Agreed. I read both, and liked both, although they’re very different books. PM me if you’d like some more time-travel book suggestions.
This might interest you, too: Olive Kitteridge (miniseries) - Wikipedia
I just finished David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, which I liked, but didn’t love. Cloud Atlas was one of my favorite books, ever–genius–and I have read a lot of David Mitchell since then, hoping to recapture what I loved about CA, but not succeeding. Oh well. I also finally figured out that all of his books take place in the same universe, with the same unfolding timeline (and characters from some books popping up in other books, where the timelines overlap).
And now, for something completely different, I just started on Charles Stross’s The Atrocity Archives (which was recommended by someone here on the SD). Also have a new Michael Koryta which I’m excited about loaded on the Kindle, along with Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. And The Martian, which is supposed to be good. Got my X-mas vacation reading all lined up.
Whoa, sounds good. Added to the list!
I finished reading Dickens’s Little Dorritt. I thought it was one of his better books; I liked the story (sort of “Dickens does Trollope”) and the inevitable eructation of plot near the end didn’t offend me too badly.
In my experience the world is divided between “Early Dickens” people and “Late Dickens” people. Which are you?
Out of the Dickens novels I’ve read, my two favourites are probably The Pickwick Papers (early) and David Copperfield (middle?) and my two least favourites are probably Oliver Twist (early) and Our Mutual Friend (late).
I think I see what you’re getting at, though; Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities have a different feel from Nicholas Nickleby and The Old Curiosity Shop.
Well into “Iceland’s Bell”, by the Nobel Laureate Halldor Laxness, written in 1943. A wonderfully fresh romp through ancient Iceland. Kudos to Philip Roughton for his 2003 translation, which turns the novel into beautiful English. Of course, I cannot comment on how true it is to theh original Icelandic.
I’m Late Dickens. His stories improved once he started outlining them. The only early Dickens I really liked was Pickwick–picaresque novels work well when they’re written episodically.
I hated Little Dorrit, though. The character that is. Simpering little twit.
Yeah. And Our Mutual Friend is my favorite Dickens of all time. I’m late; you’re obviously early 
Thank you for the suggestion. That looks good.
That was why I was reading the book. I had it in the house and I wanted to see if the series was worth watching. If the book is good, any movie based on it is usually halfway decent.
I liked her more than Little Nell or Little Em’ly.
Most recently:
Parenting with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fray. I haven’t read a lot of parenting books, but now that my kid is almost 4, I thought maybe I should have a plan, and a lot of people rave about this one. It turned out that in many ways, the authors’ recommendations are very similar to my own parenting style, so that was okay … but I was surprised how condescending the tone of the book is. If this wasn’t a parenting style that came naturally to you, I wonder how it convincing it would be. The finger-wagging style seems like a turn off.
Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxanne Gay. I like this writer a lot, and had been looking forward to this book, and it met expectations.
Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet. This was hard for me to get into at first, but it picked up by the middle, and I ended up very impressed with it. A couple on their honeymoon at a resort discover actual mermaids living in a coral reef. Wacky antics ensue. For my taste, it could have been a little less wacky, but overall, I liked it, and the ending was a home run.
I rejoiced at the death of Emily.
Speaking of death, I finished The Nibelungenlied yesterday which ends with everyone getting stabbed to death, in the finest tragic tradition. It is now my new favorite epic, mainly because of the Tale of Gunther’s Wedding Night (look at the second picture on the wiki link). 
I finished Immortality in Death the third Eve Dallas book by JD Robb. Nothing overly exciting, it was interesting and kept my attention and probably hit all the “buttons” of the demographic she was aiming for. I knew the killer instantly, I took a Godsawful hate to him instantly! 
Just finished the graphic novel Serenity: Leaves on the Wind by Zack Whedon et al. It picks up not long after the movie Serenity ended, taking the main characters in some very interesting new directions, and bringing back some previous “guest stars” from the series Firefly for another look. I liked it a lot.
I took a break from Colonel Roosevelt and am now beginning The West Point History of the Civil War, a big coffee-table type book with lots of text, graphics and maps. So far I’m impressed.
I finally finished **We Are Not Ourselves **and am starting The Secret History by Donna Tartt of The Goldfinch. My father promises it will move along better than **The Goldfinch **did.
Yes, the Brits were quick to ridicule, but I’m not sure they even realize it’s done in a lot of books for their benefit. (Note to Brits: Americans never say “shite.” And I mean never. If you see that, you should just read it as “shit.” And no Texan would call anyone a “bugger” – best just to read that as “bastard.”)
Meanwhile, I have finished 11/22/63, by Stephen King. A fantastic book. Like I said, the only other King I’d read was Dolores Claiborne 20 years ago and was underwhelmed by it. I hear The Stand has a big following. If it’s even half as good as 11/22/63, then I’ll have to take a look. It’s a big too, isn’t it? May be just the thing to take with us later this month, as the wife and I will be taking an extended New Year’s holiday upcountry. (One place we’ll be staying is a stone’s throw from the Bridge on the River Kwai, speaking of blasts from the past.)
In the meantime, some more John Grisham, this time The Summons.
The Stand is indeed very big, Siam Sam, and much more sweeping in scope and with a lot more characters than 11/22/63. Definitely worth a read. My other favorite King books are 'Salem’s Lot (vampires take over a small Maine town in the mid-Seventies) and Misery (an author is held captive by a deranged fan).
I’m reading three books simultaneously.
The Man-Kzin Wars XIII – finishing this up. I’m very impressed by the series, which has been going for over twenty years now. It’s probably a record for a shared-universe series. Larry Niven has been “loaning” the kzinti out ever since he let them adapt “The Soft Weapon” as an episode of *Star Trek: The Animated Series" back in 1973. Other wrioters have been doing variations on his theme without betraying his original conception and without repeating themselves for quite a while.
The New Annotated Lovecraft – I love Lovecraft, and I love Annotated Books. I’ve already read S.T. Joshi’s Annotated Lovecraft, More Annotated Lovecraft and Annotated Shadow Over Innsmouth. Leslie S. Klinger is the King of Re-Annotated Books, have given us new annotated versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula. His newest volume has the blessings of S.T. Joshi, and tries to emphasize different aspects of the stories. There’s a lot here I’ve never encountered before, including early literary opinion of Lovecraft’s work. This is a BIG book (coffee Table Sized, and I’d like to know the people who would put this out on their coffee tables), and over 800 pages long.
On audio, during my morning commutes I’ve taken a break from the endless stream of Clive Cussler novels to read David McCulloch’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. It’s up to his usual high standards. I knew that Samuel F.B. Morse had been a painter before his work on the telegraph, but I never realized that he was a major painter, world famous for his work long before his telegraph work. Nor that he had a long history of inventions.
I finished *The Brothers Cabal *the other day, very happy that it isn’t the end of the series. I’ve really liked these, and while reading this one I found something on nearly every page that made me laugh or just pause to appreciate its cleverness.
Starting this morning on The Gamal, by Cieran Collins. A “gamal” is the village idiot, and this particular gamal is the narrator of the story. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon in that the narrator is a person with mental problems, named Charlie, writing this account for his doctor. However, he’s brighter than that Charlie and none too sweet. The story’s not quite grabbed me yet, but the Irish _______* is interesting.
*What’s the word I want here? Accent, tone, dialogue… bollocks!