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Books: Whatcha readin lately?

12 Jan 12 - 09:40 PM (#3289694)
Subject: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Raptor

Lately I can't get enough of Christopher Moore, Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey. Have any of you read any of them?

12 Jan 12 - 09:48 PM (#3289698)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bobert

Just got a hankerin' to reread Huxley's "Brave New World" so I ordered it from Amazon...

B~

12 Jan 12 - 10:14 PM (#3289705)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Rapparee

As usual, I have a bunch of stuff going at once. Let's see: Alfred Hutton's book on the history of swords (not "Cold Steel"), "Taming the fire within," "On Combat", "Medicine, Mounties, and Madams", and a bunch of others. I'd like to read Caesar's "De Bello Gallico" in a bi-lingual edition. And "The Secret History of the Sword." There are some others as well.

12 Jan 12 - 10:17 PM (#3289706)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Raptor, I am ashamed to say that, although once a singularly voracious reader, I have never even heard the names of these authors. But now that you have lauded them, I may well be tempted to take one of them on in the event of an encounter. Bobert, I hope one day to read Huxley's "Beyond the Mexique Bay". D A G Waddell, who taught at the University of Edinburgh, opens his Preface to "British Honduras: A Historical and Contemporary Survey" with an intriguing quotation from this work of Huxley which has served to whet my appetite.

12 Jan 12 - 11:32 PM (#3289725)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: JennieG

Carl Hiaasen is a very entertaining writer.....the one-eyed ex-governor who pops up in his books from time to time is a real hoot. I have just read a book on cold cases, unsolved murders, in NYC - enjoyed reading about the police work, less so about the politics of the various NYC police departments.

When we moved to this town in May 2010 the first thing I did was to change the address on my driver's licence, so I could join the library - had to have a local address - that was before we even moved into our new home!

Cheers
JennieG

13 Jan 12 - 12:07 AM (#3289736)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: mrdux

right now i'm in the middle of The Count of Monte Cristo -- all 1200+ pages of it, and a rollicking good read. i love Hiaasen and about 2/3 of Christopher Moore.

13 Jan 12 - 01:31 AM (#3289744)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bee-dubya-ell

I've read everything Carl Hiaasen's written (some books multiple times) and two or three by both Tim Dorsey and Christopher Moore.

Dorsey takes a bit of getting used to, what with having a psychopathological killer and an always-high doper as recurring protagonists. With Hiaasen, you get the impression that his male protagonists are romanticized versions of himself. If Serge and Coleman are romanticized versions of Tim Dorsey, he's a pretty fucked up dude.

13 Jan 12 - 04:15 AM (#3289775)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Backwoodsman

Stephen Leather's eight books in the 'Spider Shepherd' series. Just started on the last one - not demanding reading, any of them, but good easy-reading bedtime-stuff with multiple sub-plots and twists.

13 Jan 12 - 07:54 AM (#3289881)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

On the train I'm just finishing re-reading John Stewart Collis' 'The Worm Forgives the Plough' then I'll be starting Seamus Heaney's translation of 'Sweeney Astray' (hope it's as good as his Beowulf translation). Bedtime reading is Peter Marshall's 'Demanding the Impossible - A History of Anarchism' and the latest edition of Acoustic magazine.

13 Jan 12 - 08:08 AM (#3289884)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Pete Jennings

"A Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945", edited by Amelia Jones. Great collection of essays, bit heavy at times but full of good stuff.

13 Jan 12 - 08:14 AM (#3289887)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: artbrooks

I stand sit abashed before the collected literary might of the Mudcatters assembled herein - I just finished the most recent Tom Clancy.

13 Jan 12 - 08:45 AM (#3289901)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

"the collected literary might of the Mudcatters assembled herein"

We'll be pretending we understand what we've read next :)

13 Jan 12 - 08:57 AM (#3289910)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Raptor

Bee-dubya-ell great take on them, I can relate to Serge and that scares me more than a little.

13 Jan 12 - 08:58 AM (#3289912)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: freda underhill

I'm reading the Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen - interesting, funny and sad.

13 Jan 12 - 09:33 AM (#3289937)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Rapparee

Hutton's book is "The Sword And The Centuries."

Moore's "Lamb" is great.

13 Jan 12 - 10:36 AM (#3289974)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo

I am re reading The Illiad, have not read it in Many years..what a rattling good yarn it is. This time I am reading The translation by E.v. Rieu..very good. Also recently Read The Hare With The Amber Eyes by Edmund Dewaal,I Am Half Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley..great mystery, loved it.
I was pleased to see mention of The Worm Forgives The Plough by Collis. I read it long ago. Now that I am reminded of it, I shall read it again..I even own an ancient copy.
I do enjoy these threads..lots of great suggestions snd reminders.

13 Jan 12 - 10:41 AM (#3289978)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Spleen Cringe

I read some Carl Hiaasen books a few years back. A cracking good read. If you enjoy them you might also like Joe R. Lansdale's Leonard Pine and Hap Collins series - Bad Chili, Two Bear Mambo etc.

I'm reading Andrew Marr's 'The Making of Britain' at the moment - whilst I don't always agree with his perspective its a hugely readable book. Before that it was two brilliant novels: Maria Àngels Anglada's The Auschwitz Violin and A.D. Miller's Snowdrops.

13 Jan 12 - 10:46 AM (#3289983)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Charmion

I'm ashamed to say that I spend my idle hours reading trash. I guess it's a good thing I don't have that many idle hours.

My latest indulgence was the Furies of Calderon series by Jim Butcher, creator of Harry Dresden. I also plough through the New Yorker every week, and rather a lot of newspapers.

13 Jan 12 - 10:46 AM (#3289984)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,albert

Am reading Fingersmith by Sarah Walters..so far so very good!

13 Jan 12 - 11:00 AM (#3289990)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Well Art, this type of thread is just made for those who seek to impress with their apparant book worldliness. Only a matter of time before someone comes on saying how much they are enjoying Joyce, or Dostoyevsky or whatever.

Mainly bollocks of course.

13 Jan 12 - 11:07 AM (#3289997)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

"Mainly bollocks of course."

Why is it bollocks? We talk about what we're reading because that's what we're reading. If you don't like it, fuck off, why should we dumb down to your ignorant level?

13 Jan 12 - 11:12 AM (#3290001)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Oooooh! Touched a nerve have we?

13 Jan 12 - 11:17 AM (#3290005)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

Er, no, Silas - I just don't like anyone, especially a meathead, telling me what I'm allowed to read. I expect you're the sort of person who'd enjoy making bonfires ot the world's great literature if you got the chance. Talk about the Folk Police - now we've got the Book Police.

BTW, have you been watching Farenheit 451 by any chance?

13 Jan 12 - 11:21 AM (#3290008)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Well, mate, I am surprised at you. I normally quite enjoy your posts and actually agree with most of them, I certainly did not take you for the sort of twat that makes a judgement about another poster and book burning just because that poster happens to prick a few over inflated bibliophile egos.

I don't even know what Farenheit 451 is.

13 Jan 12 - 11:23 AM (#3290011)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Pete Jennings

Books which I have read, partially read or referenced in the past 17 months.

Just to impress Silas!

PS. Silas, if you read more maybe you'd be able to spell "apparent" and "Dostoevsky".


Andrews, R., 2003. Research Questions. London: Continuum.

Balken, D. B., 2005. Abstract Expressionism. London: Tate Publishing.

Briggs, A. ed., 1992. A Dictionary of Twentieth Century World Biography. Swindon: Book Club Associates in assoc. with Oxford University Press.

Buchloh, B., 2003. Neo-Avant-Garde and Culture Industry: Essays on European and American Art 1955-1975. London: The MIT Press.

Burger, P., 1984. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Translated from German by Michael Shaw. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Burskirk, M, and Nixon, M. eds., 1996. The Duchamp Effect. London: The MIT Press.

Chilvers, I. and Glaves-Smith, J. eds., 2009. A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clark, T. J., 2001. Farewell to an Idea. London: Yale University Press.

Corn, W. M., 1999. The Great American Thing. London: University of California Press Ltd.

Deleuze, G., 2005. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Translated from French by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Dow, A. W., 2007. Composition: Understanding Line, Notan and Color.
New York: Dover Publications Inc. (An unabridged reprint of Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. 9th ed. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. 1st edition published in 1899 by J. M. Bowles, Boston).

Edwards S. and Wood, P., eds., 2004. Art of the Avant-Gardes.
London: Yale University Press in assoc. with The Open University.

Elkins, J., 2002. Stories of Art. London: Routledge.

Foster, H., 1994. What's Neo about the Neo-Avant-Garde? October, Vol. 70, The Duchamp Effect (Autumn, 1994), pp. 5-32 (article consists of 28 pages), Available through: JSTOR archive [Accessed 5 February 2011].

Foster, H., Krauss, A., Bois, Y-A. and Buchloh, B. H. D., 2004. Art Since 1900. London: Thames & Hudson.

Guilbaut, S., 1983. How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Translated from French by Arthur Goldhammer. London: University of Chicago Press Ltd.

Haidu, R., 2010. The Absence of Work: Marcel Broodthaers 1964-1976. London: The MIT Press.

Harrison, C. and Wood, P. eds., 2003. Art in Theory 1900-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Haskell, B., 1999. The American Century (Part 1, 1900-1950). New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in assoc. with W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Honnef, K., 2007. Warhol. Translated from German by Carole Fahy and I. Burns. Cologne: Taschen.

Hopkins, D. ed., 2006. Neo-Avant-Garde. Amsterdam-New York: Editions Rodopi B.V.

Joseph, B. W., 2003. Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the neo-avant-garde. London: The MIT Press.

Kocur, Z. and Leung, S. eds., 2009. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Krauss, R., 1986. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. London: The MIT Press.

Lanchner, C., 2009. Robert Rauschenberg. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.

Lewis, I. and Munn, P., 2004. So You Want to Do Research. Glasgow: The SCRE Centre, University of Glasgow.

Lowis, K. and Pickeral, T., 2009. 50 Paintings You Should Know. Translated from German by Paul Aston. London: Prestel Publishing Ltd.

Margolin, V., 1997. The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy: 1917-1946. London: The University of Chicago Press.

Messinger, H., 1973. Deutsch-Englisch 6th ed. Berlin: Langenscheidt.

Murray, P and L., 1968. A Dictionary of Art & Artists. Harmondsworth: Penguin Reference Books.

Nelson, R. S. and Shiff, R. eds., 2003. Critical Terms for Art History. 2nd ed. London: University of Chicago Press Ltd.

Phillips, C. ed., 1989. Photography in the Modern Era. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Aperture.

Piper, D., 1984. A-Z of Art and Artists. Swindon: Book Club Associates in assoc. with Mitchell Beazley.

