What Are You Reading the Week of 25 August 2012?

The 25th: Martin Amis

Dorothy Dunnett

Thea Astley

The 26th: Julio Cortázar

Guillaume Apollinaire

Christopher Isherwood

The 27th: Jeanette Winterson

C.S. Forester

Ira Levin

Theodore Dreiser

The 28th: Janet Frame

Jack Vance

Robertson Davies

Arkady Strugatsky

The 29th: Temple Grandin

Karen Hesse

Maurice Maeterlinck

The 30th: Molly Ivins

Laurent de Brunhoff

Mary Shelley

The 31st: William Saroyan

Robert Adams

György Károly

It never ceases to amaze me what a variety of authors we see each week. Thanks, Richard.

Just finished a very uninspired mystery called Murder goes to college Next up is probably No more parades, the second novel in Ford Madox Ford's Parade's end

Happy early birthday to C.S. Forester, one of my new favourite authors! :)

On today's reading agenda is A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley. I also need to read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain, this week because I managed to find it in the Express Reads section of the library and have it until Friday. (Otherwise, I was 78th on the holds list for the large print version.)

Hello everyone,
I have set aside The House of the Seven Gables for now. I guess I'm not into Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing style at the moment. I've picked up All He Ever Wanted instead. I like Anita Shreve as an author.

I too wanted to like House of the Seven Gables but found it ponderous.

I've just started reading The Paper Moon, the ninth volume in Andrea Camilleri's marvelous series of Inspector Montalbano mysteries.

Just passed the halfway point in Paul Auster's wonderful The Invention of Solitude.

The Various Flavors of Coffee started out fine, and I'm interested in the subject, but the narrator is beginning to piss me off and the changes in POV being marked by changes in tense are clanking.

I'm finishing up Gone Girl this weekend which is turning out to be a more interesting story than I originally thought it would be. I'm enjoying it and can't wait to see how it ends. Then I will start The Crystal Cave which is a series I have wanted to read for some time now. I love Arthurian Legend so I am looking forward to that as well.

I have another 150 pages to go in The Don Flows Home to the Sea, so I should finish it this weekend. I'm not sure what I'm going to read after that.

I'm reading Gone Girl whicH provides an OMG moment for me at least once a chapter and The Year of the Gadfly which is really good and a quick read

Last week I finished two books: The Politics of Barbecue and How Learning Works. I'm currently reading, and greatly enjoying, Julie and Julia!

Thanks for starting us off, Richard. As usual, it's an interesting, eclectic list of authors you've compiled.

I'm reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost. I'm enjoying it enough to continue with, but I'm not quite "clicking" with the author. I'm not sure why that is.

I have gotten thoroughly sucked in to Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. If you have read and enjoyed Stephen King's It then you really need to check out Summer of Night. I actually like Dan Simmons more than Stephen King. Summer of Night is also set in the '60s and follows the story of a group of kids confronted by a terrible evil, in this case vampires and evil teachers as opposed to sewers and scary clowns.
My paperback copy of Empress by Shan Sa also came in the mail. It's about the first female emporor of China and takes place in the 7th century during the Tang dynasty. This is the first book I will have read by Sa so I'm hoping it will be as good as it looks.
I am reading Eragon to my kids. We were reading The Hunger Games but my 5 year old was having a hard time following the plot so we swithced. So far so good. Even if he was about asleep on his feet while we were reading.

Halfway through Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma series and my local libray changed the cataloging program and my lists are gone. Boo.

>14 ampipsmith: I read Empress awhile back and enjoyed the history and the story, but didn't much like the protagonist. Interesting woman, but hardly the kind to make you like her. However, I highly recommend The Girl Who Played Go by the same author.

#16,
Will do. Thanks.

I finished Sebastian Faulks' thought-provoking A Week in December and now I'm reading Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide.

>4 moonshineandrosefire: & 5: I've also drifted away from The House of the Seven Gables. I remember it as an exciting, scary story, but somehow the language (Yes, "ponderous" is the perfect word) escaped my memory. Maybe closer to Halloween I'll be able to settle back into it.

>9 Iudita: Iudita:: I read those books eons ago but remember enjoying them. Maybe it's time for a revisit. I also love Arthurian legend and went through a phase of reading everything of that kind I could find.

Hmmm... Seems to me I have the Mary Stuart trilogy in an omnibus edition. Well, it will just have to get in line. A number of books are jostling for attention - the London Fantasy Mystery books Richard recommended arrived yesterday - and the reading machine hasn't arrived yet. Feel like I'm being mobbed by books demanding, "Read me! Read me!"

Still listening to They Came to Baghdad and dipping into The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps. Temporarily set aside Safe without Sight. Don't have the patience to read braille right now. Hope I can settle down, because it really does look like a good book.

Re-reading Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero , The first book in the Heroes of Olympus series. Then it's The Son of Neptune and The Demigod Diaries. Getting ready for the new volume coming out in October.

Am 70 pages into The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian. A slow start but interesting enough to continue.

>19 Catreona: You're not imagining it, Catreona, they *are* mobbing you...readmereadme...and the dratted machine can't come soon enough!

Found an OLD copy of Bambi at the Habitat for Humanity Restore, from 1939 I think. I've not read it in forever, I just can't recall, so I decided to make up for lost time. There's a lot more in the book than I remember, probably because the descriptions weren't interesting to a 9 year old mind...

Today I finished I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Very cool. I will probably read the next in the series.

Then I started reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. My husband is reading it on his tablet so I thought I should read it too, although I bought it in paperback. This is the first time we've read a book together so I'm looking forward to that aspect. I'm already flying through it!

