Group Reading Log: July 2012

I hope we're all enjoying the winter weather, giving us more of an excuse to stay home and read. :)

I'm currently read: Grapes of Wrath (which I've been reading since May! oh dear, but the end is in sight); The Hobbit with Mr Bear; and Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency is my bedtime fun read. (I don't think Grapes of Wrath is a great bedtime read...)

I seem to be on a crime fiction bender – something I haven't been for years. (Maybe it's because I'm participating in Dry July, and I need to find another way to drown my sorrows. Only kidding.) Anyway, I've just discovered Peter James, and in the past few days I've read Dead Tomorrow and Dead Like Me, both of which I found compelling reading, which doesn't mean to say that I thought they were great. I also read Perfect People by the same author, which was a change of pace as it ventured into semi-speculative fiction. It was about eugenics and what may or may not be possible given what is now known about human DNA. I didn't think it was particularly well-handled or well-plotted, but the basic premise interested me.

Inspired by you, wookiebender, I am now going to read some John Steinbeck. I haven't read any of his work since I studied literature at university, and I feel the poorer for it.

I am indulging in an orgy of Edmund Crispin books as a lot are becoming available on e-book

And I have just read the latest Lisa Lutz book which I enjoyed. Sadly it is reading like the last of a series. I will miss the Spellmans.

I've finished both Grapes of Wrath and Dirk Gently. Both were good, but the latter was definitely more enjoyable. :)

Haven't quite decided what to start now. Busy weekend, so have been "between" books for about 24 hours now! Unheard of!

I almost did Dry July too, but it did not cross my mind until late on the last day of June. I'll try and get more organized next year.

I'm currently reading Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Great book. Well researched, well written, difficult reading at times, but essential reading for everyone.

I also had a quick read yesterday of Eva Cassidy: Songbird: Her Story by Those Who Knew Her. Eva Cassidy had such the most amazing voice, one of the all time greats in my view. If you've never heard her versions of "Over the Rainbow" or "Fields of Gold", then go find them now and have a listen. The book is not the greatest - a pastiche of quotes from interviews of family, friends, colleagues and music industry folk - but at least I now understand more why she didn't 'make it big' while she was still alive.

Then I'll need to go back to some fiction... ;-)

I started River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh and was really enjoying it, but realised that I had to read Foal's Bread for bookgroup by Monday. Whoopsie. Some juggling occurring here...

I'll be really interested to know what you think of Foal's Bread wookie. I'm a real Gillian Meares fan - The Mint Lawn, The Grass Sister - but somehow this one doesn't say "read me". Heard an interview with her talking about the book and didn't have the urge to put it on the must read list.

But I'd be more than happy to be told I'm wrong. She is such an evocative writer.

I have just started Marcia Muller's first Sharon McCone book, Edwin of the Iron Shoes.

crimson-tide, I originally was dragging my feet over Foal's Bread: not a fan of horses, and was peeved at the price ($33! what fool nominated this for a brand new bookgroup???), and I was also *really* enjoying River of Smoke.

But then I read 40 pages of F'sB last night, stayed up past midnight reading. Er, I do believe I'm enjoying it. Not as horsey as I'd feared, well written, and a great bunch of characters so far. I haven't read her other books, but I wouldn't pass them by if I ran into them now.

I picked up Freedom by Jonathan Franzen very cheaply at a bookstore in Melbourne which had it in its remaindered section. I've only relatively recently read The Corrections, which for the most part I enjoyed, so I thought I'd give this one a go. So far, so good although for some reason the opening paragraphs bewildered me, but then I settled into it. Too many characters introduced at once, I think.

Incidentally, I watched The Virgin Suicides dir. by Sophie Coppola the other night, and found it totally pointless. I read the book some years ago, and I don't remember it having that effect on me – although I do recall that there was some inconsistency in the plot that bothered me, which I now can't bring to mind. I fear I'll have to read it again, as I invested $5 in buying the DVD! I've passed my copy on, so I'll have to source it again.

July .... almost at the end of July!! Where has all the time gone??

I've listened to two audio's while driving, this month ..... Of Mice and Men and Sarah's Key ...... and I couldn't wait to get back into the car each day :)

I am currently reading (and enjoying) Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

Has anyone read Brooklyn? I haven't, but I was just curious ....

Carole, I read Brooklyn a few years ago when it first came out, but was very impressed. A slow burn, that one, no great dramas or anything, but it stays with you.

