What Are You Reading the Week of 11 August 2012?

The 11th: Andre Dubus

Enid Blyton

Eiji Yoshikawa

Alan E. Nourse

The 12th: Réjean Ducharme

Walter Dean Myers

Mary Roberts Rinehart

The 13th: Will Clarke

Tom Perrotta

Alfred Hitchcock

The 14th: René Goscinny

Alexei Panshin

Russell Baker

The 15th: Mary Jo Salter

Robert L. Forward

Edna Ferber

The 16th: Charles Bukowski

Diana Wynne Jones

Hugo Gernsback

Georgette Heyer

The 17th: V.S. Naipaul

Gene Stratton-Porter

Steve Hockensmith

Yahoo! Richard has his mojo back, and evidently a touch of insomnia. But I'm sleepy and will post my reading tomorrow. Glad life is better for you.

Enid Blyton, eh. Anyone for naked tennis? (I just can't read those books now without that vision.)

Once again, you do it well, Richard. I just read some Gene Stratton-Porter. (Michael O'Halloran--it was awful.) And I have Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca sitting at home on the shelf. Maybe . . . Right now I'm dividing my time between Undaunted courage by Stephen Ambrose, which I'm enjoying very much, and The Captive mind by Czeslaw Milosz, which is interesting but which I'm find slow going. Actually, what I'd really like to do is read an Asterix by Goscinny, but my French isn't what it used to be.

Thenkewveddmahch, I'm sure.

I posted my shriek of outrage at the atrocious, bad, anti-man, venal, disgusting Gone Girl and have seen my review flagged as not a review. I have never done this before, but I am now: Please go and look at my review on the work's review page and, if you agree that it's mean but still a review, counterflag it for me. I find censoring someone's views because one doesn't like the way they're expressed, or because one disagrees with the view, to be noxious and inimical to the spirit of a book-celebrating community such as this one is.

Thanks for a great start to the week, Richard! I'll certainly go check your review.

I'm now reading The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian. Being about the Armenian genocide it isn't a fun read. I can't say I'm "enjoying" it, exactly, but it's a very, very good book, and I feel that I am learning about this aspect of history from a very personal perspective which lends it a feeling of immediacy. I highly recommend it!

Okay, now I'm off to see your review, Richard! :-)

ETA: It doesn't seem to be flagged at the moment. I obviously sensed your rage, and while it seemed that you almost went off the rails, I think you managed to just keep it on track. I'm confused by the term crypto-woman, though, lol!

>6 Thanks for checking on it, I appreciate that, but now enough people have counter-flagged the original flag to cause it to disappear.

A crypto-woman is a woman in a man suit.

The birthday list brought back some memories. I was obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock when I was in high school. Maybe it's time to pull out one of those books again.

For now I'm reading I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. I was inspired to pull it off the tbr pile after becoming captivated by NASA's rover Curiosity. I haven't read sci fi in awhile and am wondering what took me so long.

I love reading these old books (this one was written in the 40s) that take place almost present day (right now it's about 2005). It's fun to see what the visionaries got right.

I'm about to dive into Ride the Wind by Lucia St Clair Robson and looking forward to the adventure.

Well, Richard, your review was perhaps a tad personal, but you told me enough about the book for me to know I don't want to read it and that constitutes a review to me. (Even though I've had plenty "anti-man" thoughts of my own from time to time.)

#6 Booksoman I just finished The Sandcastle Girls and I agree hard to read but an excellent novel

>10 I only write reviews that are personal, as a matter of policy! But that's what a review is for, to present a personal perspective on a book. I was strident and rude in the review. That was by design. I was offended by the book's content, so I took the offensive.

And still managed to convey the information that you, a not-automatically-sympathetic reader, needed. I call that a success...helping someone form a decision, whether it's the one I advocate or not, is a reason to keep reviewing.

My meetup group for next month picked Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I'm about 100 pages in and enjoying it, partially because it's the sort of thing I don't read very often. Seems to be primarily a comedy of manners, with some geezer romance thrown in.

Thank you for the birthdays, richard. For what it's worth I agree with you about reviews being personal.

I am reading Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz -- it's going slowly for me, but that's just me lately -- certainly not the fault of the book which I find quite wonderful.

Still working on Exodus and The Mysterious Affair At Styles.

Thanks for the kick-off Richard. I actually think all reviews are personal ... it is the nature of a review, i.e., how we subjectively interpret a work as we cannot possibly know how anyone else would (i.e., be objective).