I'm "reading" A Long Way Gone on audiobook - incredible but traumatic autobiography. I'm wishing Beah a long writing career but less real world inspiration.

I've also started my ER book The Devil in Silver and am loving it so far - which is a nice change from my last ER book.

About a hundred pages in to Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. It's very good but I had to put it down because the kid's dog died. I can read about horrible things happening to full grown (or at least mostly grown) humans but I can't stand it when bad things happen to animals and babies. I should have seen it coming and skipped it. My dogs old and this dog was old and I just had to walk away for a bit. Poor doggie. I really want to jump into the story and find that evil old bastard that hurt that dog and exact some terrible and rightous vengence upon him. Trying to hurt a sweet old dog and a fat kid. What a piece of crap.
Book is too good to put down permanently though. I will go back to it in the morning. There aren't any more animals in the story so I'm good to go. If you scare easily do not read this book. It is super creepy. Dan Simmons is terrific.
Continued with Eragon for bedtime stories. We are on Chapter 4 but will have to start over as my son fell asleep halfway through. I'm not letting myself read ahead so we are seeing the story unfold together. Has anyone read it? Do I need to be aware of any sex scenes or anything that might be inappropriate for a 5 year old? He doesn't scare or get freaked out by violence so I'm not worried about that.

>26 ampipsmith:: You give him so much inappropriate reading matter, I don't understand why you are concerned about sex. Just explain it to him like you do with zombies and corpses and all the other garbage you are poisoning his poor baby mind with. He should be reading The Wind in the Willows and you're giving him material I'd worry about a fifteen-year-old reading.

#27,
I read my son books that I think would interest him. We haven't read anything about zombies. The book to which you are referring is called You Might be a Zombie and Other Bad Things. We read three segments- one on 5 kinds of poisinous bugs because he likes bugs and asked about a million questions when he heard about killer bees. The second segment we read was about 5 things that happen to your corpse when you donate it to science. There were no zombies involved. We also read a section about Andrew Jackson. If all I read him were books like Wind in the Willows he would grow up thinking books are boring. We also have read Grimms Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Anderson and they are more bloody and violent than any of it but because they are a "classic" it's ok, right? And Greek mythology is warping his mind too I suppose. I don't think you know what you are talking about at all. My son does great in school, listens and follows rules, protects his little sister, does chores and is a great kid.
He is a boy. He likes bugs, and swordfights, and wizards and girls that can shoot an apple out of a pigs mouth at 20 yards. I asked about the sex in Eragon because I was hoping that someone else had read it and could let me know if I needed to censor it a bit. I tried to read The Wind in the Willows when I was a kid and I thought it was boring, outdated and something some dull, narrow minded pretentious teacher would try to force down my gullett for summer reading. Thank God my interesting, intellignet and open minded mother let me pick my own reading material.
I think it's wonderful that my son is old enough to discover books. And that I can share my love of books and reading with him. I am far from a perfect mother. Who does not feel sometimes that they are not good enough for their children, who doesn't feel the unrelenting pressure to do right by their children. But in this thing, this one thing, this thirty minutes every night when we can journey together into Panem or fly on the back of a dragon I know that I have done at least this right that my children are developing the same passion I have for reading. How that could be detrimental to their psychological health is beyond me.
I would never presume to judge another parents choice of reading material. I think a lot of kids books are pretty ridiculous. I just wanted to know if Eragon did the nasty. And now I'm pissed off and I STILL don't know if this stupid book has any sex scenes.
Maybe I'll go read my two year old some BDSM erotica and switch out Seseme Street for Debbie Does Dallas.

>19 Catreona:, 22: I've been having the same thing lately, Catreona. Right now, I'm in the middle of... half a dozen books? And still adding to the pile because they all look SO INTERESTING, and I just have no willpower to resist (and I don't really want to, TBH :-)

Most recently, started Guns, Germs & Steel, which have been looking forward to for a long time. (I've been reading about the Paleo diet lately, and I'm curious how much they're romanticizing our ancestors. Answer seems to be: lots.)

>3 rabbitprincess:, I loved Quiet, rabbitprincess, hope you do, too!

Re: Hunger Games, I guess I'm jealous of anyone who can read that stuff before bedtime, and still sleep. (I've gotten two sleeps since Mockingjay, and they were full of vivid/disturbing dreams.)

I am reading Bright Lights, No City by Max Alexander (Early Reviewer) and really enjoying it. Of to run a half marathon ... then read all day! Yahoo.

Fisrt of all a big cheer to Richard for the new thread and an equally big one for some of my favourite writers who appear on it: Christopher Isherwood, Ira Levin, Robertson Davies, Jeanette Winterson, Richard Adams and Mary Shelley - what a great week!

I'm about half way through Nights at the Circus and A Good Man is Hard to Find. and having a great time with both. Unusual for me to be able to give equal attention to two books at once but I look forward to getting back to both of them.

#28: Good for you. I haven't read Eragon, but the kid was a teen when he wrote it, so I am guessing not so much. You might look at some fan sites to check.

Gave up on Arcadia by Lauren Groff about a quarter of the way through. Not my ideal style of fiction. Right now flipping through Best American Non-Required Reading and reading an introductory textbook on game theory, Games of Strategy

#14 & #16
If you like reading about the Tang dynasty I recommend that you pick up Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. This book made my top ten list two years ago. I loved it. Kay is a fantasy writer, but this book is more mysticism than fantasy. It was so good I gave it to my nieces as a Christmas gift.

