Books: Current reading list - any good books?

Subject: Current reading list - any good books?
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 11:54 AM

I have just finished a couple of really interesting books and thought I'd share them with you and ask you to share what you are currently reading or have just done. Who knows, someone might get some good holiday gift ideas from this, too.:-)

Just finished Calculating God by Rovert J. Sawyer. It's a Nebula Award winner, the author is Canadian and it takes place mostly in Toronto. From the synopsis:

Both alien races believe this (the same cataclsymic events happening on their two worlds as happened on Earth, at the same time) proves the existence of God: i.e., He's obviously been playing with the evolution of life on each of these planets. Aliens from both planets land at a museum in Toronto and basically say take me to your paleontologist, who helps them investigate Earth's evolutionary history. From there, Sawyer tells a fast-paced, morally and intellectually challenging science fiction story...

There's much more to it than that. It is well-written and very thought-provoking to read.

Another I just finished in The Angel is Near "created by" Deepak Chopra and Martin Greenberg. Parallel times, multiple choice scenarios for the characters as they confront a saga of good and evil in an ultimate contest. Deceptively simple in its writing, this one is also very thought-provoking.

Currently working on:

Kindred Spirit: How the remarkable bond between humans and animals can change the way we live by Allen M. Schoen, D.V.M., M.S. also author of Love, Miracles, and Animal Healing. Haven't read the latter, but will based on the former. It is really incredible!

Spirit Horse recommended to me by a Mudcatter who is friends with the author, Ned Ackerman. This is a young adult book of a classic theme, a young Native American boy proving himself through adversity and a spiritual connection to the Spirit Horse. Very well written and a great read. The descriptions are beautiful.

Net Force-CyberNation "created by" Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik and written by Steve Perry. VERY interesting, I am only a little way into it, but bascially it is the year 2012, the government has a branch of the FBI called Net Force which is charged with keeping the WEB safe, up and running, etc. CyberNation is a group of savvy computer geeks and people all over the world who believe they can create a country which exists only in cyberdom and they aim to gain status as such, on par with Real World nations, even if it means using terrorist tactics to achieve it.

I'd be interested to know if any of you have read this and how much of it is possible, technology-wise, etc. The blurb calls it "A powerful examination of America's defense and intelligence systems of the future."

SO, what are you reading?:-)

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Morticia
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 11:59 AM

Pretty much everything I can get my hands on by Margaret Atwood at the moment, at least downstairs....upstairs is Edith Pargeter and in the loo is Rosemary Jarman...oh, and Nancy Mitford's Madame de Pompadour for those few stray minutes when I'm waiting for something to down load on the computer.Book addict.....who, me??????

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 12:04 PM

LOVE Atwood's stuff, Mortee. Have you also tried Marge Piercy? I think you'd like her, as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 12:05 PM

At the moment it's English Passengers by Matthew Kneale - a stunning book set in 19th Century Tasmania and told from about a dozen different perspectives.
Just finished Redcoat by Richard Holmes and thoroughly enjoyed that - it's a stunning and accessible history of the ordinary British soldier over two centuries, culled from diaries, letters and memoirs. A damned good read.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Midchuck
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 12:08 PM

The Gabriel DuPre books by Peter Bowen.

But don't read them if you're a capital-E Environmentalist, they'll just piss you off. Even though Bowen is a real environmentalist.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 12:44 PM

I love the DePre books. Laff your socks off, you will. You are not going to believe this, but I just finished one called...............wait for it................................................Songcatcher. NO, it is NOT the one the movie is based on. It is by Sharyn McCrumb, and it's wonderful! All of her books are good.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Mac Tattie
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 01:30 PM

Ed McBain for me or Ramond Chandler. Have to keep re-reading the old stuff of course so shearch out books in every charity shop I find. At the moment I still have half-a-dozen in a stock. cheers

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: JenEllen
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 01:49 PM

kat, I'll send you the other Schoen book (provided I can find it in that death trap I call a studio) A little too touchy-feely for me, but there is some good stuff in it.

