Whatcha Readin' Apr 2011 Edition

[twickster]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

I liked it but I'm a big fan of alternate history so I'm probably not a good judge.

I like good alternate history, too, so I'll check it out. (Literally. Of the library. ;-) )

[Cat Whisperer]

I just finished Night of the Living Trekkies. It was exactly as advertised, and a lot of fun.

I'm currently reading The War For Late Night. It's a very interesting look behind the scenes of the deal-making that goes on in tv.

[Elendil's Heir]

Still enjoying Theodore Sorensen's Kennedy. Sorensen was JFK's chief wordsmith and wrote this book not long after the President's death, and although generally admiring (they worked together for 11 years), it's not a hagiography - shows Kennedy as ignorant on some matters, not always responsible, sometimes making bad decisions. There are a surprising number of jokes told by or about JFK. My favorite so far: Kennedy relied heavily upon his longtime secretary, a prim little lady named Evelyn Lincoln, whom he always called "Mrs. Lincoln." She was absolutely devoted to him. Once he joked to Sorensen, "If I cut off Jackie's head and called Mrs. Lincoln and asked her to bring me a box for it, she'd say, 'How wonderful, Mr. President, I'll be right up. By the way, did you take your nap?'"

[salinqmind]

I'm an absolute fiend for Hollywood biographies, so I'm reading "Untied", memoirs of Meredith Baxter, and enjoying it immensely. Another successful on the outside, miserable on the inside celebrity, Ms. Baxter doesn't seem all that bright, having spent 17 years married to an insufferable man, David Birney - I keep wanting to give her a good shake - wake up, dummy! She seems to have spent her youth on drugs, living in a chicken shack with her first husband, and then started sliding into the wine bottle. Five kids brought into this, too. She seems to have had a respectable, B-list career that she seemed to enjoy, though I'm sure her wholesome blond, blue-eyed, big rack looks were key to her getting parts in all those movies of the week. Much as she tried to mix it up some. And of course "Family Ties", which she also enjoyed doing, but was dismayed to find her part getting smaller and smaller. Haven't got to the bursting out of the closet part yet.

[AuntiePam]

Originally Posted by Barkis is Willin'

Finished A Storm of Swords and am 150 pages into A Feast for Crows. Not sure I like all the additional character viewpoints and the direction of the story in general by this point. It's starting to really sink in that this series will just never end. It's still entertaining, but the subsequent books don't match the awesomeness of A Game of Thrones.

I'm reading Letters from a Homesteader and laughed when one of the characters said "Barkis was willing". As many times as I've seen your Username, I never thought to look it up.

Finished Doc, Mary Doria Russell's novel about Doc Holliday. Loved, loved, loved it.

Started Left Early, Took the Dog by Kate Atkinson and am enjoying it. Similar to Case Histories in that she plunks us down with characters who seem to have no connection with each other. And these characters are great -- a retired policewoman who buys an abused child, an aging actress who's losing her wits, and an adventurer type who rescues an abused dog. There was a kidnapping many years ago that will tie in somehow.

[Barkis is Willin']

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

I'm reading Letters from a Homesteader and laughed when one of the characters said "Barkis was willing". As many times as I've seen your Username, I never thought to look it up.

Ha...well, the original Barkis is from David Copperfield. Good to see him getting some recognition.

[Siam Sam]

Back in Bangkok, and I finished Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer while upcountry. A very good read. Would like to read more by him. The book was published in 2005, but this is a new edition to coincide with the film version of it that just came out, so it has a photo of Matthew McConaughey on the cover. Also includes the first two chapters of his next book that comes out this month, featuring the same character.

Next up: Credos and Curios, a collection of essays and short stories by James Thurber.

[(mostly) Harmless]

I finally got a readable translation of Crime and Punishment so I'm taking that on. I'm also reading Welcome To The Monkey House which is a collection of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut. So far both are great.

