BS: What do you read ?

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 03:44 AM

A bit of everything, and I usually have a dozen or more books going at once. At the moment Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography by Christine Quintasket, Omens of Millenium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams and Resurrection by Harold Bloom, and Golem in the Gears by Piers Anthony (a Xanth novel) are my most active reads.

Liland

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: celticblues5
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 02:44 AM

Oops! Forgot Nabokov, LeGuin, & Tanith Lee!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Janet Ryan
Date: 16 Jun 01 - 11:10 AM

I adore book list threads!

I'm a voracious reader, a writer, and a library maven. Like Julia & Bat Goddess, I have many piles, lists, etc. so here's how my "reading" currently works:

Brought home from the library last day of school for my "summer reading" pile:

"The Farming of Bones" by Haitian author Edwidge Danticat - about Haitian laborers in the Dominican Republic.

"Texaco" by Patrick Chamoiseau (trans by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokurov) - a novel about the "mythic history of the Creole nation of Martinique"

"Cloudsplitter" by Russell Banks - "recreation of the political and social landscape of our history (U.S.) before the the Civil War, when slavery was tearing the country apart"

"Blindness" by Jose Saramago (Portuguese winner of the Nobel for literature) - "A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one..."

"Solar Storms" by Linda Hogan - story of five generations of Native American women living in the Boundary Waters between Minnesota & Canada who are struggling to prevent a hydro damn from being built on the Canadian side

"Dreaming in Cuban" by ? My daughter is currently reading it. She stole it the minute I walked in the house with it--we're sort of Caribbean writer obsessed at the moment...

Currently reading:

In my office:

"Medieval Irish Lyrics with the Irish Bardic Poet" by James Carney

"Between Languages: the Uncooperative Text in Early Welsh and Old English Nature Poetry" by Sarah Lynn Higley

"Articulation: the Body & Illness in Poetry" edited by Jon Mukand

"The Long Pale Corridor: Contemporary Poems of Bereavement" ed. by Judi Benson & Agneta Falk

In the living room & dining room (often while eating)...

"Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe" ed by Ana Castillo

On the front porch since the weather warmed up & the rain wouldn't quit...

"Seven Life Lessons Chaos: Spiritual Wisdom from the Science of Change" by John Briggs & F. David Peat

"The Best Spiritual Writing of 1999" (I'm a few years behind!) ed by Philip Zaleski

Magazines, read here, there & everywhere--the bus, the drs office, waiting in line, etc...

Bon Apetit Utne Reader Booklist School Library Journal Poets & Writers Yoga Journal (and then don't do any!)

Cookbooks too numerous to mention

Ditto gardening books

Print & on-line newspapers/news organizations websites (I vary the sites and read a couple of them weekly, only read my local papers nearly-daily):

Mpls StarTribune Boston Globe Irish Times Irish News BBC RTE Indymedia - many sites around the world - excellent for following anti-globilation trotters! Derry People & Donegal News Minnesota Women's Press (feminist local) La Prensa (Latino local) The Circle (Native American local) Native American News (regional) Insight (African American local) Asian American News (local) Asian Pages (name?) (local)

The dictionary (many versions)

My horoscope (from a number of eclectic on-line sites)

AllRecipes.com (for dinner menu ideas for what's on hand in the frig)

And on the "to read" pile of authors: Sheri Tepper's novels overflowing from my daughter's & her dad's bookshelves -- another summer project is to read just one!

I won't go down the list of books I'm currently reading to the young 'uns, but I'm going to the bookstore today to buy "Richard Scary's Big Word Book" for my nephew's christening tomorrow.

It's a social disease, really...

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: bbc
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 08:58 PM

Said this in another thread, but by Austin Tappan Wright is an all-time favorite of mine--a really neat utopian novel (Sandy Paton likes it, too.)!