I'm like Mortee (eeek!) and have a few going, but the latest treasure is a 75 year old copy of the complete novelettes of Balzac that I scooped up for a quarter. It is filling in the spot of 'weekend curl-up reading' that is usually reserved for short stories.

That's a question for you...

Do you save things for reading at certain times? Think "Oh, I'll save that for the weekend" or do you dive right in as soon as you lay your grubby little mitts on it?

~J

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Noreen
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 02:04 PM

The information society- a study of continuity and change by John Feather, and The Realities of Human Resource Management by Sisson and Storey. Well, you asked!

You don't want all my reading lists do you? *grin*

(The former is far more interesting to me than the latter, btw!)

Noreen

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Morticia
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 02:14 PM

Asking me to save a book for a weekend or whatever would have much the same result as asking me not to unwrap that bar of chocolate or have a second pint....in short, can't be done.And Noreen,I'll wait for the videos if it's all the same to you

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 02:23 PM

erm - Terry Pratchett? and John le Carre, at the moment. Edith Pargeter (and as Ellis Peters near end of term), and for fun the Mapp and Lucia books by E. Benson(?). Also a wonderful book I keep near ready to re-read. It's about Christopher Marlowe as an Elizabethan spy. It's not fiction, fairly dense in places but utterly fascinating. It's called "The Reckoning", but I can't remember the author without going downstairs and checking. Since I'm avoiding Star Trek I'm not moving!

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Morticia
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 02:30 PM

It's E.F Benson....unless it's Tom Holt ( who kind of picked up the ball and ran with it).They are fab, aren't they? Did you see the TV series?

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 02:45 PM

I've just finshed "Stinger" by John Nichol, one of the UK pilots captured in the Gulf War. He's turned to writing adventure fiction,this one, written 1999, features Bin Laden downing planes with US-provided Stinger missiles and our hero (a heli pilot)'s role in a covert raid into Afghanistan to destroy the remaining missiles.
Not the best written thriller I've read but it does give you an idea what special forces are going through at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Stephen Burridge
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 04:52 PM

Just finished "Confessions of a Fallen Standard-Bearer" by Andrei Makine -- fictionalized memoir of growing up poor in the Soviet Union, by Russian emigre author. Shortish (130 pages), translated from the French; quite clear, sometimes lyrical writing. There is some "musical" content, as the narrator and his best friend were bugler and drummer for a "Young Pioneer" communist youth group. You get a picture of where these ordinary Soviet people were at in the '50s through '80s, and where they had come from, all in a short, lucid piece of fiction. I liked it a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 05:00 PM

I'm re-reading severy of Pterry's Discworld books now, and hoping to get 'The Fall of Neskaya'

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: lamarca
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 05:34 PM

For a good, prescient, scary read, pick up Stinger by Nancy Kress, filed in "SF" in some bookstores, in "Thrillers" in others and in "Fiction" in still others.

Scenario: A car driving through Southern Maryland late at night hits a deer and spins out into a tree. Something in the trunk gets loose. In the next few weeks, all of a sudden, the incidence of fatal strokes in African Americans in Southern MD starts climbing, and seems to be hitting sickle-cell carriers. A black presidential candidate drops dead at an important speech.

The public demands an investigation of this new, possibly genetically engineered bioterrorism strain of malaria, and the government sends in the CDC and FBI to "investigate", but the FBI agent in charge and one CDC doctor find there are all sorts of people who don't want this investigation to go too deep. The FBI profiles a likely terrorist archetype that sounds EXACTLY like their description of the "UNATHRAXER". There are other parallels to current events involving gov't. agency turf battles, political manipulation of data, etc. that are rather scarier in today's climate than when I first read the book last year...