Rosenthal, S. ed., 2011. Pipilotti Rist: Eyeball Massage. London: Hayward Publishing.

Rothko Prizel, K. and Rothko, C. eds., 2004. The Artist's Reality. New Haven, Conn : Yale University Press.

Warr, T. and Jones, A., 2000. The Artist's Body. London: Phaidon Press Limited.

Weidemann, C., Larass, P. and Klier, M., 2008. 50 Women Artists You Should Know. Translated from German by Paul Aston and Jane Michael. London: Prestel Publishing Ltd.

Wood, P. ed., 1999. The Challenge of the Avant-Garde. London: Yale University Press in assoc. with The Open University.

Wood, P. ed., 2004. Varieties of Modernism. London: Yale University Press in assoc. with The Open University.

13 Jan 12 - 11:27 AM (#3290012)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

QED

13 Jan 12 - 11:32 AM (#3290015)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: David C. Carter

I'm reading Wind In The Willows.

It's heavy going,but gripping stuff!

Can't wait to find out Who dun It!





Charley Checkovsky

13 Jan 12 - 11:32 AM (#3290016)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,David E.

"I Thought You Were Dead" by Peter Nelson. Partly about a talking dog but mostly about a guy trying to keep his life together. I did however order a book of short stories by Anton Chekhov the other day. Yikes!

David E.

13 Jan 12 - 11:36 AM (#3290020)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Best ask pete about the spelling of Chekhov - he is our self appointed spell checker (even if he dosen't know the alternative spellings of old Fyodor)

13 Jan 12 - 11:37 AM (#3290021)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

"I certainly did not take you for the sort of twat that makes a judgement about another poster "

OK, I apologise for that - posted in the heat of the moment. But I'm disappointed to find that you're the sort of person who would belittle people becasue they like to talk about the kind of books they enjoy. I take my enthusiam for books from my grandfather who, from the time he left school at the age of 12 to work on the railway until he died at 94, devoured 2 or 3 books a week on just about any subject and loved to talk about them. A less pretentious man it would have been hard to find.

13 Jan 12 - 11:41 AM (#3290025)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

OK, I too aplogise for causing you some obvious offence, this was not my intention. Some lists that I post to have similar threads and you get people who would struggle with Janet & John claiming to be reading Ulysses or whatever and it is quite pathetic.

13 Jan 12 - 11:46 AM (#3290027)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: David C. Carter

I'll spell Tcheckoff any way I want,thank you.

Actually I'm reading:Saul Bellow's "Herzog".

13 Jan 12 - 11:48 AM (#3290028)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

Thanks for that, Silas.

"I was pleased to see mention of The Worm Forgives The Plough by Collis."

It's been years since I first read it, too, HiLo but it's a real trip down memory lane - that was the way my uncle used to farm. I'd forgotten all about stacking sheaves into stooks, the old tractor driven threshing machine - and when was the last time you saw a haystack, let alone knew someone who could build one?

13 Jan 12 - 11:49 AM (#3290031)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Pete Jennings

Yeah, Silas, I can see that point of view but I didn't see anybody here being like that before your "bollocks" post, which was therefore uncalled for IMO. As for "QED"...irony is not really to be taken seriously, you know.

And isn't it odd how we in the West presume that we can westernise foreign names just because it suits us?

13 Jan 12 - 11:51 AM (#3290032)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Well we have to 'westernise' some foreign names as they are written in a different alphabet.

13 Jan 12 - 12:00 PM (#3290038)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

I'm feeling very embarrassed - bloody 'ell, can't even talk about books without falling out with someone. Better go home and read How to Make Friends and Influence People (for the 35th time).

13 Jan 12 - 12:04 PM (#3290040)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Errr... its actually 'How to WIN Friends etc.

(Great book though)

13 Jan 12 - 12:07 PM (#3290041)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Pete Jennings

Oh, nice one!

13 Jan 12 - 12:12 PM (#3290045)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Becca72

Currently reading "In The Night Room" by Peter Straub, though I'm not enjoying it much. I just finished "The Protege" by Stephen Fry which was decent.
I'm a big fan of what I call "brain candy" - light, entertaining reading.

13 Jan 12 - 12:18 PM (#3290048)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

LOL!

13 Jan 12 - 01:00 PM (#3290064)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Rusty Dobro

Just finished re-reading 'Catch-22', now into the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, and never without 'The Guitar-Case Chord Book'.

Like most 'catters, I'm now very, very old, so may never get another chance to understand 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'.

13 Jan 12 - 01:01 PM (#3290067)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Hilo

I know what you mean about the Collis being a nostalgia trip..I grew up on a small farm and still remember, vaguely, horse drawn mowing machines and rakes..thanks again for the reminder leveller.

13 Jan 12 - 01:30 PM (#3290086)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Little Hawk

"The Hot Kid" - Elmore Leonard

"Fingerprints of the Gods" - Graham Hancock

"Bob Dylan - The Early Years" - Paul Williams

"Savitri" - Sri Aurobindo

I highly recommend all of them, for various different reasons.

13 Jan 12 - 02:37 PM (#3290131)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

I wouldn't "struggle with Janet and John" as I've a Master's Degree in English and French language and literature, but I'm reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I've read it loads of times before and I just love it. JK Rowling is absolutely brilliant. I have to admit to reading and re-reading The Famous Five books as well. Now you can all laugh at me!

13 Jan 12 - 03:07 PM (#3290141)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

As a mod, I am was glad to read past the tiff up above and see that you all can play nice. I grow weary of the anti-pendants vs pendants, etc. in these types of threads.

Anyway, as just katlaughing, I am reading The Life of Elizabeth 1 by Alison Weir. All this time, I've always thought of the UK as having so many ancient buildings and artifacts intact from the different reigns, only to find there's very little left of the Tudors. It's surprising to me, I guess, because we are such a young country, comparatively. I know there are still loads left and have seen the sites which have photos and info on the various castles, etc. it just shocked me to know such grand places were left to ruin or pulled down, reused etc. as late as the 1600s. Guess I need to learn more about English history.

I just got two books recommended by Don Firth: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot by John Callahan and Moving Violations by John Hockenberry.

And, if anyone wants a peek at my books read at MyLibraryThing.com holler.:-)

13 Jan 12 - 03:08 PM (#3290142)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Spleen Cringe

Not all all, Eliza. One of these days I'm going to track down and re-read Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine series, which I loved as a kid. And last year I re-read Alan Garner's The Owl Service and read Diana Wynne Jones' wonderful Fire and Hemlock for the first time, at the urging of Suibhne O'P (who also put me onto the Herefordshire detective stories of Phil Rickman, which I urge anyone who likes a bit of semi-pagan Church of England sleuthing to read immediately!).

Silas, glad you backtracked a bit. I don't think my mixture of trash fiction, popular history and the odd literary novel in my earlier post could be characterised as "showing off". All I know is that if I haven't got a book on the go and several more to choose from when the current one is finished, I start to get very twitchy....

13 Jan 12 - 03:13 PM (#3290149)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Spleen Cringe

Kat - not that far from where I live we have this little beauty: Little Moreton Hall

13 Jan 12 - 04:27 PM (#3290189)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Don Firth

Oftentimes I have a couple of books going at the same time. I'm currently working on "I Wonder as I Wander," a biography of the idiosyncratic singer of folk songs, John Jacob Niles, by Ron Pen. I'm also reading "The Gardens of Democracy" by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer, an analysis of the role of government in a dynamic society.

Waiting on my bookshelves is "Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World," by John Szwed.

A friend loaned me a DVD of Benjamin Bagby's recitation—like an ancient skald, in Olde English, along with an Anglo-Saxon lyre-harp—of "Beowulf." I found it absolutely enthralling, got myself a copy of the DVD, and am soon to pull my copy of "Beowulf" (transliterated into modern English) off my bookshelves and read it again.

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, Silas, if you haven't read Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451," you really should. Science fiction, yes. But it's a Classic. And it is, unfortunately, quite germane to such things as certain groups wanting to expunge certain books from the libraries, and the current rumblings about factions agitating to pass laws allowing them to curtail or censor the internet.

13 Jan 12 - 04:35 PM (#3290200)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Well spleen, you must live fairly close to me, as I also am not that far from little moreton hall. There are loads of elizabethan buildings in england, there are at least two in my village.

Now, hands up who likes Stephen King?

13 Jan 12 - 05:02 PM (#3290215)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Spleen Cringe

Stephen King? When I'm in that frame of mind, you can't beat him!

13 Jan 12 - 07:14 PM (#3290282)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Rapparee

E
ACB
XTRW3
5BURTX
HV4FTRA

I just had an eye exam.

13 Jan 12 - 08:21 PM (#3290311)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Elmore

Currently, Dr. Thorne by Anthony Trollope,recently, The Last Temptation by Val Mcdermid, Lonesome Traveler, a biography of Lee Hays.

13 Jan 12 - 08:41 PM (#3290326)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: EBarnacle

When I was at U of Maine, Steve King was my bridge partner. I was present when he announced that "Carrie" was accepted for publication. Read "The Shining" and one or two other of his books. Haven't read anything of his in decades--out of envy.

Lately read Thomas Behr's "Blood Brothers" about the first American Barbary war. [Full disclosure: He has asked me to be a reader and fact checker on his next book.]
"Catherine the Great" by Massie. I saw a name among the various counselours and lovers which is the same as one of my ancestrals. It seems he got around a bit.
A. Bertram Chandler's Grimes series, number 3, Star Courier," has been rereleased in omnibus form. Always a good read.
Dewey Lambdin's Alan Lewrie series and Alexander Kent's Bolitho series are always fun.

More to come.

13 Jan 12 - 08:52 PM (#3290330)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

Pillars of the earth by Ken Follett

and The Heretic by Bernard Cornwell.

13 Jan 12 - 09:12 PM (#3290339)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Joe_F

The books queued up at my bedside at the moment:
_Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular & the New Land_, ed. by Harvey Pekar & Paul Buhle (contains the delightful news that the Yiddish for Hail Mary is Oy vey Maria)
_Practical Politics 1972: How to Make Politics and Politicians Work for You_, by Frederik Pohl (charmingly out-of-date advice from a sf writer I am fond of)
The Best of Mack Reynolds (recommended by Pohl, not impressive)
_How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music_ by Elijah Wald (know your enemy; not started yet)
_Steve Jobs_ by Walter Isaacson
_C. M. Kornbluth_ by Mark Rich
The magazines queued up under my dining table:
Engineering & Science (the Caltech house organ)
The Chri Sci Monster (I am 3 issues behind)
The New York Review of Books

13 Jan 12 - 09:42 PM (#3290351)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Because my leisure time is so limited, I am currently proceeding at a snail's space through a collection of documents relating to the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes entitled Documentos Cortesianos II, 1526-1545, and edited by Jose Luis Martinez.

