Mike King:
I probably have that collection; may have already read it! (The names of many collections are very similar). I’m at work and will check when I get home. Who is the editor? I’ve cleaned out more than one antiquarian bookstore for SF and horror anthologies.
I’m reading three at once right now (well, not at once–alternating between books):
Hearts in Atlantis, the new Stephen King collection of stories about the Sixties;
The Origin of Species by Darwin–this one is a re-read;
The Course of Irish History, edited by F.X. Martin and T.W. Moody.
Mike King said:
I’m also a big fan of alternate history and plan to check out the three-part series you are reading.
As far as the editor’s name, I’ll have to check and get back to you. I just got through the ninety page introduction by the editor discussing historical determinism, Marxism, and what he called chaostory (chaos in history). So far, I’m enjoying it, even though I haven’t gotten into any alternate histories yet.
D’oh
Eden–
I didn’t see the documentary of the IMAX film, but I did see the IMAX film itself. In it, they did interview Beck Weathers and a few of the others. What’s both fascinating and horrifying is they showed footage of their team trying to encourage Rob Hall (the man whose wife was pregnant) down off the summit. As we remember, he didn’t make it.
The book is simply amazing. Into The Wild is a good book, but Into Thin Air is breathtaking. I’m going to buy a hardcover copy and read it again next, I think.
“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!”
“English? Who needs that? I’m never going to England.”
Wow, dont any of you read just for fun?
Books about fusion, russian economy…
Um…Er… I am currently reading Homeport by Nora Roberts. (romantic fiction)
I’m reading:
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells - My book club’s September selection. Love it, love it, love it!
Pack of Two by Caroline Knapp - I read Drinking: A Love Story by the same author (they’re both memoirs) and loved it, so decided to pick this one up. It’s about her relationship with her dog and I’m a fanatic dog person, so I’m absorbed.
The Runner’s Handbook by Bob Glover, Jack Shepherd and Shelly-lynn Florence Glover - Recently started running again and I needed a reference.
Live Nude Poems by Matthew John Conley - Unpublished book of poems by a friend of mine. Raw, honest poetry from the soul.
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt - Not too far into this one yet.
Most common question I ask: “What?”
Most common question I get: “Are you really hearing impaired?”
I’m re-reading Dashiell Hammett’s THE MALTESE FALCON. I picked up the Library of America omnibus of all five of his novels over the weekend, and realized I hadn’t read it through since I was a teenager.
Damn, he’s good. If he’d written directly for the book market instead of the pulp magazines, Hammett would have the same literary reputation as Hemingway. THE GLASS KEY is up next.
Uke
My life has been so hectic recently that I haven’t been able to get to the library; and so depressing that I need comforting reading material – so, I’m re-reading Anne McCaffery’s Pern series. I’ve read them all many times, but this time (just to make it interesting) I’m reading them in chronological order instead of in publication order. I’m about halfway through – hopefully by the time I’m finished things will have improved to the degree that I can choose something a little more challenging next!
Jess
Full of 'satiable curtiosity
Canthearya - If you haven’t read Rebecca Wells’ “Little Altars Everywhere” try that one too.
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My books have habitats:
In the bathroom; Philip K. Dick’s THE DIVINE INVASION. Neat interpretation of God v. Satan with God as the underdog.
On the bedstand, idle; SOUTH, the story of Ernest Shackleton’s 1912 Antarctic expedition.
On the bedstand, recently complete; FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, a thin novel about a man whose surgically increased intelligence fades back into retardation. I was about floored when the newspaper articles about increasing mouse intelligence appeared… and nobody referred to this book !
On the coffee table; GOODBYE DARKNESS, an autobiography by the great biographer William Manchester. Brutal memoir of a Marine in the Pacific during WWII.
On my desk: SLC-500 and MicroLogix 1000 Instruction Set Reference.
Sigh.
Finishing up The Honourable Schoolboy (I’ve been on a John LeCarre kick).
Just finished The Longest Day.
I’m reading my daughters Charlotte’s Web a chapter at a time this week, which has been an evocative experience, since this was the book that spurred my interest in reading when I was their age.
SuperNerd-
Read all of Robbins stuff. He is my favorite author. As is Vonnegut (sp? Sorry Kurt) As for everything Robbins wrote being a rough draft…well I can’t quite agree with that. I think all of his books had different points,although all had to do with personal freedom. Email me if you want to discuss it more! I love to talk about Tom Robbins!