As a biologist and geneticist, I enjoy Nancy Kress's science fiction - she tackles biological scenarios that aren't too far-fetched.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: captain wheels
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 06:08 PM

I've just finished abook called Children of the Dead End by Patrick McGill.It's about a young Irish boy coming to Scoptland as a naavy at the turn of the century.Loads of old poems and songs in it too.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 06:22 PM

Just finished "In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. the story of the Essex and her crew's survival. Fascinating stuff especially the scientific detail on starvation. The Essex was sunk by a whale and was the basis for Melville's Moby Dick.Out in PB so not exactly new to the world.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Not my cup of brew.
Two books on crystals - one scientific; the other on healing with crystals. Proof, I guess, that reading harry Potter fosters an interest in witchcraft. Also not my cup of brew.

Strange experience this past Sunday: I was showing my apartment to a potential buyer who asked me if I was a writer. I said "No" and looked a little comfused. She pointed accusingly to my bookshelves and said "Your apartment is filled with books." (Like Mortica, I assign different topics to different rooms.)From her annoyed expression I can only guess that she was accusing me of owning but not reading my books. After all, only writers read...I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 07:24 PM

Haven't read it in a while - but Mirabile by janet Kagan was excellent. Also Hellspark by the same author.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 07:28 PM

Now that we are empty-nesters we are purging all kinds of stuff that had piled up around here, some of it books we have read so many times we need to pass them on now. One way to purge, I decided, would be to cruise the shelves as I make the new Guest rooms out of the kids' rooms-- stock the Guest rooms with the best we could not bear to part with and can't replace, and when we are done doing that, get serious with the remaining piles of books.

So a book turned up I had never seen here, and no one knows where it came from! It's funny because I have walked these shelves many times in earlier purges, to take out non-treasured stuff to go to the sale man. So anyway I started reading it for my bedtime novel.

OLIVER WISWELL. It's a historical novel set in the early days of the American Revolution, and the good guys are NOT the patriots led by Sam Adams! Nope! But they aren't the Brits either. They're the guys who sat in the middle, wanting to avoid war and trusting that a good relationship could be forged between the Crown and the Colonies. These folks show the Adams crowd as wild mobs oppressing men of reason (and women of course tho the language is all non-PC). The Brit military people are shown as complete boobs.

It is very well written with great characters and scene-writing-- sorta like the Forrest Gump of the Revolution, as we travel through the events with this one group of nice people. But it is so hard to encompass the concepts! I mean, it really is at variance from the hero worship we got taught in elementary school, and yet it is so much gentler as a read, than history books.

I think we will keep this one in the library of Classics on Classism.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 08:04 PM

"In the Heart of the Sea" is on the top of the "To Read" pile -- Haven't read "Oliver Wiswell" yet, but Kenneth Roberts books are incredibly good. Curmudgeon and I "chased" the French and Indian War (and early Revolution) on a micro-mini vacation a few years ago using Roberts' "Northwest Passage" and "A Rabble In Arms" as guides. (Read about a naval battle on Lake Champlain in a motel in Crown Point about 10 miles from the battle location -- way cool.)

I just finished "My Old Man and the Sea", a 52 year old father and his 20-something son sailing around Cape Horn "the easy way" (from west to east) from their home port in Connecticut. They did it sometime in the 1980s. Lovely, lovely book, and they know their cats, too.

Currently have "Shogun" going in the bathtub (yes, I read in the bathtub, and sip my margarita) and am rereading "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx in the bedroom.

Too many books; not enough time.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: AliUK
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 08:06 PM

Just getting to the end of the Eternal Champion collected series by Michael Moorcock which I brought back from the UK with me ( alas also the last of the books that I brought back with me * sigh* will have to wait another few years before I can afford to fly out and buy some more). Rereading Robinson Crusoe and on the bog its Foucaults Pendulum ( the book you fool)by Umberto Eco, great stuff. Also just re-read a biogrophy of Rowan Atkinson.If you like weird stuff read Jonathan Carroll, I suggest you start with The Land of Laughs. And a good light read is anything by William Bernhardt in his Justice series.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: heric
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 08:11 PM

Moby Dick. It's a weird thing: I keep going to bookstores and spend hours looking for something that will capture me in the few late night hours I have available. Nothing ever captures my attention as being worth a time investment, so I just say heck with it, and go back and read Moby Dick. Please, someone save me from this wheel I'm on! (And don't say Conrad. . . .) Can someone recommend a GREAT book?

