July, 2015---Sizzling hot summer reads (only partly due to global warming)

Finished Jim Harrison's JULIP and am now working on Werner Herzog's OF WALKING IN ICE.

...and trying to cope with the agony of sciatica.

Cripes.

Have just started Kerr's Research, which is a about a James Petterson-like writer. Some nice, and often acid, commentary on writing bestselling commercial fiction.

Finished Smilla's Sense of Snow which was pretty good until the ending and the weird meteorite/guinea worm thing. Much better than girl with the Dragon Tatoo.

I'm reading Out of Sight, which is a book by a professor of labor history, Erik Loomis, about outsourcing. It is super depressing. No touchstone as there are a lot of books with that title but I can't find that one.

Thank you!

Finished THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME by Mark Haddon.

Dunno what took me so long to get to it--and I'm a Holmes buff too.

Found the book very amiable but I was disappointed it wasn't more...substantial. Interesting but not, in my view, altogether worthy of the unqualified praise it received.

I just read that recently (Curious Incident) because I was at my sister's house and she had it. I thought it was marketed as young adult, and as a YA book, I thought it had a lot of depth. It was a pretty sad book, unusual for YA. And I liked the diary format.

Also I am a little more than halfway through The Pale King and really having trouble picking it up. It's just... really grim. I don't know.

The language was pretty raw for YA--all the people I knew that raved about it were decidedly 30+.

>7 CliffBurns: The play, adapted by Simon Stephens, is phenomenal.

I am stuck half way through The Human Stain by Philip Roth. It never took off for me once I realised I had started the series by reading the third first. That kind of thing doesn't sit well with my OCD ;)

Finished The Celtic Twilight by WB Yeats. The book is a mixed bag. It includes some of the lamest ghost/ supernatural stories ever written. (I want to believe that at at least some of the country folk quoted were actually making fun of Yeats). On the other hand this being Yeats, it has some sections that are brilliant.

Now I'm giving The Tin Drum a chance.

>5 justifiedsinner: and 6 (and all of you)
Wonderful movie, "Outsourced"

Go Set a Watchman doesn't rise to the level of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's a strong follow-up for fans of the first.

A mistake on Ms. Lee's part--and it will do lasting damage to her literary legacy.

I have no more interest in reading WATCHMAN than I do the last shambles by David Foster Wallace (PALE KING) his editors cobbled together and excreted. To me, WATCHMAN looks like juvenilia and the excerpts that have been posted do NOT impress.

The little town where time stood still showed up in my mailbox a day or two ago. Baby is starting to sleep better ... I may be able to set him down, and pick up a book!

Recently read The Carhullan Army, which was slow to start but got much better as it went along. Then Children of Time, a new sf novel by a friend, which proved to be quite good. Then an historical fantasy, Skin, for review for Interzone, which might or might have been YA. Now fancy something with some proper writing chops, so reading Living by Henry Green.

Finished Out of Sight, it was very good though depressing. I will send it to my dad now. I am still plowing through the Pale King but have taken a break to read some silly fantasy fluff because it is hot here. The fluff I have chosen is a fantasy series set in Portland, only in this fantasy series it is always cold, windy and raining. Hard to believe right now when as I was reading it yesterday it was over 90 degrees in my house (our AC has been on the fritz for years because we don't usually need it very much but this summer is kicking our butts).

Currently reading Mythologies. The first essay on theatrical wrestling was mind-blowing.

Finished Dennis Lehane's WORLD GONE BY, a solid crime novel set in 1940s Tampa.

Sandydog1: That's one of my favorite books!

Just started Aurora.

Halfway through The Tin Drum. A little bit bloated but mostly entertaining.

Nibling on The Poems of Catullus. Catullus as always bitchy and fun.

Well, mejix, I bet you won't be eating eel, for quite some time...

Hehehe, no eel in the mejix household. Im not trying any soup that the little kids in the building prepare either. :)

Polished off a memoir by Canadian author Jeremy Mercer, TIME WAS SOFT THERE. Mercer was lucky enough to serve as assistant and confidante to George Whitman, eccentric owner of Paris' famous Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore. Some fun anecdotes--man, sounds like it was a crazy place to hang out. Lots of sketchy, weird characters drifting in and out.

>22 KatrinkaV: Kartrinka,
Who knew essays on subjects such as detergent and margarine, could be so, so elegant!

I loved that book too. Mythologies

Just started The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin

I'm currently on a "Why the Middle East is So Absolutely FUBAR" kick. 'Reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and concurrently, Lawrence in Arabia. After these thousand plus plus pages, I guess it's time for All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten...