera and the beginnings of the IRA.

The book on the Essex was a fascinating read and really eye-opening as to the circumstances and events that made whaling not only a lucrative and dangerous business but also a prime and fertile ground for folk tales and songs. I highly recommend it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 05:42 PM

Still Lark Rise to Candleford

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 06:42 PM

"Columbine" by Dave Cullen. A chilling account of the high school shootings in 1999. Just about everything I remember hearing about it in the media was wrong. And some of the cover-ups that took place were just plain shameful. Highly recommended. Esp if you are a teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 07:27 PM

The 19th Wife

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 07:33 PM

Just finished 26th reading of LOTR. Now reading In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death & the World It Made. Fascinating stuff!

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: Becca72
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 08:40 AM

"Why We Suck" by Denis Leary

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: number 6
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 09:11 AM

"Beatrice and Virgil" by Yan Martel

This was a book I received as a Father's Day gift ... and a wonderful gift it is.

I also suggest another novel by this writer ... "Life of Pi"

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Books-What have people been reading recently?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 09:21 AM

Just finished a wonderful autobiography of the writer Paula Fox called "Borrowed Finery". Reread To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, a truly grand book. Am now reading Master and Commander by O'Brian and am really enjoying it.