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 09:08 PM

I second "The Shipping News" although the men in my family weren't thrilled. Movie is soon to be released...I think.

Linn - I gave my father "My Old Man And The Sea" for his birthday one year. His comment: "The cat committed suicide." He hated it.

Dan - if you haven't read "The Perfect Storm", do it. And also "Vanished" (at least I think that is the name) about the disastrous climb up Mt. Everest. Another worth reading is "The Nightingale's Song" about 5 men including John McCain, John Poindexter, and Oliver North, their backgrounds and how their backgrounds paved the way for their involvement in the Iran-contra scandal. Fascinating stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: heric
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 09:17 PM

Great Sinsull, you're tracking my mindset. The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air were the last two books I really loved, even though they weren't styled as "literature." I tried Krackauer's Into The Wild, about a kid who went to live in the wilds near Denali and didn't come out, but it didn't quite make the grade. I'll try the Ollie North thing, but . . . .

Dan

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 09:17 PM

After reading a batch of non-fiction lately, I need to take a reality break (interpret that however you wish), so, in preparation for the first of the "Lord of the Rings" movies soon coming to theaters near you, I've recently finished (again) The Hobbit and am now close to finishing The Fellowship of the Ring. Even better than the first time I read them. Tolkien is an absolutely brilliant writer.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 09:22 PM

I am reading a couple of books at the moment...The Rat Pit by Patrick MacGill..and rereading the Hobbit....

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 09:38 PM

Dan,
There are several biographies of Sir Richard Burton (explorer not actor) published within the last ten years. He is one of the few infidels to make his way into Mecca undetected, faced incredible hardship while searching for the source of the Nile,travelled across the US into the frontier and wrote an amazingly bigoted diary of his travels. Fascinating reading. All of mine are out on loan so I have no titles. But search his name and you will find them. Also, see "Mountains Of The Moon" (1989) with Patrick Bergin.Graphic adventure movie. Burton is also famous for his unexpurgurated "Thousand and One Nights". Most of it banned or burned (supposedly) by his wife.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,PoohBear
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 11:14 PM

Knight of Ghost and Shadows by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 11:21 PM

Geez, what an erudite bunch! Makes me feel pretty frivolous admitting that I almost never read non-fiction, and am addicted to good mysteries and fantasy!

Am in the middle of Watchers of Time by Charles Todd, fifth in his series about a shell-shocked Scotland Yard inspector trying to recover from his World War I experiences. Good writer, interesting character.

Sorcha, I'm a Sharyn McCrumb fan also--and yes, I agree--I think her Songcatcher was way better than the movie. Have you read the rest of her "Ballad" books? Or for a total change of pace, Bimbos of the Death Sun?

I tend to re-read a lot, mostly because I keep books forever and like to go back and see if they're still my cup of tea a couple of years later. Have been through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at least 10 times; am planning to wait until after I see the movie to read them again. In the same vein, I've read all the Harry Potter books and definitely will see the movie as soon as some of the little rugrats have cleared out.

Let's see: David Eddings, Douglas Adams, Elizabeth Peters, Ellis Peters (only the Brother Cadfael books; don't care for her "modern" series), Anne Perry's "Inspector Monk" books, any and all of John D. MacDonald's novels (I've read the Travis McGee books so many times I've got some of the dialogue memorized), Laurel K. Hamilton's vampire series, Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles...

Those are just the ones I haven't gotten around to putting back on the shelves yet!

Is there a 12-step program for bookaholics?

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: alison
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 11:31 PM

Diana Gabaldon's latest in the Jamie & Claire Fraser saga "The Fiery Cross"........ also "Frenchman's Creek" by Daphne Du Maurier (absolutely gorgeous romantic piratey stuff... read this one ever few years).... a Merlin-y type thing that I can't work up any enthusiasm for (can't even think of the title!!)... and a travel biography about New Zealand (which makes me cross but I have to finish it!) called "Lilies, feathers and frangipani" by Kate Llewllyn... but she is such a whinger that I don't like her!!

in one loo is "a Year in Provence" by Peter Mayles and in the other is Bill Bryson's "Neither here nor there" about his travels in Europe....