Somebody mentioned in last weeks thread that they are reading Ghost in Love. I have that book and have been trying to get to it for several years. Let us know what you think about it.

I started reading two thrillers this last week Honourable Schoolboy because I finally got around to reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy last winter and thought I might as well finish the Karla Trilogy, and the new Alan Furst book, Mission to Paris. The later I have been reading at Barnes & Noble for free, but on Friday the staff at my B&N notified me that at some point this fall Barnes & Noble will stop offering the read for free for one hour feature on the Nooks. Instead they will offer a read for free for one hour - once on the Nook. Either this means that Barnes & Noble feels secure enough with the Nook sales that they can stop offering that as an enticement, for it means that they are paying a boatload of money in royalties and they want to stop the cash drain. I wonder which it is?

I finished listening to Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and thought it was a nice average book. It kept me interested and for people who like lightweight mysteries and combined with historical fiction it would be a good book. I started listening to Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie for my daily commute.

I also got a good start on IQ84 and as usual Murakami has me hooked.

OK so I will jump in with my views on appropriate reading material for children and YA's. I spent years as a school librarian and so dealt with the question at many levels, from kids to principals, as well as parents.

Over the years I simplified my stand. I figure that if a kid is interested in a book, give it to him. If he doesn't understand it he will soon put it down. If they come to me asking questions that could get me in trouble I tell them that reading is a personal experience and therefore the reader interprets what it happening. If they have questions about something delicate they should ask their parents. Usually it goes no further. If they insist then I tell them my views and preface it with the idea that I am going to treat them like an adult.

That being said, there are great classics out there for children and parents and both can have a rich reading experience with those. However, if parents are reading stuff to their kids that is basically their business and I am not going to question their judgement. My one piece of advice is don't neglect the classics. Children need that body of literature as well so that they have a well rounded body of knowledge.

#28
ampipsmith
I also need to say at this point that people who do librarything are readers. We wouldn't be here if we weren't. In general we are a very tolerant bunch of people. However, we also tend to be sarcastic, cryptic, ironic, and in general people of the sly innuendo, all of which is tolerated on this thread. What we won't tolerate is name calling, or other intolerant written behavior. Although, I suspect that a good many of us wouldn't tolerate that outside of the written word either. Relax, and enjoy this thread. We all want to hear all opinions in this forum because we are all passionate about books and reading.

#35> "(The) People of the Sly Innuendo"

When I saw this turn of phrase I almost did a spit take with my morning coffee. What came to me was that this might be a Far Side Cartoon: The unpublished entry in the Clan of the Cave Bear series.

More seriously, I enjoyed and agree with your comments here.

>34 benitastrnad:, 35: Thank you, Benita, you said it far better than I ever could. And thank you for reminding me of Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, I hope you love it as much as I did!

Finally finding my ER book, The Lincoln Conspiracy to be moving along faster. And i am liking it much better than before.

Reading When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins. Meant to read this when it was published two years ago and forgot. Then my 29-year old daughter, who has benefited greatly from the massive changes for women in the last fifty years, told me how fabulous it was. Of course, I'm blown away by how far we've come while she was amazed by how restricted we all were.

Ampipsmith: Your ground work now will soon lead to that great day when your son will be recommending books to you ... and years of book discussions ahead.

I finished Sea of Poppies then went immediately into an audiobook of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which did this quiet little book about alienation and connection no favor. However, after giving myself a CD to transition from opium dealers to aging parents I find I'm liking it very much. I'll probably finish tomorrow and was wondering where to go next when I saw Martin Amis at the top of your birthday list, Richard. I've never read him but heard an interview about Lionel Asbo: State of England the other day and thought he sounded quite witty. Of course, there's a long waiting list for the new book, but I was able to download Night Train immediately. So that's what's up next.
On paper I just finished the weird The Vet's Daughter and have begun The Stone Angel. Just a few pages in I find I'm liking Margaret Laurence's style very much.
On Nook I'm about 30 pages into Diary of a Provincial Lady which I've heard is so humorous, but it's not doing much for me. There is a funny scene of a dinner party with pretentious literary people that kind of grabbed me.

Joyce, if you've never read any Martin Amis, I'd quite happily urge London Fields on you. If you don't like it, Martin's not for you.

I was and am a strong lover of the book.

Another Harold Fryer! I hope my number comes up on the liberry list soon.

Richard, I put The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry on hold, and it took only about 3 weeks to get it from the library. Fifty Shades of Grey on the other hand, still has over 200 holds. Maybe my library system is a good place to get good books because so few people want them.

Oh dear...I laughed and then sighed when I read Maybe my library system is a good place to get good books because so few people want them...there's a piece of damnable good fortune.

And, after checking, I need to revise that even further, there are 679 people on hold for the 228 available copies of Shades of Grey. What a sense of freedom not to be in that line.

#34 Benita- I am reading The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll. It is wonderful, but if you've ever read anything by Carroll you need to approach with an open mind and be willing to suspend disbelief. I have enjoyed some of his other stuff, i.e. Bones of the Moon and Sleeping in Flame. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but I love his imagination.

>44 Citizenjoyce: ::appalled::

As an antidote, here's a blog post that made me laugh so hard I hurt.

My favorite from the list of 76 easy ways to say no: "39. I’ll be taking salsa lessons with my evil twin."

LOLOL

>44 Citizenjoyce:, 46: my library recently changed their system: if you're on the hold list, you get to know your number. That's it. No laughing at the fools in the fools in the other line (darn!). (And salsa dancing is definitely a great excuse for anything: went for the first time a couple of weeks ago and had the time of my life! No evil twin, though.)