I am dropping off re: reading time due to my English Watercolour class starting (and work of course), but am starting on the winding and beautiful path of Drawing Closer to Nature by Peter London that I got at the Morton Arboretum store. One of these days it'll all come together - my art, reading, writing and love of nature. Maybe he will give a tip or two!

A great birthday week!

Richard, I think from the publisher's blurb Girl Gone sounds dreadful. Your review definitely decided me not to bother with it. I hope my saying so doesn't offend you, but your review also gave me a smile. I mean, my dear, you really mustn't hold your feelings in like that. You need to say what you really think. *grin*

Still working on She.

>16 I agree with that, Carolyn. Have fun in watercolor class!

>17 Not offended in the least, Catreona, and I appreciate you saying so! I know...it's a burden being such a shrinking violet...

I started Gone Girl and was irritated and bored and put it down. Was it worse than 50 Shades? Because I didn't think that was possible.
I'll go ahead and get my own rope so I can lynch myself and save all the Shades fans the trouble.
Getting ready to start The Strain Trilogy by Chuck Nogan and the guy behind Pan's Labrynth. I'm not even going to attempt to spell his name. Anyway, I'm pretty excited because I loved that movie and the trilogy seems to be right up my dorky alley-a vampire virus, a Holocaust survivor, a coming apocolypse, what more could I want?

>19 I still have the one they tried to use on me, if you'd like to borrow it. Fifty Shades of Grey was very much not aimed at me, and my response showed it.

Hello everyone! I just finished The Uncanny today and have to say that I was slightly disappointed by the book. I had read True Crime by the same author and really enjoyed it, so I think that I was expecting quite a bit more from the second book that I read by him than there actually was. I did enjoy The Uncanny but it just wasn't Andrew Klavan's best work in my opinion. Now I'm reading Dancehall and really, really enjoying it! :)

I've reviewed the delightful browser's dictionary called The Disheveled Dictionary, a rollicking good little trip through some odd byways of English's huge vocabulary, in my thread...post #76.

I'm finally reading A Tale of Two Cities, which was always low on my Dickens priority list -- I think kid me got a sense that it was different tonally from the Dickens novels I grew up enjoying and somehow labeled it boring, and adult me never moved on from that? I'm not really sure how that happened? But my brother, who almost never recommends books to me, raved about it, and I picked it up at last.

I'm also still sort of distractedly making my way through The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler.

And maybe rereading Measure for Measure and Merchant of Venice for my dissertation, like I really ought to be.

I'm about halfway through The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I'm equal parts enthralled and exasperated. It's a strange choice for me, but I'm glad that I'm reading it. I picked it up for an online group read at an economics blog site.

In honor of the start of a new semester later this month, I'm re-reading Richard Russo's Straight Man, one of the best campus novels written in the last twenty years.

Richard,
I don't think Shades was aimed at anyone except women too embarassed to by their own porn.
I'm about 50 pages into The Strain and it is great. Lots of detail about everything from how to cut into a plane to how to don a biohazard safety suit. With a little old world mysticism and creep spooky stuff thrown in for good measure. Happy happy. I want to watch Pan's Labrynth again, Del Toro is a macabre genius.

#12 etc I also went to read your review and found I could no longer counter-flag it (I would have). I did, however, counter flag the one above yours which, though brief, still told me that the writer didn't like the book and, most importantly, why. I suspect there may be someone out there who just doesn't like to see their favourite book criticised.

Okay, I struggled my way through An Echo in the Bone but it really became a case of looking at words that meant nothing. Maybe I've just had enough of this series. After that I thought I deserved a treat so I'm now reading and loving The Absolutist, the one John Boyle I had so far not read. Bliss!

Finished The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie and started Invisible (Ivy Malone Mystery Series #1 by Lorena McCourtney. Still working on Exodus by Leon Uris.

>26 I suspect you're right.

>27 Thanks for the thought, and I've gone and added a preventive thumb to the shortshortshort review above mine. I appreciate your mention of it.

I cannot believe I'm typing this: Day by Day Armageddon is, if one ignores the narrative frame, a decent novel. Why is that so shocking?

It's a zombie novel. Something I usually wrinkle all my wrinkleable bits at.

These are the End Times.

I refuse on principle to read either Gone Girl or Fifty Shades of .. but nevertheless enjoyed a laugh at the caustic reviews...; definitely reviews.

Haven't posted in forever. well - probably since having kids. I am a shell of my former reading self but still managing about 30-40 books a year as opposed to my former 70 something.

So now I am reading The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. A little too melodramatic and formulaic modern gothic for me. And will be starting Cold Comfort Farm later today. Need to hype up The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time if you really want something more authentic feeling in this vein.

Recently finished The Sense of an Ending and was underwhelmed - I don't quite see the Booker.

