Books: What Are You Reading?

Subject: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:43 PM

Just wondering what you folks are reading these days. I'm reading two very different books at the moment. My oungest son recommended The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Klay by Michael Chabon, which won a Pulitzer Prize. It's a grand book which has been compared to Ragtime in that it includes historical and fictional characters and several story lines. I'm about half way through it and haven't enjoyed a book so much in a long time. It also has a feel of Call It Sleep... another favorite of mine.

Today, I picked up a book by Harold Kushner.. a Rabbi best know for writing a classic book When Bad Things Happen To Good People. That's a book I've shared with friends over the years who were going through particularly hard times in their lives. He just recently wrote a book on the 23rd Psalm.. "Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," which I've just started to read. It's much like his other books... very straightforward without an excess of theological exposition. Very little, as a matter of fact. I can see I'm going to get a lot out of the book.

So, what you folks reading these days? I'll be looking for something new in a couple of weeks...

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:45 PM

Midnights Children (again) and The House at Pooh Corner (again) :0)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:48 PM

Just finished "The Road to McCarthy" by Pete McCarthy.

On my way to the library tomorrow to find my next read. In the meantime, the new Analog magazine came a couple of days ago. I always read that one cover-to-cover.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:53 PM

Here's the obituary from the Guardian of Pete McCarthy, who died last month - only 52. A good man.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:59 PM

Aw shit! Bad news. I had no idea. That book was hilarious; need to read McCarthy's Bar now too.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 10:07 PM

Pete McCarthy's Website.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: mg
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 11:10 PM

If you have not read Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington, that is my #1 recommendation. Wonderful advice, and very well, poetically written. I advise reading it in a non-historical and non-racial way, as advice for every person, which is how I was introduced to it. It is the bible for vocational educators. I was stunned when I was in graduate school in education and found there were different opinions about it, (as in highly negative) when taken in historical context. So I would say read it as though it were universal, which it is. It is the first book I would give to the people of Afghanistan, to the barely surviving people throughout the world. And to every person in America. It is the book that is the cornerstone of my library, which also includes the poems of Rudyard Kipling and the Betty Crocker cookbook.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 03:22 AM

"The Cryptonomicon." Lots of fun! I also just read "The Manchurian Candidate"--I hadn't realized that it was such an interesting and well-written book. What a change from most of today's popular novels. I bet many people will be frustrated and disappointed when they buy it, before or after seeing the remake of the movie, since it's a book you actually have to sit down and read, and it isn't always easy to follow.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 03:34 AM

I've started Cryptonomicon 4 or 6 times now, and I just can't get through it... donno why... hopefully one day I will...

Spurred on by a recent viewing of the movie adaptation, I'm currently reading Leonard Cohen's "The Favorite Game"

What a fantastic book!

After that I think a reread of my Clive Barker collection might be in order....

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 03:35 AM

Thanks to JenEllen, I just finished a remarkable book called "Icy Sparks" which is the name of an extraordinary girl in rural Kentucky in the 1950's with undiagnosed Turette's Syndrome. A most excellent and uplifting book!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 04:45 AM

Reading a silly Robert Ludlum The Road to Omaha, too densely written, and difficult to follow, I get the feeling I may not finish it.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 04:51 AM

Garth Nix's 'Old Kingdom' Trilogy. Started in the middle and am working outwards!:-)

I would recomend it to anyone on the strength of 'Lirael'.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:18 AM

"The Subtle Knife", second volume of the Phillip Pullman "Dark Materials" trilogy. It's very very good, but I am a little disappointed as I had been led to believe it was great. Rivetting stuff, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:27 AM

Northern Lights (or the Golden Compass in America!) was definitely the best. I thought it went a bit downhill from there but certainly riveting, Greg. Well worth keeping going:-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Gervase
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:36 AM

Leisure reading? Ah, that dim and distant memory. Currently on the bedside table are the Haynes Guide to the Land Rover Defender, Building with Lime, the Care and Restoration of Stone Buildings, a pamphlet on poultry diseases and a farm machinery catalogue (Now that's sexy!).
One day soon I'm going to read a real book again.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:50 AM

Re some previous posts, anybody who hasnt read McCarthy's Bar should rop everything they are doing and read it right now. The best travel book ever. We bought six copies to give to friends,(we're Anglo-Welsh) and then met an Irish friend who had bought a dozen copies for the same purpose. It's that good! And interesting that it is so acceptable to an English and irish audience. Ihad a particular interest in that I know West Cork very well, and a lot of the book is about the area, but I think the humour is pretty universal...and his comments are very perceptive :"what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed" could have been written about McCarthy's witticisms..

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:53 AM

I am reading this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:11 AM

Waiting to read the next book in Alexander McCall Smith's "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency", with Mma Precious Ramotswe.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:22 AM

I'm not reading nowt, I can't read.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:33 AM

I won't tell you the ending then, MTed.

My son tried to read Cryptonomicon after he finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and got so irritated with it that he stopped reading it... something he rarely does... guess it's not a book for everyone, although I believe it won a Pulitzer Prise.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 08:04 AM

Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin,English Music by Peter Ackroyd , The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester, Too Close To The Falls by Catherine Gildiner (A Great Book),Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, Oryx and Krake by Margaret Atwood...and huge stack on my bedside table.I love threads like this as they always give me ideas of things to read.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Janie
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 08:25 AM

"The Battle for God" by Karen Armstrong, a scholarly work on the rise of fundamentalism in monotheistic religions, and a biography of Alexander Hamilton, can't think of the author right now. 'Course, most reading gets put on hold for me this time of year, with the business of the Holiday season.

Johnny's Selected Seeds 2005 commercial growers catalog.

"Help Wanted" ads.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Davetnova
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 08:40 AM

Reasons to be Cheerful - Mark Steel,reasonable.
I agree McCArthy's Bar was great, sorry to hear he's gone.
I enjoyed the first two Pullman books but gave up half way through the third(not something I do often).
Starting The Cull by Mark Frankland tonight(bankrupt farms,drug addiction and revenge). He's a local author but the book has been very highly spoken of

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:28 AM

Being a TOTAL Philistine I am in the midst of Pratchett's monstrous Regiment .

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: jimmyt
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:50 AM

I am reading Holy Blood Holy Grail, slowly. Also reading The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.

Have read recently several TC Boyle works, Drop City being the one that I think Mudcatters would enjoy. He is a very good writer. I also have a Dickens in process, Nicolas Nickleby. I read a Dickens every year during the bleak rainy months, as I think Dickens is a wintertime read. I manage to keep all this stuff in process. It drives my wife crazy as she is a read one book at a time sort.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:31 AM

If greg stephens says that so adamantly, I will take his advice immediately. I took one of his book recommendations before and was very glad of it. I just finsihed Peace Like a River and enjoyed it immensely. Just my kind of book, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Flash Company
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:37 AM

Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell, the use of the English language is magical. When I finish that it will probably be Bruce Alexander's The Price of Murder.
Before, it was Pratchett's Going Postal. I get around!

FC

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: *Laura*
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:56 AM

I've just read The Great Gatsby for my A-level english - a book I wouldn't otherwise have read. I think it's brilliant!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Wesley S
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:07 AM

Currently - The Gates of the Alamo. But I'm thinking of starting the Godfather.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:08 AM

Just finished Fleshmarket Close and am well into The Daughters of Cain by Colin Dexter. Morse y'know.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:09 AM

New book by Ursula Le Guin, called "Gifts". Just read it while sitting on a couch at Books Etc. Couldn't put it down!

There's a really nifty book I saw there as well, and am going to save my pennies to buy..called "Ideas that changed the world" by Felipe Fernandez Armesto.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:16 AM

Bash Shell Scripting . Somebody has to be boring.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:19 AM

I read Kavalier & Clay about a year ago -- very excellent.

Still meaning to read Pete McCarthy's sequel, the "Road To..." Reading "McCarthy's Bar" was a memorable experience for me, only in part because I was introduced to it during my first visit to Ireland, just over a year ago. My family and I were able to find our own "McCarthy's Bar" -- a pub identified by our last name, a considerably less common Irish name thatn McCarthy -- in Westport, Co. Mayo.

Right now, I've just begun Roddy Doyle's "Oh Play That Thing," the sequel to his excellent "A Star Named Henry." Henry has fled Ireland as a marked man thanks to his role as a gunman in the Irish fight for independence and in the subsequent Civil War. He arrives in New York and begins his adventures in America; according to the flyleaf notes (I haven't actually read this far yet), his troubles with local crimes bosses cause him to leave NY for Chicago, where he will befriend Louis Armstrong and serve as his bodyguard.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest over the holiday weekend. This book relates to two of my greatest interests -- Irishness and American roots music. I think there are a lot of Mudcatters out there with similar tastes, who should be alerted to the existence of this book.

