What Are You Reading the Week of 19 October 2013?

Alexandra David-Néel (born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David on 24 October 1868 -- died on 8 September 1969) was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, and writer, most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners. David-Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels. Her teachings influenced beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, philosopher Alan Watts, and esotericist Benjamin Creme.

During her childhood she had a very strong desire for freedom and spirituality. By the age of 18, she had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. She joined various secret societies – she would reach the thirtieth degree in the mixed Scottish Rite of Freemasonry – while feminist and anarchist groups greeted her with enthusiasm...In 1899, Alexandra composed an anarchist treatise with a preface by the French geographer and anarchist Elisée Reclus (1820–1905). Publishers were, however, too terrified to publish the book, though her friend Jean Haustont printed copies himself and it was eventually translated into five languages.

In Tunis in 1900 she met and lived with the railroad engineer Philippe Néel, marrying him in 1904. In 1911, she left Néel and traveled to India to further her study of Buddhism. She was invited to the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she met Maharaj Kumar (crown prince) Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal. She became Sidkeong's "confidante and spiritual sister" (according to Ruth Middleton), perhaps his lover (Foster & Foster). She also met the 13th Dalai Lama twice in 1912, and had the opportunity to ask him many questions about Buddhism – a feat unprecedented for a European woman at that time.

In the period 1914–1916 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border, learning spirituality, together with the young (born 1899) Sikkimese monk Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong traveling companion, and whom she would later adopt. From there they trespassed into Tibetan territory, meeting the Panchen Lama in Shigatse (August 1916). Sikkim was then a British protectorate and when the British authorities became aware of their presence Alexandra and Aphur were forced to leave the country. Unable to return to Europe in the middle of World War I, Alexandra and Yongden traveled to Japan. There Alexandra and Yongden met Ekai Kawaguchi, who had visited Lhasa in 1901 disguised as a Chinese doctor, and this inspired them to visit Lhasa disguised as pilgrims. After traversing China from east to west, they reached Lhasa in 1924, and spent 2 months there.

In 1928, Alexandra returned to France, where she legally separated from Philippe. They continued to exchange letters and he kept supporting her till his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Digne, Provence, and during the next nine years she wrote books. In 1929, she published her most famous and beloved work, Magic and Mystery in Tibet.

Alexandra continued to study and write at Digne till her death at age nearly 101. According to her last will and testament, her ashes and those of Yongden, who died in 1955, were mixed together and dispersed in the Ganges in 1973 at Varanasi, by her friend Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet.

Bibliography

1898 Pour la vie
1911 Le modernisme bouddhiste et le bouddhisme du Bouddha
1927 My Journey to Lhasa
1929 Magic and Mystery in Tibet
1930 Initiations and Initiates in Tibet
1931 The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling
1933 Grand Tibet; Au pays des brigands-gentilshommes
1935 Le lama au cinq sagesses
1938 Tibetan Tale of Love and Magic
1939 Buddhism: Its Doctrines and Its Methods
1940 Sous des nuées d'orage; Recit de voyage
1949 Au coeur des Himalayas; Le Nepal
1951 Ashtavakra Gita; Discours sur le Vedanta Advaita
1951 The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects
1951 L'Inde hier, aujourd'hui, demain
1952 Textes tibétains inédits
1953 Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle
1954 The Power of Nothingness
Grammaire de la langue tibetaine parlée
1958 Avadhuta Gita
1958 La connaissance transcendente
1961 Immortalite et reincarnation: Doctrines et pratiques en Chine, au Tibet, dans l'Inde
L'Inde où j'ai vecu; Avant et après l'independence
1964 Quarante siècles d'expansion chinoise
1970 En Chine: L'amour universe! et l'individualisme integral: les maitres Mo Tse et Yang Tchou
1972 Le sortilège du mystère; Faits étranges et gens bizarre rencontrés au long de mes routes d'orient et d'occident
1975 Vivre au Tibet; Cuisine, traditions et images
1975 Journal de voyage; Lettres à son Mari, 11 août 1904 – 27 decembre 1917. Vol. 1. Ed. Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet
1976 Journal de voyage; Lettres à son Mari, 14 janvier 1918 – 31 decembre 1940. Vol. 2. Ed. Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet
1979 Le Tibet d'Alexandra David-Neel
1981 Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects
1986 La lampe de sagesse

Another fascinating author -- thanks, richard.