Can't be bothered setting up a new August thread, so I suggest we just stay here this month. :)

Finished Foal's Bread and I did like it. The bookgroup complained it was too depressing, but after hanging out with the Joads in Grapes of Wrath, it was like a picnic on a sunny day. Definitely too many dysfunctional families in Australian literature, however. (But at least they didn't start dysfunctional. Nice change.)

Finished The Hobbit with Mr Bear. Loved it, so much fun. Glad he loved it too! And now Miss Boo is insisting we read it to her, too, although I believe she's already been distracted by her sticker books (shiny!) before we even finished the first chapter. (She reads a lot to herself, but it's all been easy chapter books so far. So much Daisy Meadows! Her concentration span is still fairly gnat-like.)

Then read The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman. Probably going to be the best book I've read this year so far (hm, I hope I haven't said that too many times already this year!), it was a very cleverly structured, very important book, about the Holocaust and race relations in America.

Now I'm taking my battered and bruised emotions and reading Cordelia's Honor, a space opera. Wooo! Explosions!! No death camps, or enforced migrations, or dysfunctional families, or people being kicked to death! I'm in my happy place.

THEN it will be back to River of Smoke. Which was fun, but I needed something with explosions first. :)

I just realised this thread is still in July. No matter.

I've recently read The Hunger Games and Life as We Knew It in quick succession, mostly because they arrived in the post at about the same time.

I was curious to read The Hunger Games. In the end I found it fairly derivative and not very satisfying. (I particularly wondered how the protagonist was able to keep a diary during all her trials.) I shall probably watch the film to see how that compares.

I really liked Life as We Knew It. I think the theme was excellent, and the characterisation of the narrator was well done. It was all scarily believable, and I think very well suited for its market. I found the ending to be a tad 'hokey' because it was a little glib. (I won't do spoilers.)

I am just about to start reading The Marmalade Files by Steve Lewis and Chris Uhlmann.

It looks as though it is going to be fun.

I can't get the touchstones to work properly

Hey, did we all celebrate National Bookshop Day yesterday? My local bookshop had a Harry Potter high tea, where grown ups sat around and discussed Mr Potter et al, while drinking champagne and tea and nibbling scones. Although most of the attendees looked as if they were still kids when the first books came out (15 years ago!).

#16 No celebrations as special as your's to be seen over here. The local Dymocks store was giving discounts ...... Hmmmmmmm ......

#13 Good to hear what you thought about Brooklyn, Wookie. I was reading about it ... and wondered if it would be a good one for bookclub.

#14 I was curious about The Hunger Games too and wanted to read it before the film came out. I haven't seen the film yet but I do want to compare it too.

I finished Behind the Beautiful Forevers. It was excellent. Parts of it were overwhelming but on the whole it was very well written and most informative. The style was such that it was engaging and easy to read .... I am not sure what you call it .... a docu-drama style .... like how Capote wrote In Cold Blood?

I am so embarrassed to mention that Grey has been chosen for bookclub this month ..... I can't believe that someone has actually chosen it ....... and it was the last person I would have picked out of everyone in the group to choose it. It was chosen mainly out of curiosity and everyone else has embraced it with big grins on their faces. Yes, I am the prude of the group and I said I would wiki it ........ but now I am reading it and I can't get over how it has managed to sell so well. It is just dreadful. It has been marketed really well. There are two full pages dedicated to it in the newspaper this weekend.

Hah, someone mentioned Grey at my bookgroup, and I denounced the choice instantly, saying I would neither waste my time or my money on such tripe.

First night I'd met these women, and I'm being snarky already. Yeesh. (But at least I was getting lots of nods from the other end of the table!)

I think the term being bandied about is "narrative non-fiction". I have to say I loved In Cold Blood (although it's a book I needed therapy after), but gave up on Behind the Beautiful Forevers at page 50.

I'm still reading my space opera, and having a great time. Cordelia Vorkosigan rocks!

Our favourite bookshop did the 'National Bookshop Day' thing yesterday. It wasn't themed, but there were a number of interesting authors to talk to, and food, and incentives to buy books – a choice $200 worth of books to each of two winners. I'm waiting to hear whether I win tomorrow. :) One of the local TV stations had a camera there, and my husband and the two friends we were with had their 15 seconds of fame on the news last night. I must have been somewhere else. I think the footage is on my FB page.
I bought a fresh copy of Anna Kerenina which I haven't read since university. My daughter has my ancient edition, and I've been meaning to read it again for ages.