13 Jan 12 - 10:46 PM (#3290369)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Janie

Mostly the "Brent and Becky's Spring and Summer Bulbs" and "Johnny's Selected Seeds" catalogs. Escapist literature since I have little time to garden these days.

For fictional escapism, I am about halfway thru the last of Jean Auel's Earthchildren series - "The Land of Painted Caves." I'm enjoying it, but not as much as the earlier (1st 3) books of the series.

Next up is a coin toss between Ron Chernow's biography of George Washington and "A Species of Eternity" by Joseph Kastner, about the early American (of European extract) naturalists for whom so many North American species of flora and fauna are named.

14 Jan 12 - 03:27 AM (#3290409)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Monique

Zafón's "El juego del ángel" (The Angel's Game) and "El prisionero del cielo" (The Heaven's Prisoner), Kat's "Wind Words of Wyoming", Kathy Reichs' "Les os du diable" (Devil Bones), Pérez-Reverte's "El pintor de batallas" (The Painter of Battles), Sílvia Soler's "Petons de diumenge"...

14 Jan 12 - 05:46 AM (#3290442)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Dave the Gnome

I am just finishing off Cornwell's Alfred rthe Great series and have the fisrt two of his American 'Starbuck' series waiting in the wings.

I enjoyed Joyce Dustyupskys (Validimirs Missus) last novel 'Mr Bates, Mrs Bates and their son', BTW. What is wrong with that?

DtG

14 Jan 12 - 05:53 AM (#3290446)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Well, talking of Mr Bates, 'The Darling Buds of May' is well worth a read.

14 Jan 12 - 05:59 AM (#3290447)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

OK here's a question, anyone read Kilvert's Diary? What did you think of it?

14 Jan 12 - 07:21 AM (#3290478)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

Yes, Silas, many times. I got the feeling he was a very sensual man, and liked young girls! He was also lonely and not fulfilled in his clerical life. He did however respond passionatley to his surroundings and revelled in nature, wildlife and the countryside. I find his writings poignant and touching.

14 Jan 12 - 07:22 AM (#3290479)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

"I was pleased to see mention of The Worm Forgives The Plough by Collis."

Well, I have just ordered this from Amazon ( 1p used).

14 Jan 12 - 07:23 AM (#3290481)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Now you see Elisa, I thought he was a pervert.

14 Jan 12 - 07:47 AM (#3290492)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Pete Jennings

Interesting article about Kilvert's Diary here.

14 Jan 12 - 08:02 AM (#3290498)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

Thank you Pete, a very interesting piece. He died so young didn't he? I don't myself think of him as a 'pervert', just a man who was loving and impulsive with a great tenderness in his make-up. But we can't know for sure if he had more sinister leanings.

14 Jan 12 - 08:43 AM (#3290506)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: LilyFestre

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the last book of the trilogy.

Michelle

14 Jan 12 - 09:33 AM (#3290523)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

Dave, have you read The Winter King,Enemy of God, or, the Last Kingdom?

I really like those Arthurian legends.

I'm also dipping into Sovereign of the seas by David Howarth.
It's about how England came to rule the seas.

14 Jan 12 - 09:45 AM (#3290528)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

If you like the Arthurian stuff I can highly reccomend Stienbecks The Acts of King Arthur etc. Best (though unfinished) translation ever.

14 Jan 12 - 10:21 AM (#3290538)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Pete Jennings

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights .

Fascinating stuff.

14 Jan 12 - 11:39 AM (#3290565)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bill D

( I grow weary of the anti-pendants vs pendants, etc

*giggle*.. I even get tired of the pedants... *ducking behind the couch*

I am trying to re-read Asimov's "Foundation" series in chronological order instead of published order.

...but I keep getting interrupted by non-fiction like The BS Factor by Arthur Herzog- one of my favorite books of all time for deflating pompous thinking.

and "Alpha and Omega" by Charles Seife...an attempt to describe the history and methods of scientific "thinking" about the universe.

and "The Panda's Thumb" by Steven J. Gould, which does a better job than anything I've read about how evolution works and what the real issues are when discussing it.



oh...and far too many Mudcat threads...............

14 Jan 12 - 12:14 PM (#3290585)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bat Goddess

As usual, I've got more than one going at a time.

Just this morning I just finished reading "Malled: My Unintentional Career In Retail" by Caitlin Kelly. In the car (while waiting for Tom) I'm rereading "Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Roarke so I can send it to a friend trapped in the wilds of Maine. I'm almost finished reading "A Folk Handbook" edited by John Morrish.

Recently a copy of "Whitetail: Fundamentals and Fine Points for the Hunter" by George Mattis surfaced in the guest room. Haven't a clue where it came from, but I'm reading it before giving it to a friend who makes bows (though doesn't hunt any more).

Prolly will start reading "Nickled and Dimed" sometime soon.

Linn

14 Jan 12 - 12:29 PM (#3290592)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: open mike

The Home Place by Wright Morris.
this book contains many photographs
and tells the story of a day in the
life of a small town in Nebraska.
The town of Lone Tree reminds me of
the home town near my family's
homestead in Nebraska.
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Place-Wright-Morris/dp/0803282524

14 Jan 12 - 12:42 PM (#3290601)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

I stood before his grave at Glastonbury, and the strangest feeling came over me.It was like I'd known him.
Yes, I know he's probably not even there, and may not have ever existed, but, damn, he should have.

14 Jan 12 - 01:20 PM (#3290610)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: David C. Carter

Silas mentioned Steinbeck's The Acts Of King Arthur etc.

Loved that book,and have read it several times.
And probably will again.



David

14 Jan 12 - 01:54 PM (#3290631)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: wysiwyg

KINDRED, about an African American woman who is mystically transported back to the 1800's in the southern USA.

Part of this project:

Maya Angelou says, "At no cost to you and just by volunteering your time, you can become a giver of books. Join me as I join 30 authors and many of you in providing books for World Book Night April 23, 2012." http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/. Spread the word.
World Book Night | A million reasons to read a book

~S~

14 Jan 12 - 02:26 PM (#3290647)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Kendall - you need to read some of Geoffry Ashe - he is a somerset historian and a world authority on the Arthurian legends - easy reading and quite eye opening.

14 Jan 12 - 02:54 PM (#3290655)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: John on the Sunset Coast

I have just read the five entries in the Shardlake mystery series in order. These are set in the the England of Henry VIII, beginning with the last years of Thomas Cromwell. Shardlake is a lawyer who becomes involved with the highest levels of court, while involved simultaneously with the travails of the common folk...which usually become intertwined.

While I was thoroughly entertained by the novels, I hope there are no more. I think five books is sufficient for any character.

Sansom, C.J. (2003). Dissolution.
Sansom, C.J. (2004). Dark Fire. (my particular favorite)
Sansom, C.J. (2006). Sovereign.
Sansom, C.J. (2008). Revelation.
Sansom, C.J. (2010). Heartstone.

14 Jan 12 - 10:16 PM (#3290744)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: meself

Just finished one that may be of interest to some in this neighbourhood: Ridgeway, by .... Vronsky. It's an account of the only real battle in the Fenian raids into Canada. The Fenian forces, a couple of thousand of battle-hardened Civil War veterans, were opposed by half as many Canadian university students and shop clerks, most of whom had never before fired a shot,led by bungling amateur officers with no battlefield experience. The Canadians were appallingly ill-trained, ill-equipped, and ill-led, but there was some pretty vicious fighting, including some ugly bayonet work. Ironically, the incompetence of their leadership may well have saved the day for the Canadians: through a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings never satisfactorily explained, their "pursuit" of "fleeing" Fenians turned into a panicked retreat on their own part, which meant that they avoided running into a trap the Fenians had set for them, in which they would have been slaughtered, in all likelihood. The Fenian effort collapsed when the American government, to the surprise of the Fenians, blocked their supply and reinforcement lines from the States. This, and the failure of the Irish- and French-Canadians to rise up and join them, led them to abandon their campaign.

One of the many curious factoids that emerges is that one-third of the fifty or sixty Fenian prisoners taken by the Canadians were Protestants.

And the Fenian plan to capture Canada wasn't nearly as far-fetched as it seems at first blush. But it did depend on the goodwill of the US   government which it turned out - too late - they didn't really have (does that sound familiar?).

14 Jan 12 - 10:32 PM (#3290746)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ranger1

Fiction: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Non-Fiction: Winter World by Bernd Heinrich, Life in the Cold: An Introduction to Winter Ecology by Peter Marchand

I've also got Champlain's Dream by David Hackett Fischer kicking around in here somewhere that I keep meaning to get to.

15 Jan 12 - 12:45 AM (#3290784)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Neil D

I also recently read C.J.Sansom's Shardlake series and enjoyed it immensely. Does anyone know of other historic/mystery novels in a similar vein?
I have also recently read several of Ian Rankin's John Rebus novels.

15 Jan 12 - 12:55 AM (#3290788)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

For book clubs I belong to, recently finished East of Eden (which I'd never read), am almost done with Sarah's Key, and will read A Moveable Feast next. Then I hope to squeeze in some books I choose!

15 Jan 12 - 01:26 AM (#3290797)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Crowhugger

meself, I'll definitely put "Ridgeway" on my list to read. I just finished Pierre Berton's "The National Dream" and I'm now reading "The Last Spike," both about events before, during and after Canada's confederation up to 1885, particularly as they relate to the building of the 1st sea-to-sea Canadian railroad. According to Berton, fear of the Fenians was a major influence upon the creation of Canada and the subsequent building of the railroad to connect the east with Manitoba and British Columbia.

Also I have on the go "Possession" by A.S. Byatt. A very literary whodunit which I'm mostly enjoying. A bit thick sometimes but so far it's been worth it. I listened to some episodes of the BBC radio drama but holy smoke, they took out SO much to make it manageable for a serial drama. I recommend the book, at least so far anyhow!

Recently finished Ruth Rendell's "The Crocodile Bird;" "Mamba's Daughters" by DuBose Heyward--highly readable drama of US coastal lowland blacks in the early 20th century. And "Herding Dogs" by Vergil someone (a UK writer and herding trainer).

There's a bunch of Margaret Atwood I haven't read yet--I think The Handmaid's Tale was the last one of hers I finished--but I'm not at all sure when I'll get to it; I really have to be in the mood for some of her stuff. I do want to read The Blind Assassin, though.

I still want to track down copies of some unread Barbara Kingsolver. Love her stories.

Don Firth & Silas: I really enjoyed Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 both times I read it, first for grade 10 English class, then a decade or more later. (BTW, Silas, 451 degrees F. is the temperature at which paper burns.)

Fun thread and a lot of new book leads to track down, thanks everyone!

