BS: Read any good books lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 02:21 PM

Amos, I just recently read The Forger. Thanks for recommending it!

I've read several others, recently, and esp. liked Forty Words for Sorrow by Canadian author Giles Blunt; well-written and suspenseful. Also just finished a novel, By A Spider's Thread, by Laura Lippman, a former journalist. I enjoyed it, too.

I am looking forward to one on order: Daisy Bates in the Desert : A Woman's Life Among the Aborigines (Vintage Departures) by author Julia Blackburn. "In 1913, at the age of 54, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. Brilliantly reviewed, astonishingly original, this "eloquent and illuminating portrait of an extraordinary woman" (New York Times Book Review) tells a fascinating, true story in the tradition of Isak Dinesen and Barry Lopez."

Speaking of Barry Lopez, I've now read two of his books and really LOVED Crow and Weasel!!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: heric
Date: 15 Mar 09 - 04:47 PM

Kidnapped (Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751.) It's brilliant and suspenseful, so I'm already distraught it's going to end. Sequels don't sound equal, so I guess I'll go get Weir of Hermiston.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 03:01 PM

IT looks really good. I shall go get it, too. Thank om!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 02:56 PM

Oh thanks open mike I had forgotten I was told to read Three Cups of Tea already, and will go get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: open mike
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 02:39 PM

book on tape (c.d.) School Days by Robert Parker...about a school shooting

also a c.d. ... Tony HILLERMAN....Skinwalkers-- i love Tony's books.
he passed away this year.

now on Tyranosaur Canyon, by Douglas Preston a mystery involving moon rock samples and new mexico desert prospectors and treasure hunters.

also plan to soon read (or listen to) Three Cups of Tea by Greg MORTENSON. Thhis has been designated the "book in common" in this county and many classes, and groups are reading it...see here for more:
www.threecupsoftea.

also am reading Libery Falling by one of my favorite authors...Nevada Barr.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 02:15 PM

Yikes, heric. I hope he knows to remain put and not try to hike out or anything, if applicable.

Rowan, thanks for the further information. Now, when you spend 14 months there??!!! Do tell!? Pretty please? Separate thread? I'd love to hear more!

Just finished the Jackie's Nine book. It was very inspiring and a quick read. I learned more about him, not just in baseball, but also how he helped the Civil Rights movement, etc. Good, good man!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 01:27 PM

(My son was supposed to return today from snow camping, but he is trapped in a storm. This is southern California. (No worries).)

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Rowan
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 11:45 PM

Mawson's own writings are not to be missed. I'm currently getting though the verion of his diarising and field-note-taking edited by Fred Jacka and his missus (I apologise for not remembering her name.

As an aside, Mawson made it back to Commonwealth Bay just as the ship disappeared back to Oz and wasn't able to return until the following spring. Mawson and those who stayed and waited for him lived on hard rations for that extra winter. Even now mainland ANAREs take down a year's supply of food, stash the nonperishables and then consume the noperishables brought down by the previous group. And, in my 14 months there, there were no "Use by" or "Best before" dates to keep us from getting stuck into good tucker.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 11:23 PM

Thanks, heric. From that, I may give them both a try. There were times, in Wyoming, when it felt as though we came close to those conditions, though, of course, we never had the all-out blackness of night and day and the wind chill only brought it down to fifty below.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 07:43 PM

No, kat, I wish I'd known about it and had it handy. I don't usually re-read stuff. Those polar guys tended to be broadly educated Renaissance types, capable of powerful prose. There are only sparse quotes:

"The actual experience is something else. Picture drift that blots out the world, that is hurled, actually screaming with energy, through space in a 100 mile an hour wind. When the temperature is below freezing. Those are the facts. But then shroud these infuriated elements with polar night and a plunge into such a black-white writhing storm is to stamp on the senses an indelible, awful impression seldom equalled in the whole gamut of natural experience. [The world became a void], fierce, grisly appalling; a fearful gloom in which the merciless blast was an incubus of vengeance that stabbed, froze, and buffetted intruders with the stinging drift that choked and blinded."

From that, I would guess that the book in Mawson's own words is a good risk.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 06:41 PM

heric, I see they have reprinted Douglas Mawson's own book The Home of the Blizzard. Have you read it, too? If so, which would you recommend of the two? The one Mawson wrote sounds as though it covers much more of his time, in general, there, than the other. I might wind up reading both. Thanks for posting about it!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: heric
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 05:31 PM

I'm reading Mawson's Will again - an Antarctic expedition in 1912. It keeps occurring to me that this would be great escapist reading for our Australian kin these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 05:20 PM

An entertaining book by Jeffrey Archer (first one I've ever read of his. Didn't know he was such a political etc. animal!) called As the Crow Flies.