I'm reading Margaret Drabble's The Pure Gold Baby.

This is an author I knew something about, since I gobble up tales of women explorers. Thanks so much for featuring this fascinating woman!

I am about to finish up Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice, hopefully later today. It's been quite a mesmerising read!

I'm not sure what I'll read next, but I am leaning towards either Armadale byWilkie Collins or Belinda by Maria Edgeworth. Stay tuned!

Holy cow, that is one incredibly wild and diverse life Ms. Neel lived - especially considering the time! Although, I'm not entirely certain one can be an anarchist and a Buddhist (technically speaking).

I am about 50+ pages into A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava and I have to be candid in that it was because of the mesmerizing, trippy cover (well done University of Chicago Press) and heft of it that I picked it up off the "old and musty" fiction shelves at my library (where I love to spend time!). Well, this is a very original, bizarre and hilarious book so far. The writer and protagonist are public defender(s) in Manhattan and egads, it is like someone is looking over my shoulder in court. The dialog is some of the best I have ever read, but I may be prejudiced in this book's favor as it is, without one doubt, my "work world." (I am on the other side though, prosecuting). I have laughed out loud about 10 times already ... these are the people and circumstances of the criminal justice system (as it were). But what is blowing my mind is this guy's writing. Not at all bad for an originally self-published book - and actually brilliant in spots. I think this may be a love it or hate it reading experience, and probably not one for the reading-work-adverse, but if you want something WAY different, check this one out! Supposedly it appeals to loves of David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon but I'm not too into those guys (find them a bit hard to access), but this I "get."

I am going to start The Art of Falling this weekend and I am listening to How the Light Gets In on audio.

Just finished The Blind Assassin which was an intriguing and complex story within a story which kept me guessing till the very end. There were some spectacular quotes throughout.

Next up --The Elegance of the Hedgehog which I've heard about many times on LT. We'll see how I like it.

# 6 snash-elegance of the hedgehog is wonderful-enjoy!!!

I just started The Elegance of the Hedgehog for my meetup group. A few chapters in, I'm enjoying the two narrators.

#8 Jim -it's just a wonderful story. I've become a big fan of the publishing company Europa editions and have many other of their books on my mt tbr

Huge Europa fan here too. Have read many if their offerings and most are good, some are great.

With Elegance of the Hedgehog, I felt the beginning was not so hot, but it picked up and ended up being one of my favorite books. It is THE book that gives me pause whenever I think to Pearl Rule a book!

My local library bought (Heaven only knows why) a couple republished Nancy Mitford novels. I read Christmas pudding and am now enjoying Pigeon pie

Carolyn-Europa Editions is always at the Brooklyn book festival with the same deal- 3 books for $30 plus a free tote bag-I picked up five this year and there are three more I want that come out in november

I am also a fan of Europa books. I have several in my collection including Elegance of the Hedgehog. I probably need to get some of them read.

Another Europa fan here. And The Elegance of the Hedgehog is an all time favorite for me so I'm glad you're enjoying it too cdyankeefan.

Came back from a holiday yesterday and finished up my second book last night: The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella.I liked it, had me laugh out loud in some places. I have yet to find a Kinsella book that I don't like. This one is about a high powered lawyer who makes a 50 million pound mistake and in utter shock wanders out of the office, onto a train and ends up somewhere in the English countryside, being mistaken for the new housekeeper. Very enjoyable, I hope Ms. Kinsella will keep writing for a very long time.

The first book I finished was Old Man's War by John Scalzi, a science fiction tale where senior citizens can join the service of the galactic army and be made young again. Wonderful story, very original and engrossing. I will definitely add Mr. Scalzi to my read-more-by-this-author-list.

I'll be finishing up The Amateurs by Marcus Sakey and starting Growing Up Psychic by Chip Coffey

Put aside the slow-moving ER read Songs of Willow Frost in favor of the brand new Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy, which is hilarious, as expected. So happy I got to meet Helen Fielding the other night.

Just about finished with Ivan the Terrible. He certainly earned the honorific 'Terrible'.