Geez, some of those are hysterical.

ampipsmith: I think it's perfectly fine for you to judge what is appropriate for your child to read. Unfortunately, it seems you may have to read a bit ahead in Eragon in order to do that, since no one here seems to have read it.

>28 ampipsmith:: I mentioned The Wind in the Willows because it was a favorite of my own at five. I enjoyed many other books as well, especially the Hardy Boys mystery novels. Of course, I'm both a nerd and a wimp. I loved all those "stupid children's books" like Hidi, A Little Princess, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates} as well as E.B. White's books, The Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web and C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

I have never needed to worry too much what my mother liked. By five I had been an independent reader for some time - got my first library card at three. I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. So, though my mother and aunts bought and suggested books, I could pretty much make my own decisions as far as reading was concerned. By the time I lost my sight at six, I had two bookcases full of books, several of which I had read multiple times, and subscriptions to two children's magazines. My love of Mysteries, Fantasy and Arthurian legend was well established and I was already interested in books for their own sake. That is, I looked at publishers' names and copyright dates.

By your standards, perhaps there was something wrong with me. I didn't begin reading adult books till I was about ten, and I continue to enjoy Children's and Young Adult literature to this day. My backwardness apparently hasn't damaged me, though. I earned a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in English Literature and an M.A. in Medieval Literature.

The Good Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to deny me the blessing of a husband and children. So, I have no first hand experience raising children. It is my understanding, however, that Horror stories and violence such as that in Grims Fairy Tales is very harmful for small children. As you indicate, though, what you do with your children is your business, not mine. Excuse my expression of concern.

#50,
I read all those books too. I realize that perhaps I overreacted and I apologize. When it comes to my children I am perhaps too quick to go into mama bear mode and unsheath my claws. I agree that we do need to start reading some of the classic, especially the Narnia books and some Roald Dahl. My son has only recently gotten to an age where he can sit still and listen to a long story wothout pictures. He got to this point rather suddenly so I am somewhat ill prepared-I read him what I have around the house or on my electronic readers. Part of the reason we started reading Eragon was because he had seen the movie and I thought he would like it. He asked me to read him Hunger Games, which actually led to a great conversation aboutgenetically modified organisms (because of tracker jackers) and how they are created. This led to us talking about the morality of tampering with nature and the ethics of using such a creation in war. None of this would have come up if we had stuck to traditional childrens stories.
I doubt this will be the last time I offend someone. I never set out to be offensive but it seems to be inevitable. I'm a weirdo and I've got a big mouth and I've got some pretty unusual ideas about just about everything. I am glad that I haven't been tarred and feathered and expelled from the librarything village I've come to love so much. I live in a small town and I deliver pizzas for a living. While I love my small town (it was named after my great grandmother's great grandfather), we don't even have a bookstore anymore and our library is pretty decent to be here but it's not exactly well stocked. And while I love my coworkers and my job pizza people are not usually bookworms (though more of us read than most people would think). I have found in librarything a community of people with whom I can share my love of books and from whom I can discover new authors I would never have heard of elsewhere. I have been avoiding checking this sight all day because I just knew I was either going to get reaaly mad or really deressed. I am happy to know my fears were unjustified.
And, by the way, I asked my son if anything we had read had bothered him, or made him feel bad, or scared him in any way. He said he's a big smart boy and not a baby and he can handle that stuff. I asked him if it had given him bad dreams. He said no he has good dreams and gets lots of sleep.
As far as children's exposure to violence in the most important thing is to be engaged with your children when they see or read or anything that might bother them. I do think there is a limit to how much violence they are exposed to, and that the context in which the violence occurs makes a huge difference, but that where you set this limit varies widely between families. I think the best thing is too try to find a happy middle ground between being too overprotective and being too lenient. Finding this "shade of grey harhar" is a battle every parent has to fight.
Anyway, still reading Summer of Night and it conitnues to be fantastic. I couldn't read to my kids because I've been at work since 10 this morning. I think my husband was going to read them The Action Hero Handbook or something. Glad I'm not banished.

>28 ampipsmith: Catreona: Every child and every situation is different. When I was 10, and started delving into adult books, I read my Gram's True Detective magazines and her copy of The Boston Strangler. This was during the time of the Manson murders, and we lived in the Los Angeles area. Between my reading material and what I saw on the news at night I had trouble sleeping for a long, long time! Other kids would probably have no problem handling it.

This was also the time I discovered some lifelong favorites, including Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and Jane Eyre. I was also read things like Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. (I liked Trixie better. She seemed more down-to-earth, somehow, lol!) Other adult reading included Gone with the Wind.

At about age 12 I read The Godfather, which didn't at all bother me. Perhaps a couple more years maturity helped, or the violence seemed a bit more distant.

I guess my point is that every child is different, and even if reading material is forbidden, kids will find it if they are curious enough. My parents had no idea what I was reading as I was visiting Gram.

@ ampipsmith: I just recalled that the most fun I had reading with my son at about that age was The BFG by Roald Dahl. We both giggled our way through it - especially during the scene at the end where Sophie and the BFG have tea with the Queen of England. What a hoot! My son went on to read many other Roald Dahl books on his own, further evidence of how much he enjoyed it.

ETA: I swear ampismith commented about Roald Dahl while I was typing my comment about him. It's serendipity! Ampipsmith, now you must seek out some Roald Dahl, lol!

I have not long finished Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner I just loved it, the ending was great, it tricked this reader, I had to cover up the last few lines so as not to cheat!!
I have ordered online the BBC film , the casting looks great.