15 Jan 12 - 02:30 PM (#3291006)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,kendall

I never read East of Eden; how does it compare to the film with James Dean and Burl Ives?

16 Jan 12 - 08:44 AM (#3291340)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bat Goddess

I absolutely adore "Possession" by A.S. Byatt -- she writes convincingly in at least four different voices in a couple different eras. It's been a few years since I read it, but I always seem to be longing to reread it when I can schedule the time.

Yesterday I started "Island", the collected short stories of Alistair MacLeod who wrote "No Great Mischief"...amazing writer.

I also forgot to mention that I'm a couple chapters into "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong"...of course, I have to read almost everything again aloud to Tom after I've read it...

Linn

16 Jan 12 - 09:10 AM (#3291351)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Becca72

"Now, hands up who likes Stephen King?"

One of my all time favorites - I own almost everything he's written.

16 Jan 12 - 09:36 AM (#3291359)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: jacqui.c

Same here Becca - still got one of his latest to read.

I just finished 'the Pillars of the Earth' and 'World Without End' by Ken Follett, both of which were compulsive reading for me. Just started 'The Lion' by Nelson DeMille, another of my favourite authors. Being retired is great - more time for reading!

16 Jan 12 - 10:35 AM (#3291382)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Amos

Just finished an endless intricate and informative The Greatest Show on Earth by Dawkins. Interesting, respectable, everything it should be, and I could only finish four or five pages a night. Now zipping through the latest Ladies Number One Detective Agency thriller In the Company of Cheerful Ladies to compensate.

16 Jan 12 - 11:09 AM (#3291407)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

Silas, I just watched a program on our History channel about the Arthurian legends, and Geoffry Ashe was one of the people they interviewed.
I've visited Tintagle,Glastonbury,and Cadbury hill. They make the legends more real.

16 Jan 12 - 11:18 AM (#3291415)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

I have had the pleasure of meeting Geoffrey on a couple of occasions some years ago, he is a really nice guy.

Ther eis more than one CadburyHill/Castle. The one that is thought to be 'Camelot' is very near Yeovil in Somerset

16 Jan 12 - 11:23 AM (#3291420)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Amos

Kendall:

The book, as might be expected, is considerably richer than the movie. As I recall the movie really only covers a central segment of the book. A great read. But its been fifteen years, I reckon.


A

16 Jan 12 - 01:57 PM (#3291498)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Crowhugger

Amos thanks for reminding me to put Ladies' No. 1 on my reading list!

16 Jan 12 - 02:14 PM (#3291512)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

Silas, the one I visited is supposed to be the site of Camelot. There is a legend that says Arthur and his knights ride across the hill on dark nights, and Mr. Ashe said he stood on that spot and heard a flute being played. He did not investigate.

17 Jan 12 - 05:01 PM (#3291734)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Kendall, I'm glad Amos responded about East of Eden because while I have recently finished the 602-page book, I have never seen the movie, just clips! I understand the movie is about the last half of the book. I was about 200 pages into the book before I found a character that I liked. That first 200 pages was slow going for me, but after that my pace picked up.

17 Jan 12 - 06:20 PM (#3291780)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Gonna hit minus 32 C tonight. I have a nice Zane Gray on the nightstand that I will read under the covers with my trusty flashlight.

17 Jan 12 - 06:46 PM (#3291798)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Silas

Kendall, there was a dig there in (i think) the sixties conducted by Ralegh Radford, he was apparantly asked by a local old boy if he had come to dig up the old king!

17 Jan 12 - 07:30 PM (#3291813)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

-32 C? thats approaching savagrus in my state. (-26.5 F)

17 Jan 12 - 08:14 PM (#3291843)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Kendall, you forgot the (-) in front of that 26.5 F. The two scales get close to each other only at the Arctic end.
U.S   Rest of World
-30 F      -34.4 C
0       -17.8
32          0
100         37.7
212 F       100 C

savagrus?? Yankee patois is most pekoolyar.

17 Jan 12 - 10:40 PM (#3291916)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Having finished A Moveable Feast, I am finally starting a book I chose, not one chosen by my book clubs. It's Murder on Sisters' Row by Victoria Thompson, set in New York City In the late 1800s. Sarah Brandt is a midwife, widow of a doctor. She and Frank Malloy find themselves investigating the same cases for different reasons. This is the 13th and latest book in the Gaslight Mystery Series.

18 Jan 12 - 03:42 AM (#3291979)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: JohnInKansas

My index of "books on hand" that I made some years ago, and kept pretty well updated for a few years, does contain 2147 books; but probably fewer than 100 are anything resembling current (the last 100 years?) fiction or social/political stuff. I gave up on trying to keep the list up when Lin & I merged our collections (i.e. started piling them on top of each other 'cause they wouldn't fit on the 380 lineal feet of shelves we had at the old place). She may possibly have had more books than I did, but lots of hers are small paperback heaving-bosom trash (but don't tell her, since she has a different opinion).

I have been engaged in the overly ambitious project of scanning some of the "personally significant" ones to pdfs, so that we can have some room to waddle around in our new smaller house. A reliable count of what I've gotten done is difficult, because I've mixed in other kinds of papers before I started to get it all organized.

A problem with this project is that when I scan one, the necessary "proof check" to see if I got all the pages in the right order nearly always gets sidetracked by the necessity of "refreshing my memory" of the ones that are still really interesting. The folder where I decided to separate the "real books" lists (DIR *.* /s>list.txt) 10,000 lines and is 201 pages, but that includes subdirectories and other data scans, like individual pages where I didn't get the OCR done immediately.

Culling the list brings it down to 23 pages, 1582 paragraphs in the list, with each paragraph theoretically representing one book(?).

I probably was "compelled" to reread at least a fair part of about a third of the books scanned, just because it was fun.

I've eliminated about a dozen "book boxes" of the books (the ones that didn't fit on the shelves) and cleared one layer off of some 11 feet of shelves where they were double-deep; but haven't really started on the music or fiction with the exception of some old hymnals that were falling apart already, and were easy to split down to scannable bits.

Of course that's just my books. "She" won't let me touch her valuable ones. And I've only been scanning in my "spare time" for about a year. And all the re-reading makes me pretty inefficient.

John

18 Jan 12 - 07:41 AM (#3292056)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

Our little village mobile Library van has just been. I got eight books and had a natter with the people in my road. This van spends twenty minutes at each location, and you can have the books for eight weeks. I got some excellent History books, one on the Tudors and another on the Stuarts, two Agatha Christies, two biographies, of life in a country house and a servant's experiences below stairs, and some gardening books, and all free! That should keep me quiet for a while! I do love our Libraries, mobile and buildings. I hope the Local Authority doesn't axe them here in Norfolk UK.

18 Jan 12 - 02:41 PM (#3292293)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

Q, it's there, you just didn't see it. :-)

18 Jan 12 - 05:16 PM (#3292398)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Eliza, do keep up the interest in history. Great minds seem to find it a subject hard to resist!

19 Jan 12 - 08:46 AM (#3292744)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Donuel

I used to think Stephen King was just a whimsical macabre horror writer

then he wrote The Green mile.


Does Dawkins supurbly titled The Greatest Show on Earth deal with the early evoloving cell with no impenatrable membrane that is later replaced with the selfish gene that has a wall which denies sharing?


I hope the internet does not evolve along similar lines!





I can not read easily, so I rarely undertake large books.

19 Jan 12 - 10:41 AM (#3292815)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: kendall

King has written other good stories, Deloris Claiborn and the Green Mile.

19 Jan 12 - 10:43 AM (#3292817)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Becca72

Not trying to suck up to Little Hawk (really!) but I just started "Star Trek Memories" by William Shatner :-)

19 Jan 12 - 06:38 PM (#3293094)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Shimrod

One of the best books that I read last year was 'The Dervish House' by Ian McDonald. It's a SF novel set in Istanbul in 2027 - and completely unlike any SF novel you've ever read. For a start all of the characters are Turkish - not an American or a Brit in sight. It's a complex and fascinating piece of work.

23 Jan 12 - 08:09 PM (#3295213)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Fans of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series might want to see THIS THREAD. Beautiful song!

24 Jan 12 - 12:48 PM (#3295504)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MGM·Lion

Currently reading Joanna Trollope's latest [I think], Daughters In Law; good, but I feel her work is rather falling into a pattern: tho I suppose same could have been said of her famous ancestor - uncle 5 generations back Anthony], one of the greatest of Victorian novelists, all of whose works I read with great enjoyment when younger, & could embark on projects to read entire works of Dickens, Jane Austen [greatest of all for my money], Hardy, George Eliot, Conrad, Henry James etc. Nowadays I am less adventurous, & tend just to reread favourites like Dorothy L Sayers; tho do try to keep up with some contemps I admire, like above-mentioned J Trollope, Ben Elton - simultaneously just rereading his High Society, good novel about drug scene, & recently reread his Popcorn, which I highly recommend - Howard Jacobson, Stephen Fry.... Other C20-C21 I like are the Drabble sisters {Margaret D & her older sister A S Byatt}, Nancy Mitford, Forster ~~ not a chronological list, just as the names occurred to me. Dislike the other Bloomsburys (V Woolf &c) as rather rarefied; & could never abide the priggish self-satisfied D H Lawrence.

That's just novels ~~ have read much in verse & drama too over the years of a long life; but enough for now ...

~M~

24 Jan 12 - 01:37 PM (#3295520)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Monique, thanks for the mention! (I missed seeing it, earlier.)

24 Jan 12 - 11:36 PM (#3295818)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Finished Victoria Thompson's Murder n Sisters' Row and am almost done with Cara Black's Murder in the Bastille. This is the fourth book in her series of Aimee Leduc's Investigations, each set in a different arrondisement in Paris. I wish the maps in the books were larger! Next up is Nevada Barr's The Rope, another of the Anna Pigeon mysteries. Anna is a US National Park Ranger.

24 Jan 12 - 11:47 PM (#3295824)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

ChanteyLass, I just ordered the first two of the Gaslight series from paperbackswap.com. Thanks for the recommendation. I also see I am far behind on Anna Pigeon! Last one I read was No.11...the next one sounds grisly, not sure if I want to read it or not, High Country?

kat

25 Jan 12 - 12:46 AM (#3295842)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Kat, enjoy the Gaslight mysteries. Like most writers, Thompson gets better as she continues to write. I like the books because they give a little flavor of old NYC. A similar series by Rhys Bowen features Molly Murphy and is set in NYC at about the same time.

I think I liked High Country. The hardest ones for me to get through have been ones dealing with physical and/or sexual child abuse. I think Hard Truth and Burn were two of those. There may have been a third, or I may be confusing it with another book. Two of my favorites by her were Blind Descent and Liberty Falling.

In both series, I like seeing the way the main characters develop their lives and relationships.