[Chefguy]

Originally Posted by Siam Sam

Back in Bangkok, and I finished Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer while upcountry. A very good read. Would like to read more by him. The book was published in 2005, but this is a new edition to coincide with the film version of it that just came out, so it has a photo of Matthew McConaughey on the cover. Also includes the first two chapters of his next book that comes out this month, featuring the same character.

Next up: Credos and Curios, a collection of essays and short stories by James Thurber.

Try the Harry Bosch novels by Connelly. If you have a Kindle, you can now download a three-fer, and get three of this series for about $17. Otherwise, the following will get you started:

The Last Coyote
Trunk Music
Angels Flight
The Black Ice
The Black Echo
The Concrete Blonde
A Darkness More Than Night (which I'm reading now)

I'm not sure in what order these were written, but they pretty much stand alone as novels.

[Sitnam]

Mailman: A Novel by J. Robert Lennon, I'm halfway through and I'm pretty sure this is the best book I'll read all year.

[Siam Sam]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

Try the Harry Bosch novels by Connelly. If you have a Kindle, you can now download a three-fer, and get three of this series for about $17. Otherwise, the following will get you started:

The Last Coyote
Trunk Music
Angels Flight
The Black Ice
The Black Echo
The Concrete Blonde
A Darkness More Than Night (which I'm reading now)

I'm not sure in what order these were written, but they pretty much stand alone as novels.

Thanks. No, I don't have a Kindle. Those are still pretty new over here, and I'm told the selection's not that great yet in this market. But I've not decided about getting one in the fututre; I'm sort of Old School and enjoy the look and feel of actual books.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

Try the Harry Bosch novels by Connelly. ....

Angels Flight

....

I read Angels Flight a few years back and it left me cold. Never tried Connelly again.

[Siam Sam]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

I read Angels Flight a few years back and it left me cold. Never tried Connelly again.

You might try The Lincoln Lawyer. I picked it up having never heard of the guy before last month. You might be interested, as the protagonist in this one is a criminal defense attorney and quite a lot happens in the courtroom. Seems at least one real-life LA judge makes an appearance in the book, I guess as payback for letting him pick her brains for the book.

[Elendil's Heir]

Too many other good books on the shelf already calling my name, but thanks. Maybe someday.

[Dung Beetle]

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

Today I started on Lauren Oliver’s Delirium, a YA dystopian novel. This ought to be at least fair; I really liked Oliver's other book, Before I Fall.

Finished Delirium over the weekend. It was a page-turner and the ending wrung some emotion out of me even though I saw it coming a mile away.

I’m now on to The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton, a story about a woman who was abandoned on an Australian wharf as a child, and her efforts to find out who she is. Very good, though I almost want to take notes to keep things straight, as the narrative is told by several different characters and also jumps around in time.

[Khadaji]

Finished Storm Born.

Eugenie Markham earns her living banishing spirits and the fey. A stranger hires her to find his sister who has been abducted by the fey. Too much more detail will give away major plot points, so I'll simply say that it was an an acceptable urban fantasy. Not great, but not bad as mind candy goes. I find I must be becoming a prude in my old age, because while I found the action brisk enough, I objected to the sex scenes. I guess that is disingenuous - I'm not a prude in as much I enjoy sex and do not object to porn - it is just that, I want my fantasy to be fantasy and my porn to be porn.

In any case, it was good enough that I will read the next installment.

[jsgoddess]

Originally Posted by Khadaji

Finished Storm Born.

Eugenie Markham earns her living banishing spirits and the fey. A stranger hires her to find his sister who has been abducted by the fey. Too much more detail will give away major plot points, so I'll simply say that it was an an acceptable urban fantasy. Not great, but not bad as mind candy goes. I find I must be becoming a prude in my old age, because while I found the action brisk enough, I objected to the sex scenes. I guess that is disingenuous - I'm not a prude in as much I enjoy sex and do not object to porn - it is just that, I want my fantasy to be fantasy and my porn to be porn.