I have now started Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham, this one I am not sure of, great reviews, I shall try to persevere.

I'm still reading Menage and it's not as bad as I'd feared. I'm compelled to finish it, but I'm not sure if I'll read more by Ms. Holly.
In between I'm still reading bits and pieces of 166x Youp, The Black Cat and Platinum Pohl. I just finished Pohl's story The Merchants of Venus this morning and it was very good. Reminds me I really need to find the last part of the Heechee trilogy, The Space Merchants, since I absolutely loved Gateway and Beyond the blue event horizon.

#28 I read it and I'm guessing it's probably an ideal book for your son (though I have to say I was bored senseless by it - that, however, is just my opinion). Although it was several years ago I certainly don't remember any sex scenes and, given the age of the author at the time, I suspect you can go on reading without fearing anything like that.

I just wanted to add that while I would agree 100% with benitastrnad about children getting to read pretty much what they want and are able to understand, I do think that mostly applies once they are old enough to pick the books and read them themselves. I seem to have missed how old your son is but if you are reading to him then you have a perfect right to avoid anything you don't feel able to share at this stage in his life. Enjoy your reading!

ETA - Sorry, I see he's 5 so presumably won't yet be reading Eragon by himself.

@3 & 9 - A friend loaned me Quiet but I'm not going to be able to get to it until later this week or next week. Looking forward to it. I've heard lots of people rave about it.

@42 ROFL - What does that say for Gone Girl? The waiting list at my library is in the thousands - I'm pretty sure it's better than 50 shades though.

#53 Hotel du Lac is a lovely book and the BBC production is brilliantly cast - I hope you enjoy it.

If you haven't already done so, I suspect you might also enjoy reading (and watching - another BBC production) The Enchanted April, one of my all-time faves and both book and film are somewhat reminiscent of 'Hotel' in their themes and execution.

I started A Hologram For The king by Dave Eggers and am almost done with Gone Girl

Finished Ragtime and highly recommend it. Abandoned Equal of the Sun because politics of 16th century Persia is still politics and I can't handle more than I'm currently being barraged with. Will start Dear Exile later today/

Finished Gone Girl and started Interview with a Jewish vampire by Erica Manfred today

I finished The Impressionist today. My engagement with most of the book suffered because of the protagonist's lack of internal self. Of course, that was precisely the point. The series of events which created this selfless person were gruesome, while the events which ripped apart his carefully constructed facade finally made the character likable. It was a better book in its entirety than it was during its reading.

Finished The Wise Man's Fear and The Lurker at the Treshold while on vacation, and I have now started on The Mammoth book of Alternate Histories.

Thanks, Richard. Yay C.S. Forester!

Finished and liked 420 Characters by Lou Beach and Love and Freindship (yup, that's the spelling) by Jane Austen.

Started Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, with a particularly strong recommendation from Caro (cameling) if I remember correctly.

I finished The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry this morning. What a perfectly wonderful little book and worth however long the wait is to get it. It's about aging, alienation, connection, commitment, rejection, friendship, life, death, acquisitiveness, and the importance of humor. Surprisingly, there was some very helpful advice given by the surly son.
I think Carolyn, however, would perhaps have as hard a time as I did with Harold's dedication to his yachting shoes.

#57 Thanks for the suggestion with The Enchanted April I try to track it down.

>51 ampipsmith:: Maybe I'm a bit narrow. This probably comes of not being around kids very much. You're right, too, that whatever the age, every reader has to find her/his own comfort zone where violence is concerned. I intensely dislike violence, especially in movies/television. Somehow it seems worse when you see it impersonally like that onscreen instead of in your own imagination. Strangely though, I really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels in spite of the intense violence. I'd forgotten that. Probably too a young mind bounces back more readily than an older, more rigid one.

You and I have our enthusiasm for Library Thing in common. It's amazing to see the wide range of books other members are reading - as you say, often ones I never would have known about otherwise. I've read several books now based on LT recommendations, and have always been glad I did.

Sorry I upset you. Sometimes I don't know when to keep my big mouth shut.

>52 bookwoman247:: My sister and I also prefered Trixie Beldon to Nancy Drew, though we came to that conclusion several years apart. She's quite a bit younger than myself. I'll have to tell her there's someone else out there who agrees with us.

Remember loving James and the Giant Peach, but as I think about it now, it's actually pretty creapy. *grin* Also loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

>57 Booksloth:: I love The Enchanted April. It's one of my go to books when I'm blue or unwell. Didn't know there was a film version. Thanks.

>65 hazeljune:: Audible has The Enchanted April, if that's any help.

Finished They Came to Baghdad last night and started Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information. Fascinating so far, though I fell asleep in the middle of Chapter Two. Drat!

This week I'll be finishing up The Odyssey of KP2: An Orphan Seal, a Marine Biologist, and the Fight to Save a Species by Terrie Williams. It's very good but, ultimately, sad.

I'm also reading Maeve Binchy's The Copper Beech and Disco for the Departed.

On audio, I just finished The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings. It was wonderful and I'll miss it tomorrow on my way to work. And good to know that the movie stayed faithful to the book.

I finished the beautiful The Highest Tide this evenng. It's the story of a 13-year-old boy whose love of Rachel Carson and the bay on which he lives sustains him through a troubling and magical summer. It is in many ways a "coming of age" book, but those of you who know Jim Lynch's writing from Border Songs will understand when I say it's so much more than that.

Now I'm reading My Poets by Maureen N. McLane and I could hardly put it down long enough to come write this. If you love poetry, language, words, you will delight in this book.

