Fetchund, I loved Mind of the Raven. I’m sure I drove those around me crazy, because I couldn’t stop piping up with “Did you know that ravens…?”
I’m about halfway through Colleen McCullough’s The First Man in Rome. Great stuff. Go Gaius Marius!
Try her latest–Nineteen Minutes. It’s new this month. I just finished a couple of days ago and it kept me up til 3 AM one night. If you’ve read her other work, I’d compare it to her earlier and better books (IMHO) like The Pact and Plain Truth. It’s a pretty damn good read.
I didn’t care for The Tenth Circle and My Sister’s Keeper made me mad, so it’s nice that she’s finally returned to the good stuff.
As for what I’m reading right now–Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser. It’s so well-written that it’s more like reading a novel rather than a biography.
I’ve got a couple of early American historical novels on the way from Amazon including Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati (it’s supposedly very Diana Gabaldon-esque and I’m not sure why I haven’t read it before now.).
It’s not spring here. It’s jumped into the hot season. Topping 100 degrees every day. But I’m reading sections of the Lonely Planet China guide right now, because we’ll be in Beijing and Shanghai in a couple of months.
I’m glad to hear that, because the first book of hers I read was Plain Truth, and I really liked it a lot, but have not been too thrilled with her subsequent ones. I will definitely check this one out.
I cheated. I’ve been reading Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, a sprawling epic with lots of characters. I finished the first two. I wanted to know how the story ends but I was getting impatient to go on to something else. So I skipped the third book, read the synopsis of it in the fourth book, and then read the end of the fourth book. I might go back and read 3 and 4 properly someday.
I feel a bit guilty for skimming, but the books don’t require deep reading.
Now I’m reading Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb, another sprawling epic with lots of characters. 
Heart-Shaped Box isn’t here yet, dammit.
Finished The RagWitch. Wasn’t too bad, but wasn’t great either.
Started The Stolen Child
It isn’t grabbing me so far.
Neither of the two stories are particularly compelling for me at this time. So far Henry has turned 16 or so and learned the piano (no plot spoiler because I can’t really see a plot yet.) It was recommended to me by someone who used to share books with me, so I will keep trying it, but so far I’m bored.
Got three books for my birthday I’ve read or am reading right now. The first, and most interesting, is Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horvitz. Brillantly funny sometimes, eerily scary at others, but always a highly interesting look in the South’s attitudes on the Civil War (or should that be the War of Northern Aggression?).
Then there’s Stephen Clarke’s A Year in the Merde, which is so-so. Interesting, but gets repetitive in its jokes. Funny most of the time, though. Won’t get the sequel, but I’m satisfying a friend of mine by reading this one, so that’s all for the better.
And finally Kurt Vonnegut’s Man Without a Country, which by the looks of it I’ll finish on the train tomorrow. Great book, much too short. I’ll need to find more of Vonnegut’s essays.
Plus, I’ve just brought home four books from the antiquarian book dealer, one of which is World War Three: August 1985 which I’ve always wanted to read. Looks like the month’ll be interesting.
He wrote a sequel to that a couple of years later, which is worth looking up.
One thing I found interesting about this book was its description of the military action by the US against Grenada. This was years before the actual invasion of Grenada under Reagan. It got me wondering why our military had been thinking about invading that tiny island for so long.
I LOVE this book. I’ve probably read it a dozen times. It’s a great book to just pick up, flip through and start reading randomly. The sheer batshit insanity of the people he encounters is astounding. My favorites were the “bloaters”, the reenactors who have perfected the art of portraying a dead Civil War soldier on the battlefield. They take their, uh, hobby very very seriously. :eek:
I just finished The Greatest Game Ever Played, which is about Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, all those great dead guys, and the 1913 US Open. I like playing golf but I don’t particularly care about reading about it - I loved this one. I’d have read it if it were about the history of paint drying, it was so entertaining. Did you know Harry Vardon invented golf knickers?
And now I’m reading the tenth Stephanie Plum book. Slumming.
I’ve just finished Catch-22 and now I’m reading The Trial by Kafka.
In the spirit of the thread title, I’m currently reading Dragons of Spring Dawning, the final book of the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman.
I’ll check it out. My all time favorite of hers was Perfect Match. I thought the Pact was boring, unrealistic and way too predictable. I loved My Sister’s Keeper (cried all the way through the last part). So I think you and I are on a 50-50 scale.
Try Perfect Match. I liked Plain Truth as well, but having read a number of hers, there’s a pattern that emerges. She seems to write the same book over and over, with new settings each time. So the only thing that keeps me interested is the setting. Plain Truth with the Amish; Perfect Match was law, science, and the Catholic Church.
I liked the first three or four Diana Gabaldon, and fell off the wagon with The Fiery Cross (I think I was on overload); that said, I couldn’t get into Into the Wilderness (which was actually described to me as more Last of the Mohicans). But as above, I think our taste may be different enough that YMWV.
Having said all that, I’m putting off the Plutarch for more “fun” reading, since I don’t think I can handle anything too heavy right now. So I’m rereading Turning On The Girls, by Cheryl Benard. It always makes me laugh.
Just finished a good novel: The Observations, by Jane Harris (first novel by a short-story and screenplay writer). Set in mid 19th-century Scotland, it’s narrated by Bessy, a young woman who fled from Glasgow and ended up as the servant at a crumbling manor house owned by a man of political ambitions and his beautiful wife. There are various odd goings-on as the story – and back story – unfold: the mysterious disappearance? death? of one of her predecessors, ghosts and rumors of ghosts, etc.
It was really well written – the author captures Bessy’s voice wonderfully – and really well plotted – I didn’t see any of the plot developments coming, but none of them seemed arbitrary. Liked it a lot and recommend it warmly.
Oh, that looks wonderful, twicks. Recommendation happily taken.
Also just finished Nineteen Minutes here; best of Jodi Picoult’s books in years.
Currently reading:
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
and
No Applause: Just Throw Money by Trav S.D., which is a retrospective of the vaudeville era
Engines of Tomorrow by Robert Buderi. It’s supposed to be about R&D labs, which Buderi claims are as vital as ever, something I am skeptical about. His book came out in 2000, and is therefore already outdated. It’s good on the history of the major R&D labs, though.
I’m also reading Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson. I’m very familiar with Norse mythology from Bulfinch and Hamilton and Wagner (and comments on him), not to mention misinformation from a lifetime of reading Marvel’s “Thor”, but I’ve learned a great deal from this slim volume.
I’ve just finished the unabridged To Kill a Mockingbird (read by Sissy Spacek!) on audiodisc during my commute, and am halfway through Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which I’d never read.
I’m immersed in Tony Hillerman’s books now - the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mysteries. These are great. The setting, on the American Indian reservation, is fascinating, as are the little details of Navajo culture.
Heart-Shaped Box – I liked it a lot – creepy, nicely paced and plotted with good characterization.
I started Fool’s Errand yet again but put it aside when a new fantasy arrived, The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. The writing is full of energy and humor, which there isn’t enough of in epic fantasy these days.
Amazon sent a gift certificate so I ordered Soldier of the Great War, koeeoaddi’s guaranteed good read. Observations has been put on the wish list. Thanks, Twickster – it sounds good.
I did too, and I’ll be picking up Twentieth Century Ghosts this weekend at the library, though I don’t know how quickly I’ll get to read it. If I enjoy it, I may start buying Joe’s books. Owen’s I didn’t care for as much.