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Gareth
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 07:40 PM

Interesting - sorry I'm a compulsive reader, culling on a quick flick through the lists, Pratchett, O'Brien, Azimov, Shute etc. A quick count through the pile by my bed on fiction reveals 2 x Pratchet, 1 x Shute 2 x O'Brien, 1 x Larry Niven and 1 x C.S.Forester.

Could I recomend C.S.Forester, his book "The General" (published originally in the 1930's) is, I would warrant, the finest novel writen in the 1930's. Find it, read it, and understand it. You may understand where the songs like "Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire", or "Leap Frog" originated.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: bbc
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 07:40 PM

Sorry, mousethief, I could have *sworn* I wrote out the title--very unlibrarian-like of me! It is called . In answer to your question, when I saw that it was written by a man & by one person, I was skeptical whether it would represent the female perspective. I doubt if I'd be happier for it to be by one woman. At any rate, we've read several chapters & it does seem interesting & well-balanced. The blurb on the cover says, "Paul Joannides is a research psychoanalyst. This means he went to college for way too long. In addition to teaching, Paul writes a weekly colum for the Colorado Daily." If anybody reads it, I'd be curious to hear what you think of it. It's available on Amazon & Barnes & Noble. Looks cheaper on Amazon, unless there's hidden cost.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bearheart
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 07:17 PM

Wonderful to see so many favorites listed.

Used to be when my life was more laid back I read lots of serious,classic,or educational stuff.

These days relaxation is hard to come by. I mostly read Terry Pratchett (ok, really my husband Crow reads to me while I do beadwork or other crafty stuff-- a habit we formed when we were courting 20 odd years ago); Pratchett makes you think while you are laughing your ass off. We teach a small group, 2-week advanced shamanic healing course and Crow reads to the assembled throng in the evenings when we have some down time. We find that they learn a lot, especially from such gems as Reaper Man and Witches Abroad.

I also like Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series (by far the most interesting stuff she's done) and Tony Hillerman, really good fantasy (raised on the Narnia tales and the like, old habits die hard),Zane Grey (the only westerns I could ever abide-- but be selective-- you really can't beat his descriptions of nature), Shakespeare, Austin, Dylan Thomas, really good stuff on healing/metaphysics/astrology (including Mt Astrologer and anything by Liz Greene). My tastes are eclectic-- I'll read anything if the writing's good.

I'd read lots more if I had the time!!! Certainly the most interesting and useful of addictions!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: mousethief
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 05:53 PM

I'm curious, bbc: would you expect a book on sex by a woman to be more well-balanced than a book on sex by a man?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: mousethief
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 05:53 PM

bbc, what's the name of the book on sex by Paul Joannides?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: bbc
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 05:50 PM

Apropos to nothing--an interesting book on sex is by Paul Joannides. It is a $20 paperback of 700 pages. It is written by a man, but seems to have a pretty well-balanced viewpoint. Informative & funny, too. The family's reading it at the dinner table. I like the John Gray Mars/Venus books, too.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: bbc
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 04:32 PM

JudeL,

I think we're compatible. Here's some others (fantasy/scifi) to try--T.A. Barrons, Mary Brown, Jennifer Roberson, Joel Rosenberg, Raymond Feist. I like Jane Austen, too. Wonder if that means something?

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 12:11 PM

Anything by Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing In America being a perennial favorite...romanticism, whimsy, absurdness, and innocence all rolled into one neat little book.

Currently reading An Unfortunate Woman, published posthumously.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Gervase
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 11:34 AM

Kendall,
I read Tuesdays with Maurie a couple of months back and I was bowled over by it - a lovely, life-affirming, tear-jerker of a book. Good recommendation.
Tomorrow, though, everyone should make an effort to read either the first chapter or the last sentence of the greatest most life-affirming book ever written (IMHO).

Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Dancing Mom
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 11:13 AM

I eagerly anticipate the glorious day when I can pick up a book that is NOT a nursing textbook!!!! UUUUUGGHH!!!I'M SICK OF THIS STUFF!!! Okay, just needed to unload a moment, thanks. So I hear from hubby and kids that Harry Potter is very good. In my other life I enjoyed Ray Bradbury and Sharon Salzburg. But I think I'll start with something hot and trashy...yeah...any suggestions? Sharon

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Willa
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 02:45 PM

Like mousethief; words, words, words. Past/present favourites:
poetry,Pratchett,Wells,Asimov,SFshort story collections,Shute, Shakespeare, Austen, Kipling, Bradbury, Chesterton, Delderfield, Mitchener, Auel

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 10:29 AM

Caitrin, yes, I would definitely recommend Good Omens. It has just the right blend of Gaiman's great storytelling and Pratchett's sense of humour. Did you know it's being made into a film with Terry Gilliam directing. I can't wait!

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Jun 01 - 02:16 PM

Recently finished the Immortals series by Tamora Pierce. Great stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 13 Jun 01 - 02:15 PM

Amergin--Did you catch "Guns of the South"?? (Cover shows Lee with an AK-47 assault rifle.) The South wins in that one, but of course there are complications. I think that was the origin to the "alternative universe WW I" thing you're into. I've got my eye on that but haven't started it yet. Best alternative hist. short I ever read was called "He Walked Around the Horses." Napoleonic Wars never happened. Well done, I thought.

CC

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Jun 01 - 01:59 PM

Right now i've got bookmarks in:
A Lifelong Passion (eds.); letters and diaries of Nicholas and Alexandra and certain others;
The Fall of the Russian Monarchy by Sir Bernard Pares
Mary Through the Centuries by Jaroslav Pelikan
Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Caitrin
Date: 13 Jun 01 - 01:53 PM

*grins* Yeah, celticblues, Patricia Kennealy gets really kinda nuts about the Jim Morrison thing. I read her biography of him. It was interesting, to say the least. And Sharyn McCrumb's one I like a lot, too. I've only read her Spencer Arrowood/Nora Bonesteel novels, though.
And I'm now going to go out and get Good Omens, the Pratchett/Gaiman book. I've heard it recommended too many times not to now.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 13 Jun 01 - 09:42 AM

Peg - sorry. Should work this time.

Gaiman tour dates

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 13 Jun 01 - 12:14 AM

Bagpuss, that link for the Gaiman reading tour did not work!

Peg

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Amergin
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 11:45 PM

hey Chicken Charlie....I have been reading a bit of Harry Turtledove lately....especially that one series he is writing about the world war in the fatasy world....i absolutely love it...

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 09:48 PM

Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, Roger Zelazny, Harry Turtledove....

e.e. cummings, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens ...

H.G. Wells (the non-fiction), Edward Gibbon, Livy, and other chroniclers of Old Dead White Men....

Andre Sakharov, Vladimir Pozner...

Anything on the Tunguskaya Event (cosmic anomaly in Siberia, 1908); anything on the Titanic; anything (good) on Pearl Harbor ....

Anything on dog psychology, to understand my "children" better; No, you can't have the car keys to chase the cat; sit!

Charles H. Fort; Martin Gardner....

Any translation of Gilgamesh or the Tao Te Ching ....

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War; Official Records of the War of the Rebellion ....

Mudcat threads--my main source of illumination since Gandhi crossed over.

CC

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 09:10 PM

WOW! Thanks gnu, that's quite a plug! It's been in print for 20 years, and, it's still available. (Cheap too!)

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: gnu
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 05:50 PM

Read the best book I've read in years not too long ago. By a fellah name 'a Kendall Morse called "Stories Told in the Kitchen". ISBN 0-89621-064-2 (pbk.).