If you haven't already read "Star Named Henry," however, I'd recommend reading both novels, in order.

Re: T.C. Boyle, another favorite of mine. His latest, entitled (I think) "The Inner Circle" (or something similar) is the story of one of Professor Kinsey's research assistants -- Kinsey the famous sex researcher, that is. I saw the new movie "Kinsey" (w/ Liam Neeson, Laura Linney) at a preview last week, and was surprised to see how closely the movie mirrored Boyle's book. If Boyle is credited at all, it's in very fine print -- no mention of his book in the film's reviews, publicity, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Midchuck
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 02:14 PM

Please check my post in "...Garth Nix fans..." thread for current thoughts.

Reading "Cryptonomicon" (Pssst....It's all right to skip over the math) is important because it sets the stage for reading "Quicksilver"/"The Confusion"/"The System of the World," even though they take place 300 years prior to Cryptonomicon. And you have to read them. 2500+ pages total, or not.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 04:46 PM

Currently reading Silverlock by John Myers Myers and Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island.

I'm so sad to hear McCarthy has died - I loved McCarthy's Bar. I felt that way when I heard that James Clavell had died - you know that there will be no more 'goodies' from that particular genius.

I read the Pullman trilogy in three days when recovering from a hysterectomy and they were a great way of occupying the time.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: emjay
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 05:04 PM

The Riverkeepers by John Cronin and Robert Kennedy, jr. about the efforts to clean up the Hudson, Pete Seeger is in it several times, of course. The book sat on my shelves for more than a year before I got into it, sorry I waited so long. It's an excellent book on many levels. Honest to Jesus by Robert Funk, a lot about how the present day Christian Bible came to be, with historical references, translators work. I just finished the Pullman trilogy. I really got bogged down in the third book, and alglad to read others saying the same thing. I doubt I'll ever read them again. And am now in the third book of Alexander McCall Smith's books about that detective agency. They are delightful. The first two in this list I am reading fairly slowly, the last just as fast as I can.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 05:20 PM

At this time, The Cartoon Guide To Physics by Larry Gonick, his Cartoon Guide to Statistics, Harry M. Hyatt's Folk-Lore of Adams County, Illinois ('cause I was born and raised there), B. A. Botkin's Tales, Stories and Folklore of the Civil War, and a couple of others which I disremember at the moment. I'll probably be reading Tony Hillerman's new Skelton Man pretty soon.

Nothing earth-shaking or socially significant, I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 05:21 PM

That last was me.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: kendall
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:02 PM

Currently, THE DA VINCI CODE.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Cretinous Yahoo
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:05 PM

Stories told in the kitchen by Kendall Morse. Very funny.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:08 PM

Glad to hear there's a new Tony Hillerman on the way!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Bobert
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:21 PM

Most recently: "What Are You Reading"

Awww, jus' funnin'...

Lexdexia don't make fir avid readers so other than the Bible and piccure books, I don't read books... I do read the newspaper and read posts (and many links) here and at Tweeds...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:03 PM

Dracula.. Bram Stoker.

Frank Muir's treasury of Christmas - all about Christmas traditions and how we got them.

Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, circa 1952 - making the Christmas pudding. It's a great book, specially written for those who had to fend for themselves after the war had taken away all their servants and cooks... tells you how to boil water and in what pan, right down to jugging a hare!

'The Dark is Rising' sequence by Susan Cooper...I read it every year at this time. Starts with 'Over sea, under stone' and goes through 4 more books. It's brilliant.

I must rethink my medication though, because I was toying with the idea of reading 'Uncle Silas' yesterday....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:04 PM

Warrior Race-A history of the British at War

New Shanghai-Rise of Shanghai as a power base in China

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:27 PM

Guns, Germs and Steel -- a study of factors affecting the migrations of mankind over millenia.

Plus some potboilers of the most worthless sort.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 08:24 PM

Ah yes... and there is nary a day goes by that I don't re-read the vollected comic strip, Get Fuzzy. Calvin and Hobbes was my favorite for many, many years, and Peanuts before that. But, nothing is as hysterical to me as Get Fuzzy. I bought books for both of my sons... neither of whom have discovered it yet.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: open mike
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:12 PM

yes! also looking forward to the new tony hillerman!
I also read books about the female counterpart...
Ella Clah...who, like Jin Chee and JOe Leaphorn,
investigate crimes in the Navaho/Hopi/Zuni land.

also came upon another murder mystery...set in
Amish (PennsyLvania Dutch) country...and it
included recipes....definately a book by for and about women..

adn today arrived the "new" book i just ordered..
New World Utopia...I am researching historic
communal living "experiements" for an article i plan
to write for communities magazine...Fellowship for Intentional Communities

I also try to read periodicals as they come in..
Mother Earth News....therE is a mudcat on tHE editorial board!
Dirty Linen...Sing Out!....No Depression, ALL MUSIC MAGAZINES..
Home Power, about genertaiing electricity ..off the grid....

also reading maps and proposed Timber Harvest Plans for a
logging operation slated to occur in the water shed above
the community here....portions of 8 sections of land are
included in the proposed cut. a section consists of 660
acres...take that time 8...well it is extensive, and has
the possibility of major impact on water quality, siltation,
run off, habitat loss, etc. ( i am very concern about it)

also have recently enjoyed Kat's Wyoming wind words book!!

also reading this forum, and my e-mail....glad i CAN read
i do a fair amount of it every day!!

also reading the label of Marion's tape, and loving her trilogies!!

and cook books in preparation for tomorrow's feast..

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:17 PM

Beryl Markham's WEST WITH THE NIGHT

Art

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Margaret V
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:33 PM

I just read "The Preservationist" by my friend David Maine. It's a startlingly convincing, funny, beautifully written imagining of the story of Noah and his family and, you know, that big adventure with the flood. I love his writing style--it's spare, yet still very expressive. And he has a neat narrative framework in which he alternates chapters told in the first person by various family members with chapters in the third person focusing on Noah's perspective. It was a great read; I'm typically quite a slow reader and I just breezed through this because of the lovely, clear prose and the suspense. I know "suspense" sounds strange since we all pretty much know what happens in the end of the Noah story, but it really was a page-turner. Naturally I'm proud of Dave because he's my pal and I'd be happy he got published in any case, but I'm even happier that I like the book so much! Margaret

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: MAG
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:42 PM

A book thread! how wonderful! I get to do this at work, too.

Last week I finished the Birkin book on J.M. Barrie in anticipation of having to answer a lot of questions at work about the movie. I was a great read. (and Barrie knew Arthur Ll Davies quite well for 10 years, and there were 5 boys, not 4 ...)

Then I gulped down LeGuin's *The Telling;* my storytelling friends told me I just had to read it, and they were right.

I have a book checked out now on the New Science of Dreams, but meantime I finally got hold of the book on Larry Gorman, and can't wait to dive into it. I did think it had all his lyrics. (I actaully got it from Canada by way of Abebooks. and no, Max, Amazon could not get it.) I just reread the Poe's Raven parody from *Antic Muse,* which I must reread every year, and am about to reread *Child's Christmas in Wales,* which I also must do every year. I'll probably take it to dinner tomorrow and make everyone listen to it.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:50 PM

I'm reading the "Autobiography of King Henry VIII." It has clips of information from Will Somers, his Fool....very interesting book!   :)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:59 PM

not particularly elevated I'm afraid

just finished Ruth Rendells newie 13 steps down - all about a man who hero worships the 1950's murderer John Christie
Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas by Montgomery Hyde - I find anything about the Wilde Case fascinating

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: John P
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:05 PM

I'm just finishing up "The Sinister Pig" by Tony Hillerman, having read all of his Leaphorn/Chee books in order (16 of them). I've been some months at it and am ready for a change, but I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new one.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:16 PM

I'm with Kendall on this, the last thing I read was The DaVinci Code.

And Mack/Misophist's reading sounds fun rather than boring. Of course you have to play along by writing scripts as you go.

Before the DaVinci Code, I read all the Harry Potter books AGAIN.

And I read anything of Dick Francis that I can get my hands on.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:04 PM

The Arts & Crafts Movement, by Steven Adams.

It's a very interesting book that traces the hisory of the Arts and Crafts (Craftsman) movement from it's beginnings in Britain in the second half of the 1800s, to it's spread to the US and, under different names, to other countries in Europe. It discusses the different schools of design that are associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, such as the Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau (somewhat tangentially), Art Deco, the Prairie school of architecture, and Bungalow style of architecture.

The Arts and Crafts movement, I'm learning, was much more than just a design movement. It also had very strong connections to various social and political movements and philosophies, and began as a backlash against the mechanization of the Industrial Revolution. It was concerned with the design and production of pottery, glass, metalware, fabric, wallpaper, floorcoverings, and furniture, as well as architecture.

It's not a very long or comprehensive book, but I find it fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:08 PM

The DaVinci Code was almost the last thing I read, too. But I got over it and bought another book anyway.