#28 - agree Booksloth; I used to enjoy that series but recently have been finding them tiresome with a capital T.

Madame by Julia Mary Cartwright Ady

In the middle of A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore. And I just received an ER book The sandcastle Girls yay!

Finished Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead this morning and ended up loving it, though it is a bit, well, out there, to say the least. Now I am trying a new-to-me author, reading CJ Lyons' Snake Skin. So far, the description of Lucy Guardino's relationship with her 13-year old daughter is spot on, or at least it is exactly the way mine was with my daughter when she was that age.

I finished and REVIEWED Betty Smith's classic coming of age novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

I am now reading Columbine by Dave Cullen. I realize I'm quite possibly the last LTer to read it.

Richard, you seem to be in the minority opinion but I will defend to the death nth degree your right to state your opinion. (I won't go to my death over this.)

18: LOL Richard. But you bear your burden so gracefully.

>35 brenzi: I haven't read Columbine and don't plan to.

#33 framboise I just finished the sandcastle girls and it was excellent hard to read at times but well written. Enjoy!

Posted a review of Only One Life by Sara Blaedel..

Am working on a TwoFer review of The Last Werewolf and Talulla Rising....because you can't have one without the other

;-P

35 brenzi

I read Columbine last year. What an eye opener.

I was on the library waiting list for Gone Girl for a while and just got it. I can't remember why I requested it, could it have been an NPR program? At any rate, I don't know what it's about so I haven't read your review, Richard, because I like best to read a book not knowing anything about it. I guess I'll start and see what I think, then I'll read your review. I do know enough about the Fifty Shades of Grey series to know I won't be reading that.

Now for my present reading: I finished Rabid and it was very interesting. Why did I not know that Louis Pasteur and his group were the ones who developed the vaccine? I guess I didn't read your book, ampipsmith, or see the movie. Or maybe I knew and forgot. That's happened a time or two. I learned that because of studying rabies Pasteur's proteges laid the foundation for the study of immunology, developing serums against diphtheria, snake bites, TB, bubonic plague, whooping cough, and typhus. Now scientists are utilizing a "hollowed out" rabies virus to deliver medication directly to the brain, crossing the blood-brain barrier. I liked the way the authors showed a full circle regarding this disease that takes the person out of the person before killing them to show how it might be used to treat another disease, Alzheimer's, that does the same thing.

Now I'm reading:
Nook: The Judge by Rebecca West. I'm about 2/3 through and am liking it very much. I've heard that some people dislike it greatly, and I can understand why. She does go beyond my interest in describing scenery and detailing fantasies, but I can kind of zip through that. Her characters are so multifaceted, just when I think someone is wonderful they come up with some very unpleasant traits, and when I think a character is petty and judgmental I see the reasons behind their attitudes. It's definitely worth the effort.
Audio: Sights Unseen by Kaye Gibbons. More southern crazy. If you have to be bi-polar, it helps to have money
Paper: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I've liked everything of hers I've read, and so far this one is excellent. I'm also dipping into The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, speaking of southern crazy.

>35 I haven't read it, either. I'm starting to think it's not possible to be the last LT'er to... anything.

ampipsmith, did you say in a post last week that you're armed in your nightmares? So cool! (And I'm so jealous!)

Am currently reading Disgrace, which I was hoping to finish up this weekend so I could start the next week fresh, but it didn't quite happen. Nothing against it, it's well written just... disturbing, and I want it out of my system!

Also reading Fierce Medicine and it's good... though I won't be the least surprised if it comes out that she's exaggerating a little, her story seems a bit too extreme to be quite true. But it's still a good book, and I'm learning from it.

Just picked up The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps and, two stories in, am loving it. It's going to be a long term project, though, at well over one thousand pages. It's a library book, from the NLS and the announced approximate reading time is seventy-five hours, fifteen minutes. Phew! Well, it'll keep me off the streets anyway. *grin*

I'm reading The Odyssey of KP2, a non-fiction book about a marine biologist and a Hawaiian Monk Seal who was rescued after being rejected by his mother soon after birth.

I am really loving The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf it is set in the High Plains of Colardo, I place this author along with Mark Spragg and Larry Watson.

44 hazeljune - Kent Haruf is a favorite of mine, too. Enjoy.

I have started The Oasis by Pauline Gedge. Egyptian historical fiction is not my favourite but I like this author and I enjoyed the first book in this series which is Hippopotamus Marsh so I thought I would continue on with the story. So far...I am really enjoying the second book as well.