25 Jan 12 - 05:26 AM (#3295911)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Spleen Cringe

I second Shimrod's championing of the Dervish House (in fact it was Shimmy who put me onto it - thanks!). I wish more sci-fi/speculative fiction was half as good as this.

On a similar note, I'm now finally getting round to reading China Mieville's 'The City and the City'. Brilliant. I like everything I've read by him (Kraken, Perdido Street Station) but this far and away the best. A tale of two separate cities sharing the same geographical space...

25 Jan 12 - 02:16 PM (#3296143)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

I don't know if anyone here likes Alexander McCall Smith's 'The Number 1 Ladies'Detective Agency' series? There's a new one coming out next month, called 'The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection'. They're delightful books, gentle humour and poignant human problems all set in modern Botswana. He's an excellent author, with other series, but the Botswana one is my favourite. I've already pre-ordered a copy of 'Limpopo...'

25 Jan 12 - 02:51 PM (#3296166)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Desert Gold by Zane Grey. This western gem written in 1913.
I am just getting 'round to reading his novels.

25 Jan 12 - 11:33 PM (#3296396)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Backwoodsman

Just moving on to 'Blue Highways' by William Least Heat Moon. A tale of his travels in his van, nicknamed 'The Ghost-Dancer', through every county of the lower 48, driving only on the back-roads. I expect this one to take a while.

25 Jan 12 - 11:59 PM (#3296403)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Eliza, there are several of us who love that series. I've read them all but the latest. Have you seen the few episodes they made of it on netflix? Really well done on location in Botswana; just as he describes it in the books.

Backwoodsman, thanks for the info about Blue Highways. I've just ordered it from paprebackswap.com.

26 Jan 12 - 06:03 AM (#3296489)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

Yes, Kat, I did see the short series and agree, just the same atmosphere as the books. But no Rra Polopetsi, instead a jolly hairdresser who seemed to be gay. (I've no objection, but I did like Rra Polopetsi and his sad story.) Did you like "The Double Comfort Safari Club" and "The Big Tent Saturday Wedding"? Poor Rra Phuti Radiphuti and his amputation! Can't wait for the new one!

26 Jan 12 - 12:51 PM (#3296693)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Oh! I think I missed the last one you listed, Eliza. I'll have to go look for it, now. Thanks!

26 Jan 12 - 02:14 PM (#3296755)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST

@katlaughing - ...I've always thought of the UK as having so many ancient buildings and artifacts intact from the different reigns, only to find there's very little left of the Tudors...

My local pub, The Old Hall, to which I shall shortly wander over for a couple of pints of Lancaster Bewery's 'Bomber' was completed in 1598. Most of the buildings in the village were built in the early 1600s, and the barn of the other pub (The Royal, which I much prefer but it's a pop quiz night) was built in 1500. It's all still here, and most old buildings are 'listed' - which meants that it's pretty much against the law to demolish them.

If anyone's interested, I've just finished Iain M. Banks 'The Use Of Weapons', and am now re-reading Le Carre's 'The Honourable Schoolboy'. His best book, I think, but read TTSS first.

26 Jan 12 - 02:23 PM (#3296767)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Max Johnson

I was that GUEST.

26 Jan 12 - 02:43 PM (#3296776)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

Oh dear, kat, I'm very sorry if I've spoiled the plot for you if you haven't read that one yet. Oops!

27 Jan 12 - 01:37 PM (#3297346)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Elmore

Currently reading Mill on the Floss. by George Eliot. It starts off as a sort of tale about childhood, then takes a dramatic turn. I'm frugal,(read cheap) and bought a lot of the free books on Kindle. I've learned to appreciate them in my old age. But beware of the typos

27 Jan 12 - 01:41 PM (#3297347)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

Elmore, I'm v interested in what you say about typos on Kindle. I haven't got one as yet, could you tell me more please?

27 Jan 12 - 08:56 PM (#3297596)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Elmore

Generally, the free classics have a typo here and there ,but not to the point of being unbearable. Forget about free poetry. It's unreadable. Books you pay for are mostly okay. An exception was a crime novel by Val Mcdermid, which I paid for. Typos were so frequent I gave it up. Still, I enjoy the Kindle. My wife gets books from the library on her Kindle.

27 Jan 12 - 11:27 PM (#3297630)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Elmore

P.S. Instead of the word"classics", I should have used Victorian. I didn't mean Sophocles or that bunch. Regards, Elmore

28 Jan 12 - 12:02 AM (#3297646)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Eliza, no worries. I don't think you spoiled the plot. I love those books, regardless and will enjoy it when I get it.

@Max, the Guest who was Max(**bg**) thank you! I know there are many more old buildings there than over here. The ones you describe sound wonderful. I would love to see them. (And, I thought it was incredible when I moved to New England and lived in a house from the 1700s!)

I, too, am interested in hearing that about Kindle. Since I did my own book, I was very careful about typos. SO far, no complaints. It helped that I used the same file I'd used for the paper version and that I am said to be an good copy editor.:-)

28 Jan 12 - 06:05 AM (#3297714)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Backwoodsman

"Backwoodsman, thanks for the info about Blue Highways. I've just ordered it from paprebackswap.com."

Kat, I'm so hacked off - I thought I'd bought the book from the Kindle store, but after a few pages of what I thought must be the Foreword, I realised I'd bought a study manual which summarised each chapter down to half a page or so. The Amazon Kindle Store didn't make it clear that it wasn't actually the book, which isn't available for the Kindle!

I'm currently searching for a hard-copy version! Grrrrrrrr!!

28 Jan 12 - 10:20 AM (#3297847)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Backwoodsman, I just checked paperbackswap.com. There are 3 copies available of Blue Highways (different copyrights: 1983, 1986, 1991). If you aren't a member, I could purchase a credit (I just used up the ones I had) and get it sent directly to you. It's only 2-3 bucks and the mailer pays the postage. Send me a PM if you'd like me to do that,okay? With your mailing addy, of course.:-)

kat

28 Jan 12 - 12:00 PM (#3297903)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

I thought some of you might like to read this. It is an inscription in a book, Messer Marco Polo by Don Byrne, of my paternal grandfather's:

This volume is the property of one Frank Hudson a resident of (a) village hamlet (in?) town of Carbondale which is situated near the foot of (Mount) Sopris. Whosoever shall steal this book may the hungry hounds of hell pursue his soul through the eternal fires of damnation until the same are congealed by the frost of the big winter.

No wonder my family is passionate about our books!:-)

28 Jan 12 - 03:19 PM (#3298027)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Kat, this grandfather of yours sounds like one of my kindred spirits.

28 Jan 12 - 03:57 PM (#3298064)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

CLass(how do ya like that for a name contraction?*bg*), my maternal grandfather had the first lending library in New Castle, Colorado - his own private collection. Each book had an ink stamp "From the private library of" with his name and the book number.

29 Jan 12 - 01:36 AM (#3298296)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

I had a lending library of my books in my basement! Bobbsey Twins, Honey Bunch, Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, Vicky Barr, Nancy Drew, Tom Corbett, Hardy Boys, etc.! As the only only child in the neighborhood, I had more time to read than my friends did, and my parents had a little more disposable income than their parents did. However, I also toted home a stack of good literature from the library each week.

29 Jan 12 - 04:21 AM (#3298321)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza

OH! The Bobbsey Twins! My auntie in Canada used to send me those for Christmas and I absolutely adored them. I'd forgotten all about them. I also seem to remember she sent a book called (I think) 'Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy' and a game called Howdy-Doody. Thank you for the memories!

29 Jan 12 - 08:27 AM (#3298389)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: maeve

This seems interesting: Fisherman teaches himself to read, then writes his autobiography

There is an advertisement at the start, but the story is worth the wait, IMO.

29 Jan 12 - 10:00 AM (#3298435)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Ed T

Try reading this:
Washroom reader

29 Jan 12 - 11:31 AM (#3298476)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Neil D

I just finished "Drood" by Dan Simmons, an entertainingly bizarre fictionalization of the last five years in the life of Charles Dickens, from the Staplehurst Rail Disaster to his death exactly five years later. It includes his involvement with a demonic underworld master criminal named Drood and mesmerism. The story is being narrated by his increasingly drug-addled collaborator Wilkie Collins, author of "the Moonstone". I hear that Guillermo del Toro will be making it into a movie, which should make for a spectrally atmospheric period piece.

29 Jan 12 - 11:40 AM (#3298483)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

maeve, what an inspiration! I can't wait to show that to Morgan.

EdT. LOL!

Neil, that sounds really interesting!

29 Jan 12 - 11:59 AM (#3298490)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Backwoodsman

Hi Kat, Maeve - I just bought a copy of 'Blue Highways' on E-Bay for 99p (a dollar and a half) plus postage! Thanks you guys!

29 Jan 12 - 01:52 PM (#3298558)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Kewl!

04 Feb 12 - 01:36 PM (#3302151)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

EdT as much as I love Moby Dick, that is one edition I won't buy or read, but what an achievement!

I finished Nevada Barr's The Rope and am now rereading Tom Brokaw's BOOM! Voices of the Sixties. About three years ago I wanted to read AND discuss it, so I suggested it to one of my book clubs who agreed on the choice. That club is organized by my local branch of the YMCA but meets at an assisted-living residence. Residents, Y members and anyone else who comes can participate. The year we read it, we had the liveliest discussion in that club that year. I then suggested it to my town library's club, but the month we were supposed to read it there was a huge storm, parts of the library were flooded, the library was closed for two months, and when we met again we moved onto the book for that month! Then we were going to read it last year, but something else went wrong (can't remember what) and by the end of the year we had skipped that book and one other! Finally we are reading it. It's a long one but interesting and easy to read.

04 Feb 12 - 10:27 PM (#3302344)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

That sounds good, ChanteyLass. I just finished the book in which my granddad wrote that warning: Messer. Marco Polo. It was really good. I'm reading The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days by Andy Adams. I think it first came out around 1903. Just got Margaret Coel's newest paperback Wind River Reservation mystery. I really enjoy them. They get better as she learns more of the landscape and the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes. It's one our fav. places in Wyoming, so it's been good to see her improve.

I also just got Blue Highways in the mail, plus the second of the Gaslight mysteries. The first is on its way. Now, I hope someone at paperbackswap wants some of my listed books, so I get more book credits, but I have plenty to keep me going, for now.

Oh, one more which my son recommended: The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz who comes from a long line of Toltec wisdom leaders.

05 Feb 12 - 09:49 PM (#3302838)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Margaret Coel's books sound interesting. I wish I wasn't so back-logged with books I want to read in between the choices of my book clubs! At least I know I'll never run out of things to read.

I hope you like the Gaslight mysteries. They are more like cozies than hard-boiled mysteries. but the info on old NYC is interesting. It's good that the author admits that she was not entirely accurate about something at Coney Island in that second book. I liked some things I learned in Murder in Chinatown, too.