Carol: There's a beautiful coffee table book called "Inside the Craftsman." You'll love the photography if you stumble across it in a store.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:09 PM

oops, soory: it's called inside the bungalow, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:15 PM

Thanks for the heads-up, heric.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:34 PM

Inside the Bungalow

Looks like a very cool book.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: open mike
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 12:21 AM

if anyone is interested, I have been sent a book sharing letter.
(chain letter) where you send a book (nothing fancy, a paper back
is ok--something you have read and enjoyed) to the first person
on the list and then you send out (or share) the letter with 6 people
who you know like to read. then if everyone participates and no one
"breaks the chain" you will end up with 36 books sent to you..
if you want to join this, let me know and i will send the original
letter to you....the book i sent was
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 12:21 AM

My ten-year-old daughter's book "Undine" by Penni Russon.
Had to leave off reading "The Magic in the Weaving" by Tamora Pierce, another of my daughter's books, because Undine will have to go back to the library.
Not long ago I read all the Nania books (C.S.Lewis), and "National Velvet" (Enid Bagnold) as well.
There's a lot of good literature about for ten-year-old girls.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:44 AM

Amos, I'll second Guns, Germs, and Steel. Fascinating!

Another fascinating one was "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon. It's sort of a murder mystery; the "detective" is a highly intelligent boy with autism.

I've also read just about everything written by John Lescroart, my favorite quick-reading crime/cop/lawyer author. Far better than Grisham in my opinion.

Right now, though, I'm cutting back on my reading in an attempt to force myself to write.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:50 AM

I second a lot of comments here, I read 'Dark Materials' and bought the other two, but have totally failed to read them... for some reason, I just didn't care what happened next. Dunno why, it's very well written, just my sort of thing, I read the first in a couple of days... but the second? Not even cracked the cover. The third may never be opened.


CarolC - should you ever get to east London (the one in the UK, not the one in South Africa), we'll take you to see William Morris' house - it's not too far away in Walthamstow. You have to remember that it was fairly rural when he moved there.... it's a bit of an urban sprawl now! But the house and grounds are fairly well preserved and open to the public.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 06:41 AM

Paradise News / by David Lodge

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 06:55 AM

I can't get enough of David Lodge! I like the way he cheats with his writing.

Read 'The giraffe, the pelly and me' by Roald Dahl yesterday for the first time.

If it's of any interest to anyone, the Open University (which is where I work) has a book club & readers' forum. (You might work out which one is me, if you've nothing beter to do.)

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: harpgirl
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:45 AM

Recently I have read:
The Mummy at the Dining Room Table Kottler/Carlson
The Madman's Tale by John Katzenbach
A Round Heeled Woman by Jane Juska
Resolving Ethical Dilemmas in Social Work by Norman Linzer
Exuberance by Kay Redfield Jamison
Therapy by Jonathon Kellerman
The Journals of Lewis & Clark
Pompeii by Robert Harris
I liked the "Curious Incident," as well...
(mmmm, my list looks like a busman's holiday)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Grab
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 12:07 PM

Most recently, the Earthsea Quartet by Ursula LeGuin.

I was worried, bcos I'd read a few LeGuin short stories and I really objected to the message of "all men are violent to women, and the few that aren't are the exceptions" that I found in the ones I read. The first and third parts were very well done, with characters that had real depth. The second part was mostly a screamingly melodramatic portrayal of an isolated group of women playing power games. And the fourth part was precisely what I'd seen in the short stories - the message being that all men (except the king, an ex-wizard, and a half-wit) despise women and only see surface impressions.

It's annoying, bcos she's clearly a good writer, but the chip on her shoulder really trashed that book for me. It's not that I'm anti-feminist, but I don't see why this is any different from the "Gor" rubbish espousing the opposite view. Compare and contrast to Sheri Tepper, whose message is that yes, the world can be crap (and especially to women), but evil comes from who you are instead of what gender you are.

Maybe I'll try some more and see if I'm unfairly criticising LeGuin, or whether this genuinely is what she thinks. Any recommendations from LeGuin fans?

Graham.

PS. Recommendation: "Grass" by Sheri Tepper.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 01:56 PM

Hey, Grab! Just finished the EQ series for the second time (a long time since the first). She's a good writer. Perhaps, not a true classic, but well above pulp level. Can't compare with Tepper (never read her), but a cut above Feist, for instance.

Latest reading, assortedly (finished or current), Storm & Steel (WWI eyewitness from the *German* side, Ernst Junge, amazing chap); a history of the rise of Nazism (from its genesis in 19thC Bismarckian Germany through to 1933), truly frightening, both in just how easy it was, but also in just how easily it could have *not* been; Scottish Fairy Tales; battalion history of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in WWI (yep, again...), White Goddess by Robert Graves (no *direct* connection with WWI!); & Gulag, by Anne Applebaum, about the history of the Russian concentration camps. Oh, & Kipling. There's always Kipling... ;-)

It'd also be safe to include Pratchett & Iain M. Banks (the SF Culture incarnation thereof) amongst the recently consumed...

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 02:39 PM

That sounds great LtS. If I ever get to east London, I will definitely have to take you up on your offer.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 02:43 PM

"The speak o' the Mearns" Unfinished novel and essays by Lewis Grassic Gibbon....One of the finest Scottish writers and exponent of the "Golden Age" of the primitive peoples.


"Para Handy"   by Neil Munroe.....For the umpteenth time...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 02:57 PM

When did the Scots learn to write then, Ake? And how does porridge hold the characters (except by constipation...)?

:p

;-)

R

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Davetnova
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:05 PM

bloddy vickings

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:22 PM

Bloody pagans!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:32 PM

I'm going to Reading on the 5th of December. I'll ask it.

What are you, Reading?

or perhaps it should be

What! Are you Reading?

Hmmmm.

:D

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:33 PM

Well, I am eating black pudding, Ake, but isn't that perilously close to profanity?! :o

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 04:45 PM

Dagnabit. I posted to this and now it's gone!

I'm currently reading Larry Gonick's "Cartoon Guide To Physics" and his "Cartoon guide to statistics." Harry M. Hyatt's classic "Folk-lore of Adams County, Illinois" which I just bought, 'cause I was born there and never heard of a lot of this stuff. B. A. Botkin's "Tales....of the Civil War." Heinlein's "For Us the Living." And I just finished Dana Stabenow's latest, "A Taint In The Blood." A book called "By The Sword," which is a history of fencing. And another anthology of folklore, which I'm too damned lazy to go check the title of. And Burl Ives' "Wayfaring Stranger's Notebook."

That's the current list. And yes, I'm doing them all at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Juan P-B
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 06:10 PM

Due to my knack of losing books if I carry them around I am currently reading...

AT WORK : "Rogers Profanisaurus" Over & Over & Over

AT HOME : "Puckoon" By Spike Milligna (the famous typing error) and will shortly be starting Terry P's "Going Postal"

Juan P-B

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: kendall
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 09:04 PM

Ishmael was a very good story

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 09:57 PM

I should add that I'm still reading "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid." Fifteen years on, and it's still a wonderful and difficult-to-truly-grasp book for me.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Pogo
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 10:33 PM

bah...what do I NOT read?

What I've recently flipped through or are now flipping through:

A friend's manuscript
1001 Arabian Nights (the risque translation! O_O)
The Edge Chronicles: Midnight Over Sanctaphrax (not the greatest of the series IMO but all the books are nice and enjoyable mind candy)
Dearest Friend by Lynne Withey: An entertaining little biography of Abigail Adams
An old book I picked up in an antique shop about the history of World War One
Art books on Picasso and M.C. Escher
My own story I'm working on with another friend

Also plan on picking up the newest Prachett and Amy Tan books...and any other books that catch my fancy. Might breeze through the Lemony Snickett books in anticipation of the up-and-coming movie.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,bflat
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 12:03 AM

I just finished Digital Fortress by Brown. He also wrote the Da Vinci Code which wasn't as good as Angels and Demons (IMHO) also his. He is a terrific writer. I'm going to try to get back into Constantine's Sword by James Carroll. I got through a quarter of it sometime back and plan to start from the begining again. Have any of you read it and what did you think?

Ellen

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 02:54 AM

At the moment? Another silly thread on Mudcat Cafe.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:15 AM

Asterix the Gaul
Classics Illustrated comic - The Iliad
America (The Book) - highly recommended
Ethan Canin's For Kings and Planets
Hakira No Go (manga - very good!)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Grab
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 06:09 AM

I agree Raedwulf, LeGuin's certainly above Feist and other pulps. It's just annoying that some of it is very good and other bits she didn't seem to try.