>35 Thanks, Bonnie, but rest assured I won't be struggling with the executioner on this one either. Doesn't dying for A Belief seem, well, a bit exaggerated anyway? Like something that should've cleared up with acne?

>36 One does one's modest best to come out of the proverbial shell...:-P

>40 Joyce, this will be a very interesting time to come, with you and Heduanna reading Gone Girl. I look forward to learning what y'all think.

I've reviewed The Beautiful Mystery. I can't not! The ARC was terribly mauled by my various emotional outbursts as I read it. Looks like one of the wolves from the monastery it's set in had a go at it.

Have just begun The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones. Began as a tepid Edwardian house party thing but now that the Uninvited have shown up, it's promising to be a tad creepy ... so I soldier on.

I'm just starting Among Others by Jo Walton. I don't normally read SF or fantasy, but I think I'll really enjoy this one, as it is a sort of coming-of-age stiory of a gilr who escapes by reading classic sci-fi and fantasy novels.

I've also just finished The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian. Wow. A stunning read, for sure. I'll write my review in the next day or two, but simply put, I found it a powerful read.

Started reading one of my free ebooks, "Bruce" last night. It's another book in the Lad: A Dog series.

>39 PaperbackPirate: I'm already about halfway through and it is indeed eye opening. Also heart pounding and heartbreaking.

>47, sorry to disappoint, Richard, but I'm not reading Gone Girl: I went over to un-flag your review (which proved totally unnecessary, I'm happy to report!), but had already lost interest in the book before I got that far, anyway. There are too many promising books out there!

Speaking of which, just finished Disgrace, which didn't wind up being as brutal as I'd feared, but it's dug itself into me, and it might be a couple of days before I'm quite myself again. Next up is either Beloved or Things Fall Apart, but I'm just not ready yet for either. I need to keep more fluff on hand for times like these...

Am loving Finishing the Hat, Collected Lyrics (1954-1981), with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim. I love books written by professionals in the arts who talk about how their art was made. This one is delightfully filled with Sondheim's curmudgeonly dissatisfaction with imperfect or inferior work, versions of lyrics that didn't "make it," with clear explanations why they didn't make it...

>51 fuzzi, Oh, Bruce! I'm off to find a free ebook copy.

I couldn't get enough of Albert Payson Terhune as a child and then as an adult, I dragged my family to Sunnybank. They were pretty good sports about looking at dogs' grave stones.

I'm still reading, savoring, enjoying The Wise Man's Fear.

Just finished Scandal Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee, #1 in the series. I'm trying to catch up on what came before so that I can read #6 in the series that I received as an ER book, Desire Becomes Her. For tonight, tho, I'm back to Zuma's Bastard by Azad Essa.

(55) coppers, there are lots more Sunnybank books than I ever realized. I read Lad, A Dog and Lochinvar Luck as a child, and I think I also read The Further Adventures of Lad (whichever book had stories about his mate, Lady), but didn't know there were more! This year I've read The Way of a Dog which is really good, and am trying to find free ebooks of the remainder of the stories. "Wolf" (no touchstone, grr!) is not free, as far as I can determine, so I might have to pay to read it (again?).

Listening to The Weird Sisters on my commute. =:) I am liking it so far!

Reading Blood and Bone offered free for Kindle. This is my first Hannibal Jones mystery.. but if it continues to please..... I will be reading more. =:)

Almost done with When we were orphans. I'll withold judgement until I actually finish it. Also still reading 166x Youp, short snack bites in between.

Just started reading The House of Dark Shadows by Robert "Digger" Cartwright!

So, I finished up Dancehall last night - definite keeper for me! :) I immediately picked up While I Was Gone last night and am about one third the way through this book already. Sue Miller is a relatively new author for me even though I have some of her books sitting on my bookshelves.

Finished Invisible (Ivy Malone Mystery Series #1) by Lorena McCourtney and started Matched by Ally Condie.

I am reading Satanic Verses. For long time I wanted to know why this book was banned in some countries. I have read almost the half of it and I am still looking for answer.

>65 I read all of it and I still don't know.

>65 I don't think a sane person has the answer. You have to look at it from the fanatical fundamentalist "I'll kill you if you draw a cartoon I don't like" perspective. Then it makes perfect sense.

I read, and reviewed, 5 stories of Flannery O'Connor's The Complete Stories. I think that's about all I can take right now without slitting my wrists. She's not exactly a Pollyanna, is she? I also finished Kay Gibbons' Sights Unseen which looks at the same sort of Southern folk but with a less Dantean perspective. I think that'll do it for the south for now.
I'm starting on Sea of Poppies. I'm sure a view of the opium trade will be ever so much more pleasant.

