BS: Read any good books lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Apr 08 - 05:53 AM

The Book of Lost Books, An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read, by Stuart Kelly, a look at the works of notable authors that have been lost, destroyed, or never completed over the course of history.


from Homer to Shakespeare to ....

I loved it, tho some professional reviewers didn't

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Flash Company
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:14 PM

Just finished 'London in the 20th Century' by Jerry White, Excellent , the man has a marvelous turn of phrase and produces some very pithy comments on folk we all know.
Think I may start all the Discworld books from the beginning again.

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 03:19 AM

Recently put "Pillars of the Earth" safely out of reach after swearing through 250 pages... I've seen kids do more realistic character studies with cardboard cut outs pasted onto popsicle sticks...

Enjoyed about half of "An Unfinished Life" a JFK biography... I'll get back to it soon.

Just finished "Robinson Crusoe"... and loved every word... even though many of them are considered 'archaic'...;^) After I had finished it I happened to glance at the back cover, and noticed it said "...has been praised by such writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Johnson as one of the greatest novels in the English language".

Rousseau happened to like it heartily too.

Just got a biography of Aldous Huxley... and I'm going to start reading it in about 5 minutes.

ttr

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 10:11 PM

"Almost finished with "Chance" by Robert B. Parker. It's one of his Spenser books. I love his stuff because it's an extremely easy read and very entertaining."

                     I can read anything by Robert B. Parker, but I've never been able to figure out just what his appeal is. I think it has a lot to do with the pace of the novels. Each chapter starts out with a new setting, so all of the narrative that would be devoted to getting from one place to another is bypassed. And he can be funny; that helps. I finished reading "Now and Then," a while back.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: autolycus
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 09:32 AM

Also been enjoying dipping into a splendid dictionary - Grumpy Old Wit, assembled by Rosemarie Jarski.

Samples

If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk. (Joan Rivers)

These days, I favour older men. They don't have such awful taste in music.   (Jerri Hall)

Don't trust anyone whose job was created after 1990. (anon)

(Oscar Levant justifying a speeding ticket) You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony and go slow.

The devil must be an optimist if he thinks he make people meaner. (Karl Kraus)

One of the b i g weaknesses of the male sex is just being completely unable to see through beauty.   (Candace Bushnell)

President Nixon's motto was if two wrongs don't make a right, try three.   (Norman Cousins)

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes,working jobs we hate,so we can buy shit we don't need. (Chuck Palahniuk)


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Amergin
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 12:43 AM

The best of Penthouse Letters....

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 07:36 PM

I've not read anywhere near all of them...but I'm working on it!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:47 PM

I love the Spenser books, in fact I've read 'em all.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:42 PM

Almost finished with "Chance" by Robert B. Parker. It's one of his Spenser books. I love his stuff because it's an extremely easy read and very entertaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:24 PM

Docherty by William Mcllvanney.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: autolycus
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 04:59 PM

Recently started Flat Earth News by journalist Nick Davies.

it's a criticism of the failings of the Anglo-American media.

The media criticise all and sundry. But does dog eat dog. If the mass media are criticised, where would you expect to know about it? In the mass media? You see the problem.

So the book is discussing the source of most of our info,much of our opinions. So that source must, itself, be examined.

Early on, he says, to the effect, most journalists don't usually know what they're talking about.


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 08:13 AM

The Tale of Genji - Legends & paintings. intro by Miyeko Murase

One of Japan's greatest literary masterpieces is brought to life through 54 colorful and detailed images that each illustrate one chapter of the novel.

It's a very beautiful book - & much easier to read that the 1168 page translation I have owned for at several years & not yet started.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:00 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Jim Martin
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 06:51 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Jim Martin
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 09:10 PM

Patricia Lynch:
http://www.catholicauthors.com/lynch.html

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Jim Martin
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 08:38 PM

Just started re-reading 'The Boy at the Swinging Lantern' by Patricia Lynch (an internationally popular Cork, Eire author) which I originally read and enjoyed very much when a child 50 odd years ago. It tells of the fortunes of a boy on leaving school in the 1950's rural Ireland, very nostalgic! Sure sign of getting old, I suppose!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:03 PM

All I can suggest, John, is that you persevere with The Eyre affair. I didn't find it a satire but the literary jokes and references definitely come thick and fast and there is a fair amount of lampooning going on. You're right about The big over easy but. although it and The fourth bear stand outside The Eyre affair sequelae there are crossreferences made.

If you've seen Jane Eyre on film or telly you've already got enough to pick most of the references in Fforde's books. And you should see what he does with Miss Haversham.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Kim C
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:54 PM

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:39 PM

Rowan, I found Fforde's, 'The Big Over Easy,' really entertaining. I'll never quite think of nursery rhymes in the same way. I quit on 'The Eyre Affair' about 50 pages in. But I must confess to having never read nor seen Bronte's original, so it I did not have a feel for the satire.

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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: fat B****rd
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 03:48 PM

'Strange Loyalties' by William Mcllvanney.

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: 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: 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: GUEST,Cluin
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 01:59 AM

Rumpole and The Reign of Terror

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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 05:27 PM

Out Stealing Horses

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: Becca72
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:50 PM

Currently reading "Mortal Causes" by Ian Rankin.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 02:20 AM

Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel

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