Oh, other recent ones:

War of the Flowers - Tad Williams
Downwards Towards the Earth - Robert Silverberg
Going Postal - Terry Pratchett
The Science of Discworld II (The Globe) - Terry Pratchett
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Pompeii - Robert Harris

Next on the list is A Plague of Angels by Sheri Tepper.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 09:33 AM

"Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Era" by        Louise Hall Tharp. I just finished reading a 1948 book entitled "Village Greens of New England" which had a couple stories in it appropriate to some test scoring Tom is doing and yesterday's holiday. (Actually not Thanksgiving-specific but apple pie-specific.)

The "bathtub" book I just finished was "Murder at Fenway Park" by Troy Soos which I'll now pass on to my baseball fanatic brother. My R&R is sitting in a tub full of hot bubbles with a margarita and a book. The cats are always curious as to why mom's sitting in the water.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: MAG
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 12:24 PM

Oh, if we're doing long-term books, Rapaire, I have to throw in *Ulysses,* which I read three times as an English Lit major and developed a taste for. (same did not happen with various Woolf novels; she just didn't grab me, although *Orlando* was clever.)

|And I periodically take a stab at *Finnegan's Wake,* which is like the world's densest poetry. I'm usually laughing so hard by around page 20, I say, that's enough for now, and then re-read the same 20 pages in a year or three. You have to do it out loud. I swear Joyce was high as a kite throughout the (long) writing.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 12:33 PM

I've finished "Ulysses" a couple of times, at least. I haven't gotten past "riverrun" in "FW", for some reason, usually because I get interrupted. I'm quite partial to "100 years of solitude", but "Snow White" and "Tropic of Cancer" (all of Henry Miller, in fact) leaves me cold. I've enjoyed Tim O'Brien's stuff, esp. "The Things They Carried."

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: MAG
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 12:40 PM

Today I'm enjoying my science of dreaming book, but I'll take a break in a bit and go see *Motorcycle Diaries.*

I'm putting off attacking the mess in the sink and starting the turkey soup, although I'm quite fond of turkey soup.

It's a bee-you-tee-full day here in the Inland Northwest, and I should be outside shredding (more) leaves, but that's another story.

Or practicing band music; we're supposed to tape on Sunday.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Chris Green
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 12:44 PM

I'm currently re-reading 'Black Ajax' by George Macdonald Fraser, about Tom Molineaux, a black boxer who came within an ace of becoming heavyweight champion of England in the early 1800s. Highly recommended!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Firecat
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:54 PM

I've got loads on the go!

Various celebrity gossip magazines (Reveal, Star, Now, Heat, Smash Hits, Bliss etc...)
Backwards by Rob Grant
Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor (part of the Red Dwarf Omnibus)
The Red Dwarf Programme Guide
Learning To Fly by Victoria Beckham
Westlife on Tour by Eddie Rowley
Inconceivable by Ben Elton
High Society by Ben Elton
Blackadder The Whole Damn Dynasty by Richard Curtis, Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson
Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenixby J.K. Rowling

And last but not least...

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie

I'm also trying to write my own book, and a play/film script, but not doing very well at them!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 04:38 PM

Rapaire:

Both your posts materialized when I read the thread; I suggest abandoning "Godel Escher and Bach" as beyond the reach of most practicing minds and of little practical value!! LOL

A

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: HuwG
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 04:56 PM

MAG, I presume you mean, "Finnegans Wake", rather than "Finnegan's Wake". For once, the punctuation in the title is important. And yes, I have never got further than page 20 either.

Me:
"Set in Darkness", by Ian Rankin
"Bridget Jones; the Edge of Reason", by Helen Fielding
"C++ Windows NT Programming (Second Edition)", by Mark Andrews (there's a possibility of a job interview next week ; I had better stimulate some of the redundant synapses)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 05:06 PM

Lately?

"Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain (VERY good book)

"Power Versus Force" (ditto)

"Seat of the Soul" (ditto)

"Think and Grow Rich" (quite interesting)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: MAG
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 12:18 AM

You're right, HuwG; I stand corrected.

Amos, who said anything about practical value??

I keep reading interesting job descriptions to see what is required now, ...

Not enough reading to count.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Amergin
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 12:47 AM

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind...some of it is a little too pat...but it is his first book...however I find it hard to put down and very engaging....

also am reading some lovely books of poetry by Lawson, Paterson and CJ Dennis...thanks to the lovely and talented Joybell ;) (have her cd in my car stereo as well)...I am no good in saving presents to the right day lol ;)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Mudlark
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 02:32 AM

DuellingB's...I share your admiration of George MacD Fraser's writing. I loved the books he wrote about being in the army (though the Flashman series finally wore out their welcome)...

I'm currently reading Breaking Clean, a memoir by an escapee from Wyoming ranching, very well written, and a couple of older books I picked up at the last library sale: The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (his At Play in the Fields of the Lord is one of my fav. books, tho the movie they made frm it was sickeningly bad), and Coming into the Country, a book about Alaska, by John McPhee. I love library book sales!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 11:08 AM

Mudlark: Far Tortuga is my favorite Peter Matthiessen book. Very unsual style, but extremely memorable. His Father was President of the Board of Directors at the Museum where I was Executive Director..
Pete was a home town boy, made good.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 11:16 AM

I'll try putting a request here, because I really don't like having to start a new thread just for this...

I would like to read some biographies on the people listed below. I'm looking for the (arguably) best ones out there, which I know is pretty subjective, but if you happen to be someone who reads a lot of bios, you might have knowledge of the ones considered cream of the crop.

Here's my list:

Mahatma Gandhi
Franklin D Roosevelt
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln

If no one seems to be able to offer any ideas here, I'll ask the general population under another title, but at least I know I'm among readers here!

Thanks in advance.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Cool Beans
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 11:37 AM

Great recos. A literate bunch we are.
Right now I'm reaidng "The Clearing" by Tim Gautreaux. (Not William Faulkner's "The Clearing"). Gautreaux lives in and writes flavorfully about Louisiana. This novel is set in a cypress lumber camp in the 1920s. Another fine Gautreaux novel is "The Last Step in the Dance," with a lot of talk about Cajun music.
I'm a major T.C. Boyle fan. Just finished "The Inner Circle" which is a lot like the movie "Kinsey." Boyle's best novels are:
"The Road to Wellville," about the health crazes of a century ago (mostly set at Kellogg's sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich.) The roundly panned movie was actually great if you'd read the novel.
AND
"World's End," which covers a few centuries in and around Peekskill, NY. Fabuluous re-creation of riots over a Paul Robeson concert there in the 1940s. Pete Seeger (under another name) is a character in the novel. Last time I talked to Pete, maybe 15 years ago, he hadn't read it. T.C. Boyle also goes by T. Coraghessan Boyle, in case there is byline confusion.
Happy reading!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 12:30 PM

Hey Cool: Never read Gautreaux but the books sounds fascinating. Think I'll pick up a copy of The Last Step In The Dance. Thanks for sharing the enjoyment.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 01:00 PM

Wahay! Someone beat super ted to it! Way to go Jerry:-)

(No 100 that is...)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 01:27 PM

And I didn't even notice....

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Charmion
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 02:18 PM

I'm reading Patrick O'Brien's series of novels about Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin and the Napoleonic Wars; I just finished "The Mauritius Command" and am getting stuck into "Desolation Island". Fifteen more to go!

Ellenpoly, you might start on your American presidents research project with Carl Sandberg's biography of Abraham Lincoln, written in the 1930s, and the recent (2003) biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt by Conrad Black.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 06:27 PM

I hadn't read any of Patrick O'Brian's novels before picking up a copy of his "21" at the library. It's his final unfinished novel -- actually only about three chapters -- and the book shows his handwritten first draft on each right-hand page, with the corresponding passage of his first revision (which he did on the typewriter) set in standard type on each facing left-hand page. Then there's an afterword describing the author's career, the long hard time he had finding acceptance and eventually substantial success.

Everyone knows, I suppose, that O'Brian's Jack Aubrey saga was the basis for Hollywood's "Master and Commander." Mudcatters should also be aware that a fictional shipwreck decribed in one of these books inspired one of Jed Marum's "historical" ballads. Can't recall the title, or which CD it's on, but he played it both times I caught his act in New Orleans this year, and it's great. (Jed's the only Mudcatter I've yet met in real life, by the way.)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 04:25 AM

I'm hooked on Diana Gabaldon's series, which starts when a girl in Scotland passes through a crack in a large standing stone and finds herself back in the 1740s, just prior to the Jacobite uprising when Bonny Prince Charlie arrived.
There are currently 5 books in the series and I've worked my way through them all so far.
The books have different names in different countries - the ones released in New Zealand are called:
Cross Stitch
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
By the end of the last one, the hero and heroine are living in North Carolina and the year is 1772 but the story isn't finished yet.
Diana has also written a guide to the series, called Through the Stones and also a shorter story that follows one of the minor characters, but I haven't seen the next novel in the series yet.
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 10:57 AM

Thanks, Charmion. I'll check those bios out.