I am so impressed with Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz -- her writing is so elegant -- each word so meaningful somehow -- and she's such a wise author. Her characters are so fully formed.

I should be able to finish this book tonight or in the early morning.

Finished She last night, which is to say Monday night/Tuesday morning. It's a great adventure tale and a beautifully written romance. At the same time, it's somewhat disturbing. Why do men, some men anyway, insist upon turning women into predators? This is not a book a young girl should read - it would damage her. There is a brave and noble female character, a good girl. But of course she has no chance against the bad girl who has not only superior physical attractions, but also magic. Though the bad girl gets hers in the end, everybody including the reader feels rather sorry for her when she does. I don't know. It was unsettling. No doubt a Feminist critic and/or a Freudian would have a field day with it. For my own part, I suppose I'm glad to have read it, but it will be good to move on to something else.

Will probably have a reread now, something familiar and comforting. Thinking of The Host. I love Wanderer. She's so sweet and pure and good. The perfect antidote to She Who Must Be Obeyed.

I got about 100 pages into the strain and put it down, although it definately wasn't because the book was boring or bad. I've been haphazardly reading A Stolen Life as well. Both are good. I think I have just been reading so much for the past couple of months (as in at least 2 or 3 per week, and sometimes at a rate of one book a day) that I think I need a break. I also got sucked back in to Skyrim and it has been monopolizing my time (and my tv, much to the aggravation of my kids). I never play video games but I actually got into this one.
I've also been reading some old school poetry- Byron, Poe, Tennyson, Blake and Keatts. I've been reading my son some of the poems and found a poem I absolutely love titled "Come into the Garden Maud". It reminds me of my daughter for some reason.
I read my son Annabel Lee and the Tell Tale Heart before bed tonight. Last night we read the story of Persephone from a book called Oh My Gods, which is a retelling of stories from Greek mythology in a modern voice. I don't know how much my son understands from the stories, he is only 5. But it provides a great opportunity for teaching him new vocabulary words and I think he's getting the main idea of what is happening. I am planting little seeds of knowledge that one will day grow into massive tree. My mom read me Shakepeare probably from birth-I even memorized Marc Antony' speech at Cearser's funeral and I can still recite part of it. My favorite line has always been " the good that men do lives after them but the evil is often interred with the bones, so let it be with Ceaser".
On that note I am going to bed, hopefully to sleep and dream. I hate having insomina.
Sorry this is so long. I have managed to irritate myself with my ramblings.

NarratorLady, I'd love to know what you think when you've finished. Just read it myself and have 'views'.

@49 NarratorLady, I'd love to know what you think when you've finished. Just read it myself and have 'views'.

I finished The Forgotten Waltz a few minutes ago.
Next up: A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks.

Oh boy, I really should listen to my own recommendations a bit more! After weeks of banging away about how great John Boyne is I finally remembered I still had two of his books waiting to be read. The Absolutist just took my breath away and has left me feeling bereft and just a little tearful. Only Stewart O'Nan has a chance of following that so I'm now reading Songs for the Missing. A query to those other Boyne fans - who has read The Congress of Rough Riders? As is the case with many of Boyne's novels, it's not a subject that appeals to me though I'm sure it will grip me just like all the others: what do you think? It's nice to keep one book in reserve for when I deserve a special treat but I'm less drawn to this one that to his other books.

#71: MissSilver, in the end I enjoyed The Uninvited Guests but it's not for everyone. The writing is a bit clunky in the beginning but the story's twists and turns won me over. Here's my review:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/130336#3540646

I Finished The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk by Jennifer Niven. Excellent book. Started reading OREGON book four of the Wagons West series by Dana Fuller Ross.

I am back from my ten days in the great square or rectangular states in the middle of the country where I must say that the weather was delightful for once. While on vacation I read or listened to Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by the very readable Simon Winchester and a nice mystery Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. I also read a novel that my father recommended to me and it turned out to be one that I really enjoyed. Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell was published back in 1941. It was very good and I am glad that he told me about it. I don't have a review of it yet, as I am still mulling over what I should say.

I am currently reading In Other Rooms, Other Wonders a book of intertwined short stories set in Pakistan. I am also listening to Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

Last night I downloaded a free ebook: A Texan's Honor: The Heart of a Hero Book #2, and decided to read it. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination, but it is entertaining so far.

I've finally reviewed Midnight Riot, a fun little fantasy/murder mystery set in London, over in my thread...post #134.

I enjoyed that one, RD.

I'm reading Any Human Heart and (what's the matter with me?) Moby Dick.

Just started Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton, very good so far. She was the author of Sisters.

