Whatcha Readin' Jan 10 Edition

Happy New Year’s Dopers! Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday and a new year full of joy and good reads!

I just finished the third book in the Percy Jackson series *The Titan’s Curse. *These last two were a mix - some really slow periods followed by a good read. In the end I did enjoy the book, but may skip the next two. I haven’t decided.

I have started Nikki Heat, by Richard Castle. So far I’m enjoying it.

Last month’s thread.

And the same to you, our jolly good fellow. :smiley:

I’m reading Twisted, a book of short stories by Jeffrey Deaver. All these stories have the “O. Henry” surprise endings, which I love. As far as the writing quality, it’s passable.

My current audiobook is Letting Go of God, by Julia Sweeney. As an atheist, I realize she’s just preaching to the choir (heh) as far as I’m concerned, but I just love it. If I were a believer, I think I would still find it interesting and not too offensive, but I don’t know if it would really change my mind.
I don’t think I know any real-life atheists besides my husband, so I’m really digging the daily affirmation.

It’s the first day of the new year and I just finished the first chapter of West With The Night by Beryl Markham. It’s been on the pile of paperbacks that I’ve accumulated from library book sales; there’s even a card with a long message written on it tucked inside, left by a long-ago reader and now employed as a bookmark. The adventures of a bush pilot in 1930s East Africa would make for an interesting read in any case, but Markham’s writing is extraordinary. I think I’m going to like this one a lot.

Hey Dung Beetle, thanks for reminding me about Sweeny’s book. I’m going to look for it in the library catalog (but this is Orange County, so I don’t hold out much hope).

I’m reading The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by M. Glenn Taylor. It’s the life of a man born in West Virginia, starting in about 1902. Taggart is a larger-than-life character and the things he does and the stuff that happens to him is pretty unbelievable, even allowing for hillbilly hyperbole, but I like it.

Just finished Hyperion and Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons.

Reading The Fall Of Hyperion by same, and the new Krakauer book about Pat Tillman (cant recall the title just now.) Both are very good.

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson. America after the Efflorescence of Oil and the False Tribulation, the three branches of government are the executive, the army, and the Dominion (institutionalized Christianity, more or less). Narrated by his boyhood friend, it’s the story of a heroic young man who’s the nephew of the evil President. Fun combo of frontier adventures (strongly redolent of the 19th century) with hints at what happened in the 21st century, and how things went after we used up all the oil. I’m tearing through it fast and enjoying the hell out of it.

I’m *still *reading “Atlas Shrugged.” Man, I’m a slow reader. My lips get so tired…TRM

I finished December 163 pages deep into Reaper’s Gale by Steven Erikson. It’s book 7 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. Looking back on last month’s thread, I read around 460 pages in this series this past month.

For work, I’m reading Concurrent Programming on Windows by Joe Duffy. About to start chapter 4.

It is a very tough read. As I always say when that book is mentioned: She had the incredible ability to tell a 300-page story in 1200 pages.

She needed a good editor.

Finished *Nikki Heat, by Richard Castle. *Fans of the TV show will enjoy it and as someone in another thread said, it reads like an episode script. People who haven’t seen the show can still enjoy it as a fast, light mystery/cop novel. It was fun and a little campy (like the show.) I won’t say this was good literature, but I had fun and will read another if one comes out.

I’ve been away from my computer for the last couple of weeks - it hasn’t been a great time for reading, but I have a couple to tell you about…

I finished Larry’s Party by Carol Shields. I read The Stone Diaries about ten years ago, and loved it. This is another of her explorations of an ‘ordinary’ person’s life which turns out to be extraordinary when it is examined. The first two chapters, I needed to push myself through - the rest of the book just flowed beautifully. I was also taken with the way in which she told the story - I hope I’m not giving too much away when I say that labyrinths become an important part of Larry’s life, and the narrative form takes on a labyrinthine quality as she curves back and forth in time. Highly recommended; I can’t wait to read The Republic of Love, which is the only other one of her books that I own.

I also read Schumann by Tim Dowley, part of the Illustrated Lives of Great Composers series. I don’t know why, precisely, I just saw it on the shelf at the Public Library and grabbed it. Musical Biography can be a tricky business - there’s a fine balance to be struck between just telling the story of someone’s life and delving into analysis of their music. This was almost purely biography, which was exactly what I was after at the time - I blasted through this in a couple of days.

I’m currently about fifteen pages into Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay, and I’m enjoying it very much. I’m glad to see him depart from his current pattern of alternative history - it isn’t that I haven’t enjoyed the last 6 books of his, it’s just he’s becoming too formulaic for my tastes. I’ll let you know what I think in a few days.