Got thoroughly engrossed in Summer of Night and forgot all about librarything (and going to bed). Whoever said Hunger Games gave them disturbing dreams probably shouldn't read this book. Before Summer of Night two books had actually managed to scare me, The Excorcist and It. And I read those when I was 12. Simmons creates a veritable crescendo of fear that subtly and bueautifully raises the the hairs on your neck and doesn't even begin to reach full volume until halfway through the book. I woke up at 4 in the morning from a dream that scared the ever living bejesus out of me and made me go sit in the living room with all the lights on until I had managed to convince myslef that no slimy, primordial force of Evil was going to come oozing through the windows and destroy all that I loved. Which, to me, is the mark of a truly successful horror story. If you like Stephen King you will love this book. It's like Simmons read It and was like "hmmmm, I can do that". Absolutely fantastic.
Also got a copy of The Psychopath Test. As I'm convinced that more pychopaths walk amongst us than is readily apparent, and that I've know more than my fair share, it should be interesting reading.

I was looking through the app store on my iPad and discovered an app called free books. You can download books from a number of different categories and they download quickly

Decoding Reality is great! It is written in a highly accessible, almost chatty style. I'm loving it and, more importantly, may actually come away from it with an understanding of Information Theory.

#36
Glad to have you grinning into that morning coffee. That turn of phrase would make a good book title. Maybe I should patent it, before some cunning author steals it.

Began to read A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. A promising start.

Finished The Book Thief last week which, on reflection, lives up to the plaudits heaped upon it. Funny and heartbreaking in turns. To be discussed at the reading group tomorrow night.

Still plugging away at Paradise Lost. I find the poetry beautiful, if taken in small doses. My copy seems to be the only book from my student days that I annotated, confirming that my handwriting has got worse over the last thirty-three years.

I finished Passion Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee and will be starting my ER book in this series Desire Becomes Her. I've missed #3 and #5 in the series and have had to order them so will be reading them out of sequence. They don't have a lot of bearing on the following stories, but are referred to, so I'm wondering what I'm missing.

Also received my ER book today, A Different Kind Of Normal by Cathy Lamb. Yay!!!

Speaking of coffee...I've reviewed The Various Flavors of Coffee, a very interesting look at coffee and its role in the world, in my thread...#101.

#67 Coppers: I have to say that I really enjoyed The Copper Beech when I read it. I hope that you enjoy reading it as well. I finished reading All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve last night and really loved it. I started reading An American Love Story today. So far it is really good.

Catreona
I also have a problem with keeping my big mouth shut-something else we have in common. It's funny you say you like Dragon Tattoo. My mother in law also liked those books, actually recommended them to me. She is also a devout Christian and typically reads books like In The Tuscan Sun (or something, can't really remember the title, had a great recipe for lemon cookies..maybe, I confess imy mind was wandering). My husband and I couldn't believe she read them and actually liked them. This is the same woman that threw away his copy of The Vampire Lestat and Tale of the Body Thief because she felt like it was contaminating her house. I wonder what it is about those Stieg Larsson books. I know I spellled that wrong. Sorry.

Doesn't Under the Tuscan Sun have a gay relationship in it? She may not be as "devout" as you had imaged!

Still reading Bright Lights, No City and enjoying it a ton, but oh boy, the man can wander. But luckily, his wanderings are not only interesting but hysterical.

I never understood the claim of excessive violence in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is no more violent than many other mysteries. The most violent book I have read lately were the Jo Nesbo books, and I gave up on them. I was appalled by Hunger Games and will not read any more of that series. Once again we are back to that old saw that reading is a personal experience and we don't all like the same things or hold the same opinions about the same things.

I am trying to work my way through John LeCarre's Honourable Schoolboy and am having a hard time remembering what Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was about. I keep confusing it with the Game, Set, Match series by Len Deighton which I also read earlier this year. Maybe I should read another of the Wizard of Oz series just to clear my head.

I'm just starting Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. So far, I'm enjoying it very much, but I'm not far in. I appreciate the quirky wit. It seems a clever, young adult book, so far, and that combination is rare, and a winner, IMO.

Today on the bus I started a book I had to buy in order to read properly: He Knew He Was Right, by Anthony Trollope. Since I saw the TV adaptation first, Bill Nighy is unquestionably how I picture Colonel Osborne.

I finished and REVIEWED the last volume of The Cairo Trilogy, Sugar Street, by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz; an amazing family epic.

Now I'm reading Summer by Edith Wharton. I have to throw in a Wharton in every once in awhile to remind myself of what an outstanding writer she was.

I finished and enjoyed Shadow and Bone & the Sandcastle Girls. More the former than the latter. I am loving the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and I just started the audio of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which I'm also enjoying.

Molly- I have a copy of the Highest Tide in the stacks and I just snagged a copy of Border Songs, but have not read Lynch yet. I hope that changes soon.

83 - msf59, I thought about you when I was reading The Highest Tide -- I think you might like it.

I finished Maureen N. McLane's My Poets -- I enjoyed her insights into the work of some of my favorite poets. Now I'm reading J. L. Carr's The Battle of Pollock's Crossing.

Absolutely adore The Enchanted April, both book and film. That doesn't happen often ~ mostly I don't care for (and often dislike intensely) the film adaptations of books, notable exceptions being The Princess Bride, which I was surprised to find I liked better than the novel, and the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I also loved Hotel du Lac and didn't know there's a BBC production. Will have to look for it.