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who reads a heap of books at the same time..... *grin*

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Nov 01 - 11:52 PM

currently reading THE TALIBAN by Ahmed Rashid

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 12:11 AM

Lin, I am making my way through Anne Perry's books, too. The first one I read, Hangman in Cater Street was the best. I read tons of fiction, so don't feel you're alone.:-)

Dan, I highly recommend "Round the Bend" by Nevil Shute. Also, "King, of the Khyber Rifles" old book, can't remember the author's name, but it is a classic, excellent book. Another one, non-fiction, by Doris Lessing, "The Wind Takes Away Our Words" (I think I got the title right.)

There's an old thread like this one. I'll look for it in a bit and psot a link because I think we talked more baout our absolute favs and you'd find lots of suggestions in it, too.

Thanks, everyone for posting. Let's hear some more!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 12:38 AM

I have to (once again) recommend the "Ballad" novels of Sharyn McCrumb. They are good mysteries, yes. But there's so much more going on in them. There is discussion of the fact that past and present are more connected than we usually care to admit. There is the ongoing love of, and tribute to Appalachian culture, an ongoing dissertation on "class-ism" (Art Thieme, you'd love this), and more. I had the opportunity to meet Ms. McCrumb recently and to speak with her. If I can be a groupie for more than one person (already a Jean Ritchie groupie), I'll be Sharyn's as well. Also enjoying reading North Carolina author Fred Chappell. Sort of like Thomas Wolfe without the verbosity and travelogue. What Wolfe might have written had he stayed home in the western North Carolina hills and written about a life there. "I Am One Of You Forever," "Farewell I'm Bound To Leave You," and "Look Back All The Green Valley" form a lovely trilogy. Looking forward to "Clay's Quilt" by Silas House and "This Rock" by Robert Morgan. Guess I'm in a southern mountain state of mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: JedMarum
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 12:53 AM

"In The Heart of the Sea" sounds like something I need to read. I 'll keep it in mind.

I just finished "Catucto" by C.J. Poole a narrative-style history of Battle Harbour, Labrador from 1832 to 1833. Fascinating stuff about life in the commercial fishing/trapping days of this region. And I'm currently reading "The Irish Texans" by John Brendan Flannery. This is likewise interesting stuff about the Irish who settled in the State I have so recently moved to (well, I guess I've been here for 15 years, but I'm still a Yankee)!

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 03:39 AM

Robertson Davies : The Cunning Man
A real good "bildungsroman" about a Canadian MD; at www.amazon.com you'll find some very good critiques I have nothing to add to. Read and enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Sonnet
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 04:14 AM

All poetry, as you would expect.

Keith Douglas. The Complete Poems (with introduction by Ted Hughes.

Raymond Carver. All of Us : The Collected Poems.

Peter Sansom. Point of Sale.

Janet McS.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,Lyndi-Loo
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 05:44 AM

I can't believe that nobody's mentioned Philip Pullman's"Dark Matters" trilogy; Northern lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. A very metaphysical series ultimately mimicking Milton's paradise Lost. Sounds highbrow but isn't. Very unputdownable. My family didn't see me for days!

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Guessed
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 06:08 AM

Go to bed with a good book
or a friend who's read one.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Stu
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 07:14 AM

In a more musical vein, I've not long read "Last Night's Fun" by Ciaran Carson. It's all about Irish traditional music, time and food (true!).

Carson is a flute player and every chapter is named after a tune and is superbly written. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for traditional musicians. It's changed the way I approach the music and is also great fun.