I finished Traveling Light for what I hoped would be a fun, light story, but I was not impressed. I'm reading Mister October, an ER win that seems appropriate for Halloween.

I'm still reading Ashes to Boonville, the self-published travelogue by my friend Geoff Thomas about his motorcycle trek around the world on which he brought his parents' ashes as a tribute and a thank you to them.

I am reading The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian.

Like the sense of place, interested in the characters. TIme point of view keeps switching between one set of years at the end of WWII and another in the mid 1950s. In doing so, the time frames develop on different tracks, in that the time itself becomes a dimension like a character in the story.

I'm reading my first book by Elizabeth George - With No One as Witness.

I just finished a YA novel by 3 Days by Krista Madden, This is her first book of what looks like a series. Enjoyed it enough to anticipate the next one.

I just finished two 5 star books: We Are Our Mother's Daughters and The Spiral Staircase written by two very different but equally moral and intelligent women. Now I'm reading one "real" book and a couple of fluffs.
On iPad I've just started A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
on audio - appropriately dog park listening - I have Tango: the Tale of an Island Dog by Eileen Beha about a lost dog and a neglected-abused teenager on Prince Edward Island
and on paper I'm about to start the next book after Bumped, Thumped about a dystopic future in which teen age girls are the most important people on the planet because only they can have children.

Started Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman last night. I read the reviews and it's looking to be an extremely promising read.

I'm reading A Good Fall by Ha Jin with my book club and The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling for Halloween. They're both books of short stories so I read a story from one and then read a story from the other.
I like the stories I've read in A Good Fall so far but they have a funny pace. Not funny bad, funny different.

AsI said, stay tuned! Now it looks like I'm getting into The Time Machine and The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. I'm not far in, but the first novel is off to an outstanding start. Fun stuff!

ETA: I've now finished The Time Machine, and loved it! Tomorrow I look forward eagerly to starting The Invisible Man portion of the book tomorrow.

I finished and REVIEWED Elizabeth Gilbert's new novel The Signature of All Things. In a word: fabulous.

Now I'm reading Book 10 in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, Books Do Furnish a Room.

After having over some colleagues from Russia of my husband, I decided I would like to brush up on my Russian literature, having discovered I read no more than a whopping 4 books by Russian authors. So I dove right into Crime and punishment by Dostojevsky. Well, dove, I guess wading is more the correct word because the language is very archaic. But I remembered having begun it about ten years ago and surprising myself by liking it, but not having the patience for it at the time. I hope to have matured a bit so I can tackle it this time. So far (which is not very far at all, but still), so good.

I'm nearly finished with Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George.

Last night I finished listening to Outlander, several years after everyone else who is interested in that kind of book had already read it. The narrator was wonderful. I'm still reading Mister October but can't read straight through short stories like I can a novel or nonfiction, so I'll be starting something else today, not sure what yet. I'm also still reading The Great Santini but generally only when I am waiting in offices, so it will take some time to finish.

Two books in a row I didn't much like, but was required to review for a blog and a movie company commitment. The former commitment hasn't appeared on the blog yet, the latter is Morgan Kane: Without Mercy, a Western penned by a Norwegian (!) and the first of an 83 (!!)-book series.

Yes. EIGHTY-THREE BOOKS in the series. Holy crap. And now a series of movies is planned. Oy gevalt, to quote my paternal grandmother.

I have just started The Burnt-out Town Of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen, the cover says "A gorgeous and moving piece of writing".

Just finished Catch 22 by Heller and I'm knee deep in Mindhacker by Hale-Evans. The former was funny, the latter is melting my brain! (In a good way of course.)

Finished How to Read a Novelist, Purple Hibiscus and Oil and Honey over the weekend - three very different books.

Picked up Mr. Lynch's Holiday at the library tonight.

#32
Richard you are too precious. I am still laughing. The lion picture over on Ellen's thread made me sort of smile, but you made me laugh with this one. And the room is full of people this noon. They can hear me giggling!

I finished reading The Great Gatsby, a 'classic' that I'd never read before. I did enjoy it, but am unsure if I want to reread it.

Then yesterday I breezed through The Haymeadow by Gary Paulsen. I just started reading this author's works and am appreciating them.

Next up is an ER book I recently received, Escape from Berlin, about the Kindertransport prior to World War II.