I'm currently in the middle of a number of books, none of them very memorable or meaningful except The Poison King: the Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy, which I'm finding very interesting but, because I'm reading it at bedtime, is not going very fast because I've been pretty tired at night lately and find myself falling asleep almost as soon as I lie down.

I've posted a short review of the last of the books I completed during my recent vacation, Evelyn Waugh's wonderful satire Men at Arms. The review can be found on the book's work page or on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I finished Night Train and didn't think it was great, mostly because the ending was pretty unsatisfying, but parts of it were very interesting. I like that the main character, Mike the detective, is a 5'10'' dyed blond woman weighing 180 pounds. I kept imagining her being played in a movie by Angie Harmon or some other tiny woman. That would work as far as her strange voice goes, I guess. I feel that I might be in danger of lung cancer from all the smoking in the books I've been reading lately. Ugh.
I've started an audiobook of Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffin. I didn't know what it was about and thought it might be a romance but it's more contemporary fiction about the choices women make in their lives, a little boy who is burned, and women who "exhaust themselves doing unimportant things" (she's referring to Martha Stewart wannabees.) I can see many people wouldn't like this book, but I'm enjoying it.
I'm really enjoying An Unsocial Socialist which is my first G. B. Shaw. It seems like the right book for the right political atmosphere here in the US.

Just finished P.F. Kluge's Biggest Elvis (funny and sad) and Chuck Klosterman's The Visible Man (extremely fast read, lots of fun). Currently digging Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. My first Tom Robbins. 100 pgs to go and loving it.
I'll figure out the hyperlink trick later. Or maybe I won't

>88 DannyLindsay: DannyLindsay: Hi Danny, and welcome! To turn titles into links you just use brackets around the title. To turn authors' names into links, use double brackets.

Still reading The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan but also started GTO The Early Years, Volume 14 by Toru Fujisawa that was released yesterday.

Finished and enjoyed Jane Gardam's God on the Rocks. Highly recommended for those who've liked Old Filth. I think Gardam is a genius but I'm sure that Anglophiles appreciate her more than most others.

The surprises and revelations in this one were a pleasure to discover. It's a rather sad, wistful story but not without humor. Not once did I feel manipulated once something was revealed as can sometimes happen.

I am just starting Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

#91- thanks for the mention, I just loved Old Filth and the companion bookThe Man in the Wooden Hat I shall follow up on your post.

BTW Have you read Jane Gardam's short story collection The People on Privilege Hill ? it is agreat reading.

I haven't read that one yet hazeljune, but I did read The Sidmouth Letters which is another wonderful short story collection.

A friend has recommended Crusoe's Daughter so there are a few more Jane Gardam treats in my future. Last year, she was scheduled to appear at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA but it was cancelled with no explanation. I've no idea if she's still writing - I believe she's in her eighties - but her American audience has certainly grown in the past decade.

#88
I have wanted to read Biggest Elvis for a long time. It was highly recommended by Nancy Purl and her recommendations are usually spot on.

#91
I have both Old Filth and Man in the Wooden Hat on my shelves but like so many other titles I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet.

I picked up Good Clean Fight by Derek Robinson from Inter-Library Loan last night and have started it for the September Series read. I read Piece of Cake years ago and liked it, and have wanted to read the rest of his RAF series as a result. Good Clean Fight is set in North Africa in 1942, so I find myself comparing it to Devil's Oasis and wondering which of the two series will come out on top - Robinson or Bull?

91# make sure that you read Old Filth first.

Another of Jane Gardam's that I enjoyed was Crusoe's Daughter another slimish novel, just my style!!

I just finished The Pychopath Test by Jon Ronson. I really like Rondons sardonic, self deprecating, and very British tone. I thought the book was just going to be about psychopaths (what symptoms they present, what can be done to identify them correctly, a general history of the disease and the main players involved in its conception. And while all of those subject were central to the book, it was just as much an investigation into mental illness in general. It touched on everything from the over diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children to the the ethics of modern journalism and futures trading.
Ronson has written another book on conspiracy theories and the people that perpetuate them called Some. I look forward to reading that sometime in the near future.
My copy of The Blue Sword by Robi Mckinley today. It was a favorite of my childhood and I read the first chapter to my son. It takes some time to get going so I think he was bored out of his mind. I told him it gets better. At least it made himm good and sleepy.

I finished and reviewed Heart of the Matter. By the time I was done I was more than ready to have it be over. Now I've started a reread, or rather re listen, of Animal Farm.

I am almost finished with The Fault in our Stars. I can tell that these last 100 pages are going to be brutal on my emotions. I downloaded the first 5 chapters of Shadow and Bone to see if it was something that I would enjoy. If it is then I will purchase the rest of the book.

Finished Glenda Larke's The Last Stormlord and started Stormlord Rising.

I am reading Foucault's Pendulum. It is a very informative book, but one can tell that the author is a scholar. I'll see hoe it evolves, am in the middle currently.

>98 Citizenjoyce: Had I ever been inclined to read the book, which I wasn't, your critique of its flaws would've made me think long and hard. Very very good review, and thanks.

"Reading" The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian on audio by Sherman Alexie. ROFL.

Currently reading Desire Becomes Her. My ER book by Shirlee Busbee.

I started A Wind Through The Keyhole by Stepen King and on Kindle A Different Kind of NormAl by Cathy Lamb

Thanks, Richard. I think you'll probably be able to achieve a meaningful existence without this one.