Thanks again wdyat12. You too, Kendall.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 04:52 PM

Have you read TUESDAYS WITH MAURY? I have a friend who is fighting A.L.S. and I dread to think of him in the last stages.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: chip a
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 04:44 PM

Mark Twain

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: death by whisky
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 03:33 PM

Just finished Edward Dalys "Hey Mister ar you a priest?" Started Kieth Floyds "Far flung Floyd"

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 03:23 PM

Right now I'm reading, and greatly enjoying "Inventing Mark Twain : The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens," by Andrew Hoffman - a biography of one of my great heroes.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 11:55 AM

My mention of "On The Road" with Charles Kuralt was somewhat tongue in cheek. I have an autographed copy, because I'm in it. Also appeared in the TV series of the same name. Why do I always end up sitting on those jagged ledges at Portland Head for TV films?

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: celticblues5
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 11:47 AM

Glad to see others have the (bad?) habit of reading several books at once! ;-)

SF, magical realism, literary fiction, mysteries, world folk&fairy tales, and non-fiction in general. SOME (but necessarily not all) specific faves - GGMarquez, Isabel Allende, Theodore Sturgeon, Sharyn McCrumb, Toni Morrison, Robert Silverberg, Kenneth Rexroth's Chinese poetry translations, Dave Barry, Merrill Markoe, Doug Adams, Shakespeare, Ngaio Marsh - too many to name!

[Glad to see John Dickson Carr mentioned. Several years ago, I organized a radio production of nine of his radio plays by our local community theatre group. It was a great experience - and his writing stands up so well over the years. So many of the radio plays from the same era are hopelessly dated (too nationalistic/overly-patriotic or too smarmily sentimental), but his are plot and character based, with few references to the time period, and with great twists at the end. They'll still be good in 500 years.]

A couple of the NF books currently on the towering stack by my bed - The Thyroid Solution by Ridha Arem (I'd recommend this to all the MC women - thyroid problems are way more prevalent among women, & many of them go undiagnosed), Shaman, Healer, Sage by Alberto Villoldo (an anthropologist studies with a South American shaman), and Ida Was a Tramp (NOT what you're thinking! ;-) It's the adventures of a guy on a tramp steamer).

Patricia Keneally, mentioned above, has a really funny website (apparently unintentionally) - she rants on and on about how she was the one true wife of Jim Morrison & rags on Pam a lot. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Caitrin
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 09:00 AM

Oo...a lot of people read some of the same stuff I do! Terry Pratchett (Yay Discworld!), Patricia Kennealy (Yay Keltiad!), Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's guide and Dirk Gently), and Robert Heinlein (Mostly the Future History novels and some of the short stories as well) are big favorites of mine, as are Mercedes Lackey (The Valdemar chronicles) and Isaac Asimov (The Foundation books).
A few more of my favorites: Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas pere, Langston Hughes, Shakespeare, Mary Jo Putney, Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurston, and Tom Stoppard.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 08:30 AM

The Delaware Valley here between PA and NJ is full of extreme religious nuts who are up in arms over the Harry Potter books, claiming they promote satanism. I bought the first of the series to see what the commotion was all about. It was great. Just finished the second one. These books are highly recommended. And, no, I still believe in God.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 07:30 AM

The Rosy Crucifixion.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 03:19 PM

Peg, Gaiman is about to start a reading/signing tour for his new novel (US, Canada and UK). The dates can be found here.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Grab
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 02:58 PM

Pterry Pratchett, Stephen Donaldson, William Horwood, Nevil Shute, Stephen King.

Tom Maddox's "Halo" is pretty good - I got the dead tree version, but it's available online on this link.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is available online on this link. Weird, but interesting.

Lots of Asimov but not recently - the concepts are nice but I realised a while back that the execution was rather bad.

Alastair Maclean is mostly trash, but "The Last Frontier" and "The Guns of Navarone" are great. Why he wrote such good stuff and then threw it all away to write rubbish, I'll never know.

Star prize has to be Neal Stephenson (aka Stephen Bury) though - Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon are great.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Jande
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 01:40 PM

Hmmm... the last few books I've read in the last month or so...