In any case, it was good enough that I will read the next installment.

I find the sex scenes in most urban fantasy ooky. That's the technical term.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

Gah! I don't have enough time to read in the spring! Too much yard work and band concerts and end-of-school activities and Easter and family birthdays and other stuff.

But I did manage to finish Mike Brown's How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming in time to go and hear him speak in Huntsville last night. I enjoyed the book, and he was an entertaining speaker.

I'm halfway through Charlie Huston's fifth Joe Pitt book, My Dead Body. His writing is still excellent, but I got tired of the plot about two books ago so I'm glad this is the last one.

Next I'm planning to read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. I've been saving it for Easter.

[Dung Beetle]

I’ve been making time to read by getting to work a little early. Then I sit out in the car and read until my phone alarm goes off. It really helps me get dressed faster too!

[Khadaji]

Finished The Girl Who Played With Fire. Quite enjoyed it. I think it has been reviewed enough here without me trying to say much. I was a little disappointed because I thought this one was not as self-contained as the first, and the next one needs to be read - but I would have read it anyway.

[Khadaji]

Finished Spiral Hunt (Evie Scelan) a quite acceptable first novel by Margaret Ronald who mixes Celtic legends with urban fantasy. There weren't too many surprises, but it wasn't a bad read and if I see a sequel I will likely read it.

[Barkis is Willin']

Originally Posted by Eleanor of Aquitaine

Next I'm planning to read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. I've been saving it for Easter.

I'm interested to hear what you think of this. I read it a couple years ago and just didn't get the humor, I guess. That was the first and last I've read of Moore.

[Chefguy]

Now reading Making Rounds With Oscar, by David Dosa, MD. Written by a doctor who worked with dementia patients, and the cat (Oscar) that seemed to know when patients were going to die.

[Chefguy]

Originally Posted by Eleanor of Aquitaine

Gah! I don't have enough time to read in the spring! Too much yard work and band concerts and end-of-school activities and Easter and family birthdays and other stuff.

But I did manage to finish Mike Brown's How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming in time to go and hear him speak in Huntsville last night. I enjoyed the book, and he was an entertaining speaker.

I'm halfway through Charlie Huston's fifth Joe Pitt book, My Dead Body. His writing is still excellent, but I got tired of the plot about two books ago so I'm glad this is the last one.

Next I'm planning to read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. I've been saving it for Easter.

Biff has some very amusing moments, and it's quite sacreligious. Some of the humor is fairly sophomoric, but it's a good read.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

Originally Posted by Barkis is Willin'

I'm interested to hear what you think of this. I read it a couple years ago and just didn't get the humor, I guess. That was the first and last I've read of Moore.

At 50 pages in (over my lunch break - I have to take my kid to another school thing tonight!) I think it's pretty funny. But then I've read several books by Moore, and I usually enjoy the first half of the book more than the last half, because he tends to get a little too silly for me as the book progresses.

A Dirty Job is my favorite so far, but I've heard several people declare that Lamb is their favorite, so I've been looking forward to this one.

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

I’ve been making time to read by getting to work a little early. Then I sit out in the car and read until my phone alarm goes off. It really helps me get dressed faster too!

Sounds like a good plan, but I don't think I could never bring myself to get out of bed earlier than necessary, even for extra reading time. I'd rather sacrifice sleep the night before.

[Chefguy]

Just finished Rounds With Oscar. My favorite quote: Dogs come when called; cats take a message and get back to you.

[Parenchyma]

Picked up John Le Carre's Secret Pilgrim, surprised there was an old one I hadn't already read. His usual wonderful writing with a different format, an old spy's memories of his life in the Circus, with plenty of Smiley.

Also just finished Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, about a tropical island near the Solomons in the South Pacific. It's about the turmoil of a civil war in the 1990's, through the eyes of a young girl. I really didn't know much about that part of the world in those years. It's very affecting, and there are a few brutal shocks. The book popped up on my radar after I heard they they were filming the movie with Hugh Laurie. The story is still haunting me a few days after finishing it.