Finished Matched by Ally Condie and about to start The Sun Never Rises in the Big City by Jeremy C. Shipp.

I just finished Stolen Life by Jaycee Duggard. It wasn't as good as I hoped, though I feel bad saying that considering everything Duggard went through, especially taking into account she didn't receive any formal education after the fifth grade. She is the same age as me and it was disconcerting to see the dates of her abduction and subsequent rapes and child births and think about what I was doing then. It really made me realize that what happened to her could have happened to me, could have happened to anyone, could very well happen to my daughter. I have been teaching my children to fight with evrything they have if anyone ever tries to abduct them-and I mean FIGHT, I'm talking biting ears off and twisting testicles and screaming your f#$%ing head off the whole time.
On that cheery note I read my son a couple of things before bed tonight. First we read a section from You Might be a Zombie and Other Bad Things about 6 things that can happen to your corpse if you donate it to science (actually we only read 5, one was sexual and I skipped it). Then we read the first half of The Mask of the Red Death. I had to explain a lot of that to him so he got it but once I did that he loved it.

I just finished While I Was Gone tonight. It was absolutely great and also a definite keeper for me. I immediately picked up One Day at a Time, which is a book that I picked up at my local library's book sale last month. Danielle Steel is a "guilty pleasure" author for me.

>ampipsmith: as it happens, I renewed my "I'll read Shakespeare!" project last night: read two pages of "Taming of the Shrew" and went running for the dictionary five times. Kudos to raising your kids with the classics from Day 1!

Though I also feel compelled to say, Jaycee Duggard's case is newsworthy, and we pay attention to it, precisely because it is so rare, and so highly unlikely. Please don't worry about it - no need to cultivate more fear in this world.

And on that optimistic note: Mockingjay is in for me at the library. Very much looking forward to the ongoing saga of the teenagers who kill each other for sport :)

I've reviewed a well-loved book from my past, Green Darkness, which I might shouldn't've re-read, over in my thread...post #86.

#85 Sadly, I suspect a modern dictionary might not be much help as the meaning of many of the words Shakey uses have changed since then. If you want to read more (and I must say The Taming of the Shrew has always had me running off to bang my head against the wall) you'd be a lot better off using annotated versions of the plays or ones with comprehensive notes such as the very good 'New Penguin' editions.

And ditto to your comments on Jaycee Duggard. Fear is the enemy.

#86
Read your review and loved it. In general I don't go back and reread books - especially if I loved them the first time around. Inevitably it ruins the experience for me and I question my sanity as in "I can't believe that I liked this. It's a piece of crap!" I also pick up on things the second time around that I missed the first time and find that is often not a good thing. I think that when I get sucked into a book somehow the atmosphere gets me while the second time around details get me and that is usually what undoes me. I am sure that if I read Green Darkness now I would have much the same reaction as you did. I prefer to remember it the way it was. (Is that hiding my head in the sand? Or maybe too romantic?) Anyway, thanks for your review.

If it's too romantic, then count me among the too-romantics. I truly wish I'd left it alone.

Glad you liked the review!

I finished and REVIEWED Dave Cullen's remarkable book about the school shooting, Columbine. What a page turner, which is shocking because I thought I knew what happened. Turns out I didn't.

Now I'm reading In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner.

Started Slave Girl. Seems I'm on a get abducted and made into a sex slave for years and then write a book about it to scare the crap out of everybody kick. Woohoo!
I keep meaning to start Pat Conroy's Lords of Discipline but I just can't seem to get to it. I'm going to do it right now. I am not going to play Skyrim or read about sex slaves. I'm not! I will not give in!

I visited the school in summer a few years back. Eerie.

Started Lords of Discipline. Excellant opener describing Charleston, SC. Anyone who has been to Charleston should read the prologue to this book. Conroy captured the essance of that city perfectly. I love Charleston, it is the only place I have been in this country that really feels old. I loved the beautiful old mansions on the Battery and the big modern bridges spanning the rivers and inlets. The old narrow streets and picturesque little downtown park. The houses that had stood for generations all crammed in close together, those freshly renovated and carefully preserved standing side by side with other old homes that looked about to collapse. To me Charleston was a city of contrasts, a juxtaposition of ancient and modern. The slow gracious beauty of the Old South existing cheek to jowl with the squalor of the inner city and the ever present college students in their off campus apartments. I am really excited to be reading a book set there. I have been to NYC, to London, to Paris, to Athens but I didn't like any of them as much as I did Charleston. It represents everything it means to be Southern, good and bad.
I thought about moving there but I just can't deal with cockroaches as long as my hand and giant marauding swarms of mosquitos.
And then I got sucked back in to stupid a@# Skyrim.