I'm having problems with The Marmalade Files. Kevin
Rudd has morphed into Catriona Bailey and is on life support, Julia Gillard is Martin Toohey and Steven Smith seems to be Bruce Paxton. I think that Christine Milne is now Randal Wade but I'm not sure.

I keep on having to think who I am reading about and then remind myself that it is supposed to be fiction. It is all government behind the scenes spy /collect dirt on the other side of politics stuff involving unions and the Chinese Government.

We even seem to have mention of the Godwin Grech affair but it has morphed into something different.

Only the names have been changed and they are NOT protecting the innocent.

Wow, The Marmalade Files sounds like a really weird one. Is it satire? I should google it, but I'm too lazy.

I'm happily reading Anna Kerenina, although I expect it may take me some time. That's brought back my first (and possibly only) reading of War and Peace. I had a between-semester job at a cinema in Sydney, and as it was showing the same film for several weeks (single cinemas only in those days), I would sit in the back of the cinema and read Tolstoy. Nothing wrong with that. It certainly filled in the time. Ah, you want to know the name of the film – 'Trinity Is Still My Name'. I have no idea what it was about: some sort of Western I think.

I'd have said that it was satire to begin with but now I have to wonder.

I have reviewed it as best I could ...

You did a fine job reviewing it. But I couldn't quite get a grasp on it because I'm thick.

I think I may skip The Marmalade Files, as I have no idea who half of those people are. I really must pay closer attention to the news.

livrecache, you saw the same movie every day for several weeks, and aren't sure what it's about? LOL! I do believe it's a western, but I'm just going off the name, there was a more famous western called "My Name is Trinity". Or "Trinity is my Name". Something like that. Obviously not that famous! :)

I got through Dante's Inferno with a very boring experiment. Had to be still and quiet, but I reckoned the occasional page turn was quiet enough. ;)

Finished Cordelia's Honor and it was a good one. I will be continuing with this space opera. And currently continuing with the brain candy, and am re-reading Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant. (A bookcrossed copy was close to hand.)

Wookibender, I don't know what the film was about because I was reading War and Peace as I hate Westerns. Ergo, I never took the trouble to watch it! lol

Oh, I'm no fan of westerns either, but I'm mostly just very impressed at how well you managed to block it out! I'm sure I would have known it off by heart after the first week, regardless of how much I tried to ignore it.

Shiny things on screens do tend to grab my attention...

The Fifth Elephant is maybe not the best of The Watch books from Pratchett, but I'm still having fun. Must go and revisit one of the earlier ones, I'm sure I've got a copy of Guards! Guards! somewhere, with its immortal dedication: They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No-one ever asks them if they wanted to. This book is dedicated to those fine men.

Finished The Fifth Elephant and it was a good read, but definitely not one of the great Pratchett books. Needed more satire, it didn't really ever quite have a good target, this one. (And Pratchett is best with a good, juicy target in his sights.)

Reading Froi of the Exiles now. Miss Boo has decided it's pronounced "Fro-*squeak*" if you can imagine. Argh, I never should have said "it's a name, so I'm not really sure how it's pronounced", I should have realised she'd find the most annoying pronunciation possible...

Miss Boo sounds delightful!

Um ... can anyone join in here? Not quite sure what Bookcrossing Australia is about (I just jumped in from the All Topics list).

ETA: glad you enjoyed the Vorkosigan book, wookiebender. It's one of my favourite series.

#28

What is BookCrossing? www.bookcrosing.com

It's the World's Library. It's a smart social networking site. It's a celebration of literature and a place where books get new life. BookCrossing is the act of giving a book a unique identity so, as the book is passed from reader to reader, it can be tracked and thus connecting its readers. There are currently 1,262,143 BookCrossers and 9,256,553 books travelling throughout 132 countries. Our community is changing the world and touching lives one book at a time.

What's our mission?

Very simply, we aim to connect people through books.

How do we do it?

Label. Share. Follow. Breath new life into books instead of letting your old favorites collect dust - pass them along to another reader. Our online archival and tracking system allows members to connect with other readers, journal and review literature and trade and follow their books as lives are changed through “reading and releasing”. Users are able to tag and track their individual books by marking them with BCIDs (BookCrossing Identity Numbers). Each BCID is unique to each book – once it’s registered on our site, the book can then be followed and journaled forever. BookCrossing is free to join and free to play. So don't be 'shelf'ish with your books - read and release!