Also, just finished Sign of the Labrys by Margaret St. Clair. An extraordinary book!

Just started Jackie's Nine about Jackie Robinson, written by his daughter. VERY inspirational.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 09:03 PM

Taken with me today for subway reading: _The Practical Cogitator: The Thinker's Anthology_ by Charles P. Curtis, Jr., & Ferris Greenslet (1950; first browsed in by me, ca. 1957). A great variety of stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 04:20 PM

Second reading (ten years after the first - and it is almost spooky scary how the past decade has confirmed her observations) I have gotten much, much more out of it this time

God Has Ninty-Nine Names: reporting from a militant Middle East by Judith Miller, Simon and Schuster, 1996.

As a professional newspaper reporter she interviewed the highest of levels of Islamic leadership from Israel, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan. This is her recounting of the fanaticism that fans the flames of the mid-east.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 04:07 PM

I've just finished "Band of Brothers' and started "The Wild Blue" - both by Stephen Ambrose. Both are about Americans experiences in World War 2.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: heric
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 03:40 PM

I just finished Revolutionary Road which I had to buy because of the enormous critical acclaim insisting he's the best author since sliced bread. Didn't work for me, but that's how it goes.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: john f weldon
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 11:29 AM

Fresh off the press: "Payback" by Margaret Atwood. Not a novel this time, a lecture on the subject of debt, defined very broadly. As usual, she's a humourous, charming, knowledgeable, fun read. Her discussion about Millers in folk songs will ring true for many folkies.

I'm in the middle of a graphic novel about Staggerlee, a semi-fictional, semi-factual treatment. Most interesting are the notes which talk about the actual known characters involved in Lee Shelton's shooting of Billy Lyons in St Louis, Christmas Eve, 1895.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Jan 09 - 08:53 PM

Joe - Googling "laissez-faire" one gets this Wikipedia entry. I guess all the Reagan people did was to bring it back from the dead.

    "The exact origins of the term "laissez-faire" as a slogan of economic liberalism are uncertain. The first recorded use of the 'laissez faire' maxim was by French minister René de Voyer, Marquis d'Argenson, another champion of free trade, in his famous outburst:[1]...."

    "According to historical folklore, the phrase stems from a meeting c. 1680 between the powerful French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a group of French businessmen led by a certain M. Le Gendre. When the eager mercantilist minister asked how the French state could be of service to the merchants, Le Gendre replied simply "Laissez-nous faire" ('Leave us be,' lit. 'Let us do').[2]"

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Jan 09 - 08:21 PM

Riginslinger: The book was written in 1947 and published in 1948; it was already (in)famous by the time I got hold of it. The laissez-unfair religion from which Wiener was dissenting was a good deal older than the Reagan's economic geniuses.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 10 Jan 09 - 07:11 AM

Kats, It will be a lesson to anyone who ever doubted England`s role in Ireland, a horror story, an eye-opener for the doubters.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 11:11 PM

Fifty-five years ago would be 1953. Reaganomics and the supply-side buffoons hadn't happened yet. I think the GI Bill was passed in 1954--could be wrong--but it seems like the last time that mode of thinking was in vogue would have been prior to the crash of 1929. All of that taken into account, it seems like the writer was thinking way ahead of his times.
                Of course, now we are living with the reality of the failure to heed the warning.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Joe_F
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 10:10 PM

I have recently been browsing in Norbert Wiener's _Cybernetics_, which warped my mind when I was in highschool 55 years ago. It is a very uneven book, and I still find the mathematical parts largely incomprehensible. However, the first chapter, "Newtonian and Bergsonian Time", is a charming comparative history of philosophy & technology, and the last, "Information, Language, and Society", contains the following timely remark:

"There is a belief, current in many countries, which has been elevated to the rank of an official article of faith in the United States, that free competition is itself a homeostatic process: that in a free market, the individual selfishness of the bargainers, each seeking to sell as high and buy as low as possible, will result in the end in a stable dynamics of prices, and [will] redound to the greatest common good. This is associated with the very comforting view that the individual entrepreneur, in seeking to forward his own interest, is in some manner a public benefactor, and has thus earned the great rewards with which society has showered him. Unfortunately, the evidence, such as it is, is against this simple-minded theory...."

