What are you reading the week of April 30, 2016?

Carl Hiaasen (born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist, columnist, and novelist.

Hiaasen was born in 1953 and raised in Plantation, Florida, then a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale. He was the first of four children born to Odel and Patricia Hiaasen. He has Norwegian and Irish ancestry. He started writing at age six when his father bought him a typewriter. After graduating from Plantation High School in 1970, he entered Emory University, where he contributed satirical humor columns to the student-run newspaper The Emory Wheel. In 1972, he transferred to the University of Florida, where he wrote for The Independent Florida Alligator. Hiaasen graduated in 1974 with a degree in journalism.

He was a reporter at Cocoa Today (Cocoa, Florida) for two years before being hired in 1976 by the Miami Herald, where he worked for the city desk, Sunday magazine and investigative team. Since 1985 Hiaasen has been a regular columnist for the newspaper. His columns have been collected in three published volumes, Kick Ass (1999), Paradise Screwed (2001) and Dance of the Reptiles (2014), all edited by Diane Stevenson.

After becoming an investigative reporter, Hiaasen began writing novels in his spare time. His first three were co-authored with his friend and fellow journalist William Montalbano: Powder Burn (1981), Trap Line (1982), and A Death in China (1984). His first solo novel, Tourist Season (1986), featured a group of ragged eco-warriors who kidnap the Orange Bowl Queen in Miami. The book's main character was whimsically memorialized by Jimmy Buffett in a song called "The Ballad of Skip Wiley." In all, seventeen of Hiaasen's novels and nonfiction books have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller lists. His work has been translated into 34 languages.

In the novel Double Whammy (1987), the protagonist, a private investigator, is hired to expose a celebrity bass fisherman as a cheat and is drawn into a frame-up for murder. The book introduced the character of "Skink" (Clinton Tyree), who becomes a recurring character in Hiaasen's subsequent novels.

Skin Tight (1989) focuses on a former detective for the Florida State Attorney's office, who becomes the target of a murder plot by a corrupt, and egregiously incompetent, plastic surgeon.

Stormy Weather (1995) takes place in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in South Florida, including insurance scams, street fights, hunt for food and shelter, corrupt bureaucracy, ravaged environment and disaster tourists.

Hiaasen's upcoming novel, Razor Girl, will be published by Knopf in September 2016.

His first venture into writing for children was the 2002 novel Hoot, which was named a Newbery Medal honor book and was adapted as a 2006 film of the same name (starring Logan Lerman, Brie Larson and Luke Wilson). Hiaasen's subsequent children's novels were Flush, Scat, Chomp and, most recently, Skink -- No Surrender, which introduces one of his most popular adult characters to teen readers. All of his young-adult books feature environmental themes, eccentric casts and adventure-filed plots..

Hiaasen also co-wrote three songs with his good friend and famed L.A. rocker, the late Warren Zevon. "Rottweiler Blues" and "Seminole Bingo" appeared on Zevon's Mutineer album in 1995. The third song they wrote together, "Basket Case," was done in conjunction with Hiaasen's novel of the same name, and appeared in 2001 on Zevon's album My Ride's Here.

Hiaasen is also noted as the person who helped bring the young adult fantasy novel Eragon to the public. The book, written by Christopher Paolini, was self-published and self-promoted without much attention until it came to the notice of Hiaasen's wife, Fenia, in 2002, during a trip to Montana. Hiaasen immediately recommended the novel to one of his editors at the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf. The book went on to become an astounding success, marking the start of a series that sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

Driving across country a few years ago, I bought a copy of Hiaasen's Nature Girl on CD to pass the time. I bought it on a whim because it was read by Jane Curtin. You should hear a middle aged Jane Curtin do an imitation of a sullen teenage boy. it was hysterical.

I'm willing to admit that my first impressions of At the Existentialist Cafe proved to be wrong. The middle section became very interesting which allowed me coast on through to the end. It did make we want to read Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins, The Second Sex and at least some of her autobiography.

Just finished the excellent My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh. A coming of age story set in Louisiana centered around a horrific crime of violence. I will definitely watch out for more from this author.

I finished another used book store find picked up on a whim. Uptown and Down was a believable and insightful look at the trials of a marriage, this one particularly challenged by career success and wealth.

Still enjoying Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age, which takes place in what would become Bangladesh during the civil war that led to that country's breaking away from Pakistan.

In kind of a reading slump so I'm still working on The Autumn Republic and Academic Exercises.

Reading a debut, Marked, by Sue Tingey that is so new there is no touchstone. It is a light urban fantasy read that grabbed me after I could not continue with A Mother's Reckoning.