Hi Humouress, anyone is welcome! Especially if they praise my children. ;)

Wow, pink, are we up to nearly 1m books already?? I'd better register a few more to get it squeaking over that great milestone.

I must admit, I've been a bit slack on the ol' bookcrossing front lately, although The Fifth Elephant was one from @freelunch. Now to get it back into the wild...

#30 *grin* wookiebender, you left out a zero - we are nearing 10,000,000 books out wandering.

I have been mainly reading e-books lately but have over a dozen ready to release onto the world in the near future.

D'oh! Can I claim it was a busy day...? :}

Humph. Finished Froi of the Exiles. Was a rather messy book, which was a great shame, because the first in the series (Finnikin of the Rock) was a excellent book, IMO. This one was all over the shop, characters kept on doing unexpected things, stuff was never really explained well, and then it ended on a cliffhanger or five. Not happy.

But still, the story was compelling (if I was rather bewildered all the way through) and I'm hoping it was just me being in a bad headspace this week, and the next book will be better.

Have picked up Beryl Bainbridge's An Awfully Big Adventure, a nice slim volume, that hopefully will be a more satisfying read.

I have just finished reading After Cleo; came Jonah by Helen Brown and it was a great disappointment. I thought that it was going to be about a cat (Jonah) but it was mostly about Brown's mastectomy and her troubles with her daughter.

I think that Jonah was there to lure in the cat-lovers (a cute picture of a Birman kitten on the cover) and that was a complete con. I gave it a half star rating simply to acknowledge that I had read it. And I reviewed it in case another cat lover is thinking of wasting their money on it.

Oh dear, a patch of poor reading for two of us! I hope we're not part of a wider trend. :)

Thanks for the warning, I am a cat fan, and the book had grabbed my eye.

No, not part of a wider trend. I finished reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman not long ago and absolutely loved it! :-)

I have An Awfully Big Adventure buried in my tbr shelf somewhere, so will be interested to hear what you think of it, wookie.

Am in the midst of Song of Achilles ...... I like the short chapters. I also finished Making Toast a comforting account by a father after the tragic loss of his daughter.

Oh, I loved Stardust too! But I'm a sucker for a good fairytale, and I think Gaiman's a wonderful story teller.

Er, isn't my copy of An Awfully Big Adventure registered by you? http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5879083/ If you want it back, let me know, it's been a good fun read so far!

Carole, I did like The Song of Achilles, as I'm sure I mentioned here. Once. Or maybe twice.

The film of Stardust is heaps of fun, and I want to get the book; but I'm looking for one with pictures from the film, if such exists.

The movie is delightful, and the book is quite short, so there *must* be an illustrated version somewhere!

try www.Amazon.co.uk

You don't have to buy but it would give you an idea of what is available and you can order it from your local library if you harvest the ISBN.

>38 wookiebender:: Yep, your copy of An Awfully Big Adventure was registered by moi. But I cunningly had a second copy to hand before I released it to you. And my copy is still unread after what . . . four plus years?? Seriously too many books! ;-)

I have yet to see the movie of Stardust. Now that I've read the book I'll definitely seek it out though. I've decided that on the whole I prefer the order of book --> movie, rather than movie --> book.

I came across the film on television, and it looked like fun. It was only later that I realised it was from a book. I haven't read many Neil Gaimans yet. I had already read Good Omens (his collaboration with Terry Pratchet); I know well the dread sigil Odegra...

#42> Well, I finished it this morning, and it got a bit creepy towards the end, but it's still worth reading for the snark. I'll be reading more Bainbridge. Expect a review through bookcrossing sometime in the next six weeks or so. :P

#43> I'm beginning to think most movies are based on books, and that Hollywood is completely artistically bankrupt when it comes to creating stories. It's a rare movie that isn't based on a book (video game/comic series/funpark ride/Twitter feed) nowadays.

Having a lazy reading day. Finished An Awfully Big Adventure, then knocked off The Red Pony by Steinbeck which was a pretty good simple tale, and am now reading the cheesy angsty YA City of Glass.

>44 wookiebender: : What gets me are the re-makes of films that aren't that old; 'Spiderman', for instance.

I think that it is time we moved on to September. We missed August altogether.

I will start a new thread ...

humouress, not to mention the three Hulks we've had lately: two feature movies, and then he reappears differently again in The Avengers.

New thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/141680# (thanks Pink!)