;-)

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 11:41 AM

I've nearly finished "Jack's Return Home" by Ted Lewis the book which the wonderful film "Get Carter" was based on. Would UK readers please note thet the book is set in SCUNTHORPE no matter how good the Newcastle/Gateshead area looked.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: *Laura*
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 12:37 PM

re-reading the Narnia's. brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Mudlark
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 02:57 PM

Hi Jerry...I love Far Tortuga, also...have 2 copies so I can lend one w/o fear of ending up without a copy of my own. I do this will all my favorite books: Norwood and True Grit, Riddley Walker, The Dixie Association and many more.

Charmion...I listened to my husband rave about these books, resisting for a long time what I assumed to by guy-stuff reading. Once I finally took the plunge, I was hooked. Have read them all, and many of them 2, even 3 times. Each one is very rich.   In comparison, I thought the movie appalling.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,(actually Joe_F)
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 03:55 PM

_Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity_ by Lawrence Lessing. A freebie from the Free Software Foundation for being a fatcat. Temperate & reasonable far beyond my own capabilities. I envy the author and wish him luck.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,peedeecee
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 07:35 PM

Someone upthread named Grab mentioned Ursula le Guin and asked for recommendations from her fans; someone else complained about le Guin's take on sexism.

First, you have to remember when many of her stories were written -- quite a few years ago, when women and women's issues were definitely not mainstream, and when (yes) men were indeed mostly sexist types who ignored women except for sexual purposes. Le Guin helped bring women to where they are now.

Second: she resolves the sexual/gender role dilemma beautifully in what I consider her best book: The Left Hand of Darkness. My husband, who is a professor of sociology, recommends this book to his students as a truly remarkable commentary on the social issues surrounding gender. It's also an exciting, can't-put-it-down read.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: open mike
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 08:14 PM

if i am not mistaken, Ursula LeGuin's parents were
Theodora Krober and Alfred or Albert Krober
the sociologist/anthropologist/archaeologists
from U.C. Berkely who studied and wrote about
Ishi, the man known as the "Last Wild Indian"
who stumbled into Oroville in 1911, nearly
starved, and in grief over the loss of his
fellow tribe members and family.
I have heard it said that she wrote about
future societies analizing them as if they
were the ancient ones her parents studied.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 09:42 PM

"The Final Elimination of the Source of Fear"

Super good book. I give it 10 out of 10.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Mudlark
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 09:47 PM

Peedeecee...I agree, L. Hand of Darkness LeG's best work, a stunning novel full of cultural insight, great characters and a very believable fantasy world...and fantasy is not my thing. I loved it.

OpenMike...How interesting. I had no idea re LeG's parents, but just recently reread the whole Ishi genre.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 01:51 AM

If any of you are Ursula Le Guin fans, her new one out "Gifts" is a good book for any kids you want to give a present to (after having read it yourself, of course).

But in the same vein and quite excellent, are the SF books written by Doris Lessing. The Shikasta Series. They are just as good, in my mind, as Le Guin's.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 02:11 AM

Peter (Midchuck), I just have one question about Cryptonomicon. How did Enoch Root get to meet up with Randy, when he seemed to die pretty convincingly in Sweden? Or did I miss something?

The only LeGuin books I ever read were the Dragon ones, many years ago, with F'nar and F'nor and F'lop and F'nan H'ddie and all the rest. I enjoyed, them, as I recall.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 02:52 AM

I'm reading an appalling book at the moment- it's a fast read so I'll finish it tonight even though I got it just today. It's an autobiography by Steve Hamilton, called 'I Want My Life Back'. He is a white South African.

He grew up with an alcoholic father and a despairing mother, always hoping for some show of love from his father, a father who was too deeply into his own angst to ever give it to him. When the author was 16 years old his father died, but by that time the boy was well along on his own self-destructive path.

At the time he writes the book, 2002, he's been clean 12 years - one day at a time. Detox centers and lock down wards were an ever increasingly familiar thing in his life - 8 or 9 times. I haven't gotten yet to where he stops the whole thing.

He gives talks at schools and is involved with individuals as well as with groups.

I don't think I have ever 'met' an addict as self aware as this man.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: number 6
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 11:31 PM

Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 12:10 AM

Ah hah! Good book about George Armstrong Custer and the Indians. I've read that one.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:26 AM

Custer dies in the end. Sorry to ruin it.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: open mike
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:53 AM

I am reading Firestorm by Nevada Barr..
apparently a story about a fire fighter..
who has been involved in major incidents
in the hills near here.

Also am an interesting
book that recently arrived in the mail:
New World Utopias, A History of the Search for
Community by Paul Kagan--a study of intentional
communities in the Western U.S. from 1870 to 1975.
the author went on to establish the
Utopian Studies Center at Calif. Historical
Society library.

I also have enjoyed reading a few of D.M. Bryant's
book...Dorothy Bryant wrote The Comforter: The kin of Ata
are waiting for you, and a few others.
here is an interesting reading list:
http://bbs.bapho.net/bbs/h-drive/magicka/readlist.caw

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 02:06 AM

Here's something of interest for anyone who is either interested in World War Two, or alternative histories.

Hector C. Bywater. The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-1933

This was written in 1925, and virtually predicted the events which would subsequently happen in the war years later. Bywater was killed in 1945, with many rumours about his death; one of which was that he was assassinated on the orders of Admiral Yamamoto who many think not only made use of Bywater's ideas, but wanted to make sure he was no longer around to offer more.

Below, is a review that explains a bit more about Bywater's book.


http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=92411035011178

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: MAG
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:32 AM

This weekend I squeaked in a re-read of Carroll's 2 Alice books.

I felt inspired by Rapaire to give Finnegan's Wake another crack, but first I have to discover where it's buried, in my cluttered house.

On another list someone started a Church of the Unhold Mess, and I am a charter member.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:44 AM

Peter (Midchuck), I just have one question about Cryptonomicon. How did Enoch Root get to meet up with Randy, when he seemed to die pretty convincingly in Sweden? Or did I miss something?

Have you read the Baroque Cycle books yet?

Enoch appears in all of them, in the late 1600's, early 1700's.

It is never made completely clear how or why, but he is not subject to the normal aging and mortality process.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Grab
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 12:13 PM

Thanks, peedeecee. I think I was the complainer as well as the requester-for-recommendations. ;-) Whilst I can clear a pretty big conclusion from a standing jump, I'd like to know enough to be sure.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:58 PM

That is interesting, Ellenpoly. Back when Bywater wrote that book all the key naval planning (both American and Japanese) was built around battleships. Aircraft carriers were seen only as a scouting and secondary raiding force, it was battleships which were expected to fight the decisive battles.

It was the British carrier plane attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1941 that changed that perspective! The Japanese admiral Yamamoto immediately saw that carrier aircraft could alter the strategic balance and supplant battleships as the decisive striking factor. Hence...Pearl Harbour.

Roosevelt had deliberately aggravated the Japanese in such a way as to precipitate a conflict by the end of '41, and fully expected such a conflict, but seems not to have expected them to hit as far afield as Pearl Harbour. On the contrary, I think he expected them to hit the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies (which they did...in addition to hitting Pearl Harbour).

The Japanese were expected to have an initial advantage in the early fighting, but the Phillipines was expected to hold out, despite Japanese landings, until the US fleet could concentrate its battleships and arrive off those islands...there to meet the Japanese and defeat them, mainly with big guns.

Even had the Japanese won that battle, American mass production was expected to inevitably defeat them soon enough, in further battles. This latter assumption was entirely correct. There was no way Japan could win a long conflict with the USA. They could only hope to win some of the early battles.

And they did just that...up until Midway. The Americans were kicked into the aircraft carrier age by Japan when it crippled their battleship fleet at Pearl Harbour. It is to the credit of the American navy that it adapted to the new carrier tactics as quickly as it did. Within less than 2 years of Pearl Harbour the Americans had the largest and most efficient aircraft carrier force in the World, and they have maintained it ever since.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:04 AM

Alexander Hamilton (bio)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 01:25 AM

Little Hawk, I've just finished reading another book on the subject, called "Red Sun, The Invasion of Hawaii After Pearl Harbor", by Richard Ziegler and Patrick M. Patterson.

The premise of the book is that Japan actually succeeded in the attack and took the Hawaiian Islands for several years, while the US were busy putting their efforts towards the European Campaign, before they finally then turned their sights back onto the Pacific.

It's quite interesting, but depressing as hell, I have to say. You may not be able to ever find a copy of this, though as I think it was a Hawaiian Press. (www.besspress.com)

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 01:30 AM

"Down the Highway" - Bob Dylan Bio. It's very good, but I think it spends too much time speculating on his personal life, and not enough on his music.
Can't wait to get a hold of "Chronicles".

