Books: What have people been reading recently?

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 10:44 PM

Currently reading "The Brothers K" by David James Duncan, which looks like it's going to do for baseball what his wonderful "The River Why" did for fishing.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 10:41 PM

The Great Influenza by Barry - Tells the story of the establishment of modern medical research foundations in the United States ahead of the coming of the great Influenza of 1915 and as a side note gives a very interesting sidelight on President Wilson's mobilization of the United States for World War I.

Wide As The Waters by Bobrick - Tells the tales of the first translations of the Holdy Scriptures and New Testament into common tongues, including King James edition, and what an impact that had on English language, expressiveness, and thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Pogo
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 04:47 PM

currently I am reading through my collection of Dashielle Hammet novels starting with Red Harvest...I've been on a noir craze lately. On my list to read also is a book by Marilynne Robinson called Gilead.

Those who are interested in C.S. Lewis's novels...I recommend his science-fiction series " Out of The Silent Planet " " Perelandra " and " That Hideous Strength " All very good reads though he gets a bit more theological in them than in the Narnia series

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: dwditty
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 04:22 PM

see "Mayor of Macdougal" thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 03:25 PM

Yesterday our local library had one of its 'Sale days' when they clear out books that are not being rented from virtually any of the umpteen libraries in the county.
I picked up seven books, (4 hard back, 3 paperback). Total outlay £1.10.
This is less than the cost from our local charity shops!

The books were all complete (storywise) and in good condition. Some appeared not to have been read.

The only standard failings were the removal of the front fly-leaf (to which the record of borrowers would previously been attached) and a few rubber stamps (which do not obliterate any reading matter)

O.K. 6 were science fiction, and the seventh was Bernard Cornwell's "Battle Flag" (for my wife!), but I will probably read that as well.

What bargains are available. The £1.10 wouldn't even have covered the cost of the plastic book protectors on the 3 paperbacks

CHEERS

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Firecat
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 02:40 PM

I've currently got 4 on the go.

The Horse Whisperer
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
Doctor Who: Cat's Cradle - Witch Mark
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

I also pick and choose bits of Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty, mainly when I'm watching the series because it's the scripts book.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: sixtieschick
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 05:01 PM

Them's who like Nevada Barr's books may also like those of Laurie R. King:

www.laurierking.com

The Kate Martinelli series features a contemporary female cop in San Francisco. "A Grave Talent" is the first book in the series. The Mary Russell series features a younger, Jewish, California-born, Oxford scholar sweetheart and then wife of ---Sherlock Holmes! Sounds dorky but it works. Each series is a hoot. King is a scholar/geek as well as a fantastic mytery/suspense craftsman (craftsperson?) so the books are quite unusual.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: DougR
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 03:33 PM

Yes, kat, I enjoyed "1916" too. I think she is a pretty good writer. "1921" promises to be good too. It carries the main characters who were not executed in "1916" forward. After "1921", I want to read he book, "1949."

I would be interested in any comments Irish Mudcatters might have about these books. Are they read and enjoyed there very much, or are they considered light-weight history?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: kendall
Date: 16 Apr 05 - 02:33 PM

Where do I keep my books? they are strewn from Hell to Hackney.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: open mike
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 10:57 PM

Just heard of another book today..
well recomended: the Four Agreements
by Ruiz. www.miguelruiz.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: wildlone
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 08:10 PM

Since moving to Wales I have put up 12 feet of bookshelving and 6 feet of shelving for cds and I still have not got enough space.
Added to that I had a small win on the UK lottery so I got a DVD player,yet more discs to store.
Do not ask about the vinyl.
dave

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 07:24 PM

I really like Barr's books, too. If you like them, you'd probably also like Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak mysteries in Alaska.

DougR, "1916" was really good!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: ranger1
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 07:07 PM

Yeah, Nevada Barr is up there on my reading list. I can identify with Anna, being a female park ranger of relatively short stature, and all. I've had to resort to re-reading them, 'cause I read faster than Nevada Barr can write 'em. As to the method in which my books are kept: on the shelves, in piles on the floor, in boxes in storage, behind the seat of my truck, under the couch, etc. I try to keep the ones on the shelves in some semblance of order, but chaos reigns in our teeny apartment. The only books that I manage to keep organized are the natural history books. They have pride of place in a wooden crate all their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: DougR
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 05:17 PM

We keep our books in our library. Doesn't everyone?

