Whatcha Readin' May 2012 Edition

[delphica]

I finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, which I thought was terrific historical fiction, set at the Dutch trading outpost outside of Japan around 1800. I don't know who specifically mentioned it, but I first heard about it in one of these threads a few months ago.

I am now starting (literally, I think I'm on page 2) of Colson Whitehead's zombie novel, Zone One.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

I just read Finding Nouf, by Zoë Ferraris, which is a murder mystery set in modern-day Saudi Arabia. It's a pretty good read, and the setting was very interesting. One of the protagonists is a devout, traditional Muslim man who's trying to solve the murder of a teenage girl while unable to ask direct questions about her or actually speak to any of her female relatives. Of course, I don't know how accurately the novel portrays the culture: the author is a white American who married a Saudia Arabian man and lived in Jeddah for nine months with his family.

[Antigen]

I finally got around to Ender's Game, after approximately a billion people told me I would love it. As it turns out, I loved it.

I'm working on One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient, by David Biro, and it's quite good. It's hard for me to get through his description of the pain and consequences of radiation and chemotherapy, because I have a good friend going through aggressive therapy for a brain tumor, so I have to take breaks here and there to think about something else.

Not sure what to read next. I have Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, due back at the library in a week, but I'm not really feeling up to starting that one because I get the feeling it's too "deep".

[Little Nemo]

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings (turns out he's a pretty good writer) and Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith (which, on the other hand, isn't as good as most of his past books - Smith comes across as somebody who's trying too hard to justify himself in this one). I also just started Eisenhower 1956: The President's Year of Crisis - Suez and the Brink of War by David A. Nichols, so I haven't formed an opinion yet.

[Antigen]

Originally Posted by Antigen

I just started Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike Mullane, and it's fantastic. I picked it up because Mary Roach mentioned in her book Packing for Mars, that if you're going to read just one astronaut memoir, make it Mike Mullane's. And here I am.

I forgot to mention in my last post - I dropped Riding Rockets about halfway through, because I just couldn't take the arrogant, sexist, frat-boy attitude. I'm sure he's got great stories to tell, but I didn't enjoy the telling.

I also forgot to mention the audiobook I just got done with - The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age, by Nathan Wolfe. Incredibly informative, but paranoia-inducing when one reads it while one is fighting flu-like symptoms. I'm planning on picking up the real-paper version of this book for keeps, I enjoyed it so much.

[skdale723]

Just finished Fall to pieces by Mary Foresberg Weiland. A memoir of the struggle with addiction & bipolar disorder from the ex wife of stone temple pilots front man scott weiland...very insightful

[Barkis is Willin']

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Ghost Story by Peter Straub. It's ok. I have the feeling it's going to start picking up very quickly. I've never really read horror before, so this is somewhat new. The only Stephen King book I've read was non-fiction.

[Khadaji]

Finished Mercy Blade. The third in the Jane Yellow Rock urban fantasy series. Light, easy to read, mind candy, the usual review. I liked it well enough that I'll keep reading the series.

[Joey P]

Originally Posted by Joey P

I'm in the middle of Around The World in 80 days. Jules uses far too many words. It's taking me a while to get through this. I actually find myself saying "Yeah, I got it" and skipping the ends of entire paragraphs.

Well, I just finished this book. I actually, almost didn't read the lat chapter. That's all I had left last night and I honestly thought it was just going to wind down and that there was going to be one unimportant thing happening.
That would have been a mistake.

I'm trying to decide what to start tonight. I've to And Then There Were None, some Sherlock Holmes or Frankenstein all ready to go (and then some).

[Politzania]

Just finished the audiobook of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
I remembered the basic plot of this novel (2 young Jewish men create a comic book hero in New York) but had forgotten how much of their lives we follow, including the tumultuous events touched off by January 6, 1941. I'd also forgotten the awful pun Chabon makes based on one of the character's surnames...

SPOILER:

(Tracy) Bacon being forbidden to Jews like Sammy Clay, of course...

I really enjoyed the Escapist interludes; but was hoping something more would come of the Golem of Prague. Overall, I'd rate it a compelling novel with engaging characters (and a few real-life cameos thrown in) and a plot that meanders a bit, but in a good way. The audiobook, performed by David Colacci, is nicely done - Chabon's prose seems meant to be read aloud, I think - I especially liked Kavalier's accent! I own a copy & will be revisiting it again in a few years - perhaps in the company of The Prestige and Carter Beats the Devil as they have a common thread of magic and escapism.