19 Feb 12 - 11:01 PM (#3311100)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

I finished Tom Brokaw's Boom! Voices of the Sixties for one of my book clubs and am trying to squeeze in at least one book of my own choice before starting the book for my other club. I have started Jane and the Canterbury Tale by Stephanie Barron. It's the 11th in her series in which Jane Austen solves mysteries.

24 Feb 12 - 06:18 PM (#3312957)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

I finished Jane and the Canterbury Tale (another cozy) and have started Marcia Muller's City of Whispers, the 29th in her mystery series about San Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone. This should be a hard-boiled mystery, not a cozy. It is another independent choice, but when I finish it I'll have to read the next book for one of my clubs.

24 Feb 12 - 06:28 PM (#3312960)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Joe Offer

I just finished a book by Dave Eggers titled What Is the What? It's the story of a boy in South Sudan who spends 15 years as a "Lost Boy" in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and then ends up in Atlanta with hardships that are almost as challenging. It really gave me a feeling for the refugee problem in Africa.

Somebody suggested I read some of Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries set in ancient Ireland. The one the library had available was Smoke in the Wind - which is set in Wales, not Ireland. I'm almost done, and it's hard to pull myself away from the book to do anything else. The plot is very well-constructed, a very satisfying mystery. I hate mysteries where the mystery isn't credible - this one is very credible.

-Joe-

25 Feb 12 - 10:54 AM (#3313215)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo

I have just finished The Illiad (Rieu translation) It is a few years since I read it and I enjoyed it every bit as much this time round. Also just finished Niall Fergusons book "Civilization, The West and The Rest". Very thought provoking.

25 Feb 12 - 11:41 AM (#3313230)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: EBarnacle

"How to MAKE Friends..." is about creating androids.

Just finishing "The Other Tudors" subtitled Henry VIII's mistresses and bastards, Philippa Jones. He really did get around and there are still descendants alive.

25 Feb 12 - 04:29 PM (#3313403)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MAG

somebody above mentioned 'the last temptation," i just finished the new tony and carol mystery; a real downer
currentle reading "girl who fell from the sky," current Portland Reads" book.

Also very much enjoyed "city and the city" -- on a Nancy Pearl list; good source of goods reads.

confess I also reread T S Eliot, please don''t stone me, anti-pedants.

25 Feb 12 - 05:02 PM (#3313410)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: fat B****rd

ust finished 'That Woman' about Wallis and David. What a pair!
Light relief (light!)with Peter Robinson's "Before The Poison' and currently "French Children Don't Throw Food"
Charlie's the name - eclecticity is my game.

25 Feb 12 - 05:06 PM (#3313411)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Not to worry,MAG, I will gladly stand next to you and be stoned by those unfortunate folks who are unable to enjoy Eliot's poetry. I will not confess but, rather, proudly proclaim that I keep going back to his poetic works - over and over. To me, there was none greater than he in the entire twentieth century.

25 Feb 12 - 08:51 PM (#3313466)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MAG

... and I have to remember not to type with a very demanding cat in my lap ...

26 Feb 12 - 11:07 AM (#3313628)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo

I too love Eliot..but let us not forget Yeats. I think he is Eliots pnly rival in the last century.

26 Feb 12 - 11:23 AM (#3313634)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: wysiwyg

Book of Stories for the Storyteller, The by Coe, Fanny

http://librivox.org/the-book-of-stories-for-the-storyteller-by-various/

For my Kindle, for campfires.

~Susan

26 Feb 12 - 12:12 PM (#3313649)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

My fellow-guest HiLo, your comment is short and sweet. I hasten to express the fullest respect for your opinion.

26 Feb 12 - 12:24 PM (#3313651)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Finished Macia Muller's City of Whispers. I'm about to reread P. D. James's Cover Her Face. I read it years ago when the Adam Dalgliesh mystery programs started appearing on public TV here. Now one of my book clubs has chosen it. We wanted to read James's new Death at Pemberley, but it is in such high demand at libraries that we won't be able to get copies for months. I suggested Cover Her Face as an alternative. I have mixed feelings when one of my clubs picks a mystery. That's my favorite genre, so there's a good chance I will like the book, but I joined the book clubs to get me out of my reading rut and expose me to other genres.

26 Feb 12 - 12:59 PM (#3313661)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo

Hi ChanteyLass;
I have been in the same book club for over twenty years (same eight people). The way we avoid getting into a rut is that we do not all read the same book. We just bring along whatever we have read in the lasr month. We end up with quite a variety of books, both fiction and non fiction. We also have a poetry month, we each bring along two poems..that is always great fun, goes everywhere from Chaucer to Wendy Cope. We don't meet over the summer so In June we do brown bag books. We each put two books in a brown bag and exchange them. We all do enjoy that as you never know what you might get.
Loads of fun and lots of variety.

26 Feb 12 - 07:32 PM (#3313820)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

That sounds like fun. I couldn't do the brown bag exchange, though. I only buy books to give as gifts, or if I've gone to an author talk, I'll buy the author's autographed book and donate it to the library. Then I will borrow it!

My mystery rut is a personal one. In addition to wanting a book club to expose me to other genres (as a young person I read a wide variety, I wanted to discuss books with other people who had read them.

In my library book club, the members submit suggestions in the late fall and vote on them in December. The librarian eliminates the ones that are not readily available in the state library system before we vote. We each can vote for 12 books. The 12 books that get the most votes are the ones we will read in the coming year.

In my YMCA book club, we suggest books at each meeting. When we find one that we agree on and that has enough copies available in the library system (which I check by accessing the catalog on my smart phone), that is what we choose.

Most often I do not suggest a mystery. I am content to enjoy those on my own. I usually suggest something that I want to read and discuss so that I can hear other people's opinions

At both book clubs people often bring in other books they have read. Often these are new books that have long waiting lists in the library system. Some of them become our choices when they are readily available.

26 Feb 12 - 10:32 PM (#3313885)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: John on the Sunset Coast

Currently reading Burton's "1001 Nights" for pleasure. Samuel Sandmel, "Judaism and Christian Beginnings", a bit more intense.
Today I attended a symposium which devoted two lectures to aspects of that history.

26 Feb 12 - 11:21 PM (#3313896)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: LilyFestre

I'm reading War Horse for my book club. :) It's an easy read and a very enjoyable book.

Michelle

27 Feb 12 - 12:01 AM (#3313902)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: katlaughing

Joe, I am delighted you have read one of the Sister Fidelma books! IMO, they are brill. It is best to read them in order, if possible, though, as she has one relationship which develops throughout.

Thanks to whomever mentioned East of Eden. I've just finished it and loved it. Wow! I have a bunch of quotes marked to add to my collection, then I shall pass it along to my son. I think he will enjoy it, too.

Just about half-done with my first taste of the Matthew Shardlake books by C.J. Sansom. This one is called Dissolution. Thanks, NeilD, for the recommendation. I like the characters, very much, and the history. There is something about his writing which bothered me, at first, but I seem to have gotten into the rhythm of it, now.

My grandson and I are reading to one another over the phone just before he goes to bed at night. He's been hearing some of the Just So Stories and a couple of Robert W. Service poems. He esp. liked the Cremation of Sam McGee.:-) Tomorrow we are going to read a couple of stories from a book he requested: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ("collected from folklore and retold by Alvin Shwartz.")

kat

12 Nov 14 - 03:12 PM (#3676736)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

This cafe is frequented by many avid readers of books. It would be good to hear again from some of them as to what they have been reading of late. To start the ball rolling, I will say that I have recently read and re-read Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo, a book of which I had heard many a favourable comment and which I would certainly recommend to those who can read Spanish.

12 Nov 14 - 03:55 PM (#3676743)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: fat B****rd

Just finished re-reading Michael Herr's "Dispatches" (I recently visited Vietnam) and just started Alex Gray's "The Bird That Did Not Sing" an Inspector Lorimer mystery.

12 Nov 14 - 05:30 PM (#3676767)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: gnu

Olde Charlie Farqharson's Testament.

12 Nov 14 - 06:52 PM (#3676781)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Jim Carroll

Great to find a masterpiece by a new author - 'Beyond Pulditch Gates' - a satire based around the building of the Poolbeg Power station in Dublin - from the 1950s to the '80s - brilliantly hilarious.
Jim Carroll

12 Nov 14 - 07:35 PM (#3676790)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bat Goddess

Best novel I've read lately is "The Secret of Lost Things" by Sheridan Hay. Also recently finished "Expats" by Christopher Dickey -- a circa 1990 book about the Near East "from Tripoli to Tehran" and south to Oman. Good reminder of what was going on in that region from the Sixties until the late Eighties.

Right now I just started Gail Sheehy's book "Passages for Caregivers" which I really wish I'd read when it came out. But then I got so wrapped up in caring for Tom that I forgot I wanted to read it. Sigh. It's still worth reading now.

Linn

12 Nov 14 - 09:19 PM (#3676802)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Joe_F

Rereading:
Pat Buchanan, Right from the Beginning
Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings

12 Nov 14 - 09:21 PM (#3676803)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: LilyFestre

Between Sundays.

12 Nov 14 - 10:27 PM (#3676812)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Janie

"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak.

"Local Souls" a collection of short stories by Alan Garganus.

Peterson's Field Guide "Birds of Eastern and Central North America" is a constant companion.

Rereading for the 3rd time "A Species of Eternity" by Joseph Kastner.

"Best of Hillbilly" edited by Otto Whittaker, author, Jim Comstock

About to reread "On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon" by Kaye Gibbons

13 Nov 14 - 12:25 AM (#3676820)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Fiction: Gone Girl, The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Nonfiction: The Wordy Shipmates, Delancey

13 Nov 14 - 07:48 AM (#3676870)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Very grateful to all who have already responded to my call. I do hope we'll also have the pleasure of hearing from others, such as my fellow guests, Hilo and, yes, Eliza. I know, Eliza, that you said, over four long months ago, that you'd stop posting on Mudcat. You didn't vow, however, to stop visiting the cafe. Therefore, I want to think you are reading this and, though no more than a fortunate guest myself, I put in this long overdue plea: let us hear from you again, please!

13 Nov 14 - 09:08 AM (#3676886)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Rapparee

I just now finished "Murder of the Century" about the Guldensuppe case in NYC in 1897. Paparrezi are no new thing!

Also Tony Husband's "World War II In Cartoons." Brian Crane's latest "Pickles" collection.

Currently reading, depending on where I am in the house or car:

Hobton's "Pistols at Dawn." O'Neal's "Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters." Sotomayor's "My Beloved World." Glass's "The Deserters." Malone's "Waterpower in Lowell." Keegan's "The Face of Battle." Grossmamn's "On Combat."