Finished Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Meh. Started Habeas Porpoise by Paul Levine. Still working on Happy Hour in Hell by Tad Williams.

>36 benitastrnad: Then I've served my purpose, Benita. A laugh at an inappropriate moment is the best gift I can imagine.

Started on the much anticipated and highly praised Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I'm about 100 pages in and even though I really want to love it and had expected I would, so far it's just so-so for me. I hate it when that happens.

I'm just starting The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's nest by Stieg Larsson. I finished thde first two in the trilogy years ago, and felt the need for a break before reading the third, perhaps because they are so intense. That was a looong break, but it worked, because I've made an excellent start with this one. Talk about fast-paced!

>40 Vonini: I had to abandon that read because Richard (!) Mayhew made me homicidally furious ~ every third page. What a wienerdog.

Aw, sorry to hear you don't like Neverwhere, which is one of the few books I have reread a couple of times! Maybe because I listened to it read by the author, who can read the phone book and make it sound good. Yes, Richard Mayhew was a wienerdog, and the other "heroes" weren't all that appealing, but the rest of the cast made up for it. Croup and Vandemar? The creepiest most fun villians that ever made a person's skin crawl.

Listening to The Demon in the Freezer which promises to be another skin-crawling reading adventure, made even scarier because it's a true story.

#40: I, too, was disappointed when I tried reading Neverwhere, despite the excellent reviews and raves about it. I quit about 100 pgs in.

I finished Book 10/12 in A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. I'm really going to miss this series when it's done in December.

Now I'm reading Barbara Pym's An Unsuitable Attachment.

I just finished the very charming The Ghost and Mrs Muir and now I'm back to Joe Queenan's One For the Books, a book about books, and Doctor Sleep. Doctor Sleep is great while I'm reading it but I fear for the characters so I always seem to hesitate to pick it up.

I finished my two fluff books and also finished my first Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own. I believe it won't be my last.
Now on audiobook I've started Someone by Alice McDermott, a first person novel about an Irish American girl and her lower (lower middle?) class family and neighborhood.
On paper I'm about to start The Klan Unmasked because of one of your bios, Richard.

#42, 43 & 44
Richard, you made me laugh out loud. Wienerdog...*giggles*

I'm relieved to find it's not just me then. I think I will finish it, it's not really that bad, I'm just disappointed I'm not loving it. I guess maybe Neil Gaiman is just not for me, even though his works are strongly recommended because of the books I read.

I've read about 1/3 of Escape from Berlin, an ER book. So far I am really enjoying it.

Finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog. There were times the philosophy felt trite but by the same token I couldn't put the book down and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Halfway thru Bleeding Edge, Thomas Pynchon's latest extravaganza! Immersive and compelling as always!

Finished Night Film, which I loved up until the point when the ending kind of deflated. I think the author was trying to say something about fear, obsession, death, etc., but it came across as uninteresting. I was really hoping it would follow through more on the story's dark and twisted premise, but it didn't.

Currently reading The Year's Best Horror Volume 5, which has been interesting if not particularly inspiring, and My Life Among Serial Killers by Helen Morrison. Now this book is truly horrifying and should only be read by people with either a strong interest in true crime or a very strong stomach. But it has a very grisly fascination to it, and I'm having a hard time putting it down. Which means I was reading a chapter about the crimes of John Wayne Gacy before going to bed last night. This is not recommended. I think I'll need to over-indulge in some light and fluffy novels once Halloween is over.

The Serpent and the Pearl by Kate Quinn

Finished Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy in the middle of the night. How lovely to revisit an old favorite character and see where life has taken her.

Back to my ER read, Songs of Willow Frost, which I am behind in reading & reviewing, and which I am forcing myself to read. Hoping it won't take too long.

#49
I saw the review of Escape from Berlin and marked it as one that I am interested in for future reading. Will be looking forward to hearing what you have to say about it.

Thanks, @benitastrnad. I'll post a review when I'm finished, probably before the weekend.

I just finished the tome A Naked Singularity and while it had MANY moments of brilliance and some of the funnier passages in recent memory, overall uneven, sometimes "too" weird and just in need of an editor. Still, give the guy credit ... quite a whopper.

I just finished With No One As Witness - my first, and likely last, Elizabeth George novel.

