Whatcha Readin' August 2010 Edition

Wow, I’ve really slipped! I’m late, I’m late, to quote a certain rabbit.

Here’s the newest thread, and my apologies.
July’s thread

Started Henry James’ The Ambassadors last week. Slow going because I’ve been too busy to read much, but the situation is settling down again, so I should get more into it soon. This is my first James, and I find the language a bit more ponderous than other writings from this era, but it’s still a good story. From the back cover of the book:

"Strether has been despatched by the resourceful Mrs Newsome as an envoy to bring back her son Chad, who has lingered too long in Europe and must be rescued from the bohemian dissipations of Paris. It is believed that Chad is entangled in an unsuitable love affair …"

Turn-of-the-20th-century Paris? This happens in Bangkok every day! :smiley:

1924 - Baseball’s Greatest Season.

It’s very dry so far (50 pages into a short 157 page book).

I’m about a fifth of the way through Richard M. Ketchum’s Victory at Yorktown, about the last great campaign of the American Revolution, and I’m enjoying it. It’s amazing how everything went just right for Washington and Rochambeau, the French army commander, while Cornwallis, the British commander, caught a bunch of bad breaks. We hope to visit Yorktown next week as we pass by on our way to the Outer Banks.

On Friday my book club and I met with Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply, a terrific novel about identity theft. I very highly recommend it.

Recently finished Curtains: adventures of an undertaker-in-training, by Tom Jokinen. Good stuff; it seemed to drag towards the end, but that may have been my own fault for having to set it aside for days at a time.

Now reading Spent: memoirs of a shopping addict, by Avis Cardella. It’s a quick read, but sometimes the author seems to leave out important information (“Wait, her mother died? When did that happen?” flip, flip, flip). It’s very interesting to read about someone living a luxury lifestyle and buying $700 dollar t-shirts, but I can’t relate to someone who never once says, “Holy crap! This t-shirt costs what?”

About halfway through Bad Men by John Connolly, a thriller with supernatural overtones. The body count is very high. I like Connolly’s writing. He usually makes me care about a character before he kills them off.

Just started Bret Easton Ellis’s Imperial Bedrooms.

Just raced through Seven Days in May, Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II’s Cold War novel about a thwarted military coup plot in the U.S. The movie, with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, is pretty good too. Best line: a senator and a Cabinet secretary are threatening someone (for all the right reasons). The senator says of himself and the Cabinet secretary, “Roll both of us down the hill in a barrel and there’ll always be a son-of-a-bitch on top!”

American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds by James Maguire. Just started; it’s very interesting. Finished Ice Cold, the new one by Tess Gerritsen, which was good but not terrific, and Infamous by Ace Atkins, which I got from the library because it was there. I’m getting tired of him and by the end of the book I was skimming.

Because of it’s near universal recommendation in this thread I’m in the middle of Earth Abides.

The writer has very 40’s notions of race relations and although the changing ecology of a post human world is in detail the social aspects of this kind upheaval are pretty much ignored. Either people walk around in an unrecoverable shocked haze or essentially maintain the status quo. The book would be longer than War and Peace if he included everything, but still, the characters feel two dimensional because the narrator is over-the-top analytical.

And how did freakin’ lions come to California!?!

I just started Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, by Nathaniel Frank.

I figured I was hearing a lot about “don’t ask, don’t tell” lately, so I may as well read about the policy, where it came from, and what it means.

I finished Transitionby Iain Banks last week (highyl recommend it) and am now reading Retromancer by Robert Rankin. Up next is Drood…

Just about finished with She’s Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan, who actually used to be James Boylan. Saw it on Amazon one day while searching for something else and thought “Woah. I know nothing about transgendered people.” Decided to try and fix that. It’s pretty good.

Next up…Great Expectations. I’m trying to catch up on some classics that I seem to have missed out on…

I’m working my way through the Michael Koryta detective series. Lincoln Perry, the protagonist, is pretty much a poor man’s Elvis Cole but the books are still entertaining.

I was impressed by this book when I was a teenager. I tried to read it again awhile back and thought the writing was stilted and pedantic and boring as hell. Whenever I see it praised in a P/A novel rec thread, I want to dump on it, but I figure others must see something in it that I’ve missed.

It’s a relatively early P/A title (1949). Maybe others also read it when it was one of the only P/A books around, and liked it because the subject was unique. ??

I’ve been reading Richard Stark’s (Donald Westlake pseudonym) Parker novels. There’s 24 total ranging in publishing years (1962 - 2008) They don’t necessarily need to be read in order, each novel stands alone for the most part, and Parker pretty much never ages throughout the series.

In the last month and a half I have read 9 of the 24. They are true hard boiled crime noir novels. Parker is a no nonsense criminal that looks out for himself. You have to appreciate his efficiency and thinking skills that get him into and out of every conceivable situation that the author puts him in.

Sadly, Westlake died in 2008, and there will be no more Parker.

star island by carl hiassen. another fun romp in south florida.

this time people actually go to e.r.! i blame health care reform.

I’ll be posting a reads update this weekend but I just popped in to bitch about The Lost City of Z. Thanks to that book, I’ve added TWENTY FIVE more books to my wishlist. Stupid explorers and their stupid interesting adventures…

I’m almost at 1400 titles on the wishlist. Into the Wild didn’t help matters much either although I think I only added 6 or so after reading that one.

I’m working through Laural K. Hamilton’s Bullet. I haven’t really cared for her books since she took Anita Blake from being about supernatural mysteries to being bland supernatural sex, but I keep reading in hopes she’ll change.

When I finish that, I’m going to read Harry Turtledove’s The Great War 2 ~ Walk in Hell, and go on from there if there’s anymore in the series.

After that, I don’t know.

I read that one last summer and enjoyed it a lot. I’d be interested in seeing some recommendations from you as you work your way through your wishlist.

As for me, I just finished Nightmare Town, a collection of Dashiell Hammett short stories, and have started re-reading Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves. It’s been a while since I read it last, and I was just in the mood to read it again.