13 Nov 14 - 11:34 AM (#3676932)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Sean Belt

Just finished Herbie Hancock's Possibilities. Currently on my nightstand is Goldfinger for the third or fourth time. I'm a sucker for those old James Bond novels.

13 Nov 14 - 03:58 PM (#3677008)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Firecat

The Hunger Games trilogy again. I read it really fast first time, so now I'm taking a bit more time over it. I'm about halfway through Catching Fire.

All being well, I'll finish it before going to see Mockingjay Part 1.

13 Nov 14 - 07:46 PM (#3677048)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,saulgoldie

I'm reading "I Am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai, the young woman who just won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is an amazing person, and the book is so well written!

Saul

13 Nov 14 - 08:10 PM (#3677052)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,gillymor

Rereading "Chalkstream Chronicle" by Neil Patterson. A good read even if you don't take trout on a fly.

Just finished "Such Troops as These: The Genius of Stonewall Jackson" by Bevin Alexander. It's a concise bio and analysis of Jackson's military endeavors. Highly recommended for Civil War buffs but it may not sit well with R.E. Lee fans.

13 Nov 14 - 10:22 PM (#3677065)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Mrrzy

Reread 100 years of solitude when Gabriel Garcia Marquez died... what a great book.

Am looking for a good nonfiction science of thinking and communication book, any recommendations? I've read a bunch, looking for something else...

14 Nov 14 - 09:52 AM (#3677160)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Musket

Boris Johnson's Dream of Rome.

Anybody who wonders if he is too thick or too clever as a politician? If he retired and spent all day writing like this, he'd be one of the most respected men in The UK. Instead of a dangerous buffoon.

My bedside Kindle read is working my way through Ian Rankin's Rebus series. Good escapist detective drama.

14 Nov 14 - 10:38 AM (#3677173)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Rapparee

"Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" is excellent on science and communications and thinking. It is, however, nearly inaccessible reading.

14 Nov 14 - 10:43 AM (#3677175)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bill D

I am getting rid...somehow... of most of my 60 year collection of science fiction, but have saved out some special ones to re-read. Recently finished "The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, and am just starting its sequel, "The Gripping Hand".

Brilliant books in their concept

After that, I 'intend' to work my way thru the entire "Darkover"series by Marion Zimmer Bradley....possibly reading them in chronological order instead of published order.

14 Nov 14 - 02:47 PM (#3677233)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Mrrzy

LOVE the Moties! What *alien* aliens, not at all Star Trek-like!

(I need a human word!)

Have read Redwall both chronologically and in order of publication. Excellent series.

14 Nov 14 - 05:25 PM (#3677253)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST

Waging Heavy Peace an autobiography by Neil Young.

14 Nov 14 - 06:18 PM (#3677256)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,achmelvich

i read that neil young book. loads about cars and guitars but - 'i don't want to talk about disagreements i have had with steve stills so i won't' i enjoyed the book though . just started re-reading 'ragged trousered philanthropists' but don't expect to get that far with it. enjoyed 'the goldfinch' and ali smith's 'there but for the' - which somehow made me feel nostalgic so i have also been listening to and (re-)reading '70s album covers with my mobile turned off and not wasting time on err.....mudcat etc

14 Nov 14 - 07:17 PM (#3677267)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: michaelr

I'm reading the new Terry Pratchett Discworld novel Raising Steam - delightful! TP is said to have Alzheimer's, but his wit and imagination appear undiminished.

15 Nov 14 - 02:01 AM (#3677323)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MGM·Lion

Currently reading the memoirs of Rabbi Lionel Blue "Hitch-hiking to Heaven"; of interest to me, because I was at school with him at Hendon County, after he returned to school for sixth form Higher School Cert, after a year out when left school in East End, and won a scholarship from there to Balliol. Bit of drift: but might be of interest that Frank Williams, later the Vicar in "Dad's Army", was in same VIth form -- oddly ecumenical! Not that Frank was a real vicar, but he was a devout practising Christian, regular churchgoer, member of Synod of CofE IIRC. Another drifty coincidence: I was in school play in which Frank played the lead, "The Ghost Train", written 20 years earlier by actor-playwright Arnold Ridley, who was also in "Dad's Army" as the somewhat incontinent elderly Private Godfrey.

Also reading collections of essays by the interesting campaigning & socially-commentating journalist Theodore Dalrymple.

≈M≈

15 Nov 14 - 02:07 AM (#3677324)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MGM·Lion

Also Dirty Northern B*st*rds! & Other Tales From The Terraces: The story of Britain's FOOTBALL CHANTS by Tim Marshall. Folklorically interesting!

15 Nov 14 - 02:19 AM (#3677326)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MGM·Lion

Dalrymple, mentioned above, if you don't know his work, I find a useful counterblast to much of the trendy "progressivism" which, given entirely free rein, can bedevil so much of contemporary thought & attitudes. He is a former prison doctor and psychiatrist, with much insight into what makes the criminal mind tick.

15 Nov 14 - 06:05 AM (#3677351)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,MikeL2

Hi

Like Musket I read Ian Rankin's Rebus books for bedtime reading.

Just got through all of them and am trying Peter James and his Inspector Grace novels.

Not as gritty as Rankin but probably a little more bloody - especially since his new girlfriend works in a mortuary.

Keep Reading,

Cheers

MikeL2

15 Nov 14 - 05:34 PM (#3677481)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Dani

What a great thread!

Mrrrzy... YES! 100 Years is such a gorgeous book. And Kendall, The Green Mile broke my heart. I'm not a huge King fan, but I thought that was amazing. Have you seen the movie?

What's on my table?

- The finally-finished "Travels with William Bartram"

- Faulkner's "Light of August" (HATED IT! My first Faulkner, and I'll do no more)

- "It's Your Ship; Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy" by Michael Abrashoff

- "Eating Mindfully", Susan Albers

Need to find some good fiction, or so help me I'll start again at the beginning with Jack Aubrey!

PS: How do y'all do italics here? My normal command-I doesn't seem to work.


Dani

15 Nov 14 - 09:02 PM (#3677520)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Mrrrzy and Dani, you may wish to note that, according to Wikipedia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez experienced an awful case of writers' block after producing his fourth novel and only emerged from it after reading Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo, which I referred to in an earlier posting. Marquez does not seem to have regarded such emergence and such reading as purely coincidental occurrences. His next work was, of course, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

16 Nov 14 - 03:50 AM (#3677570)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MGM·Lion

Dani: One italicises by using letter i in angle brackets before bit to be italicised, and then closing with /i also in angle brackets: thus --

italics

One can similarly achieve 'bold' with letter b used similarly, &c.

≈M≈

16 Nov 14 - 04:12 AM (#3677575)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST, topsie

Perhaps some members need an explanation of "angle brackets" - they are < and >.

16 Nov 14 - 05:51 AM (#3677593)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Musket

Well booger me, so it does..

But how does one do this? 😎

16 Nov 14 - 05:56 AM (#3677595)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: MGM·Lion

Likewise, why does one do that? What does it signify?

16 Nov 14 - 09:13 PM (#3677671)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bill D

we do italics with code that looks like this


<font color=Black>

&lt;i&gt;we do italics with code that looks like this &lt;/i&gt;<br>

</font>

16 Nov 14 - 09:17 PM (#3677673)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bill D

hmmm... that used to work. I haven't used that program in years.

16 Nov 14 - 09:21 PM (#3677675)
Subject: RE: BS: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bill D

one more try

<i>we do italics with code that looks like this </i>

17 Nov 14 - 02:39 PM (#3677862)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Claire M

Hiya! Re King – used to love him; saw Misery live. Then saw Sleepwalkers. Spent whole film crying for the poor cats; went right off him.

1 of Doreen Virtue's books re how the angels can help you in every area of your life made a big impression; DV actually makes sense when you sift through the psycho-babble/ Angelic language. Highlighted all over, written all over. Can't remember the exact quote, but it said something like how you're not surrounded by sharks; you're surrounded by angel-fish, how you can be guided to another who is like you – that's what this place is for!

I was, & continue to be, v pleased to find there is an aspiring writer out there as odd as me – she even looks like me before I bid goodbye to my long hair. Gave me a bit of a jolt.

Reading last in Twis**** I mean TwiLIGHT series. I thought i'd love it, but I find Bella nothingy & Edward needy & creepy. I can see why I never bothered w/ it before.

@ my meet-up group, we bring books in/rec them to others – too many books! they're breeding.

17 Nov 14 - 03:31 PM (#3677876)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST, topsie

Re-re-reading Brendon Chase by BB.

One of the best ever books for 'children'/young adults/well, any age, really.

18 Nov 14 - 08:57 AM (#3678070)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Wesley S

Pat Conroy's "South of Broad".

And I'm tempted to pick up the newest Stephen King. He's a lot like Bob Dylan to me. All of his stuff is better than average but sometimes he gets on a roll { like now } and puts out several good ones in a row.

18 Nov 14 - 03:00 PM (#3678173)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: lefthanded guitar

I've always loved mysteries, but I have found that too many of the contemporary writers create books that are either sheer fluff or graphic atrocities. So I recently started (re) reading Agatha Christie - just finished A Pocket Full of Rye. For her clear and clean writing style, her ability to keep the reader just poised but never sure of the outcome, her deep and instinctive understanding of human nature,her sly humor, brilliant pacing, and timeless stories- imho there is NO better mystery writer than Agatha. So satisfied!

18 Nov 14 - 09:04 PM (#3678235)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: IamNoMan

"Defender of the Innocent" Lawrence Block
"The Path Between The Seas" David McCullough
"The Big U" Neil Stephenson
"Railsea" China Mieville

23 Jun 15 - 12:37 PM (#3718511)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Uncle_DaveO

I recently read a "literary detective story", a book called The Millionaire and the Bard, by Andrea E. Mays. It's about the career, rising from a low level clerk to a Captain of Industry, of a man named Henry Folger, becoming a very top level executive of Standard Oil. Folger and his wife were obsessed with Shakespeare, and especially with the First Folio. The publication of which in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, saved for the world about eighteen of the great man's plays, which had never before been published and but for the First Folio would have been lost, along with the best versions of all his other plays.

    Folger and his equally dedicated and knowledgeable wife, over an unrelenting search of maybe 40 years, gathered a collection including about (as best I recall) 79 copies of the F.F. (about 30% of the known surviving copies in the world), and many others of the later Folios and the Quartos and a great quantity of other Shakespeariana.

    The Folgers' huge collection of plays, playbills, paintings, etc., resides in the Folger Shakespeare Library, next to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. It's where any serious Shakespeare Scholar really has to go to study the early publications of the plays, critical reviews, playbills, and many later books dealing with them and Shakespeare himself.

