I’m about halfway through Dominic Lieven’s excellent Russia Against Napoleon, although I suspect its going to give out sooner–I’m reading it on Kindle, and expect that a third of it is footnotes. Very well-written, highly informative, and very even handed about Russia’s participation in all campaigns against France between 1807 and 1814–a very good corrective for British and German/Prussophile studies.
Otherwise, I’ve cracked open David Mitchell’s Boneclocks, which, at about page 80, is highly engaging and while somewhat confusing promises to be a better read so far than the last Mitchell book I read, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet; though in that book’s case, I enjoyed it fine until he shifted perspectives to the Japanese lady and lost me completely.
In on-and-off again reads, I have China Miévilles interesting but not spellbinding Perdido Street Station–will get into this as soon as Lieven is done, I think–and am re-reading Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which is still utterly brilliant. I should have reread this sooner, I think.
Isaac’s Storm is riveting. That hurricane was so insane and in many ways forgotten by most. I’d lived in Houston for years until I’d even heard of it. It seems it’s not as famous as the Great Chicago Fire or the various huge California Earthquakes. I’m not minimizing those, but hurricanes of the Gulf Coast are just…mindboggling.
Missed the edit window:
I finally finished The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I had just finished Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver and I read an article about books that people that work in bookstores always recommend when asked and that was one. I remembered I’d bought a copy at Goodwill* or something and I didn’t think I’d traded it in at HPB yet, so started it. It took me a long time (for me to slog thru it), but I refused to start another book before I finished it.
I really liked it. It was a whodunnit in the sense of: I had NO idea who was the culprit. It was published in 1868.** (According to the flyleaf.) Do I judge on what I think the mores of the time are? Or my more modern sensibilities? But the characters so ended up being in a lot of ways like modern people. (Longer flowery language, and the banking stuff made no sense, but still pretty awesome.)*** Parts were like something like Pratchett would’ve written. (From me–that is high praise.)
*I am cheap as hell, if I haven’t already mentioned it, and a books tend to be crazy inexpensive at Goodwill. After you gag and walk away from all the books that aren’t your style, there are tons of great books. Especially if you’re checking out classics.
**I think it shares it with Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue? The first mystery part.
***It took me four attempts to get thru Les Miserables, but unlike that one, I did not allow myself to read anything else until I finished it.
tl;dr
Liked it. Though I started Kevin Conye’s A Day in the Night of America non-fiction, I think I’ll switch to something a little goofier or easier next.
Thanks for the reccos.
There are at least two, maybe three, of us. I’m… I’m someone who rarely likes an adaptation of something I enjoy. So if I fell in love with the book, manga, graphic novel series, I am unlikely to enjoy the movie/TV series and vice versa.
I see I didn’t make a particularly successful recommendation here. For me, I haven’t read any Connelly yet, so the show makes me want to read the books.
No, it’s me, I know. I didn’t really like the Harry Potter movies either because so many characters didn’t fit my own pictures of them.
YAY! If the TV series makes you curious about the books then that’s to the good!
I bought it some time ago but I finally started Consider Phlebas, the first book in the Culture novels. Never read any of them before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I like it so far.
Even though I’m still reading Toni Kelner’s The Skeleton Takes a Bow, I picked up Christopher Moore’s The Serpent of Venice, his sequel to Fool.
If you haven’t read anything by Christopher Moore, I highly recommend his books. I’ve read all of them (except his graphic novel collaboration, Griff), and they are an irresistible mixture of heavily-researched literary and scientific factoids combined with incredible wit and some sex. He’;s the perfect writer for folks on this Board.
Fool was essentially a retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear, told from the point of view of the Fool. You remember King Lear – one of Shakespeare’s most depressing and awful tragedies? Eyes get plucked out, people get stabbed, there are betrayals and counterplots and virtue goes unrecognized and unrewarded, and in the end the King himself goers mad.
Moore turns that into a hilarious comedy. You have to read it to see how.
The Serpent of Venice is the sequel, filled with glorious anachronisms and mash-ups from elsewhere. It combines Othello and The Merchant of Venice with at least two of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories, and Og knows what else. And that’s just in the first 40 pages.
“Unless otherwise described, assume conditions to be humid.”
I never believed until I read it that I would get tired of the word fuck. I still can’t think of the plot…
Get In Trouble is on my to-read list! Please let us know how it stacks up to her previous collections.
I’m currently listening to The Witch of Little Italy on audio book. It’s a charming little book, nothing amazing but light-hearted and entertaining.
My current fiction pick is A Half Forgotten Song. This one is beautifully rendered. It takes place along the Irish coast, and it’s the story of a woman’s lingering obsession with a famous artist who painted her face over and over when she was a child. The author paints vivid pictures with her words. It’s a lingering story, not terribly fast-paced, so you need to be in the proper mood to enjoy what it has to offer. But if you’re in the mood for something rather poetic and lingering, I would certainly recommend it.
My non-fiction pick of the moment is Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery. It examines the lives of five prostitutes killed by a serial killer and stashed on Long Island, as well as the circumstances of the crimes. It’s one of those books that you can’t look away from. It’s horrible but also fascinating. I will caution that it can get confusing at times, because the author interviews a ton of people, and he will often talk about something Blaze or Missy or Jim said without reminding us who this person is.
I just finished Ruth Rendell’s mystery novel A Dark-Adapted Eye. Right now, I’m reading Anthony Trollope’s Last Chronicle of Barset.
I presume you’ve read all of the other Barsetshire novels. What about the Palliser novels?
Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman.
Just finished The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert A. Wilson
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
Finished Finn Fancy Necromancy, by Randy Henderson. It’s a pretty light-hearted urban fantasy novel – it reminded me a lot of the early Dresden books, or The Rook. The hook, I guess, is that the main character was exiled in the 1980s and has just returned to the present day, so he’s stuck in 80s pop culture.
I’ve read The Warden, Barchester Towers, ***Can You ******Forgive Her ***and The Way We Live Now.
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. It’s entertaining and keeps moving.
I finished Echo Park by Michael Connelly today. WOW! That was a page turner!
I still hate Rachel though;)
I’m about two-thirds through George R. R. Martin’s Tuf Voyaging, an engaging collection of interconnected short stories. For cat lovers!
Finished A Dark Dividing, by Sarah Rayne. There were a whole lot of coincidences and improbabilities going on here, but it was entertaining, so I’m going to try something else by this author.
Next I read Fireweed, by Jill Paton Walsh, a YA novel about teenage runaways in London during the blitz. One of you blighters gave it a great review over at Goodreads, so I had to get it. It was really good, but had some heartwrenching moments (especially from an adult’s point of view). I’m glad I read it.
I’m currently reading The Thief of Always, written and illustrated by Clive Barker. This is a YA book about a boy who accepts an invitation to a magical place…I think we all know how dangerous that can be.