I started Shaedes of Grey by Amanda Bonilla, not to be confused with 50 Shades. It's ok. The narrator seems to be some sort of vampire-esque immortal assassin. I'm only about 20 pages in and it isn't particularly deep or literary and probably isn't going to make me ponder any greAt philosophical issues but that's ok. It looks like it should be entertaining and sometimes that's all I want from a book.
Also got a book of Russian cuss words and slang so now I can yell at people that pull out in front of me and then drive 10 miles under the speed limit in a whole new way.

#99: I loved The Fault in Our Stars. It was the first book of John Green's that I read. Really sad and sweet.

Today I finished The Sandcastle Girls. The first half was pretty boring, but the second half flew by. Interesting read about a topic I never learned about.

I'm almost halfway through Shaeds of Grey ny Amanda Bonilla. It's actually pretty decent. I think her take on the whole vampire supernatural immortal thing is pretty interesting and original. I like the narrator, something about her reminds me of David Valentine from E.E. Knight's Vampire Earth. The prose in both books is very blunt and gritty with a lot of action. If you read the Vampire Earth books and liked them you will probably like this book except instead of the human main character assassinating "vamp"bad guys the "vamp"main character is assassinating human bad guys.

I finished The Fault in our Stars and all I can say is WOW. I loved the book! I didn't like the uncontrollable sobbing as I read it but I loved it nonetheless. Now I need to decide what to read on my flight to LA today.......hmmmm.....any suggestions?

#108
There is a very good YA book titled Forgotten Fire that is also about the Armenian Genocide. It is a fictionalized account of the authors grandfather's escape. Those who have read it say it is very powerful.

I loved The Fault in our Stars too! Another YA book you "might" like is Revolution by Jennifer Donelly ...

I just finished Bright Lights, No City by Max Alexander and will pop up my review. Just started Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta (upon recommendation of a friend who happened along it at CostCo and said "you might like this one") and wow, so far, she's a very good writer. Not sure how I feel about the characters just yet, but it's certainly interesting enough to make it hard to put down.

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard is a wow-making narrative non-fictional account of one of the most tragic US Presidential assassinations. Not to be missed. Review in my thread...post #239.

Hello richardderus, Wasn't James A. Garfield the president who would have survived the assassination if the doctors of the time hadn't tried to remove the bullet? To my knowledge, President Garfield contracted an blood infection because the operation procedures and the implements used were not properly sterilized. He died about two weeks after the shooting. Although, he would have have lived because the bullet had lodged in a non life threatening area of the body.

Anyway, I just finished An American Love Story today, and it is a definite keeper for me. I immediately picked up and started reading Beyond Reason - the autobiography of Margaret Trudeau, the ex-wife of the former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. She was the scandalous, much younger wife of the Canadian Prime Minister from 1970 (I think) to 1984. She just recently revealed (in 2005, I think) that she has Bipolar Disorder. This will be the third time that I've read this book.

Thanks for the heads up on the Garfield book, Richard. My Dad is gonna love that. I just told him about it..

Haven't had much time to read today what with work and kids and whatnot but I did find the time to order some new books. I got Sarum and The Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd and The Crook Factory, A Winter's Haunting, Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, and Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons. I can't seem to get enough of Simmons right now. Probably spent too much money on my book addiction but I guess it's better than being a crack head. That's the excuse I give myself anyway. At least books are cheaper and won't make my teeth fall out.

I listened to Destiny of the Republic and, though I had to stop part way through because I was SO UPSET AT THE DOCTOR referred to in ^114, once I settled down and went back to it, I could scarcely force myself to stop to sleep, work, make a meal. Richard's right, it was really good.

I finished and loved Edith Wharton's Summer. I had read its companion book Ethan Frome last year and this one was almost as good but not quite enough gut wrenching. I got to Wharton late in my life and hope I can get to everything she's written before I kick the bucket.

Now I'm reading Wide Sargasso Sea which is a different kind of gut wrenching.

@118 Brenzi, I loved Wide Sargasso Sea and read it right after The Orchid House which isn't as gritty but goes with it even more so than Jane Eyre. It is an awesome book. I hope you are enjoying it.

I finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian today, and it deserves all the praise it has received. My review is here: http://www.librarything.com/work/3488194 Hopefully, I'll finish The Devil in Silver soon. I'm enjoying it too.

>77 ampipsmith: ampipsmith:
Think that book is called Under the Tuscan Sun. Haven't read it. Yes, it is strange the hold the Larsen books exert. I think, really, it's because the heroine is so intriguing. The male protagonist is OK, but it was Lizbet that caught and held my attention. I really wanted to know what was going to happen to her. Also, well, in a way I wanted to protect her and yet at the same time I wanted to be like her. She is an incredibly intelligent, brave young woman.

I'm Catholic but have never had a problem with vampires or anything like that. Maybe it's because your mother-in-law is a different generation...? I donno.

>107 ampipsmith:: LMAO

The Library sent me Lost in a Good Book, which I intended to start tonight, but it's so late now, I may need to postpone...or not. Maybe I'll get a snack and just start the book. I remember discussion of it here a while back, which is why I kept it. Sometimes they send things that don't seem to fit my reading profile at all. Then sometimes, as in this case, they send things that rign a bell.

I'm utterly absorbed right now in The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler. Having seen lots of comparisons to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo I had my doubts because I just couldn't get into that book but this is much more readable.

>114 moonshineandrosefire: Exactly right! I knew zero about this before reading the book. It was terrific!

>115 CarolynSchroeder: Make sure he takes his blood pressure meds before reading it. Infuriating!

Corrected link to this week's thread:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/141652

Hmm, should I comment here, or on the new thread? I'll wait for the new thread to get its underpinnings.