The book is worth buying for the Dom Niperi Septoe story alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Dahlin
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 09:20 AM

River Horse by William Least-Heat Moon, An interesting view of America and rivers.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: LR Mole
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 09:43 AM

Dick Farina's "Been Down So Long It Feels Like Up To Me", if you can find it, it a wonderful book, about being the only hipster at a late-fifties college. I love to read the Tolkien trilogy over the Yule, heaviest time of tree-magic. Magic in general, I guess. And I just bought NEW (very unusual for me) Nick Tosches' new book, "Where Dead Voices Gather". He fuses black music, country music, history, philosophy, and rock into a tsunami of yeoman inspiration.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: pattyClink
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 10:30 AM

Wow! I'm with you Lin, cannot believe the erudition. Come on now, somebody's got a Grisham and an Enquirer stashed under the futon!

Currently reading that Derek Bell book on/of northern ballads. Recent reads to recommend: House of Sand and Fog, beautifully written and a way to get inside a Middle Eastern head for a new perspective. Two Years Before the Mast. Love that book and cannot believe how old it is.

Thanks everybody for all the new rec's.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 11:31 AM

I found Krackauer's "Into The Wild" to be ultimately very depressing. Sinsull -- the cat didn't commit suicide, but got washed overboard off Argentina. Hey, it was a 25 foot boat! (But Tiger was a great cat and the book is a fine tribute to him -- he was definitely missed all around.) ANYTHING by Robertson Davies!!! Unfortunately, I've read them all, but I did re-read the Deptford Trilogy last year and have more to re-read. Speaking of rereading, I also need to reread the Gormanghast trilogy, now that other people have heard of Mervyn Peake. (I last read the books in the late '70s.) And I just recently picked up a paperback of "Moby Dick" to reread as well as a copy of "Mutiny on the Bounty." After years of saying I didn't have time to reread books, I've found great pleasure in doing just that. But there are still too many books out there to read! (Which is probably why I enjoy reading in the bathtub -- multi-tasking my pleasures!)

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 11:49 AM

Grisham, Stephen White, Tony Hillerman, and a few others under my bed, here! I consider Hillerman in a league of his own and White is better than Grisham! LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 01:00 PM

Lin - my father insists he jumped overboard!
Yes to the "Cunning Man" and anything by Robertson Davies. On my re-read list: The Deptford Trilogy, Moby Dick, Atlas Shrugged, A Prayer For Owen Meaney,...Also a list of books that deserve no more than an hour of your time but are fun. Put your brain in neutral and enjoy - Day Of The Triffids, The Prometheus Crisis, The Hephaestus Plague, etc. All sci-fi nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Midchuck
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 01:35 PM

Check these guys out. 2/3 space opera, 1/3 Regency romance.

Disclosure: They are friends and Woodchucks' Revenge fans; but I was a fan of theirs before the were.

You probably want to go to Partners in Necessity first, since everything else is a sequel or prequel to the original three novels.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 03:32 PM

I'm currently reading Evensong by Gail Godwin... a remarkably perceptive book on faith (and questioning) told through the eyes of a woman minister in the Smokey Mountains.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 04:19 PM

Second the nominations of John D. Macdonald, Kenneth Roberts and Sharyn McCrumb!
Strongly recommend the SF novels of Lois McMaster Bujold (and her most recent fantasy novel, Curse of Chalion)all of her stuff is worth not only reading but re-reading many times.
Nonfiction: Kevin Phillips' The Cousins Wars, also Feynman's Six Not-so-easy Pieces. PETE

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 04:51 PM

Just finished Nevil Shute's The Chequer Board, a very good novel, and shortly after I read both Sartre's The Age of Reason and Graham Green's The Third Man. Now I'm re-reading Tolkein in anticipation of the new Rings movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Nov 01 - 05:24 PM

Gervase, just read the "English Passengers." While I was reading, I kept asking myself why I stuck with it- now that I have finished it, I keep thinking about it.
I go for old fiction and modern murder. I recently read "Lin McLean" by Owen Wister (western novel written 1898), which has the funniest funeral episode I have ever read. Yhe book is much better than his famous "The Virginian." And, of course, mysteries- esp. Caleb Carr, Michael Dibdin, Hillerman, Anaya (a must for Katlaughing), Burke, Campbell, Barr, Bartholomew Gill, J. Robert Janes (too little known!), Taibo, Iain Pears, and all the Scottish hardnose stuff.
And all the romantic, historical, funny novels by Jose Saramago.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,chrisj
Date: 26 Nov 01 - 10:50 PM