Uh oh. Lois, your enthusiasm for La George is underwhelming. What went wrong for you?

Too long! I'm a fan of concise prose :) I know --- my problem!

OIC

This will sound odd coming from someone who is cooing his brains out over the delights of The Luminaries...a mere slip of a read at ~840pp...but I know what you mean, and I agree that when a book is too long, it's a downer.

I think I will remove The Luminaries from my "to read" list. Thanks for the warning! I have D Day (almost 600 pages) in the TBR pile which I need to tackle before my trip to Normandy in March.

I did not like Lake of Dreams.....enough said. I am listening to Sweet Judy Blue Eyes in the car and it is fabulous. I am reading The Obscene Bird of Night and I am about to start listening to The Shining .

I finished Ashes to Boonville, my friend Geoff Thomas' self-published travel memoir about his round-the-world motorcycle trip, and Hold 'Em Poker, an early and relatively elementary primer on the strategies of that now extremely popular brand of card playing. The former was fun (review on the book's work page and on my 50-Book Challenge thread). The latter basically served to illuminate for me the depths of my own ignorance and/or the reasons for my years of poor play.

Occasionally, I like to read books that were highly touted a few years ago but have by now been read by just about anybody who has an interest in reading them. So, for some strange reason I decided to become the last person in the world (and one of the few men, at least of my acquaintance) to read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. The first 20 pages or so seem OK.

Finished the absolutely wonderful Sweet Judy Blue Eyes.

My latest is The last Place You Look by Norma Curtis.

I finished up listening to the story collection Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I am not a short story reader, but I really liked this one. When I got it I did not know it was a book of short stories. If I had I probably would have skipped it but now am glad that I didn't as some of the stories are very powerful. I liked The Namesake but this one may be better. My only complaint is that immigrants are immigrants and the immigrant experience seems to be the same no matter where immigrating from, so why does every immigrant group, including my own, thing their experience is unique? Lahiri writes about an upper class kind of immigrant who is well educated and has much freedom of movement and that does make this book a little more unique, but very different than the usual kind of immigrant experience story, and certainly much different than that of my ancestors. Once those folks moved here they knew they weren't going back as anything was better here than what they left. That much is evident from their letters.

Interesting to read the comments on Neverwhere. I love that book, have re-read it a number of times, and have since watched the excellent Gaiman-written BBC series where it all started. Wienerdog Richard Mayhew gets better as the book goes on - that's a key part of the story, actually.

Longbourn turned out to be excellent, and my review is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/159942#4334376

I also finished a good Dame Agatha, called Taken at the Flood (aka There is a Tide), and now I'm reading the second Miss Buncle, Miss Buncle Married.

A question for this group.

Monday evening (PDT) I'm going to my RL Classics Book Group meeting (in existence for 13 years) where we will choose the 10 books for next year (only 10 because we don't meet in December and always read the April Library Read of the year). We are tasked to come with suggestions for next year. FYI ~ our definition of "classic" is very lose - 25 years.

I have a few ideas, but thought maybe this group would come up with more inspired ideas. Needless to say, many of your suggestions may already have been read, but I was amazed to discover they've never read either Hawthorne or Shakespeare. (Seriously?)

#69> My two cents, more or less off the top of my head:

Catch 22
Heart of Darkness and/or Lord Jim
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Tin Drum
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Wise Blood
All Quiet on the Western Front
100 Years of Solitude
Portnoy's Complaint
East of Eden
Call it Sleep

>69 whymaggiemay: The Razor's Edge

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Aspern Papers

Cannery Row

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

The Things They Carried

In Cold Blood

Montana 1948 (only 21 years old, but short and superb)

Ethan Frome

Death Comes for the Archbishop

The Underdogs

Blue Eyes, Black Hair

I might add Sula by Toni Morrison to that list. Some really great suggestions thus far.

Although I never tried to read Neverwhere, I did attempt American Gods and thought it was borderline horrible. I could not get beyond 40 pages or thereabouts. That said, he always seems like a cool guy and I wished I liked his writing, I just don't. But it makes me happy that so many people like his stuff.

I am reading Garcia by Blair Jackson and it's just awesome. But them, I am a total Deadhead (24 shows before we lost The Captain) and find it all fascinating. But so far, I would quantify it as a real American story. The history in and around San Francisco, including some great immigrant stories, is great. But I don't know, maybe you have to be a fan to get into it. Not really sure.