[Politzania]

Tore thru Christopher Moore's latest : Sacre Bleu over the weekend. We follow a young baker/aspiring painter thru Paris during the dawn of La Belle Epoque as he and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec - an acquaintance- attempt to find out exactly what happened to Vincent Van Gogh. Beware of lovely women (who are not quite what they seem) and the color blue....
As always, Moore is vastly entertaining, occasionally bawdy, and you end up learning a thing or two along the way. For me, I'd put this novel just behind Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, which is my favorite Moore novel. (Tho I need to re-read Fool, which may push this novel into third place)
While I'll probably end up revisiting this story via audiobook or e-book; I really have to recommend that you check out the print version, as it includes full color (albeit smallish) repros of many of the works of art discussed within the novel.

[TheMerchandise]

Politzania, Christopher Moore's been posting this online chapter guide to Sacre Bleu on his facebook and twitter feed.

[Politzania]

Originally Posted by TheMerchandise

Politzania, Christopher Moore's been posting this online chapter guide to Sacre Bleu on his facebook and twitter feed.

I haven't been on Twitter much lately, but I do follow @TheAuthorGuy - will have to give this CG a look!

[Politzania]

And here's one more review:

Read the Kindle version of Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton courtesy of the local library... while I enjoyed it more than some of my GoodReads friends, I'm just as happy I didn't spend money on it.

I didn't particularly like Gabrielle as portrayed in this memoir; she seems very self-involved, inconsiderate and less than appreciative of her situation. That said, she pushes herself harder than anyone else in her life and has worked hard for what she has.

Surprisingly truthful at times; her adventures and travails made for engaging reading. While I'm in no way a foodie, she wrote about her dining and cooking experiences in a compelling way that made me appreciate what they did for her, even though I can't imagine spending that kind of time and/or money on the dishes she discussed.

I particularly enjoyed the segment where she discussed going to a conference on Women in the food industry and the contradictory feelings she experienced; your gender (and sexuality) shouldn't matter in the work environment, but your experiences do.

Recommended to foodies or those interested in reading about foodies, looking for a relatively straightforward memoir. Worth a library read, at least.

[Politzania]

Missed the edit window & wanted to add the following:

While Hamilton is no Bourdain (which is just as well, I think!) I believe this memoir is worth a library read, at least. Now I want to go back & read Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras - Jeff Henderson faced similar (if not sharper) challenges to Hamilton, but seems more cognizant of his success.

[Siam Sam]

Well, it took me long enough, but I finished The Cider House Rules, by John Irving. Never saw the movie, as I heard it was not good regardless of it winning two Oscars (for Michael Caine's performance of Wilbur Larch and John Irving's own adapted screenplay). In some Author's Notes in the back, he discusses the changes necessary for the movie, and it feels like it must be a very different story indeed. The book I liked and can recommend.

This week I shall start reading a book that is banned here in Thailand, so I'm not giving any details about it until I've finished it and returned it to its owner.

[Khadaji]

Finished Inheritance (Inheritance Cycle, Book 4) the last in the series that started with Eragon. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed it. I had found the last book rather tedious and still maintain that he could benefit from a good editor, but overall it was readable.

[Ian D. Bergkamp]

I just finished Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre, a Cold War spy thriller about a British agent called out of retirement to find a mole in his agency.

It was my first exposure to Le Carre and I thought it was okay. The main storyline was interesting, but there was a lot of backstory and characterization that came across as filler and made the book meander a bit. Apparently, it's the first of a trilogy, but I'm not sure yet if I'll read the others.

Anyway, starting now on Soccer in a Football World, which chronicles the history of soccer in the US from the 1920s to the 2000s. I'm mainly interested in the earlier stuff, since I know very little about it.

[Dung Beetle]

Finished Demons: encounters with the devil and his minions, fallen angels, and the possessed, edited by John Skipp. Better than average, though I’d read several selections already.

I’m about halfway through The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie. I have enjoyed Alexie before, but this book’s not doing it for me, so I’m about to set it aside.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

...I’m about halfway through The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie. I have enjoyed Alexie before, but this book’s not doing it for me, so I’m about to set it aside.

I read it for my book club some years ago and really enjoyed it, but it's not for everybody.

Just finished The White Plague by Frank Herbert, which is not at all like his classic Dune. Even if it had been by a different author, though, I would still have been underwhelmed. Too much happens offstage - too many characters make inexplicable decisions - and the tremendous social consequences of

SPOILER:

a post-plague world with a thousand men for every woman

are just too damn offhandedly discussed.

[astorian]

I had gotten a Kindle for Christmas, but didnt' use it at all for months.

In the past two weeks, I've used it to read James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Right now, I'm 20% through Dorothy Sayers' Clouds of Witnesses (an early Lord Peter Wimsey mystery).