It hasn’t been a great time for reading around here - I’ve been playing with the kids (most enjoyable!), eating and drinking too much with my wife (most enjoyable!) and hanging around with my in-laws (not as enjoyable). We’ve seen wonderful performances of “The Wizard of Oz”, “The Sound of Music” and “The Nutcracker”, as well as a Toronto Raptors’ game, all of which were great, but they do cut into the reading time. I also broke my glasses in the midst of all this - I can’t read as well with the (old prescription) back-up pair, and my piano glasses are meant to focus and magnify things that are 36" away. Then yesterday, I broke my back-up pair while rough-housing with a friend of my son’s. I hit the 1 hour glasses place first thing this morning, and it all feels much better.

Another annoyance in the Ministry at the moment is we seem to be missing a box of books. We cleared out the storage unit and shelved everything in The Studio the last weekend in August, 2009, after having just about everything in boxes for a year and a bit. I was actually thinking of reading some Robertson Davies before I settled on the Carol Shields, and would have read some, except we don’t seem to have any anymore. Then I thought of re-reading some Timothy Findlay, and I couldn’t find those books. Looking upward, the Margaret Atwood isn’t in the 'A’s, either. I’m hoping there is a large box, mislabelled and full of Can Lit in with the stuff in the basement; the other possibility is that they ended up going to a friend’s church’s rummage sale or being given to the Cystic Fibrosis foundation. It’s especially odd, though, because all three of those authors get filed alphabetically in with everybody else, and (Thank Og!) I’m not just missing A, & D - F. I cling to the faint hope that there is a box that says ‘Small Electronics’ that conceals the Deptford Trilogy…

I’m reading Help! a Bear is Eating Me!, by Mykle Hansen and incredibly, the inside of the book is even funnier than the cover. In it, wealthy, drug addled, middle management douchebag Marv Pushkin is pinned under his SUV as he is, er, …consumed by the beauty of Alaska.

Maybe it’s just a giddy reaction to all the medical gloom and doom stuff I’ve been reading lately, but I haven’t laughed this hard since e: a Novel.

That is odd. Maybe they’re snuggling with Margaret Laurence?

I’m glad you mentioned Timothy Findlay. For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to remember a Canadian author whom I wanted to read more of, and I couldn’t come up with the name.

I finished The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters before bed, and find myself resentful of the time I wasted on such a tepid, thoroughly dull excuse for a ghost story/psychological horror novel. I can’t for the life of me figure out what anyone found interesting about it, nevermind scary.

Recently, I finished:

Soulless, by Gail Carriger. This is a lovely blend of a Jane Austen comedy of errors and steam punk paranormal fantasy. A very light read, but something I recommend for anyone who likes Kelley Armstrong, Charlaine Harris, or Miss Austen herself.

Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Linqvist. I thought this was a creepy anti-Twilight type vampire book, but I think it was too hyped up. I liked it but didn’t love it.

An Almost Perfect Moment, by Binnie Kirshenbaum. I actually read this because a friend got this as a Christmas present from her boss, didn’t want to read it herself, and promised me untold riches if I would read it and summarize it for her. My summary: Boring and depressing.
I just started Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer.

Hope you like it; my book club and I really did.

I just read Scared of Santa by Denise Joyce and Nancy Watkins. It’s a mildly amusing collection of family photos of scared, upset and angry children squirming on the laps of various Santas since the 1950s.

I’m still plodding my way through Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Echoes and Reflections, an alternate-universe collection of three stories which should be more interesting than it is. Might drop it if it doesn’t pick up soon.

I just finished 2666 by Roberto Bolano, and while I enjoyed it, it was certainly challenging. Some of the sections stood out more than others, especially the detectives in Santa Teresa, and some of Bolano’s imagery was just gorgeously evocative (Hans Reiter as a boy, fascinated with the sea). I’m sure I missed great swaths of stuff in the separate parts, but it seems like a book I might go back and read again. You know, when I’m in the mood to reread 912 pages.

I have Chuck Klosterman’s Eating the Dinosaur in my bag to start on the commute home tonight – for something completely different.

Band of Brothers. It’s OK, but not amazing. I feel an obligation to learn a bit about what the allied soldiers in WWII went through, though.

I mostly read to my kids, so I keep putting books that I read to them in these threads. I hope nobody minds.

I’m reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to my 7-year-old daughter. Unfotunately, I think she identifies with Fudge moreso than Peter.

I’m starting my next class Managing Orginizational Change this week, so I just began reading the text for this class as well.

It was kind of slow-paced, which I don’t mind with books set in a different time. I enjoyed the journey…however,

I did expect some sort of answer to be provided at the end! As it was, the story was a long, leisurely tale of weird stuff that happened to some people you don’t particularly like. Don’t know why. So, there was potential, but in the end, I wasn’t happy with it either.

I’m a little over halfway through Top Dog, which was recommended by Auntie Pam last month, and I’m really liking it! I’m itching to pick it up right now. Damned work, kids, pets, etc.