I just finished reading "1916", by Morgan Llywelyn, and am now reading "1921" by the same author. Books that I purchased recently and are on my reading list: "Taking Heat," Ari Fleischer;"The Plot Against America," Philip Roth;"When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops," George Carlin;"Night Fall," Nelson DeMille;'Bush At War," Bob Woodward;"The Right Man," David Frum;"The High Cost Of Peace," Yossef Bodansky, and "American Soldier," General Tommy Franks.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 03:46 AM

Liz - I have several systems:

Genre groups: Old German, classic German, modern German literature hardcovers in alphabetical order.
Author groups: German, English pocketbooks in alphabetical order.
Subject groups: Military history, regulations, fiction.
Academic and student history (chronological). Songbooks. Linguistics and dictionaries. Kalligraphy. Woodworking. Trains and engines. Firefighting (all in my studio).

So far they are placed in shelves. Since these are too small now, a lot of books are resting in boxes or on the floor.

Favourite books for frequent reading at my bedside or on a small shelf above my bed.

Encyclopedia and modern atlases in the living room, for easier access of the children.

Just finished a Didius Falco story: Ode to a banker. Started now to reread Lord of the Rings, interrupted by some Odes of Horace.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: open mike
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 02:59 AM

not yet, but it is on the list..
http://www.nevadabarr.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: sixtieschick
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 02:20 AM

LOVE Nevada Barr, open mike. Have you read the one that takes place in a cave? Scary as hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: open mike
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 10:56 PM

i have discovered the female mystery writer Nevada Barr who features a character, Anna Pigeon who is a Park Ranger (see ranger thread) and is solving mysteries in all sorts of situations....California Forest Fires, Gulf of Mexico island historical pirson turned park and wildlife sancturary....
also Terry Pratchett, The Wyrd Sisters, my first introduction to disc world.
Also the cow boy song book from the mud cat auction...The Whore House Bells were Ringing.
also 1040 tax forms....it is that time of year in the U.S.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Gorgeous Gary
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 08:27 PM

I'm rounding the final turn and heading into the homestretch reading "Jonathan Strange". I've been enjoying it. There's a portion of the story which takes place in Venice which I found cool since we were there last year on our honeymoon.

-- Gary

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 07:48 PM

LtS, it would be interesting to see whether people's stats have changed since this thread: How organised is your home library?!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: ranger1
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 07:27 PM

I just got back from a vacation spent mainly catching up on my reading. A couple of the more interesting books were:
- River, Cross My Heart, a novel about an African-American family in Georgetown, MD during the 1920s
- Running With Scissors, about a boy with a mentally ill mother who gives him to her shrink to raise (non-fiction). It was horrifying and hilarious at the same time.

I also read a lot of absolute fluff, because it is relaxing on the airplane.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 06:55 PM

Novels just get piled up, my history, poetry, biogs I keep neatly in order.

Re the Rebus novels, yes they are very popular in the UK and certainly in NZ judging by the complete set of titles in most book shops in Wellington when I visited there.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 05:53 PM

ALL OVER. Not got much space, that's part of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 05:48 PM

Threadcreep... where do you keep your books? Are they in any particular order or just all over the house?

I have mine in author groups, genre groups, and subject groups... and all the poetry is kept in the bathroom.

I used to be a library assistant... I guess I can't get out of the habit!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: kendall
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 04:56 PM

Just finished the DaVinci Code, and have now started on Sarum a novel of England.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Myrtle
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 04:39 PM

'Portrait in Sepia' by Isabelle Allende...wonderful, as all her books are, and I've just this minute finished 'Terra Incognita' by Sarah Wheeler which I really enjoyed and which had some interesting observations on the rather male dominated world of the Antarctic!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 04:37 PM

Oswald Spengler-"The Decline of the West"
John Barth- "Giles Goat-Boy"
Adam Smith -"The Wealth of Nations"
Douglas Hofstadter -"Gödel, Escher, Bach"
...analyses of Mandelbrot sets in Chaos theory
...and bits of Ayn Rand...




oh, insomnia will send us in strange directions...I can get thru maybe 4 pages of one of those before I'm out!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Gern
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 03:52 PM

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. I guess I missed it when it was trendy. Just finished Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, which was terrific.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Scaramouche
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 02:43 PM

She wrote the 'Birds" too. Became very bitter about Hitchcock's version.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 10:06 AM

'Lurchers and Long dogs' by Colonel E.G.Walsh published by Boydell Press. ISBN 0 85115 4026. A book of most excellent fancy if you are interested in hunting with dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: wildlone
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 10:00 AM

Just finished Tarbuck on showbiz, a very funny book of showbiz stories.
Books on the go, A l Lloyd, Folk Song in England.
Tom Vernon, Fat Man In Argentina.
Terry Pratchett. Pyramids.
I go to all the charity shops in my area looking for books [Cardiff, Newport and Caerphilly] yesterday I bought seven.
dave

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 08:58 AM

I too enjoyed Mila 18 by Uris... very powerful...

just read my first Ian Rankin book, "Fleshmarket Close", of the Detective Rebus series... quite good, may look into getting another... I was given the book as a gift, never heard of him before (I am in Eastern Canada) -- is he quite popular over in the UK?

