Books: Latest books you are reading

16 Jun 05 - 07:07 PM (#1502577)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Uncle_DaveO

Day before yesterday I finished the current book, and discovered that I had nothing unread on hand. So, panicked lest I have withdrawal symptoms, I searched shelves and cabinets and discovered a treasure I had forgotten I owned: Smith of Wootton Major, by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is no 1,300 page behemoth like LOTR, but one of Tolkien's delicious fairy tales--not just for children, either!   I gobbled it down yesterday, weeping (I blush not to say it) at the appropriate places, laughing where indicated, and always marveling at Tolkien's masterful storytelling. I couldn't go to sleep last night before finishing it.

This morning I was faced again with withdrawal symptoms, so back to the bookcases. Another treasure I'd forgotten I had: All I really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum. Smash best-seller back in the 80s, and for good reason. Fulghum's book comprises many short articles/stories, two to four pages each in length, containing "Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things". Though I had read it say 25 years ago, only the first little article, which provides the book's name, rings bells of recollection, but Fulghum's penetrating and simple insights and delightful style are a pleasure to (re)visit.

If you haven't read All I Really Needed before, I urge that you go buy it, or run do not walk to your library for it. As a matter of fact, if you have read it, go buy it or run do not walk to your library for it and reread it! It's that good.    Simplicity and delight. Simplicity and delight. Laughter. Tears. Simplicity and delight.

(You might just gather that I like both these books.)

Dave Oesterreich

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17 Jun 05 - 12:56 AM (#1502757)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Peter Kasin

Recently finished two books.

"Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," by Geoffrey C. Ward. A biography of the heavyweight boxing champion and a portrait of America's attitudes on race in the early 20th-century. Ward is an exceptional writer.

"Songs of the Gorilla Nation," by Dawn Prince-Hughes. Autobiography of an anthropologist who is autistic; how she learned socialization through her contacts with a family of gorillas at the Seattle zoo. A total eye-opener about gorillas, and about Asperger's Syndrome.

Chanteyranger

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18 Jun 05 - 06:10 PM (#1503874)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Le Scaramouche

BTW read on some website that one of those Laurie R. King books has the rev Baring-Gould as a main character.

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18 Jun 05 - 08:14 PM (#1503956)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Firecat

Talking In Whispers by James Watson. It's about a boy who gets on the wrong side of the Chilean Junta.

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18 Jun 05 - 08:29 PM (#1503964)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: sixtieschick

" The Moor," by Laurie R. King, features the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, author of "Onward Christian Soldiers" and grandfather of Sherlock Holmes's "biographer," W.S. Baring-Gould. The plot centers around Dartmoor, the setting of Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

Big fun. King is a scholar-geek of all manner of esoterica, which she uses to great effect in her mysteries.

Miriam

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19 Jun 05 - 05:56 AM (#1504165)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: GUEST

"Uprising, 1944" by Norman Davies, a book about the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis (not to be confused with the equally courageous Warsaw Ghetto Rising of 1943).
The Polish Resistance rose against their oppressors only to be betrayed by their, so-called, allies. This book has confirmed my suspicions that all statesmen who engage in geopolitics are really psychopaths who couldn't give a toss about the chaos and suffering that they cause.

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19 Jun 05 - 06:27 AM (#1504176)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Jerry Rasmussen

The Art Of Happiness by the Dalai Llama. Recommended to me by one of mys sons.

No, this isn't a variation of the Bluebird Of Happiness written by Art Thieme.

Jerry

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19 Jun 05 - 07:29 PM (#1504614)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Shanghaiceltic

Hooray my copy of Mao:The Untold Story got past Customs & Snoopers. Started reading it last night, cannnot put it down.

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19 Jun 05 - 10:02 PM (#1504704)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Little Hawk

The Poles were betrayed by everybody, and they ended up with the highest per capita casualty rate in WWII.

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19 Jun 05 - 10:04 PM (#1504705)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Amergin

The final book in Stephen King's Dark Tower saga....