His technological prognostications are sometimes quaint, but the following one in the introduction, on the likely consequences of what we now call automation, seems more sensible to me than it does to most people:

"...Of course, just as the skilled carpenter, the skilled mechanic, the skilled dressmaker have in some degree survived the first industrial revolution, so the skilled scientist and the skilled administrator may survive the second. However, taking the second revolution as accomplished, the average human being of mediocre attainments or less has nothing to sell that it is worth anyone's money to buy.

The answer, of course, is to have a society based on human values other than buying or selling...."

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 12:39 PM

Just starting "Double Homicide" by Jonathan and Faye Kellerman. Should be an interesting read as I usually love his stuff and hate hers. We'll see how this one goes. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 12:35 PM

ard mhacha, I recently read the book you recommended, To Hell or the Barbados. Opened up my eyes. I knew things were bad in Ireland, but I did not know some were sent to slavery in the Caribbean. Not so sure I want to claim my old ancestor after reading that! Thanks for telling us about it.

I am re-reading Bundori by one of my fav. authors, Laura Joh Rowland.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 08:22 AM

It works very well in today's society, maybe because he was Polish.

??????

...................

I've just read Barack Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father. I think that must be the first time I've ever read a whole book by a politician.    of course he wasn't quite a politician when he wrote it. A pretty remarkable book - I can only hope he lives up to what it seems to promise.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 05:24 AM

Just finished, Liberation: Europe 1945 by William Hitchcock, Hitchcock`s 446 pages read exposes the Allies as no better in lots of cases than there foes.
The countless thousands of eastern refugees who were handed over to the Soviets the majority of whom disappeared into forced labour camps to die in there thousands. Well worth a read,it is all there, the unnecessary bombing of the German cities when the war was coming to an end, the author opens a hidden chapter in the liberation of Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 03:33 AM

I've just noticed the negative responses above to Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. I have to disagree. I think it's an absolutely wonderful series which presents real moral dilemmas and an alternative view of "God" which probably works better for those of a more agnostic bent. Someone said they felt he had an axe to grind. I didn't think that at all, though he clearly feels strongly about some of the deeper messages of the books. But I thought the stories were beautifully conceived and absolutely magical. Anyway, proselytising through children's literature is accepted in something like Narnia, which is one long Christian allegory - no one accuses CS Lewis of having an axe to grind. If anything, Pullman is the anti-Lewis; he undermines certain ideas about Christianity through the same medium that Lewis promoted them. Oooh, a battle for our children's souls! To be honest, my daughter loved Narnia when she was litte, but didn't really get on with His Dark Materials. But she's still an agnostic. :)

"The most notable quality of Pullman is the total lack of humour, quite the opposite of JKRowling."

Actually, the most notable quality of Pullman in comparison to JK Rowling is his ability as a writer. His Dark Materials is far more sophisticated writing, both conceptuially and in execution, than Harry Potter. I find a lot of Rowling's writing creaky and forced, especially after the third book. The overall story arc often works very well indeed, but there are too many convenient plot devices, and predictable twists, and, perhaps most importantly, I stopped believing in the characters (and especially a lot of the dialogue) from about book 5 - 7. She seemed to do better with them when they were little kids.


Aaaaanyway, someone reccommended William P Young's The Shack earlier. I could not disagree more. Absolutely cringeworthy, dreadful stuff. Grade-school theology - patronising, contrived, exploitative...as one of my friends was wont to say, the book contains "hidden shallows". IMHO.

So - on to the reason I came onto this thread! Has anyone read Affluenza, by Oliver James? They were discussing it on Book Club on Radio 4 last week and I thought it sounded really interesting. I thought I'd see whether anyone here has any views about it...

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 09 - 12:00 AM

Bee, I did not know it at the time, but if so, truth is as strange as fiction. The novel creates the scene most skillfully.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 Jan 09 - 10:21 PM

Novella - Re-read Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness," starting on "Secret Agent." It works very well in today's society, maybe because he was Polish.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 09 - 11:05 AM

For the curious, like me: Review of Anathem. Sounds challenging and good!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Midchuck
Date: 08 Jan 09 - 10:19 AM

Robomatic: I just finished Anathem. I hear where you're coming from. The first half or so took a long time to get through. I read the second half in a couple of evenings. It's worth the work, IMO.
Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 08 Jan 09 - 08:41 AM

I've just finished reading Dawn French's autobiography and it's excellent and very funny. I got load of books for xmas including Nation by Terry Pratchett who has to be my favourite author. Also got The Folklore of the Discworld and The wit and wisdom of the Discworld on the pile to be read.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 01:55 PM

The Guards followed by The Killing of the Tinkers written by Galway man, Ken Bruen. Dark, edgy, and very well written.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Bee
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 01:52 PM

Amos, that preview hooked me. Isn't the plotline based on a true story; a real forger who claimed (when charged with forgery, if I recall rightly) to be forging art to fool Nazis?