Brenzi,
Check out Going Postal...by Mark Ames. Same sort of thing, different outlook and analysis.

>80 jnwelch: Moby Dick is a fine novel. But then, I like sea stories.

I read Moby-Dick last year. You have to devote yourself to it in a way, but it's definitely worth it. I had read it long, long ago when I was in college and had horrible memories of the ordeal. But I'd recently bought Nathaniel Philbrick's marvelous book Why Read Moby-Dick? which was a nice little companion to have along for the journey and it enhanced my understanding not only of the book but of Melville and of the writing of the book. Anyway, I enjoyed the experience and I'm so glad I read it.

Reading Bram Stoker's Dracula this week. Much more detailed and in depth than I had imagined. On pg. 149/509 pages and have the Count has only been briefly on about the first 20 pages!

I've just started Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer by Susan Gubar.

I'm not at all far in yet, but so far, I share her frustration that this disease is so difficult to diagnose, even for professionals, and that it seems to get so very little attention.

Finally finished When we were orphans and I must say I'm disappointed. I expected much more from Ishiguro. The first part is strong, but after that the book progresses into a messy and slightly distorted whodunnit with a disappointing ending. I don't mind the distortion, but if you are going to go for that form, really go for it. In this book, it felt like the author couldn't decide to make the main character fantasize or not and it made the book lose credibility. After I finished it, I looked it up on Wikipedia and it said Ishiguro himself thought this book was his weakest. If only I'd known, maybe I wouldn't have had my hopes up too much.

I'm currently waiting for a book I ordered, so I don't really want to start anything new. So I'm still reading 166x Youp, a collection of columns. I also dipped into the black cat, a collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. And then I have a collection of short stories by Frederik Pohl at hand called Platinum Pohl (science fiction), but I haven't read anything other than the prologue.

Last night I started an early copy of Junot Diaz's new collection of connected stories This is How You Lose Her and I ended up reading the entire thing in one sitting, it is fabulous.

Attention Austerites!

Paul Auster is on the BBC World Book Club on Friday 5th October, and will be talking about his novel The New York Trilogy. We need questions to be emailed from outside Britain and if you’re in the UK we need guests to be part of the audience at 13:30 at Cheltenham Literary Festival, Cheltenham – please find the invitation attached.
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If you would like to come along and put a question to Paul Auster about The New York Trilogy or to send in your question for him please email us at worldbookclub@bbc.co.uk.
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I'm about 30 pages into Lords of Disclipine by Pat Conroy. Has anybody else read this book? Is it just me or is there a bit of a homosexual undertone going on with these cadets? Or am I reading something into it that's not there? My husband went to military school and he says guys just get weird when there aren't any women around but I can't see him kissing another dude no matter how weird things got. Maybe I'm just a pervert and reading 50 Shades has irreversably damaged my brain and now I see sex everywhere.

Finished The Sun Never Rises in the Big City by Jeremy C. Shipp. Not my cup of tea. Started The Colored Lens: Summer 2012 which is a collection of stories. Only read the first two so far and they have an urban fantasy bent.

I'm closing out the week with two very different adventures. The Legate's Daughter by Wallace Breem is a high sea adventure that has Romans battling with pirates of the coast of North Africa, and, The High Crusade by Poul Anderson is about aliens arriving on earth during medieval times. Needless to say, both books are holding my attention.

>102 No, it's not just you, the undertone is there.

Am in the middle of The Book of Night Women on audio. It's an intensely dark and painfully disturbing story about a shameful time in history (late 18th century, Jamaican sugar plantation). Many of the images are vulgar and graphic and make me sick to my stomach, and the horrific living conditions and treatment of the slaves by their masters and mistresses make me want to weep, but it is such a powerful novel I don't want to stop listening to sleep or go to work. The native patois is sometimes difficult to understand, but the reader (Robin Miles) does a wonderful job of making it work.

ETA a period that was missing, and to change around a couple of words so it makes more sense.

#102
Pat Conroy almost always has an undertone of homoerotica. I read Lords of Discipline years ago and loved it. I have also read Beach Music and Prince of Tides. I want to get to Great Santini sometime soon. Most of Conroy's newer stuff is more autobiographical or memoir. You might end up liking South Carolina, but you won't like the men in South Carolina if you keep reading Conroy.

Benitastrand
Thanks
This is the first of Conroy's books I've read. I can already tell that some of the characters in this book will piss me off. I like the narrator though. And Conroy writes beautifully.