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: JennyO
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 02:15 AM

I'm just starting to read "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav. Having already read "The Seat of the Soul" by him, and loving it, I am looking forward to this one.

Also, this book is all the more special to me since Two Bears went to the trouble of sending it to me from the other side of the world. Thank you Two Bears!

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: darkriver
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:06 AM

Ellenpoly,

many years ago (when I was a teenager), Philip K. Dick wrote The Man in the High Castle, about a contemporary world in which Roosevelt was after all assassinated in Chicago, causing the US to lose heart, and the Japanese & Germans win WWII. The story takes place in California, and is told brilliantly--the style of speech mimics the way native Japanese speak English, such as dropping articles. You might enjoy that one.

As for me, I'm with Pogo: what do I not read?

This last week or so, I swallowed three Brother Cadfael mysteries, E.R. Chamberlin's The Bad Popes, Karen Linn's That Half-Barbaric Twang; the Banjo in American Popular Culture, Dawn Prince-Hughes' Songs of the Gorilla Nation, and parts of J.R. Green's A Short History of the English People.

Like anybody cares. Or even notices.

doug

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: KateG
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:23 AM

Mark Cohen wrote:

"The only LeGuin books I ever read were the Dragon ones, many years ago, with F'nar and F'nor and F'lop and F'nan H'ddie and all the rest. I enjoyed, them, as I recall."

I think you're confusing Ursula LeGuin, who writes fairly serious anthropological SF with Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider series. Although McCaffrey's books are amusing and enjoyable, they are basically bodice rippers with dragons.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Partridge
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:52 AM

I've just finished "Hot Chocolate for the mystical soul" which was very uplifting

Pat

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 02:29 AM

Thanks doug, I'll look for that Phillip K. Dick book. Sounds like something I'd enjoy.

;-)

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Nick
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 04:27 AM

Re-reading The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart - enjoying it as much as when I read in the 70s

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Pogo
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 11:39 AM

Yeah for Ursala K. LeGuine and I never knew that about Ishi...wow I can see now the inspiration behind some of her characters! Has anyone read Jane Yolen's Sister Light/Sister Dark series? Now that has to be the most unique format for a fantasy series I have ever come across.

I remember she also wrote a non-fiction book about the importance of unadulterated fairy tales in modern society. I read it as a teenager but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the book. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Cool Beans
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 05:16 PM

Could it be "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales," by Bruno Bettelheim?

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 06:05 PM

I'm readin' the latest issue of "Liberated Ape". Some good stuff in there this month about species equality and treehouses.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: MAG
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 01:22 AM

I read *Sister Light/Sister Dark* and gave it a very positive review for VOYA Magazine (professional review journal). Great book. I'm not where I can keep up with the series, now.

I read a lot for my job. Competition with practice is a major stress.

Funke's *Inkheart* was a good read, especially for bookaholics.

I understand the sci-fi channel's upcoming miniseries of the earthsea Trilogy cast the leads as pretty whitebread, when LeGuin specifically made the islanders "dark-skinned.* They are not near as progressive as their audience. Oh well, I understand it is a Hallmark production. Typical, I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 04:40 AM

Well as predicted I've given up on the Robert Ludlum, it's shite!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: freda underhill
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 05:57 AM

I'm in the middle of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

This year some of the best books ive read are:

The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton, a criminal psychologist from the UK - fascinating, but heavy in parts. ive read several criminal psychology books, this is one of the best.

Mayada Daughter of Iraq by Jean Sassoon - the story of an upper class Iraqi woman's time spent in prison in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

The Promise - by Sandra Lee written about an Iraqi woman called Guzin Najim, wife of a former Iraqi diplomat who was poisoned in Iraq - the story of her life and her esacpe with her children.

am also currently reading Antonia Fraser's biog of Marie Antoinette.

I recommend all these books.

freda

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,ella noo cookie the nooo
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:31 AM

Moab is my washpot - Stephen Fry (his autobiography - very, funny and well written).

Ella

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Pauline L
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 12:44 PM

Mozart and Constanze, by Francis Carr. This book brings new life to an old subject, relying heavily on the large collection of Mozart's existing letters. I love reading people's letters. It makes me feel like I'm right there with the person who wrote them.

Sonnets by Bruce Gewirz. Discussed in another thread.

The Suzuki Violinist, by William Starr. Fun, light reading with lots of good photos (how to hold the violin and the bow, etc.) to show to students.

A Treasury of Selected Poems, Vol. 2, edited by Louis Untermeyer. (rereading for the nth time)

Focus on Nature, by John Shaw. (also rereading for the nth time) Another great book with photos by a great nature photographer. This book differs in orientation from most of Shaw's other photography books in that it tells a lot of stories about "how I came to take this picture." There is so much to learn here.

Perhaps equally important is what I'm not reading now: all those damn Xmas catalogs I keep getting in the mail.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 02:16 PM

I always have a few books I'm reading at the same time.

Currently, there's Gone Fishin' by Walter Mosley... a good story dealing with the early days of Easy and Mouse when they were pretty young. Love Mosley's writing; very descriptive (sights, scents and sounds) but keeps the story ticking along nicely. Only a few pages left to go in this one.

Also, reading The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub. Started reading that one last summer but got sidetracked and returned it to the library unfinished. I don't remember where I left off with it so I'm starting over. Straub can get overly wordy, but it's pretty regular Stephen King fare: good character development, a page-turner, but usually a bit of a disappointing finisher (big build-up to a cheesy climax often enough). Still I'm looking forward to getting to the final Dark Tower book when it's available at my local library; I finished the 2nd last one last week (still amused that he wrote himself into the story).

And there's also Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything which I got for Christmas. I'm a quarter of the way into that one. Very engaging, informative and humorous. This one gets passed around the family when I'm done it.

Another one I'm looking forward to reading as soon as I can borrow a copy is Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I saw it in the book store this season and it looked interesting. Maybe I'll buy it; the paperback version is on sale for 30% off at Coles right now...

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:06 PM

I'm now reading 'A Prayer For Owen Meany' by John Irving. SINSULL recommended it and it is a fascinating book.

I've got 'A Short History Of Nearly Everything' to read and am almost hoarding it right now.

Recently finished 'The Chronicals Of The Holy Grail' - definitely a must if you're into the Arthurian legend. Also Pompeii, Angels and Demomns and Digital Fortress.

I'm waiting for my freight boxes to come out from the UK - it's almost time to read Stephen King's 'The Stand again AND I've got the Narnia books to read as well.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:11 PM

I am reading jacqui c's post about books, above, at this moment. There are eight books on my bedside table, all deferred and resentful of it as well!


A

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: mg
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:29 PM

You actually could pay Stephen King a visit..he lives in Bangor, Maine. I used to live there and saw him all the time..lived right around the corner from him.

Oh, I am reading all the old issues of Country Living I can borrow from the hospital...mg

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:29 PM

After many years (about fifty-two) of having heard references to James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, I've broken down and am finally reading James Boswell's Life Of Samuel Johnson, LLD. Published in about 1780 or so, I believe. The book that effectively set the modern formula for writing biographies.

And there are so many references to Johnson's "Great Work", his Dictionary of the English Language (about 1750), in the biography, I got the library to get it for me--or that is, a volume of selections from that first "modern" dictionary.

When I was at the University of Minnesota those many years ago, I was very backward with the girls, so my "little black book" that someone gave me was filled instead with listings of books that I intended some day to read. One of those books, listed in say 1952, was (lo and behold) Boswell's Life Of Samuel Johnson, LLD. Only a little lag of 52 years there.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Teresa
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:34 PM

Well, at the moment, Steven Brusts's _The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars_

Waiting for me to read them are:

Barbara Kingsolver's _Prodigal Summer
A whole bunch of Charles de Lint's (he has a lot of folkie things in his books; he writes SF and plays folk music :) .)
Bill Staine: The Tour: A life Between the Lines
All of MZB's Darkover series

and many, many more. Wow, I have never in my life till now had "too much" to read. I do love it. The Internet is wondrous for accessibility to visually-impaired folk like me. :)

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:40 PM

Just finished Brian Hinton's "Both Sides Now" the Joni Mitchell biog and after browsing The Sunday Times I shall commence "The Torment Of Others" by Val McDermid.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:54 PM

MG - I'm not sure that I would want to meet Stephen King. I love the books but wonder about someone who can dream up plots like that.....

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 04:14 PM

I'm currently re-reading old issues of "Fantasy & Science Fiction", preparatory to trying to off-load some on e-bay

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Pogo
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 04:15 PM

I have read his book " On Writing " which is a very good and informative read. The rest of his stuff I really don't care too much for.

darkriver :) " I buy books and when I have money left over I buy food "

MAG: Gaw...they are making the lead roles whitebread in Earthsea??? Boo! philistines...