I'm still alternating between mysteries and the Modern Library's "100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century." Cain's Postman, I suppose, qualifies as both.

[Khadaji]

Finished Raven Cursed (Jane Yellowrock, Book 4). It was pretty mediocre and I think I'm done with this series. It wandered with too many subplots - most of which I just didn't care about.

We'll see. When book 5 comes out this fall, if I have nothing else to read (unlikely) I may give it one more go.

[Elendil's Heir]

Just started The Shack by William Paul Young, a Christian-themed novel about love, loss, and evil in the world despite God's presence. It's meh so far.

I'm also reading Once Upon A Secret by Mimi Alford. It's a memoir about an affair she allegedly had with JFK when she was a White House intern in 1962-63. So far, so good.

[Dung Beetle]

Originally Posted by Politzania

Am (hopefully) wrapping up the Maze Runner series with The Death Cure ... more out of stubbornness than anything else.

Me too. There’s no way the author can possibly wrap this up to my satisfaction at this point (maybe at the end, we’ll find it was all a dream! ) but I must see what he pulls out of his butt anyway.

[AuntiePam]

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

Finished Stephen King’s The Wind Through The Keyhole. It really adds nothing to the Dark Tower story, of course, but it was so nice to revisit Mid-World and hear Roland tell a tale (two, actually). Lovely book; King continues his upward trend!

I'm starting this tonight. My daughter loved it -- said it had none of King's annoying quirks.

Just finished a re-read of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin.

Also On the Night Plain by J. Robert Lennon, post WWII, a man returns to his family's sheep ranch after tramping around for a few years. I really liked it. It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy in style, except that it wasn't as dense as McCarthy, and while nothing much happens, there was enough everyday detail and insightful characterization to keep me interested.

[Khadaji]

If anyone has picked up my highly recommended Eli Monpress series - just a note to let you know that the new one came out early (mine came yesterday.)

[Fiveyearlurker]

Originally Posted by LawMonkey

Embassytown did nothing at all for me, but others seem to think it's the stuff, so YMMV.

I'm with you. I loved the first 50 pages, and suffered through the next 900.

[Politzania]

Revisited Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon - I read the Kindle version courtesy of the library & was disappointed to see how many OCR-based typos there were.

Not quite what you usually expect from Stephen King, as it's fairly basic fantasy - old king with evil adviser/wizard who pits one brother against another. Injustice is done, but good eventually wins the day. Some clever thinking/plotting, good imagery, and the characters are reasonably well-defined, but it's not his best work, IMHO. (not his worst tho, not by a long shot!) Worth revisiting once a decade or so, at least for me. Another GoodReads reviewer said this was probably the closest King gets to a YA novel & I kinda agree.
I'm not quite sure how it ties into the Dark Tower series, but it must, as the bad guy is named Flagg. The Roland in this story may be an ancestor of Gunslinger Roland? I know I could check the Concordance, but can't be arsed at the moment.

---------------
Lucked into an ARC of Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas - John Scalzi's latest (coming next month) and tore thru it in a matter of hours. The tagline "They were expendable, until they started comparing notes" along with the name of the novel should be a pretty good clue to the basic plot; a group of Ensigns assigned to the space ship Intrepid learn that a good number of their cohorts die while on away missions with Senior Staff. While researching this situation, they end up making an unsettling discovery about their reality and find a almost-too-clever way to solve their dilemma. Lots of funny moments (laugh out loud even!) but some surprisingly touching ones as well. It started a bit unevenly, with lots of characters being thrown at you all at once; but they managed to sort themselves out eventually. The "Three Codas" were an interesting addition to the overall story, and provided some closure on minor plot points. If you enjoyed the movie Galaxy Quest, you'd probably enjoy this novel as well. I can't wait til the audiobook (read by Wil Wheaton) is released!

[Politzania]

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

Me too. There’s no way the author can possibly wrap this [Maze Runner Series] up to my satisfaction at this point (maybe at the end, we’ll find it was all a dream! ) but I must see what he pulls out of his butt anyway.

Ya know - I finished reading it just a few weeks ago (May 4th) , and now I can't even remember how it got wrapped up? Guess I waited too long to write up my review. About all I do recall is that Dashner took the coward's way out when resolving the Love Triangle; and that I still don't know what Wicked really hoped to accomplish.

[booklover]

Originally Posted by Dung Beetle

Me too. There’s no way the author can possibly wrap this up to my satisfaction at this point (maybe at the end, we’ll find it was all a dream! ) but I must see what he pulls out of his butt anyway.

Glad to see others feel the same way--I finished The Death Cure a few months ago.