AuntiePam, Trumpy, Gaudere-
As for Orson Scott Card’s Homecoming saga. It is a terrific series but, the names are incredibly hard to pronounce…by the end of the book everyone was Fred and Bob and Martha and Sue!
But highly recommended nonetheless.
I’m currently reading Lay This Body Down: The 1921 Murder of Eleven Plantation Slaves by Greg Freeman, one of the posters on the SDMB. Publisher’s note from www.bn.com :
Excellent book. I’ve been getting agitated every time I read a section, but now I’m about to start reading about the trial where John Williams will (I think) get his comeuppance. BTW, it’s a true story in case you haven’t figured that out yet.
Ike-
I know a guy who lives in the apartment where Hammett wrote the Maltese Falcon; the apartment he used to create the scenes in the novel. Funny place, and not much of a neighborhood these days… but when he has people over, the women too often tend to all be redheads. Something about the location? If you are ever in SF, you can see it yourself… he likes showing the place off.
The reason gentlemen prefer blondes is that there are not enough redheads to go around.
Sass,
One of the authors I work with is arguably the leading Hammett expert…he’s an old Frisco hand who worked as a private eye/repo man himself back in the '50s and early '60s, then turned to writing novels (a real drop-off in the glamour department, if you ask me).
He’s stepped off most of the city according to the FALCON; when I visit and we’re strolling or driving around, he’s always jerking his index finger at one or another building and saying “THAT’S where Spade’s office was!” “THAT’S the hotel where Joel Cairo stayed…he had tickets for the Geary Theater, remember?” “THAT’S the place where Brigid O’Shaughnessy rented the apartment after her hotel room was burgled!”
Is the apartment on Bush Street? I vaguely remember this guy telling me that that was where Spade’s digs were.
I’ve always been impressed that the city of SF put up that little plaque on Burritt Street, commemorating the shooting of Miles Archer…
BTW, did you see the thread about the Amundsen statue in Golden Gate Park over in GQ? I was waiting for a San Franciscan to give the REAL answer!
Uke
I’m reading “Ireland”; which is, unsuprisingly, a history of well, Ireland.
Mostly about the 1916 uprising.
We have met the enemy, and He is Us.–Walt Kelly
I’m reading ‘Crime and Punishment’ for the 3rd time- hopefully this time I’ll be able to figure out what’s going on in it. Also reading the ‘Foundation Pit,’ by Andrei Platonov. Also ‘War and Peace,’- buyer beware, it’s not a ‘beach book.’ 300 pages in, I still have no idea what’s going on.
I’ve been reading ‘Infinite Jest,’ by David Foster Wallace since August of 1999. It’s a really good book, but it has a lot of big words AND endnotes (with footnotes to the endnotes) and general wierdness that gets one over-involved with it, so I can’t really pick it up during the school year.
Life is short. Make fun of it.
Listening to INTO THIN AIR on tape as I walk to and from work every day. Dividing my reading time between ELEGANT UNIVERSE by Brian Greene and Montaigne’s essays as translated by Donald Frame. Also, I just checked out Borges’ OTHER INQUISITIONS, but haven’t yet looked at it much. Favorite author: Bruno Schulz.
I’m in the middle of three different books right now.
Hearts of Atlantis - Stephen King’s newest book, just came out about ten days ago and I bought it the day it came out. I’m actually reading it for the second time. I’m a very fast reader, can read a 500 page book in about four hours, but I end up missing a lot of things when I speed read like that, so I read it again and pick up what I might have missed the first time around.
I’m also reading “Phantom” by Susan Kay, which is the whole background behind the “Phantom of the Opera” story. His childhood, his days as a circus freak, his days as a hired murderer for a Persian Shah, and the whole story behind the building of the Paris Opera House. Of course, it’s all fiction, but it adds whole new dimensions to the character and his motives and reasoning behind the things he ends up doing in the play.
I’m also re-reading “Desperation” by Stephen King. I think I’m going to have to buy “The Regulators” in order to understand the story (both books have characters and plot lines that intermingle in the two books, which Stephen King often does with his books).
Shadowfox
Kellibelli - a fellow romance reader! I’m currently reading “Secrets of the Night” by Jo Beverly.
Roachman -they made “Flowers For Algernon” into a movie called “charlie” many years back, and they probably didn’t mention that either. Good book BTW.
Someone else mentioned having enough books to last a lifetime - how do you do that? I have about twenty feet of bookshelves filled just with paperbacks that I have read at least once and intend to read again. I’ve probably sold off three to four times that many just in the past few years.
If I had enough books to last the rest of my life, the place would look like a friggin’ library.