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Amergin
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 01:43 PM

I am reading a book called Recalling the Good Fight, an autobiography of the Spanish Civil War by John Tisa, who was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 01:20 PM

IF you can get your hands on a 2001 novel called The Forger,by Paul Watkins do so. It is beautifully written and brilliantly conceived.
Preview available here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Bee
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 12:06 PM

Just finished reading Gregory Maguire's Son of a Witch, sequel to Wicked, both of which my brilliant 19 year old neice gave me. Not for everyone, but I really enjoyed both books, and they really helped me come to terms with my deep-seated distaste for the 'heros' of the original Wizard of Oz.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 08:53 AM

I have just come off my annual Jane Austen binge and am now reading The End of History and The Last Man by Fukyama. It is a very thought provoking book and I will have to re-read much of it as I find it very complex in places. However, it does make one take a long look at the concept of liberal democracy and why so many people aspire to it as a national state of being.
   I have also re read North and South by Mrs. Gaskell and find an amazng parralell between it and the Fukyama book, although they are a hundred years apart and one is non fiction and the other a novel.
    I am always pleased when someone reactivates this thread..lots of interesting opinions and many suggestions for good reads. Thanks all.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Janie
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 12:24 AM

Currently reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, who also wrote The Kit Runner. It is as good and insightful, if not even better.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 11:29 PM

I'm trying like hell to get into "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson. I find it slow going. So was easily diverted to Tony Hillerman's "Fallen Man" which is delightful as is almost everything he's written, and plan to be diverted next to "State Of Fear" by Crichton since it relates to a class I'm attending, re: Global Warming.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: maire-aine
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 07:54 PM

Conscience of A Liberal by Paul Krugman,

and

The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever by Cass R. Sunstein

Regards,
Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 07:37 PM

Just about finished with Pillars of the Earth by Follett. Excellent.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Jan 09 - 07:26 PM

A new author, to me: Barry Lopez. I've read two of his, recently: Winter Count and Crow and Weasel. I highly recommend both, but preferred the latter which also has brilliant illustrations. Beautiful, incredible writing and stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: DougR
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 07:18 PM

Yep. BUFFALOed, by Fairlee Winfield. It's available at Amazon.com and I wrote a review for it on Amazon.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 06:40 PM

Loved King Solomon's Mines, years ago! Also loved Razor's Edge. Another of my favs, by Talbot Mundy is King of the Khyber Rifles. I started out with a Classic Illustrated comic of it and went on to the book. Great, fun stuff, long before Indiana Jones was a spark in his daddy's eye.:-)

Just finished In the Company of Cheerful Ladies. Another great No. 1 Ladies' Detective.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Rowan
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 05:53 PM

Galadriel in spots?

Now, that's a concept that'd exercise some lads' minds.

Cheers, Rowan
Whose daughter #1 has developed a taste for Agatha Christie so I've been collecting for her at the monthly Sunday Markets 'til she gets back from swanning around Europe with her mum. And I have to check out their plots before I give them to her. Of course!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:08 PM

Reading a hard cover H. Rider Haggard compilation I picked up at a book sale for a buck. Contains the stories "King Solomon's Mines", "She", and "Alan Quatermain". Good old adventure stories, if a bit dated, imperialistic, geographically impossible and politically incorrect.

I am most of the way through the 2nd one, "She", now and it occurs to me to contain bits that Tolkien might have adapted/borrowed. The English gentleman's gentleman Job has an attitude and dialogue that sounds quite a bit like Sam Gamgee. And "She" reminds me of Galadriel in spots, with her longevity, powers, and psychic ability; she also has a container of water that lets her view things clairvoyantly.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 06:02 PM

When I was young, I was in a really bad accident at work.
Confined to bed, someone gave me a copy of "Time and again" by an American author called Jack Finney. It was about travelling back in time, a fictional project funded by the US Govt and based in the Dakota building overlooking Central Park in New York City.

Over the years, the story stayed in my mind, although I forgot the book title and author's name, but a couple of weeks ago, I found the book at a car boot sale and I have read it again with much pleasure.

It still has the same effect on me that it had all those years ago

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 03:08 PM

For those enjoying the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, there is a neat video of the author Sandy McCall Smith in Scotland and Botswana, as well as a short bit with Ian Rankin HERE. Well worth watching with a lot about his motivation for writing the books, etc.