Cool Beans: No I'm pretty sure it was a Jane Yolen book. I'll check out that one too though

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: open mike
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 06:20 PM

Firestorm by Nevada Barr...
about a crew fighting a fire near here
in Lassen National Park

before that i read a murder mystery
set in Pennsylvania Amish community.

it was filled with recipes...

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Scoville
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 08:47 PM

Harder than Hardscrabble, a collection of anecdotes from people who grew up in East Texas during the 1920's through 1940's. Very interesting, but it makes me really thankful for my indoor plumbing and health insurance.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,ragdall
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 08:55 PM

Uncle Manta and the Children of Pride
"A story of courage, faith and perseverance; of a boy's escape from slavery; being forced to walk from Georgia to Virginia; his journey to Bermuda."
It's a very good read.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 08:57 PM

I just finished reading: The Birth Of Venus by Sarah Dunant. The story is set during the 1400s in Italy and the focus is on a young woman who wants to be a painter, to paint the inside of the chapels...this of course, is unheard of. There is a lot of religious history in this book as well as a look at the daily life of a woman and how it drastically changed when new religious views (something other than the Pope) were put into place. The author also shares about life in the convent during those times....very interesting community of women....not what you would think, either! Interesting start...slow going, but interesting.....EXCELLENT book, EXCELLENT!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Peace
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:11 PM

Teresa, I know you are blind, and I wonder at your temperament and personality because in a world set up for sighted people, if what I read in your posts is any indication, you see further than most.

Bruce

PS Love Kingsolver's work. Have you tried "The Bean Trees" and "Pigs in Heaven"? I don't think you'll be disappointed.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:15 PM

Ahhhh, I'm reading Mudcat posts...

Jus' funnin'....

But realy, I'm reading "Escaping thr Delta, Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues" by Elijah Wald...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:21 PM

Currently? Right now, this thread. Otherwise I have the book Flyboys going, along with Grant Palmer's Insider's View Of Mormon Origins, several books which I hope will help me with a presentation I have to do on the first on "Vision and Leadership", Hoig's The Humor of the American Cowboy, Fitzgerald's classic Papa Married A Mormon, and some others.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Pogo
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:41 PM

hehe...flipped through that last book some years ago...a very good read. Two copies of it on the shelf :)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:48 PM

Read Fitzgerald's other books, too -- Momma's Boarding House, etc. He also wrote the "Great Brain" series for kids.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Teresa
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 10:30 PM

Brucie, I have read those Kingsolver, and also "The Poisonwood Bible" ... love the way the disabled girl plays with language, spelling things backwards, etc. :)

Well, life gave me a combination of blindness and patience and humility (I hope) :) and that is it. Never known anything other than blindness, so can't complain, except when it comes to folks not wanting to understand or condescending. (No one here, of course.) :)

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: number 6
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 11:34 PM

Reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick for the 2nd time.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: John O'L
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:00 PM

'Everything Is Illuminated' by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I don't know if that's been mentioned yet, but it's the funniest thing I've read in years. I'm cackling constrantly. I'm about 60 pages into it and there are at least three very interesting narratives unfolding through all the humour. I see signs that parts of these stories will become quite moving before much longer.

So far, an excellent read.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 11:15 PM

"...before that i read a murder mystery set in Pennsylvania Amish community. it was filled with recipes... Open Mike

lol, Mike. I wonder if there have been any Amish murders? Or Amish murderers? That would be an interesting bit to research. In the span of 250 plus years, there's bound to be some.

I just finished a novel by Anna Qundlen called 'Blessing'. Picked it up at the local Salvation Army thrift store for $.25 on my way to lunch. It was interesting; the premise is that a young man who had never quite accomplished anything but eventually landed a job as THE maintenance person at the home and grounds of an wealthy elderly widow. When he finds a newborn baby deposited on his doorstep, he keeps it.

I'm also reading 'The Disappearance of the Universe' by Gary Renard. Its subtitle tells you what it's about: Straight Talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness.' It is one of those I dip into in bed.

There are also a couple of others I'm reading. (Like many other people I keep a bunch of books opened; I figure that just like sometimes I go to a meeting on politics and sometimes I go to music to play and sometimes I go to a concert and sometimes I take my dog for a walk - you get the idea - it is possible to keep books and their subjects separate in my mind.)

One of those I'm reading that I'm taking my time on is 'Truth and Duty, The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power' by Mary Mapes, the producer at CBS who broke the little bush's National Guard story - and lost her job for it. It's fascinating. Someday (I hope) this country will be amazed that we let the bloggers, neocons and the president get away with their lies and obfuscations.

Last night I started a fun one, 'The Know-It-All, One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World' by A.J. Jacobs. He's reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from start to finish. The equivalent, if I remember correctly, of 673 books. He's reached the early Cs so far. Fun.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:45 AM

The Great Influenza, the author of which I forget. Scarier than all hell, especially the parts about the US governement. And, I fear, prescient.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 10:45 AM

The Great Hunger-Cecil Woodham-Smith.The eighteen-forties potato famine in Ireland.Blundering stupidity,tragedy and of course,courage.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 10:10 PM

an article about lowden guitars in Guitarist magazine, but its not engrossing and I keep going back to Ian Rankin. I've started it three times.

if anybody has read the article all the way through and thinks it has something in there, I should know - let me know.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Deda
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 07:32 PM

Just finished a wonderful historical novel by Iain Pears called "An instance of the fingerpost" (set in 17th century Oxford, and includes John Locke among its cast of characters, a sort of mystery involving various conspiracies, the religious biases in England after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy) and have started a more contemporary fictionalized memoir called "The Color of Water" -- which starts off well. I'm also reading "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, which I have to go find a copy of (I started reading someone else's & want to continue it). It's a fast read and full of interesting information and interpretations. I was also reading "the Way," about kabbalistic Judaism, but put it aside months ago and haven't gotten back to it. I think the kabbalah is very interesting, but this is a pretty superficial treatment of the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 08:43 PM

Eyes Of Discovery... a book I go back to read every once in awhile... don't know if it's even in print in more... was published by Dover. It's a collection of the earliest known written descriptions of American as it was discovered and explored. From memory. one of my favorite sections of the book is a description of the discovery of the Grand Canyon. The discoverer had no concept of scale, and started climbing down into the canyon to refill his canteen. It was a longer haul than he counted on.

The book fascinates me as a first-hand account of American in its pristine state.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:43 PM

"The World is FLat", essays on the changes wrought in our civilization in the current century and where they might be leading, by Thomas Friedman.

Good read.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:00 PM

Hostage To Fortune by Amanda Smith. She's a granddaughter of Joseph P Kennedy; the book is letters to and from him--to his family, businesssmen, political figures and others. What an amazing person--and a worm. Anti-Semetic, bosom buddy of Joe McCarthy, stock manipulator, philanderer (book seems to gloss over this last one), clearly a defeatist as US Ambassador to the UK-- (seemed to look for reasons to retreat to Fortress America and let England sink or swim without even Lend-Lease. Blamed FDR for the death of his first-born--after supporting him in 3 campaigns, in 1944 called him a bastard. And this is all in letters he himself wrote, as collected by his granddaughter.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:08 PM

Oh yes--bootlegger-- is also glossed over, it appears--I'm reading between the lines to see how much of that comes out here.

And the developments leading up to the 1960 election are also fascinating--and complex.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Noddy
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:04 AM

Just finished "learning to Breath " by Andy Cave and two books by C. F. Dutton.
Andy cave's book is an easy read about his life coming from a miner to become a top class climber. My copy is signed by the author and a friend of mine gets a mention in it.

Dutton' books were a collection of short stories about the Doctor, the Apprentice and the author and their climbing adventures or should that be misadventures. Very funny. He also wrote "The Ascent of Rum Doodle" which is more of the same and is a must!

Currently reading about treking in NZ for my trip their next year and hoping to get a few gigs for my lady wife while we are there.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:13 AM

I tell lies W.E. Bowman wrote "The Ascent of Rum Doodle"

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Noddy
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:20 AM

it was G.J.F. Dutton and the book was/were "the ridiculous mountains" and "nothing so simple a climbing"
Next time I will pay more attention.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 07:52 AM

I am trying to read the books on the "Canada Reads"list. So far I have read two and both are just wonderful books, especially The Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. The best novel about World War 1 that I have ever read. The other book I am reading also has to do with the Great War, Deafening by Frances Itani is also a beautifully written boo. I also just finished A hilarious book called "Cooking With Frenet Branca" by James Hamilton Paterson.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 05:04 PM

just finished Ride of the Second Horseman, by Robert O'Connell
(about the birth and death of war)

specifically how war began with the split between agriculturalists and pastoralists (who began to raid agricultural settlements apprx 4000 bc)
which led to building walls around cities and later developed into warfare between agricultural states.. and how war served a kind of function that may be becoming irelevant in the modern world..

last nights fun.. which Ive just started and am enjoying.

also reading the Collapse of Globalism by John Ralston Saul.