[Siam Sam]

Finished Credos and Curios, a collection of essays and short stories by James Thurber. It was okay. Some were good, some not so good. Not worth going out of your way for.

Next up is Killer in the Rain, and Other Stories, by Raymond Chandler. I'm a big fan of Chandler (Dashiell Hammett, too). I picked this up from the bookstore when I recognized only one of the stories in it offhand. But I may have read at least some of the others, as the introduction mentions Chandler "cannibalized" some of these stories for his larger works. For example, his novel The Lady in the Lake was compiled from the stories "Bay City Blues," "The Lady in the Lake" and "No Crime in the Mountains." That sounds awfully familiar. Oh well, even if I've read them before, Chandler is always fun to revisit.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

Biff has some very amusing moments, and it's quite sacreligious. Some of the humor is fairly sophomoric, but it's a good read.

I finished the book last night, and I liked it. It wasn't what I expected. It was funny and silly in places, like all of Moore's work, but it took its subject very seriously indeed. It was certainly irreverent and would offend some people, but I thought it was pretty faithful, and not exactly disrespectful, to the biblical tradition of Jesus's teachings. The ending was quite sad, obviously.

[Khadaji]

Originally Posted by jsgoddess

I find the sex scenes in most urban fantasy ooky. That's the technical term.

Finished Thorn Queen (Dark Swan, Book 2) and this one was even more ooky than the first. More lurid sex scenes and a detailed rape scene. I am done with this series.

[Elendil's Heir]

At a friend's encouragement, I took a stab at Paul Tillich's massive Systematic Theology. Ugh. Left me utterly baffled - I soon realized that I have neither the philosophical nor the theological toolkit to scale this particular mountain. Fifty pages and I'm done.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

I'm happy to report that I just finished a short novel called I Thought You Were Dead by Pete Nelson and I have to say that it is a wonderful little bit of fiction about a dreamer named Paul, his dog named Stella and his erstwhile girlfriend named Tamsen. I really recommend this book. Its very bittersweet and written in a way that I found to be compelling.

I am also currently enjoying Becoming Jimi Hendrix by Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber that details Jimi's formative years before he was a famous solo guitar player, starting with his childhood, his days in the Army and his various bands he toured with before becoming the superstar he eventually became. Good book as well.

[CalMeacham]

I'm finally reading The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. I, which I got for my birthday a few months back. I haven't read it before because a.) i had lots of other books to read, and b.) It is HUGE. It's over 600 verylarge pages long, and it's inconvenient to carry with you, or to read in bed.

i'd read one of the three previous "atobiographies" by Twain, which were cobbled together from his many notes and manuscripts, but this is supposed to be the all-inclusive definitive one, including stuff that he pronounced could not be published until a century after his death.

I'm over a hundred and twenty pages in, still reading through the introduction and twain's "false starts", and won't get to the actual Autobiography for another eighty pages. I'll bet most people have skipped ahead, rather than plow through these preliminaries. It's worth it, though, if you're a Twain fan. One of the "false starts" found its way, at the hands of Alfred bigelow Paine, into the version I'd read earlier, and into some of the excerpts I have on audio 9and have listened to many times). So it was a surprise to me to find that the portion I was so familiar with had been abridged, and that I never read the full sequence until now.

[Barkis is Willin']

Finished A Feast for Crows, the 4th book in George R.R. Martin's series. It's the weakest of the series, but I look forward to the next book.

I picked up 2 books recently and I'm not sure what's next. It's between Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke or Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Barkis is Willin'

...I picked up 2 books recently and I'm not sure what's next. It's between Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke or Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold.

Ooo, ooo - read the first! It's terrific!

[Paul in Qatar]

The new Bismark biography, he was not as nice or interesting fellow as I had hoped.