Check out SEA ROOM: An Island Life, by Adam Nicolson, published by HarperCollins, London, 2001. Non-fiction, its about a group of three tiny islands called the Shiant Isles which are part of the Scottish Hebrides. Uninhabited for 100 years, the islands have a rich folklore and history. The author apparently divides his life between London and his house on the islands and this book is his attempt to, as he states: "tell the whole story, as I now understand it, of a tiny place, in as many dimensions as possible: geologically,spiritually,botanically,historically,culturally,aesthetically,ornithologically,etymologically,emotionally,politically,socially,archeologically and personally." His descriptions of the islands, the sea, the birdlife, sailing to and from the mainland are a delight to anyone who has 'messed about in boats'.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 12:11 AM

Just finished reading Evensong by Gail Godwin and am passing it along to a friend. An engrossing, complicated look at a series of life-changing events told through the eyes of a young Episcopal female Priest in the Smoky Mountains. A story of faith in all its complexity, with as many questions as answers.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: blt
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 01:41 AM

Ok, I can't really resist this, although I haven't posted to any other thread in over a month. Here's what's piled nearby:
James Welch (The Heartsong of Charging Elk)
Virginai Woolf (anything by her; I'm reading Between the Acts)
Aldo Alvarez (Interesting Monsters)
Greg Bear (The Force of God)
Richard Wright (Early Works)
Nevil Shute (A Town Like Alice)
Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage) and lots of Oliver Sacks' work. I love good science fiction--check out Cyteen by C. K. Cherryh--I've probably spelled her name wrong, and the Red/Green/Blue Mars books. I'm a sucker for Dorothy Dunnet's stuff, too--I can't get enough of her writing (historical fiction in astounding detail).

blt

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:00 AM

blt! Nice to see you! If you like Somerset Maugham and haven't already read it, try his "Razor's Edge." Really good. I also highly recommend Nevil Shute's "Round the Bend."

Dicho, Anaya? Tell us more, please?:-)

I am building up quite a reading list! Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,SINSULL
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:00 AM

Anyone else addicted to Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels? His replacement hero is a bit of a weinie but Dirk...

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: leprechaun
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:11 AM

"Tis" by Frank McCourt, in which we learn more about Angela's ashes. "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier, a civil war deserter's quest to be united with the woman he loves.

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: Mudlark
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 03:45 AM

Some old favs here, life Fred Chappell and Chas Frazier, some new to me that I will check out.

Last 2 books I've read...Bill Byson's Down Under (if laughter is the best medicine this will put docs out of business) and a womderfully inventive book by A.S. Byatt called Possession, about Victorian poets and modern day biographers tracking down the clues to their lives.

Don't know what I'd do without dogs, books and music!

Subject: RE: BS: Current reading list - any good books?
From: GUEST,Aldus
Date: 27 Nov 01 - 10:15 AM

Long time since I have posetd..O love this thread, it is always great to see what others enjoy reading. I love Virginia Woolf and have read all of things...books. letters. diaries, many times;breathtaking. I Just finished reading Travels With Virginia Woolf by Jan Morris, great fun, especially the bits having to do with Cornwall. Also very good read, especially for Teens, The Sally Lockheart series by Phillip Pullman, starting with the Ruby In the Smoke. I am a huge fan of Arturo Perez-Reverte and I suggest any of his as very good read, especially The Flanders Panel. My Non Fiction shelf is also stacked high and I need an extended holiday to reduce it a bit. I am currently reading about Shackeltons Expidition to Antarctica and a hugely interesting Book called Cod by Mark Kurlansky. Has anyone read Pilgrim by Thimothy Findley..how was it ? It is on my shelf but I approach it with such trepidation, Findley is Soooooooo dark. Thanks for all the tips...more books to read.