SF/F: The Unicorns of Balinor series ( Mary Stanton --8 books so far)[currently re-reading with James & Lissa]

Dolphins of Pern

Jane Yolan's Pit Dragon series (3 novels)

I, Robot (Asimov, of course)

The Naked Sun (also Asimov)[currently reading with James]

The Silmarillion (JRRT)[currently reading]

Everything I can get my hands on by Pratchett [Currently rereading Fifth Elephant]

The Star Wars trilogy (all in one paperback)

Anything by Hesperis!

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Angency (Douglas Adams)

HHGTTG (Douglas Adams)

Three Howard the Duck superhero comic books. ;`)

Non SF/F:

Trustee In The Toolroom (Nevil Shute)

No Highway (Nevil Shute)

Beyond the Black Stump (Nevil Shute)

The whole Brother Cadfael series (Ellis Peters --about 20 books?)

Poetry:

Ain't I a Woman? (Anthology by women from around the world)

Voices/Noises (Raphael Baretto-Rivera)

non-novels:

D&D Players Handbook ~ Third Edition

Teach Yourself Visual C++ In 24 Hours

Modern Recording Techniques ~ Fourth Edition

The Elegant Universe ~Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.(Brian Greene)[Current Bathroom Book]

We have three bathrooms. Every one of them is piled with Pratchetts. What a commentary on his work! [chuckle] I guess that's it for lately.. All I can remember anyway.

Another of my favourite series is "The Three Musketeers" about 6 books IIRC, including "Twenty Years After", "The Man In The Iron Mask". Brilliant, exciting books by Alexandre Dumas, as well as his Count Of Monte Christo but get that in it full unabridged version.

LOL! I just found an online copy of CoMC right here. 118 Chapters of it. (They also have the whole of Dickens' Bleak House, as well as others. Cool!)

I also love to reread "Les Miserables" (Victor Marie Hugo ~two books) from time to time.

Amergin, I'm grateful for the information about the "The People" anthology! Those books saved my life back when I was a tortured child. I only ever got "The People, No Different Flesh" and "The Anything Box".

It's great to see so many people here that read the same kinds of books that I do... Good thread, john in hull!

~ Jande

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 12:40 PM

Words, words, words.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JulieF
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 11:27 AM

Charmion - its great to find another Rebus fan. I have found that there comes a point in these books that you have to finish regardless of what needs washed or who needs fed. There again I am biased as I love the way he turns a corner and describes aplace a know very well.

All the best

Julie

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Charmion
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 11:11 AM

Lately, the entire Rebus canon by Ian Rankin; by chance, I started at the beginning and just cannot stop. I love detective novels; they always have the same plot, which gives a good author time and space to do complex variations on the whole Problem of Evil thing.

Looking at the posts in this thread, I am surprised that anyone can claim (as people keep doing) that, as a form of entertainment, The Book is dying or dead. Of course, the paperback novel is the only amusement that is totally portable, to bed, bath and loo; workstation, bus station and police station; hospital bed, barrack bed and flower bed (while weeding).

Mudcatters have listed authors I read thirty years ago and have hardly thought of since (Kenneth Roberts), and described the same kind of continuing campaigns to conquer impossible authors (J.F. Cooper, Laurence Sterne) that I have been engaged in all my adult life. Some day, I *will* finish Anna Karenina! I swear! Really!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 11:04 AM

Bagpuss;

apparently Gaiman is known for being very friendly and a regular guy. He came to Boston to do a reading benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I got to hang with him beforehand because I was doing an article, and he signed my copy of "Neverwhere" and posed for a pic with me. Later he was at a reception at a local pub where he signed peoples' books and talked with them; he even drew a great picture on one guy's leather jacket!