(Amos, you may enjoy Jared Diamonds 'Collapse' if you like Guns Germs Steel)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:14 PM

'Sail like a champion' by Dennis Connor (I suspect ghost-written by the erudite Michael Levitt). It gives me a lot of scientific background about stuff I've worked out for myself over the years, and a lot of new stuff I want to try.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:19 PM

I recently finished hearing "Collapse" on CD, during my commute time. I enjoyed it very much, and admire Diamond's analyses of elements. I wish Bush would listen to it, maybe while cutting brush in Texas.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 11:43 PM

Correspondence, 1964-1966, with an admirable man, now dead.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: The business of politicians is not leadership but compromise. Leadership is the business of martyrs. :||

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: DougR
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 02:35 PM

Ebbie: "Truth and Duty"? You primarily favor fiction? :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Arne
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 02:39 PM

"Flight of the Iguana", by David Quammen.

Just finished "The Kite Runner", by Khaled Hosseini. That's an incredible book.

After that, back to James Bamford's "Body of Secrets" (about the NSA), and A. Zee's "Fearful Symmetry"....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 03:14 PM

I finished "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" about a week ago. A friend had sent it to me just before Christmas. I loved it. It is possibly the best love story I have ever read. I am told the film is ghastly kitsch, so I had better stay away from it. I don't usually like love stories anyway. They generally make me cringe.
I am now reading "In Sheep's Clothing", by George K. Simon Junior. He thinks he has some strategies for recognising and dealing with manipulative people. We shall have to see!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 03:24 PM

Currently, "Team of Rivals", Doris Kearns Goodwins' biography of Lincoln and his cabinet. Fascinating view of a great man who surrounded himself with powerful, intelligent men of dissenting opinions. Very ironic in comparison with the current occupant of the White House. I am simultaneously reading "Tales of the Alhambra" by Washington Irving. I don't mean I'm reading both at exactly the same time, by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:46 PM

"The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon. It's a murder mystery written from the viewpoint of a 15 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrom.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Deda
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 10:52 PM

I enjoyed "The curious case of the dog in the night-time" a LOT, and also "The Kite-Runner." Highly recommend them both. One of the great joys of my last year is that I've gotten back into reading a steady stream of good fiction, and I'm very impressed with the quality of fiction that's being written & read currently. (I got my late-life BA just over 10 years ago, and did some graduate work, and reading gradually kind of became "work" -- and sometimes about as dry as eating sand. Then I started selling a few books on-line, and re-discovered reading for FUN, FUN, FUN!)

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: autolycus
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 06:52 PM

Always got any number started.
Finished Waugh's Scoop and Haddon Curious Incident..., both enjoyable, both rather overrated in my opinion.
Nearly finished Fritz Perls Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (fascinating).
Recently started Lao Tse's Tao Te King (now that's a revolutionary one),The Therapist's Use of the Self (Rowan & Jacobs) and Academy Zappa (Proceedings of a Zappa Conference, edd. Watson & Leslie).

If this is a thread drift too far, forget it, but I'd be very interested in how people decide what to read, given the indigestibly vast amount to choose from. With me , it's work-related, been-meaning-to-for-....,serendipity, recommendation,feeling like it, it's the first one I see, duty,etc.etc.

On the other hand, sometimes I just can't decide, as tho' I've never read a book and don't know to begin.

Auto.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: number 6
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 08:39 PM

"On a clear Day you can see General Motors" .. by Jack Wright

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 08:57 PM

Autobiography of Donovan, a Christmas gift. A bit of self indulgent nonsense but a fun trip thru the 60s and 70s.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Gurney
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 12:12 AM

'Sarum', by Edward Rutherford. It is a historical novel, but stretching from the earliest settlers to 1985. That is, the earliest settlers in what became Salisbury, which means that England is still connected to Europe when it starts. It follows families. I'm up to the year 1553, and there are more than 1300 pages!
I've read his 'Forest', about the New Forest (planted in the 11c), and 'London', which have the same format. They are sort of history books, but not as we learned at school!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: kindaloupehackenweez
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 02:25 PM

:"A million Little Piece". Which Opera has been given the highest of recommendation. First chapter starts with a poor dude at the lowest of rock bottom, on a plane, not knowing how he got there or where he's going. Only to find his parents at the airport. They drive him to there cabin in/or around Niagra Falls, New York. Am looking forward to the next chapter of this possible, "Hollywood Horror".
Does he over come his additive ways and past.?????

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 02:31 PM

Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce who actually worked on a road gang and got himself a part in the film.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: em gunyou halaas
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 03:30 PM

'Drop City' by T.C. Boyle

A novel about Alaska, hippies, communes and woods living. Sucks you right in.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: DougR
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 12:42 PM

Unless I missed it, no one is reading "State of War," by James Risen. I'm shocked! Bush haters might find some more crap to throw at Bush if they read this book. So far, though, Risen seems to be "after" the CIA.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: ranger1
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 01:22 PM

Just finished "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs and "Sleeping at the Starlite Motel" by Bailey White. I seem to be in a non-fiction period at the moment, subject to change without notice, though.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Charmion
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 02:33 PM

Just finished "The Lighthouse" by P.D. James, a Christmas prezzie from my brother. Odd how the murder victim in her books is generally somebody who needs killin', but the murderer is almost worse. And the Great Detective's subordinates are much more interesting than he is!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: bobad
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 02:42 PM

'they can't hide us anymore' by Richie Havens

Reliving the 60s and 70s U.S. music scene.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: open mike
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 03:01 PM

the mud cat light bulb changing thread...
200!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 07:32 AM

No I'm Twyford Junction.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 11:26 AM

Gurney

I think of Rutherfurd as England's James Michener. He takes the story of England from the collapse of the land-bridge connection to France to the present. Although the story has a broad scape, the segments are interesting with a slight soap-opera overtone, but I ahve to say I enjoyed all three books you mentioned immensely.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Auggie
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 03:28 PM

"Night" by Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel's 1960 classic, revived thanks to Oprah's Book Club (of all things) is a memoir of his time in Auschwitz. Certainly not a book to bring a smile to your face, but also one not easily put down. Nor is it one easily forgotten once finished.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 05:46 PM

I'm re-reading a book I thought I had lost....one of the more cutting, important books I have encountered....

Arthur Herzog's "The B.S. Factor- The Theory & Technique of Faking It in America"

since he wrote so many other things, like "The Swarm", this little gem never got much notice, I'm afraid.

He simply, and as humorously as the topic allows, explains with examples how we are being inundated with ads, language and ersatz 'answers' that have radically changed how we understand our very culture. Obfuscation and hypocracy have become so insideous that we barely realize that there ever was an alternative!.........and this book is 30 years old!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,snarky
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 09:39 PM

bailey white has my old banjo. bad karma attached to that transaction, but not her fault... about to read Temple of my Familiars by alice hoffman

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Mar 06 - 11:48 PM

Just recently finished Michael Crichton's "State of Fear." Wow, a novel with a bibliography and cites. And, an eye-opener which makes me want to investigate some of his data regarding global warming, etc. I highly recommend it.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Dewey
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 01:20 AM

The Kabala. Zen, and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence. Donald Trump: The Art of the Deal.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 03:35 AM

Currently working through The Mother Tongue. Almost every other page is marked for something I want to refer back to! Thanks, Secret Santa!

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: GUEST,Cats
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 06:33 AM

Boudica - Dreaming the Hound. It's the third in the Manda Scott series about Boudica. An excellent read ~ difficult to put down. You do need to know a bit about the tribes though, so refer to the maps if you don't know where who was.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 09:10 AM

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. In time for the movie to come out.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: number 6
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 09:25 AM

The DaVinci Code by Robert Scheaffer, mainly because i read the Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln some years back. My interest has been raised by the legal proceedings currently in the courts involving the two books.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Diva
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 09:45 AM

The Horsieman Duncan Williamson and Red Rowans and Wild Honey by the late Betsy Whyte both smashing books about the traveller way of life..am in middle of essay on what it means to be a traveller

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: kendall
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 10:12 AM

The Darwin Awards. Hard cover, wicked funny.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: ranger1
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 11:33 AM

Recently finished "Carnivorous Nights", a non-fiction book about the search for the extinct Tasmanian Tiger by three Americans (two naturalists and an artist). Amusingly written and very informative about a variety of subjects. I am now extremely curious about several species of Australian mammals that I never knew existed before.

Currently reading "Cold Service" by Robert B. Parker. I've been hooked on the Spenser series since I was in high school.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Alba
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 12:19 PM

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
and
Night by Elie Wiesel.

Subject: RE: BS: What Are You Reading?
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 12:22 PM

Ranger 1 - I've read most of the Robert Parker books too. Have you read the Paridise series ? There was a TV with Tom Selleck aired a little while ago. It wasn't too bad considering.