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 08:57 AM

Just finished "Rule Britania", by Daphne du Maurier. The US invades Britian. Very strange. I'd assumed from Jamacia Inn she was a 19C writer...

Bunnhabhain

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Torctgyd
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 08:48 AM

Have just finished The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy and will start the new Flashman as soon as it arrives!

T

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 05:25 AM

I've recently returned from China so I'm particularly enjoying reading Peter May's latest Li Yan thriller "The Runner" set in Beijing during Olympic preparations.......don't tell me "who-did-it"!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Scaramouche
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 04:09 AM

Rupert of Hentzau has some good stuff in it. Funny, I just reread Royal Flash.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 10:44 PM

Susanna Clark's book info

Thanks, sounds good and the illustrations are great.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 10:18 PM

The latest was The Hearts of Three by Jack London. Ridiculous, overblown, and absurdly complex. Spielberg would love it. Befor that was Rupert of Hentzau, the sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda. Written for a variety of patriotism I can't understand. Good action novel, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: sixtieschick
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 08:09 PM

Guest. Allen: "Gross Indecency" was the milder of two criminal offences involving homosexuality. Queen Victoria introduced it as a lesser, more compassionate crime, incurring two years at hard labor for those convicted. (Only men were arrested for it, the belief being that women never comitted such acts.) The crime of sodomy, still in place at the time Wilde was accused, carried the death penalty.

I agree with you that Wilde was talking about the danger of losing one's soul to sensuality, but he seemed to me to be deeply ambivalent about the world of the senses; part of his own inner struggle, perhaps.

M.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 07:39 PM

'The Bounty' by Caroline Alexander. A very well researched book about the famous mutiny. I knew about Bligh's three experiences of mutiny before I read the book, but this one gives a huge amount of detail to the various people who played a part in the mutiny, the events leading up to it and the subsequent courts martial off Spithead. A great read.

'Command of the Sea' by N A M Rodgers, a history of the Royal Navy from 1670-the mid 1800's. He also wrote 'The Wooden World' which was a very detailed book about the Georgian Navy.

Plus for lighter reading still working my way throught the Rebus series of detective novels (set in Edinburgh) by Ian Rankin.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:51 PM

Actualy it's on the way sensuality denigrates if you lose your soul to it. Besides what he was accused of was homosexual relations, a criminal offence till the 1960s I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: sixtieschick
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:36 PM

Liz the Squeakette, I loved "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Wilde's serious writing is often underestimated--I think his cleverness and wit undermine the recognition of the depth of his soul. That novel is very moralistic and ultimately denigrates sensuality--from a man who was convicted of "gross indecency." Go figure.

M.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:36 PM

Art, when I was 13 and already an avid reader (see thread) I found Lady Chatterley's Lover in a orchard burn pile. (My family was there picking prunes) I took it home surreptitiously and pondered it mightily. A lot of it I couldn't understand but my general impression was that the gamekeeper's life was an interesting one. I didn't like Lady Chatterley nearly as much.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:27 PM

I finally got around to D. H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover"---and found it quite exceptional and well written. Great ideas and personal relationships within it are explored--as are graphic sexual situations that are very important to the plot line and the emotional appreciation of that plot. It was way ahead of it's time when it was written and banned from the U.S.A. THEN, it was simply accepted for the great work that it is. And now it is banned again and cursed at by... {DELETED BY THE SPIRIT OF COTTEN MATHER AS REINCARNATED IN GEORGE BUSH}.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:10 PM

Unless an author is very good at explaining them, modern sensibilities jar.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 06:05 PM

last book completed was "The 64 sonnets ( of Keats)". working on some SF and a tech writing textbook, now...

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: jacqui.c
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:54 PM

I liked that book sixtieschick - I've read quite a few of his that I enjoyed.

GUEST,Allen - You could be right - I'll reserve judgement until I've finished the set.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: sixtieschick
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:35 PM

"Mila 18" by Leon Uris. It's a novel about the Warsaw Uprising during WW II. Unbearably sad, but also an inspiring picture of heroism and the will to keep alive a culture and tradition beyond the certain death of the characters. Uris paints such a vivid picture that you feel you are present during each moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:26 PM

I always have a number of books scattered around the house, wherever I might land for awhile. I just finished 'Inside the Victorian Home' and 'Secrets and Mysteries,' and I'm still reading 'The Light of Conscience', 'Sun Signs and Soul Mating', 'The Vatican Exposed', 'French Women Don't Get Fat', and 'Doing Easy Time' (by a former prison warden). In addition I read the odd magazine and a couple of newspapers. If all else fails, I read the back of cereal boxes.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:22 PM

Best of the series is The Horse and His Boy.