    Now that I've told you too much and not enough, my description might sound to you like a dry book, but I didn't find it so. In addition, it put me onto another fascinating book dealing with Shakespeare, which I'll address in another post.

Dave Oesterreich

23 Jun 15 - 03:04 PM (#3718538)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Jim Carroll

Half way through the latest Shardlake, 'Lamentation - excellent.
More to the point, what I am not reading is part three of the 'Cicero' trilogy by Robert Harris, as the bastard hasn't written it still...
Never thought I'd be turned on by a Roman Senator - life's full of surprises!!
Jim Carroll

23 Jun 15 - 04:42 PM (#3718554)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: fat B****rd

Re-reading Colin Wilson murder books; The Killer, Schoolgirl Murder etc. Sex and Philosophy...phew!

23 Jun 15 - 07:19 PM (#3718584)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Jack Campin

As I work in a charity second-hand bookshop I get to flip through all kinds of deeply strange books.

Oddest one lately: Leilah Wendell, "The Book of Azrael". I didn't read all of it, but enough to send me to Google to find out what the heck the author was up to. The YouTube interview is... not your typical author sales pitch.

It sold in a couple of days. The very quiet young woman who bought it looked almost human.

We had one regular customer who is now in jail for murder (David Gilroy) and a large donation of books that belonged to a man who is now out of jail for a dramatic attempted multiple murder (Paul Agutter). If you want an Amazon-like recommendation: Agutter's thing was Penguin Classics, Gilroy bought rather nondescript contemporary fiction like Sebastian Faulks.

We also recently sold a copy of Tolkien's "The Two Towers" that had been in the patients' library at Broadmoor. Sadly, no annotations by Ian Brady or Peter Sutcliffe.

23 Jun 15 - 11:00 PM (#3718610)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Manuel

Mary Mccarthy's "The Group" may not be a Penguin Classic but I have enjoyed every minute spent with it so far.

24 Jun 15 - 03:47 AM (#3718628)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,Here cookie cookie!!! Where are you?

I had been reading Mudcat.

But some rather dim moderator has been performing the internet equivalent of book burning lately so anything of interest to people living in more sophisticated societies gets deleted for not supporting dubious far right notions.

Oh, and I have been reading some autobiographies lately. Narcissist doesn't even begin to cover some of it. Rather than enriching your take on some people, I find I have a less favourable view now.

The honourable exception in the last few weeks being the excellent Michael Palin diaries.

24 Jun 15 - 09:48 AM (#3718677)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo

I am in a poetry mode of late. Have been reading Michael Hartnett and Charles Causley. Oh, I do love Charles Causley. Also more Yeats and a lot of W. H. Auden.
I have reread recently "The Waves" by Virginia Wolf. Beautiful writing. Am also dipping into her Diaries.
Whilst trying to find some books for the Charity shop, I came across "Twenty Years A Growing" by Maurice O' Sullivan. What a truly lovely book, especially if you wish to look back on a lost way of Life in Ireland.
I am also reading The last few of the Brunetti mysteries by Donna Leone, I love them. The descriptions of food always make me hungry !
Am reading "The Lady In Gold", non-fiction, about the painting by Klimpt that stolen from a Jewish Family in Austria during the war. It is about one womans fight to get the painting restored to the rightful owner.
Great thread, Lots of good suggestions.

24 Jun 15 - 08:55 PM (#3718806)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Joe_F

Recently I have been browsing extensively in H. L. Mencken's New Dictionary of Quotations.

25 Jun 15 - 09:16 AM (#3718879)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Bat Goddess

Let's see... Just finished J. Dennis Robinson's "Mystery On the Isles of Shoals" about the 1874 Smuttynose murders. And I'm on the homestretch on "Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrlees which ClaireBear sent to me years ago and then it got lost in the pile of "new" books. I'm also reading "Patrick Leigh Fermor, An Adventure". Oh, and the Penguin Aesop's Fables in my purse for the odd moment.

Finished "Healing After Loss" which was read one day at a time.

I finally got around (and then devoured the three volumes) to reading Steig Larrson's "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and the two follow ups. Micca raved about them ten years ago -- why did I wait so long? (Simple answer: too many books; not enough time.)

I've also been off on a Clarissa Dickson Wright kick that I need to get back to. Was devastated to find she died last year.

Linn

25 Jun 15 - 04:13 PM (#3718929)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Spleen Cringe

Norwegian detective writer Ann Holt. Her main character, Hanne Wilhelmsen, is very likeable and there's a good supporting cast. Well paced, well plotted and not quite as dark as some of the Scandicrime doing the rounds...

25 Jun 15 - 11:10 PM (#3718999)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: EBarnacle

If you read the "Dragon Tattoo" series read them in order. The beginnings don't make sense otherwise.

There is a biology [two book series] by Jones about The Plantagenets and The Tudors. Both quite readable.

Try to find Shakespeare of London, long out of print but good readable research.

Studying Merchant of Venice as I have a part in a local production. It's amazing how many puns and zingers he built into his writing.

Currently 2/3 of the way through volume 2 of Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy.   Quite readable.

A friend referred me to Macomber's series of nautical adventures. Currently waiting for the last 5 books to arrive. {Pineapple Press]

Studying Songs of the Sea Kings as we are working up a production for Hokule'a's visit next year during her 'round the world voyage.

It is such a pleasure to study because you want to.

PS, Fagels' translations of the various classics are really worth the read.

26 Jun 15 - 10:32 AM (#3719053)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: GUEST,leeneia

"What Stands in a Storm" by Karen Cross. A book you can't put down about the tornado outbreak in Alabama and Mississippi in April, 2011.

"The Making of a Land - The Geology of Norway" by I. B. Ramberg and I. Bryhni. This book is educational, and it's also a work of art.

We are visiting Norway soon, and we find the book very helpful.

I'm going to look for "Norwegian detective writer Ann Holt."

17 Jul 18 - 09:40 PM (#3938033)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: keberoxu

Just looked at a Simenon mystery,
but it is one without Maigret in the cast.
An examination of the bourgeouisie (whew! haven't had to spell THAT in some time)
at its most suffocating.

A little more bracing was the latter half (separate volume) of
The Wheel of Fortune, in which author Susan Howatch
takes those Plantagenets -- Edward, John, Richard, two Henrys --
and makes of them a Welsh dynasty
in the early twentieth century, wars and all.
And what she does with Richard II -- whee!
She let rip with that fella.

18 Jul 18 - 04:25 AM (#3938061)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Senoufou

I'm reading 'What Women Want' by Susan Maushart.

I very much enjoyed her previous book 'Wifework'. She's an extremely articulate and funny feminist, and has studied the lives of modern women in great detail.

'Wifework' explored the inequalities married/partnered women face in housework and childcare while pursuing careers, in comparison to the input of their menfolk.

'What Women Want' deals with the next step; what 'Happiness' actually means for women, and what choices they want to be free to make regarding their careers, motherhood and domestic lives.

19 Jul 18 - 06:07 PM (#3938342)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: EBarnacle

I was at the American Federation of Teachers convention last weekend. One of the presenters was MacLean, who wrote "America in Chains." It is about the history od James Buchanan and the Koch's rise to power by subverting our democratic institutions. Finished it on the way home from Pittsburgh. Although she is an academic, with all that that implies, she is quite readable--and scary.

Almost done with Caro's tetralogy "The years of Lyndon Johnson." It's heavy going but necessary and fascinating. He is supposedly working on volume 5, about the second term presidency and retirement of LBJ. It's a race with mortality, as he is not well.

Meanwhile, McMaster's book, "Dereliction of Duty" is the next heavy on my reading list.

I am currently working up a play about LBJ in his own words [and Lord, he has a lot of words]. The major task will be to bring it down to two hours plus or minus. Among the items on my table are LBJ's White House Tapes and newspaper reports of his speeches. Three or four more years more to finish this project.

19 Jul 18 - 06:44 PM (#3938347)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. I'm almost done and the last several pages remind me of Star Trek episodes--orders on the bridge, brief discussions of strategy, evasive maneuvers, etc.

This is not a book our book club would usually choose, but we have a new member--our one and only male. Until now, men have come to one meeting and not returned. I'd like more of them to come regularly. It would widen our scope. This man has come regularly for a few months and suggested this book each time. I figured it was time to honor his choice and make it ours, and happily the other members agreed.

This man is recently retired and has said he is trying to figure out how to use his time. He has begun showing up at other things we local retired folks do and doesn't seem to be intimidated by the large majority of women who show up, too. I say good for him.

24 Jul 18 - 07:50 PM (#3939253)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: ChanteyLass

I just started reading The Last Days of Dogtown, historical fiction set on Cape Ann in Massachusetts, by Anita Diamant. It caught my interest right away. It's another book club choice.

25 Jul 18 - 11:58 AM (#3939388)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: theleveller

Just finished John Rees's excellent new book, The Leveller Revolution and almost finished Dorothy L Sayers's Nine Tailors.

25 Jul 18 - 12:58 PM (#3939412)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Little Hawk

On Shane's advice I purchased a slim little hardbound volume on Amazon, entitled "How to Seduce a Sudbury Skank".

It had only 10 pages of text, following the title page, the copyright page, the acknowledgements, the author's foreword, the dedication, the quotation from Ed Skint, and the table of contents.

On the first page of text it said: Offer her some money.

On the second page: Offer her some weed.

On the third page: Offer her a beer.

And so on....

I think I've been ripped off here.

25 Jul 18 - 02:37 PM (#3939451)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Donuel

Anything recent by Dr. Turok
He learned a valuable lesson in his overly technical technique to find gravity waves and failed. Now he is back on Albert's side of not playing dice with the universe and like Dirac seeks the simplest explanation that makes the universe the simplest thing in the universe.

25 Jul 18 - 03:27 PM (#3939466)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Little Hawk

Oh, well, it's back to re-reading Dostoevksy, I guess. I should've known better than to trust Shane's literary judgement.

25 Jul 18 - 05:58 PM (#3939491)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: fat B****rd

"Three Chords for Beauty's Sake" about Artie Shaw by Tom Nolan. Eee!, these jazzers are a funny lot.

26 Jul 18 - 04:29 PM (#3939695)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: radriano

I'm going through "Two Years Before the Mast" again. Great read.

I recently got an audio-book compilation of early science fiction short stories called X-1 that's quite enjoyable.

26 Jul 18 - 05:21 PM (#3939703)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Little Hawk

If Shane had written that book it would be called "Two Beers Before the Mast". Admittedly, that's not too many beers. He'd have been desperate to make landfall as soon as possible.

27 Jul 18 - 05:26 AM (#3939777)
Subject: RE: Books: Whatcha readin lately?
From: Dave the Gnome

Re-reading all Terry Pratchett's work. Currently on 'The Fifth Elephant'. Brilliant stuff and even better with multiple re-reads.

DtG