He is a great reader and very nice; I hope I can hear him read again some day.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:57 AM

Peg - now I'm jealous!! I'm a bit of a Gaiman fanatic. I own almost everything he has written, including the whole Sandman comic series.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:28 AM

Philip Pullman's trilogy Northern Lights, The subtle Knife , the Amber Spyglass. Fantasy novels, supposedly for children, but great for adults too.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:17 AM

I got to interview Neil Gaiman a couple years ago; very cool guy. I also got my picture taken with him.

I am too scattered these days to read much but I did just finish Charles de Lint's "Yarrow" and liked it a lot. He is one my favorite fantasy authors.

I also like A.S. Byatt, Alice Hoffman, John Updike, F. Scott Fitzgerald, W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, and lately getting into Dylan Thomas...

non-fiction: recently, Philip Heselton's Wiccan Roots, and Ron Hutton's Trumph of the Moon...

Magazines I read or peruse regularly: Harper's, Victoria, Mountain Astrologer, Alternative Healing, The Herb Quarterly

I also love old magazines and have quite a collection of Playboy from the '60s and '70s, bought for a quarter apiece from the main Harvard library...

Peg

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:08 AM

Clinton Hammond - Another Neil Gaiman fan!!!!! Have you read the online chapter one of his new novel American Gods yet?

Other faves are - Stephen Donaldson, Iain Banks, Douglas Adams, Irvine Welsh and lots of others who don't come to mind at the moment

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JudeL
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 09:07 AM

Thanks for the suggestions - I hadn't heard of the liam series and I needed to find someone new to read before I give in to temptation (again) and go buy the hardback editions of my fave authors instead of waiting for the paperback edn to be published.
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Midchuck
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 08:42 AM

Jude: Based on your list, I would make the following strong suggestions, if you haven't found them already:

1) Liad.

2) Belisarius. Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 07:53 AM

Again, my list above is waaaaaay too short to include all my favorites. And I have a bathtub book, a bedroom book, a book in the car, one at work for lunch breaks (when I was working for someone else), and a couple extras going (poetry and something too heavy for reading straight through) at any given time. Not to mention trade pubs and other magazines.

I've never actually managed to finish reading my favorite book of all time -- Lawrence Stern's Tristram Shandy. I get so wrapped up in the writing and the way words are strung together that I never seem to get past the first hundred pages. (The "hobby horse" monologue!) Then I have to start over the next time I pick it up and the same thing happens.

I've been trying to read it for over thirty years (and it's been next to my bed the whole while!).

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JulieF
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 07:15 AM

Yes , anything and quite often anything twice, just to see if it is just a bad as the first time.

Seriously though

History Science

Primo Levi

Terry Pratchett

James Joyce

Ian Rankin ( Crime Set in Edinburgh)

And many others

In the handbag at the moment :- English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

On the desk at work An Absolute Idiot's Guide to Windows NT and today's Independent

By the bed - Tacticus ( I think that's right - some roman historian anyway)

Jammed down the side of the sofa Eleanor of Acquitaine

Perched on top of the toilet .....

You get the general idea

All the best

Julie

We

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: hesperis
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 02:25 AM

Anything, (including cereal boxes,) when I'm really desperate for something to read.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:52 PM

Thanks for all your replies so far,some of the authors ive never heard of.If your favourite authors are a bit obscure can you tell us what sort of writing it is,ie crime,horror etc?I think my favourite author at the moment is Dean Koontz,ive read most of his stuff.I buy most of my books from charity shops,you can ofen find newish paperbacks for around 50p,its a good saving when new books are around 6-7 pounds.john

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: MarkS
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:34 PM

Hey, Jude (hmmm, wonder if that would work as a song title?) William Forstchen did the Lost Regiment series. Start with number 1, Rally Cry. But be careful, starting with this is like starting David Weber with "On Basilisk Station." Once you read one you will not be happy unless you read them all.
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: MMario
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 10:45 PM

whoa! Ingathering yes! gotta find it! gotta (re)read! Loved that series - hated the movie. (Shatner RUINED it!)