[Khadaji]

Originally Posted by Barkis is Willin'

Finished A Feast for Crows, the 4th book in George R.R. Martin's series. It's the weakest of the series, but I look forward to the next book.

I picked up 2 books recently and I'm not sure what's next. It's between Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke or Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold.

I'm gonna say read the second... I've also added it to my shopping cart.

[AuntiePam]

Finished Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin, a fictionalized account of an Alabama "range war" in the late 1800's. Interesting story, and Franklin does a good job with vigilante justice, showing all the different reasons why it happens.

I'm following it with another Franklin, Smonk, fiction about a guy who terrorizes Alabama in 1911, more vigilante stuff. The violence in this one is downright pornographic (as is the sex) but there's enough humor that I don't feel dirty for reading it.

Those were Franklin's first two novels. His third, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a rather sweet coming-of-age story with a mystery. Except for his gift for landscape, dialogue, and characterization, I wouldn't think these books were written by the same guy.

Not sure what's up next. I'll see what's free for the Kindle.

[Enterprise]

I finished a couple of interesting novels over the long Easter weekend.

Two by E.L. Doctorow, of whose output I'd not previously read anything: Ragtime and Book of Daniel; both are 1970s, I think. Ragtime was very enjoyable, smart and moving, and read a little like a fugue, with recurrent characters and repeated allusions to background characters as well. Very interesting examination of society in the early 1900s.
Book of Daniel was tougher, but ultimately the more rewarding book, I thought. Two kids' messed up lives in the wake of their parents' arrest as Soviet spies, and at the same time, a rather serious indictment of the political left in the United States--not because it's left, but because it's so ineffectual.
In the same vein, Chris Bachelder's hilarious U.S.!: Upton Sinclair, famous muckraker, has spent the 20th century getting resurrected and assassinated, resurrected and re-assassinated. Interspersed with television shows, poetry contests, songs, and other things, a funny and thoughtful novel about unthinking antipathies towards things people don't understand as well as a comment, also, on the U.S. left.
Mark Monmonier's How to Lie With Maps, a geographical classic. It's good, but less interesting than I would have thought; I've got some basic training in cartography, so the initial bits were not new and therefore not as shattering as they might have been (maps don't show everything, and someone *decides* what to leave out!), but the later chapters were quite revealing as case studies.
Don DeLillo's White Noise--yeah, I know, I'm way behind the curve with all of these books. But I liked White Noise, for all its postmodern wryness, it had the sort of dry humour and absurd moments I enjoy.
Finally, currently I'm reading The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, by George Saunders. This is very weird, but very funny. The five inhabitants of Inner Horner find themselves unable to stay out of the neighbouring country of Outer Horner, because their country is too small; conflicts ensue. And no, I'm not doing it justice...

[Elendil's Heir]

I'm in two book clubs at the moment, both of which, coincidentally, have chosen chick lit written by women named Paula for this month's reads. Paula McClain's The Paris Wife is a romantic historical novel about Ernest Hemingway's first wife; Paula Froelich's Mercury in Retrograde is a Sex in the City-style name-dropping, fashion-obsessed NYC comic novel. The first is definitely better than the second. I doubt I'll finish either - just not my cup of tea - but I'll at least give them each the obligatory 50-page fair chance before setting them aside.

[Khadaji]

Finished The Girl Who... trilogy. I enjoyed it but am also glad it was the last. I think as much was done with that as could be. (Which is not to say I am glad he passed away.) There were times in this book where I just flipped pages. Perhaps I would have been better off not reading the 3 so close together. None-the-less, I recommend the trilogy, if you are one of the few who still haven't read it.

I think I'm going to start Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold.

[jsgoddess]

I'm reading Sunshine, by Robin McKinley (soooo good), The Diamond Age by... whoever it's by, The Hanover Street Affair (my first book on my new Nook!), and Packing for Mars by Mary Roach which I may have mentioned up thread. Voluntary unemployment kind of rocks.

[Khadaji]

May's thread.