I decided to read the Fold. It is actually a novel in the same universe as the novel 14. It wasn’t as much a sequel as a side-quel. Very good. Clines is very reminiscent of Michael Crichton.
Yeah, I probably should have said kids who like Bellairs would also like The Screaming Staircase. Though so far nothing’s scared me as much as Isaac Izard did!
Oh my God, Isaac Izard!:eek:
For a children’s book, he freaked me the heck out.
I couldn’t get through Exodus, but thought QBVII was really good.
I’m reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell again because of the mini-series. Any excuse…
I’ve been thinking of going back to it this summer, too. And have a look here: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell on BBC America - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
I finished The Screaming Staircase by Jonathon Stroud. The title is a bit annoying to me as the titular staircase comes into the story in the last 75 pages or so. I wonder too if Mr Stroud was writing a book set in England for an American audience as the language of the book didn’t sound very British, there were very few British-isms and the kids sounded very American, not to mention the use of the words cookies, bathroom and the measuring temperature in Fahrenheit instead of celsius.
HOWEVER, I still found the book, slow to start, but a sudden page turner after about page 120 extremely well written. I saw the conclusion coming well ahead of the characters but they’re only 15 or so and I have 35 more years of solving mysteries than they do. 
The kids are well drawn and likeable, even as much as I dislike the “children fighting adults’ battles for them” trope. (Blame Neon Genesis Evangelion for killing that trope for me)
I’m hoping this means that ghost stories, not horror like Stephen King and his ilk, but old fashion ghost stories are coming back into vogue.
Yes, I agree - the world just cried out for a deeper, richer treatment. I get the sense that this author will probably write more novels set in this world, maybe even in other underground cities. If memory serves, Carrie Patel does narrative work for Obsidian, and I can see how that fits; Recoletta would make a good setting for a video game, too.
Just finishing up Warspite by Christopher Nuttall. Was pretty good. I’m thinking of re-reading the 1632 series after this, since there are a bunch of book now that I haven’t gotten too.
I’m right there with you. Love ghost stories above splatter / zombie / ghoulie horror any day. I hear you on the ‘children fighting adults’ battles,’ but the trope here has such an interesting twist with the return of the dead. Stroud knows how to tell a cracking good yarn. Those monks made my blood run cold. :eek:
I just finished it too (and I’ve got the next installment from the library, though I’m not sure it’s next in my pile). These are the sort of books that ensure I’ll always be reading in the kid’s section. 
Ha! That cracked me up. It reminded me of a book I read a few years ago – the protagonist arrives as an outsider to a closely-knit, isolated community, where everyone is nice but seems very secretive. They keep offering him a soothing, local, herbal tea. HE KEPT ACCEPTING IT. Has this guy never read a book?
Did he wake up in a bathtub, surrounded by ice cubes, with his spleen missing?
Was it Harvest Home? I gotta re-read that someday…
I finished The Detachment by Barry Eisler. How does he make assasins so charming and likeable? Another fabulous can’t read this fast enough read.
Up next is The Sandman Vol 1 Preludes & Nocturnesby Neil Gaiman. Shockingly I have reached 50 without reading any of the series…
(I also have the first Johnny Dixon book on it’s way to me, Dung Beetle. I was surprised to find I had all of the original Bellairs books in that series but that one.)
I just finished my car book: Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Also finished Eyes on You by Kate White, the Big Library Read. It was not bad.
And finished a couple of recommendations from here. Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things andKate Milford’s Greenglass House. Glad to have read both of them.
Currently reading a Kurt Wallender, The White Lioness, and have Sandra Brown’s Low Pressure in the car.
I recently finished Barbara Kingsolver’s book of short stories, Homeland and Other Stories. It was good enough to finish, but nothing spectacular and not recommended.
I’m at the epilogue for The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering by Michael J. Sandel. Sandel is an amazing writer, brilliantly cogent and intelligent while still being engaging. This book is good, but I think his other offerings, Justice and The Moral Limits of Marketing, were better.
And I have just started Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger. It’s in the steam punk genre, and I have never dabbled in steam punk, but so far (two chapters in) I completely love this book. It’s about a fourteen-year old girl who does not act ladylike and is sent to a finishing school to learn to be a proper lady, but this finishing school actually teaches, well, espionage skills as well as etiquette skills.
I loved that book! It was really beautiful. Somewhat different from his other stuff, but good. I’ve just finished The Bone Clocks by him, which explained some of the inter-novel connections, but I kind of preferred the mystery before, it was sort of mystical.
I’m about to finish Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which is probably my new favorite book. It’s really immersive, full of characters that seem so human but also cartoonish at the same time. It has everything I could want and more. It’s really fun to read, demanding in a good way. I’m so glad I borrowed it from the library! Everyone should read it 
I’ve also been reading DFW’s essays, like Consider the Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, etc. They’re all… so good. I really wish DFW were still alive, sometimes I see stuff on the news and wonder what he would think of it, or what he would write about it… he’s got a voice like that.
After IJ, I think I’m gonna read a couple books I picked up at a thrift store sale, (everything was 50 cents!). There’s Pet Sematary by Stephen King, which had some cover art that I couldn’t ignore. And something called The Human Touch by Michael Frayn, I have no idea what it’s about but it also had a cool cover.
I just finished **The Keeper of Lost Causes **by Jussi Adler-Olsen and thoroughly enjoyed it. it contained a truly horrible means of murdering someone.
Picked up My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and put it down almost immediately. The seven year old character appeared to be about fifteen and at only a few pages in, the situation was already too ludicrous for belief.
I likewise toyed with The Whole Death Catalog: a lively guide to the bitter end, by Harold Schechter. I usually dig this stuff but for some reason it never grabbed me.
Anyway, I’m just wasting time until I can get to the library, where Joe R. Lansdale’s Paradise Sky is waiting. 
I got The Familiar Vol 1 by Mark Z Danielewski (of House of Leaves fame) from the library in ebook format for my Kindle Fire. I’m 250 pages in and haven’t had a problem at all with it. It definitely would not be compatible with e-ink readers howeve,r, so don’t bother. But if you have a tablet, or Fire, I recommend the format.
If you’re not familiar with Danielewski’s prior work, you might be scratching your head about my above statement. The way he writes and publishes makes the typography an almost additional character in the book. Or it’s just an amazing way of submersing the reader into his world.
I’ll spoil this example to explain his typography usage, but it does happen early in the book, but:
One of the protagonists is a girl who is kind of autistic/OCD in that her inquisitiveness becomes her hindrance. If she has a question she can’t answer or is unknown, it slowly begins to consume her. She’s en route with her father in the car when it begins to rain. She then wonders how many raindrops there are. An impossible question to answer, but she can’t let it go. She thinks of way to figure it out and feels her breath getting shorter, tighter. The font begins to crowd the page. The question begins to repeat itself in slanted form as she tries to crawl out of this mental abyss she’s going into. You can feel suffocation as the print encapsulates everything…
Many chapters in and a lot of characters have been introduced in their own voices. There’s a lot going on, maybe too much. I’ve heard this is the first of 27 volumes. It might be the biggest shaggy dog tale ever made by one human. But so far I’m hooked.