I have persevered through Someone Come to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow and am thankful that it was a library book rather than something I spent money on. A very surreal plot premise: a guy who has various strange beings for relatives (mother is a washing machine, father is a mountain) is stalked by his dead brother whilst helping a cyberanarchist in downtown Toronto.

I'm now working on From the Realm of Morpheus by Steven Millhauser. I love Millhauser's books but have discovered I can't read this one while going to sleep...I lasted about two pages into the description of the room of sleeping people and the big cozy bed before nodding off.

[Shakester]

Brilliant The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox

I'm about a third of the way through. Interesting.

[Barkis is Willin']

Finished Ghost Story by Peter Straub. Eh, it had a few spooky moments, but overall not that great.

I have no idea what's next. Can't decide if I should dive into a fantasy series like Mistborn or a classic like Wuthering Heights or something. I'll toss a coin tonight.

[astorian]

I just started the free Kindle version of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, and... I gotta ask. Has anyone else encountered incredibly basic spelling and syntax errors in a free Kindle edition of a classic book?

I'm prepared to be embarrassed by hearing "Dreiser DELIBERATELY wrote that way, you Philistine!"

But it looks more like a sloppy, incompetently edited ersion to me.

[Dung Beetle]

Finished The Death Cure. As expected, it was unsatisfactory. Please don’t make these books a movie, please don’t make these books a movie…

Next I read Unhooked: How to quit anything, by Frederick Woolverton and Susan Shapiro. I had picked it up thinking to quit a nervous habit; of course, it’s more about quitting stuff like drugs and alcohol. I don’t know if it would be very helpful for those sorts of problems, but I read it anyway because I like case studies.

[Barkis is Willin']

Originally Posted by astorian

I just started the free Kindle version of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, and... I gotta ask. Has anyone else encountered incredibly basic spelling and syntax errors in a free Kindle edition of a classic book?

I'm prepared to be embarrassed by hearing "Dreiser DELIBERATELY wrote that way, you Philistine!"

But it looks more like a sloppy, incompetently edited ersion to me.

I do not have a Kindle, but in reading Amazon reviews, even of classic literature, the biggest reason for negative reviews is that the text was poorly transferred electronically.

[ryan]

I just started Blackout the third of the Newsflesh trilogy by Mira Grant and Ghost Story the latest Dresden Files novel by Jim Butcher. I'm also re-reading The General series of books by S.M. Sterling and David Drake, all on my Nook. My current dead-tree book is The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.
I just finished Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War by David Downing and found it to be extremely dry, like reading a history textbook and overall an unsatisfying read.

[astorian]

Originally Posted by Barkis is Willin'

I do not have a Kindle, but in reading Amazon reviews, even of classic literature, the biggest reason for negative reviews is that the text was poorly transferred electronically.

Certainly, technical problems could account for SOME of the errors... like duplication of passages of dialogue, for instance.

But even a cursory examination of the text would have revealed the dozens of errors I've found, and most could have been fixed very easily.

Which makes me wonder... was the transfer done in someplace like India or China by people for whom English is only a second language?

Or did Amazon's subcontractors just figure, "We're giving it away for FREE, so who cares if it's good?"

[Shakester]

Originally Posted by Shakester

Brilliant The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox

I'm about a third of the way through. Interesting.

Finished that. Interesting, but not compelling. A bit too US-centric for my tastes, but that's a common compliant from me.

And now for something completely different:
Making Rumours by Ken Caillat, "the inside story of the classic Fleetwood Mac album".

I'm not a fan of the 70s Fleetwood Mac, though I quite like the original 60s version.

So why am I reading about the pinnacle of 70s Fleetwood Mac albums? Because I am a fan of books by record producers. And I've heard that it's an amazing story. Reading the book will probably make me want to listen to the album, once. Something I've never deliberately done before. I don't hate it, but I find Stevie Nicks irritating, both her vocals and her persona.

So, yeah, we shall see. I hope the writing is decent quality, something that's always a gamble in rock music related books.

[delphica]

So Zone One, by Colson Whitehead, I thought was pretty good, if you are looking for a more contemplative zombie apocalypse novel as opposed to a gory action type thing. I think the heart of this novel deals with how you look back at an individual life, or a society, after a cataclysmic event.

I also read Swamplandia!, after all the churn about how no Pulitzer was awarded for fiction this year (this had been on the short list) ... yeah, I can how this didn't make it. I thought the writing was very good and interesting, but the plot was a mess (and then ended up completely off the rails).

OMG, and The Fault in Our Stars, a YA novel from John Green. Bring Kleenex! It tells you right on the cover that this is a tragic romance story, and it delivers tenfold. I can see how some people might not like it because it's overly sentimental and contrived, but I think Green has a great voice and I love his characters.