>69 whymaggiemay::

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Hough by Sheridan le Fanu

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

69 whymaggiemay

My book club had good discussions around:

My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

Let us know what you guys pick!

>72 CarolynSchroeder: For what it's worth, Carolyn, I'm not a big fan of American Gods either, although it wasn't borderline horrible for me. Gaiman may just not be your cuppa, but ones other LTers have liked in your kind of situation include The Graveyard Book, Coraline and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. They're YA level but among those read by many adults. I'd add in Neverwhere and others, but they might not suit you.

>69 whymaggiemay: My ten favorite classics:

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Odyssey by Homer (I'd pick the Fagles translation)
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Castle by Franz Kafka (but most people would pick The Trial)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
My Antonia by Willa Cather

ETA: In thinking about it, I'd substitute Cannery Row for The Grapes of Wrath, as good as the latter is.

Going to be starting The Crime of Julian Wells by Thomas H. Cook

#72 & 75
I loved American Gods and its sort of sequel Anansi Boys. Gaiman is so very witty. I still laugh whenever I think about Mr. Jaquel and Mr. Ibis running a mortuary in Cairo, IL. I also liked it that the book took the reader to the obscure "places of power." The House on the Rock! and the center of the center. I have to say that I had that one figured out right off the bat. I live only about 80 miles from there. I realize that the obscure kinds of mythology into which he delves isn't for everybody, but for me it was great fun.

I started listening to The Postmistress last night and have high hopes that this one will be a good read.

Just finished Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey, a wild ride. I listened to part of it - Arte Johnson did a pretty good job but his cadence got to me after a while - and read the rest.

Thank you all for your wonderful suggestions. Of course, many of them have already been done, but it still leaves me lots to use.

Richard, I've chosen Montana 1948 from your list. I loved that book and have given copies to people ove the years. It would be a great one for discussion. We've read The Things They Carried and the discussion was lively. We've tried several times to do In Cold Blood but the moderator isn't going for it. We've even suggested having it when she was on vacation, but so far no go.

Ann The Bridge of San Luis Rey is an excellent suggestion and one I'm stealing. I've never read it and would love an excuse to put it in line. We've done several of the others. Kindred is another good suggestion, especially because she's considered Sci-Fi and we have a couple of members who are fans, but I opted for Wilder instead.

Carolyn, thank you for the reminder of Sula. I loved that book (what terrific characters), it introduced me to Morrison, and it would be a wonderful February (Black History Month) read. It's on my list.

jnwelch, So many of your suggestions had already been done. Our November 2013 read is The Iliad and it took me three years to get it past them (and I only succed this time because we have a new member who's a military fan). I'll wait on The Odyssey for a few years.

Again, thank you all for your help. I'll let you know what the group finally decides.

>79 richardderus: NarratorLady, I used to enjoy Carl Hiaasen's books, but the last one I read left a bad taste in my mouth. It just seemed like the same plot, rehashed, with not much new to catch my interest. I don't even remember what book it was. But perhaps it's time to give him another try. I thoroughly enjoyed the first few I read.

Finished Habeas Porpoise. Light, easy read. Started Ghost in the Machine by Ed James.

>81 TooBusyReading: TooBusyReading: I know what you mean. There is a sameness to the plots and the weirdness of the characters would be hard to take on a regular basis - hilarious as many of them are. I find that I pick one up a few years after I finish the last, when I'm in the mood for something zany.

His kids' books, Hoot and Flush were a lot of fun to read and the kids I gave them to enjoyed them.

Hello again, everybody! :) So, I finally started reading An Act of Love by Nancy Thayer, which I started on Friday, October 18th and finished on Sunday, October 20th. :) I loved this book! I immediately started Belonging: A Novel also by Nancy Thayer on Sunday, October 20th. I finished this book on Friday, October 25th! :) While it was a pretty good book, Belonging: A Novel by Nancy Thayer wasn't as good as An Act of Love. :)

I'm currently reading The Hanging Tree: A Novella by Michael Phillip Cash, having started reading it on Friday, October 25th. :) So far, it's a pretty good book! :)