>1 fredbacon: Thanks for the good start. I've enjoyed many of Carl Hiaasen's books over the years.

I hope to finish The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker this weekend.

Thanks, Fred.

I'm reading The Island of the Blue Dolphins and When Breath Becomes Air.

Thanks Fred! I love Hiaasen, although I can never figure out how to say his name or spell it.

I'm reading and enjoying the long way to a small angry planet. Great characters!

>1 fredbacon: Thanks, Fred, for the start. I've not read Carl Hiassen yet.

I'm enjoying Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

>1 fredbacon: Many thanks Fred. Count me among the many Carl Hiassen fans on LT, even if his books feel like guilty pleasures on occasion.

I've just started reading Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son, which is the latest selection in my book club. I'm really looking forward to getting into this one.

I just started my Early Reviewer Running with Rhinos: Stories from a Radical Conservationist by Ed Warner.

I just finished The Wonder Garden and loved it.

I finished The Twin, which I liked very much.

I see that there will be a new Alan Furst book released at the end of May and the news has made me take inventory -- there are several of Furst's WWII novels (the so-called "Night Soldiers" books) that I haven't read and I want to reread several others, so I think I'm just going to start with a reread of Night Soldiers -- and then read them all in the order of publication. I hope to finish by the end of the year (that may be too ambitious since I am sure I will read other books in between) but I'd like to read all 14 (including the new one). I know there are many minor characters who appear in multiple books and I'd like to take more notice of them this time around.

In the middle of Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt, a well-written account of a family's experience with one of their identical twin son's transition to female as a child. I believe the kids are college-age now.

I am reading Ripper by Isabel Allende. I am really enjoying it; about halfway through. There are so many interesting characters.

I finished the book Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River. It is an innovative and superb biography of the Schuylkill River in poetic verse with historical footnotes. Most books I read and pass on to a used book store but this one--this one's a keeper.

*Trying* to read I Am No One by Patrick Flanery which I received from LT in the March batch, but it is so boring that it is taking me weeks. I might do something I never do and just stop reading this novel.

Re-reading The Samurai's Garden, one of my faves.

>20 NarratorLady: I liked The Samurai's Garden, too, Anne. I suspect you probably recommended it to me.

I am reading Lee Smith's Guests on Earth for my book club, and Margaret Maron's Up Jumps the Devil at lunchtime.

Finished Spandau Phoenix by Greg Iles.

Next upis The Boston Girlby Anita Diamant.

>1 fredbacon: Thanks for the bio on Hiaasen. My favorites by him are Skinny Dip and Sick Puppy. Thanks for the heads up on a new one to look forward to!

>15 mollygrace: I liked The Twin quite a bit, too!

I just finished Mothering Sunday and loved it. I'm still reading The Devil's Cave and just started (finally) English Creek.

>24 Copperskye: Oh, my. English Creek Just seeing the title brings back a rush of memories. Suddenly, I'm back there again. Doig creates such a sense of place. I hope you enjoy it.

I've finished Josephine Tey's To Love and Be Wise, which was delightful, and sort-of-enjoyed the children's book The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman.

Now I'm reading The Abominable by Dan Simmons. I've not read his books before, but I like books about mountaineering, and it looked interesting.

I finished up A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, a good novel about a family trying to navigate the Bangladesh war of independence from Pakistan. My full review is on my 50-Book Challenge thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210833

I've begun, and I'm greatly enjoying, The Quiet Game by Greg Iles.

>25 mollygrace: Isn't that a wonderful feeling to have about a book? It's just how I feel about Doig's This House of Sky. I'm very much looking forward to being swept away by English Creek.

>21 jnwelch: I'm traveling in Japan right now Joe, so it seemed a good time for a re-read!

>28 Copperskye: And the best thing is, when you've finished reading English Creek, there's Dancing at the Rascal Fair waiting for you. Actually, I read them out of order. I was unfamiliar with Mr. Doig, but I saw that title on a shelf in an airport book kiosk during the Christmas holidays in 1988 and couldn't walk away from it. And the amazing thing is that the book lived up to the wonder its title had sparked in me. Only later did I learn it was the second book -- I "should have" read English Creek first. I still think -- for me anyway -- that it was the "right" order. Some things might have made a little more sense, but it really didn't matter. Two excellent books I was going to read again and again anyway. Enjoy, coppers.

Shaman Pass was a good second Alaska mystery in that series. I've started My Side of the Mountain, and I'll probably add Dancing at the Rascal Fair.

Treve by A. P. Terhune. An old, classic dog story published in 1924. For the TIOLI challenge!

The new thread is up over here.