[CalMeacham]

Still working throughThe Annotated Huckleberry Finn, but the book is too heavy to cary around. I'm also finishing up the Hunger Games trilogy with Mockingjay.

I've finished with Tales of Hoffman and The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes.




I've got North and South (AKA Texar the Southerner and Burbank the Northerner, AKA Texar's Revenge), Jules Verne's attempt to write an American Civil War novel as an e-book on our Nook. It was free, and it's clesarly been electronically transcribed by computer. It's worse than what they did to my book -- many of the transcription errors aren't even words -- just collectioons of symbols that sorta resemble the original words, and you have to figure out what the word is. It's an interesting game. The book isn't as bad as I've been lead to believe. Plus, it was free.

I picked up a Nero Wolfe novel for some traveling I have to do, since it's easier to carry than any of the above. And I can't take the Nook.

[Politzania]

Picked up the library's Kindle version of Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith by Studs Terkel in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday; as well as having an interest in the topic. It's almost completely interviews with people from various walks of life (from the Chicago area, natch) about their relationship/interpretation/experiences with death and dying. Published in 2002, there was a section that dealt with HIV/AIDS which felt oddly dated; yet still incredibly moving. Coincidentally, one of the interviews was with Doc Watson (who just died over the weekend) and of course, he talked about losing his son, Merle.
It's worth at least a library read, especially if you have an interest in peoples' perceptions of death and dying. I plan on reading more of Terkel's work, if it's similar to this.

Heard an interview with the author on NPR back in Oct 2011 & finally got around to checking Brandwashed: How Marketers and Advertisers Obscure the Truth, Manipulate Our Minds, and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom out from the library. I've done previous reading on the topic, and I'm not sure I learned anything earthshakingly new, but the material was presented well, with sources and examples galore. I was intrigued to read about the experiment where his company "planted" a family in a typical suburban neighborhood & had them talk up specific brands to test the effects of peer pressure ... and it was chillingly effective! I was also fascinated by the use of mRI's to study what is going on in our brains when we are exposed to advertising. He's not as strident/ ax-grinding as Morgan Spurlock (thank goodness) - more along the lines of "this is how advertising works & why, and what lengths companies will to go in order to get you to buy their stuff." Whether or not that's evil is up to you to decide.
Worth a library read at least if the science of marketing/advertising is of interest.

[Dung Beetle]

Right now I’m putzing around with American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, and American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s Until Now. These are part of an anthology series edited by Peter Straub.

[CalMeacham]

Originally Posted by Politzania

Picked up the library's Kindle version of Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith by Studs Terkel in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday; as well as having an interest in the topic. It's almost completely interviews with people from various walks of life (from the Chicago area, natch) about their relationship/interpretation/experiences with death and dying. Published in 2002, there was a section that dealt with HIV/AIDS which felt oddly dated; yet still incredibly moving. Coincidentally, one of the interviews was with Doc Watson (who just died over the weekend) and of course, he talked about losing his son, Merle.
It's worth at least a library read, especially if you have an interest in peoples' perceptions of death and dying. I plan on reading more of Terkel's work, if it's similar to this.

Heard an interview with the author on NPR back in Oct 2011 & finally got around to checking Brandwashed: How Marketers and Advertisers Obscure the Truth, Manipulate Our Minds, and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom out from the library. I've done previous reading on the topic, and I'm not sure I learned anything earthshakingly new, but the material was presented well, with sources and examples galore. I was intrigued to read about the experiment where his company "planted" a family in a typical suburban neighborhood & had them talk up specific brands to test the effects of peer pressure ... and it was chillingly effective! I was also fascinated by the use of mRI's to study what is going on in our brains when we are exposed to advertising. He's not as strident/ ax-grinding as Morgan Spurlock (thank goodness) - more along the lines of "this is how advertising works & why, and what lengths companies will to go in order to get you to buy their stuff." Whether or not that's evil is up to you to decide.
Worth a library read at least if the science of marketing/advertising is of interest.

Have you read Carl P. Wrighter's I Can Sell You Anything? He covers the same ground in this 1970s book. The examples are dated, but I'll betr the spin is the same:

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Sell-An...r/book/148330/

[Khadaji]

June's thread.

[Politzania]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

Have you read Carl P. Wrighter's I Can Sell You Anything? He covers the same ground in this 1970s book. The examples are dated, but I'll betr the spin is the same:

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Sell-An...r/book/148330/

I don't think I have, but will keep an eye out for it - or possibly finally get around to joining PB Swap...