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Matt_R
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 10:42 PM

Charles Kuralt was from downhome Onslow County, NC, where I live on the weekends, and have spent 9 years of my life.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 09:54 PM

Charles Kuralt! What a great man. I have mentioned before, talking to him on the phone just a couple weeks before he died was a high point in my life.

Great book he wrote, and I loved Sunday Morning when he hosted it...

Charles Osgood is a bit of a buffoon...

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: kendall
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 08:23 PM

Try Charles Kuralts' On The Road.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 07:15 PM

I read once. It was truly terrible.

I've never made it past the first 2 chapters of any Dickens novel, but did read Keroac's 'On the Road' whilst laid out flat over Easter and couldn't work out why it was such an alleged epoch making book. Just me I guess.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:37 PM

William Cumpiano" Guitarmaking:Tradition and Technology". (A flawed book, but still worth reading). Tool catalogs from Garrett-Wade, Highland Hardware, Woodworkers Supply and Harbor Freight. Lithiery catalogs from Luthiers Mercantile and Stewart-MacDonald. "Acoustic Guitar" magazine.

Nothing too intellectually demanding, been there, did that in my schooldays.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:35 PM

Most of the above; also Sheri S. Tepper and her "alternate personas", Rita Mae & SqueakyPie Brown, Alice Walker, the backs of cereal boxes and encyclopedias when I'm desperate,lol!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: marty D
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:24 PM

WEll JF Cooper AND Lawrence are certainly up there for me, but that doesn't mean I UNDERSTOOD them. Read a lot of Kenneth Roberts when I was young. HE'S easy to read. Carl Jung on a rainy day, and Bret Harte anytime.

marty

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: lady penelope
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 03:59 PM

No, J.F. Cooper is mearly annoying, impossible is D.H. Lawrence, a man who never seemed to know if he was coming or going ( check out the harvest passage from "the Rainbow" ).

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JudeL
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 01:39 PM

Mark - Larry Niven I know & enjoy - but I don't recognise William Fortschen. Could you name me something he's written.
Re-reading back through the list I noticed a few more I missed out, Barbara Hambly, P.G. Woodhouse, Patric Tilley, Gerald Durrel , JRR Tolkien and Tom Sharp
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 12:50 PM

Nobody reads J.F. Cooper, it's impossible. Publishers know this, and all copies are printed with Chapter one followed by 500 blank pages. Really.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 12:41 PM

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy-- Hands down and by all odds!!!

When I was about ten, and my favorite author was probably Will James, my mother's favorite uncle gave me 'The Last Of The Mohicans' by James Fenimore Cooper. I spent the next thirty years trying to read that book, and never made it past the first chapter. I'd still be trying, but my mother passed on in 1956 and I no longer felt the desperate compulsion to read it out of respect to my elders.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:47 AM

Tied for the top spot in my personal favs list are
Guy Gavriel Kay
Neil Gaiman

Tack on another vote for Donaldson (some of it any way)
Raymond Feist
William Gibson
;-)

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:21 AM

Mudcat mainly. Rarely find time to read books these days but do like
Umberto Ecco
Flaubert
Stephen Donaldson
Trashy novels that don't make me think

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Matt_R (cookieless!)
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:09 AM

J.R.R. Tolkien
Anne McCaffrey

Technically, I haven't read anything in almost 2 years. But now that the new Pern book by Anne McCaffrey is out, I'm looking to get back into it!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Dorrie
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:03 AM

well at the moment media studies-new media technologys as i have an exam in it 2moro and i'm scared

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 09:43 AM

What ever looks good. History, as long as the author makes it entertaining. Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, P.G. Wodehouse, H.G. Wells, H. Ryder Haggard, Jules Verne, Victorian adventure novels. preferably with original illustrations, true organized crime (I think the Godfather and the Sopranos pale compared to the real thing), Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, cook books, comic strip collections, and once every two or three years I re-read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, probably the best book ever written in any language.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: MarkS
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 09:17 AM

Amergin - THANKS for your post. I had no idea the "People" series had been anthologized. Now off to Amazon to see if I can find it. Thanks again.

Jude - you have to add Larry Niven and William Forstchen to your otherwise super list of authors.
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 07:23 AM

Good threads you've started lately and I don't mean to always link something else, but we've talked of these things before and it's always worth a look to see what's been said around here. Here are some previous thoughts on the subject:

Best Books

Worst Book

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: lady penelope
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:45 AM

Just about all of the above and I will read Catherine Cookson if there's nothing else, as I have to have something to stop the voices in my head from taking over.......

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JudeL
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:31 AM

Anne McCaffrey, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth Moon, Mercedes Lackey, David Weber, Steve White, Tom Holt, Maggie Furey, Piers Anthony, S.M. Sterling, Katherine Kurtz, Patricia Kennealy, Julian May, Terry Brooks, Robert Heinlein, Stephen Donaldson, Frank Herbert and incongruous as it may appear Jane Austin.
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:41 AM

Almost anything. Mostly crime, Sci fi, legends, history (not historical.....), children's books - Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Moomins, Dark is Rising sequence - horror, plays, fantasy, biography (particularly like Gerald Durrell, Maureen Lipman and Spike Milligan), travel (Bill Bryson mostly) and classics and old school set books like Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, To kill a Mockingbird and so on.

I don't read Austen, Bronte's or Catherine Cookson. Euugh, ptooey....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Amergin
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 03:21 AM

i don't know i read a bunch of stuff.....though I am currently reading Ingathering (the complete stories of The People) by Zenna Henderson.....my mom used to have The People and the People: No Different Flesh and we both kinda wore those books out.....

Some of my favouritse (which do include her books) are the tolkien books....the narnia books...and the band played on....and so on and so forth....

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From:
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 02:48 AM

Some of these books are so beautifully written the writing distracted me from the story! ENJOY!

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Kristen Lavaransdatter by Sigurd Undsted The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard Time and Again - Can't remember The Raj Quartet - Can't remember Passage by Charles Jordan Song of Solomon - can't remember Woman Warrior - can't remember Ahab's Wife - can't remember Pigs in Heaven/The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Prince of Tides - can't remember The Living by Annie Dillard

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: flattop
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 01:46 AM

I bought Natalie Goldberg's 'Wild Mind, Living the Writer's Life' in The Eternal Moment Bookstore on Wednesday night so I would have something to read while eating in a restaurant before going to Fat Alberts. I shouldn't be caught dead in a place like The Eternal Moment Bookstore but Natalie, most famous for 'Writing Down the Bones,' is top drawer.

Here is a quote from the second page of the introduction: '... but reading a book about writing is different from actually getting down and doing writing. I was naive. I should have remembered that after I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I was still afraid to die.'

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,khandu
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 01:16 AM

The Bible

Mudcat threads

Dean Koontz

Gibrhan

Asimov

Harper Lee (1000 Xs)

Stephen King

palms

eyes

minds

backs of shampoo bottles and anything else I can get my hands on!

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 12:24 AM

Richard Halliburton
Ed Cray
Robert H. Rimmer
Spider Robinson
Robertson Davies
A.S. Byatt
Lois McMaster Bujold
Louise Dickenson Rich
John Gould
Naguib Mahfouz
Rumer Goden

the list goes on...

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: toadfrog
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 09:55 PM

Some favorites: Arundhati Roy
Stephen Jay Gould
Tim O'Brien
Thomas Wolfe
Patrick O' Brien
William Henry Dana

Subject: What do you read ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 09:37 PM

Some of my favourite authors are
Bill Bryson
Shaun Hutson
Steven King
Dean Koontz
Richard Layman
Gerald Seymour

What are yours?