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19 Jun 05 - 10:15 PM (#1504712)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River

"HOw to Get Sex in Sudbury on a Saturday Night" by Uriah Cringeworthy.

This book is useless, eh? I read it and tried every thing just like the guy said, eh? Nothin' worked. I want my flippin' money back!

- BDiBR

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19 Jun 05 - 11:24 PM (#1504751)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Moved on from Ol Nat -- to Samuel Langhorn Clemmons Life on the Missippi a delightful read - humorous and educating. If you have ever canoed/kyaked rivers/streams the section on "reading the river" will be very visual. Landlubbers are clueless.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

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20 Jun 05 - 01:34 AM (#1504778)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: robomatic

From the East Side of the pond:

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" Mark Haddon

An autistic person attempts to solve an apparent crime.

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

Insight into Afghani life in modern times.

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20 Jun 05 - 01:38 AM (#1504782)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: GUEST

October

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20 Jun 05 - 03:52 AM (#1504835)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Peter Kasin

I read The Kite Runner last April, robomatic, and loved it. What a fine book that is. Highly rcommended.

Chanteyranger

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20 Jun 05 - 07:20 AM (#1504921)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: 42

Well, after avoiding the Da Vinci Code forever because of all the hype, a friend lent me a copy.

How disappointing - I guessed all the clues before the characters and ended up feeling quite proud of myself. It's a pretty good yarn if you like detective stories. Probably make a decent movie.

I'll stick to Ruth Rendell though.
j

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05 Jul 05 - 11:27 AM (#1515410)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: jacqui.c

Just started 'The Mists Of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

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05 Jul 05 - 11:53 AM (#1515438)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: Le Scaramouche

Captain Blood.

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05 Jul 05 - 10:44 PM (#1515692)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: The Fooles Troupe

Howard Goodall's "Big Bangs - the story of 5 discoveries that changed musical history" - follows on from the original BBC TV doco.

Very good for both musos & non-musos in explaining some very basic things in western music & why they are so, and why this makes western music different from other types such as Oriental & Arabian, etc.

Random House ISBN-0-7011-6932X

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05 Jul 05 - 10:53 PM (#1515701)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: LilyFestre

I'm reading something called Weeping on Wednesdays...some kind of English mystery novel....I'm not liking it. It's one of those books where I think to myself....give it some time...it will start to click together.....it will....sooon...I swear....AW CRAP WHY DID I WASTE MY MONEY ON THIS USELESS PIECE OF CRAP?!?!!?!?!? Tjhan I thihnk...ahhhh yes.....the church is havihg that lovely event called a yard sale....I can get rid of it, hopefully someone else will find the book to be a steal and the church makes a little cash for my blundering efforts in picking out a good book. Not that I do this but sometimes I am much more drawn to the cover of a book tnan to it's insides. I think the covers should be all the same.....yeagh....that way I don't end up with a wonderful cover and a boring book. :P

Michelle

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05 Jul 05 - 10:54 PM (#1515704)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: John Hardly

Odd Thomas, Life Expectancy -- Dean Koontz

Garden Of Beasts -- Jeffrey Deaver

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06 Jul 05 - 07:13 AM (#1515954)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: *Laura*

'The Handmaid's Tale' - Margaret Atwood

very good - but as the review on the back says - I only hope it's not prophetic!!

xLx

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06 Jul 05 - 01:46 PM (#1516326)
Subject: RE: BS: Latest books you are reading
From: belter

The other week I read a couple of books from Ann McCafree's Pern series. The Skies of Pern, and Narilka's Tale. I admire her ability to tell a story from the point of view not only of someone else, but of someone from an entirly different culture. But does it seam like her nonconformist are always bad guys?

Then I read a Falling Stars by Michael Flynn. Its a nearterm futcher sci-fi about efforts to save the world from astroids sent by aliens. It was a fairly realistic, and interesting story, but it started very slow with political manuvering to get funding. (no noubt a neccesary evil), and ended slow.

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