I finished State of Wonder which lead to a fun discussion at book club about the "benefits" of a drug that would lead to a lifetime of fertility for women. I think of the years in my twenties spent doing everything with a baby astride my hip; then I think of how that would feel if I were doing the same thing at age 66. Not quite so manageable. Now I'm ready to start on Gone Girl. Looking forward to the controversy.

I've been sick, and have had little interest in working on a new book...so I have read what appealed to me:

Dragonsong (reread)
Two Dogs and a Horse
Dragonsinger (my very first and favorite book of Pern)

star trek the captains table

Fuzzi,
Pern books are like chicken soup or an old beat up pair of sweats, while having no medicinal value they always make you feel better. I've read The White Dragon and Dragonsdawn so many times I've lost count.
Hope you feel better. :)

Songs for the Missing was every bit as amazing as I've come to expet of O'Nan. Now I'm just starting Heresy by S J Parris.

Eeek! Only just realised that the name of the (real life) protagonist in Heresy Giordano Bruno, translates as Gordon Brown. I hope that's not a bad sign (unless it's a prophecy about how they both end - in which case . . . . . . . )

#110 hope you feel better fuzzi!

Oops! Late start today. Thread up but under construction.

Finished The Colored Lens: Summer 2012 and about to start Crossed by Ally Condie. Exodus by Leon Uris is still my current read before I sleep book.

90 brenzi

Great review of Columbine!

Thanks so much PaperbackPirate!

(112), (114) Thanks for the well wishes.

Pern books are also addictive...after reading Dragonsinger, I HAD to read Dragondrums.

Now I might just head back in time to visit with F'lar and Lessa, and my favorite, F'nor and his Canth...

When I was 12 I had a crush on F'lar and Lessa's son, F'lessan, and a pretend dragon named Penth.So embarassing. I had the Pern companion book with all the background info on all the Holds and Weyrs and another book of paintings of all the major characters. What a nerd.
Anyway, I just bought a copy of Spangle by Gary Jennings. I noticed these other books with different titles that had Spangle #1, Spangle #2, and Spangle #3 next to them. Does anyone know what that is all about? Are they just the original book broken down into seperate books or is it a series based on the original or what? I thought it was weird and confusing. I looked it up on librarything but the tags didn't really answer my question and I don't feel like reading all the reviews and descriptions and stuff when hopefully one of you wonderful what are you reading folks can tell me what's going on. :)

And another question...are Children of the Night and Summer of Night by Dan Simmons the same book with different titles? The descriptions on Amazon and B&N are the same. Summer of Night doesn't even show up on a librarything search. What the hell is going on here?!

Nevermind about the question above. Books are NOT the same. Had to search for Children of the Night then click on Dan Simmons then look at his books to get to librarything page for Summer of Night. Very strange especially since both Amazon and B&N have the same description for both titles.

ampipsmith, don't be embarassed, many of us got deeply involved in the characters from books (better that than TV, hmm?). I was such a fan of The Lord of the Rings, that I taught myself how to write in elvish (tengwa?). I also drew illustrations of the characters.

I didn't discover Pern until I was almost 30.

A good site to check info on authors and their works, series, etc, is Fantastic Fiction. I use it allllll the time! http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

Fuzzi,
Found my first copy of the White Dragon in the school library in 3rd grade. The librarian wouldn't let me get it, which pissed me off, so I got it from public library and was kind of lost. I remember being so confused about what the hell Thread was. Tried it agin in 5th grade and was hooked for years. I got into a Marion Zimmer Bradley Darkover obsession during my teens. Both are like old freinds or something.
I love librarything. I don't know all that many people that read. My husband and my mom read but our genres don't really always overlap, especially between me and my mom. Other than those two, people look at me like I've lost my mind or grown a second head when I start talking about books. It's so good to talk to people that read the same things I do. And to see what other people are reading and discover new authors and books.

Read my kids the story of Arachne and Daedalus and Icarus from Oh My Gods. Watched The Hunger Games. Not nearly as good as the book. Not suprised. What is?

Rare is that movie that is as good as the book that spawned it.

I bought a copy of White Fang when I was 9, because of the cover (I'd fallen in love with wolves thanks to Rudyard Kipling) and attempted to read it. I skipped over the psycho-babble/political/philosophy stuff and just read and loved the story.

Unless it is something profane or extremely horrific, I think children should not be denied a book they want to read.

I was lucky, I had two older sisters, whose books I repeatedly borrowed (without permission, of course!), so I tried to and read many books that were probably too advanced for me, that a librarian would have denied to me.

In doing so, I learned to look up words or skip over parts I did not comprehend. And in the process, I made many good friends in Middle Earth and elsewhere.

:)