Reading three books now:
The Last Chinese Chef , on recommendations by my wife;
and 1968: The Year That Rocked The World. All are excellent.
I’m about halfway through The Ha Ha by Dave King and I’m really enjoying it. I just finished reading Salt: A World History and I Love You Beth Cooper, both were great. Next up: Botany of Desire.
I do have The Harlequin checked out of the library, but I have been so disappointed in the last 5-6 Anita Blake books, I don’t even know if I’ll open it before it’s time to return it.
Apologies for the hijack. Maybe this will help the Anita Blake fans break their habits. (Shared with permission by the author)
ANITA BLAKE VAMPIRE HUNTER 12 STEP RECOVERY PROGRAM
Step 1 - I admit I am powerless over my addiction to Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels - that my life has become unmanageable as I keep reading plotless, badly edited novels full of body counts numbered not in kills but in how many supernaturals are bedded.
Step 2 – I believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity and help me refuse to be tempted to read or buy the next Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel.
Step 3 – I turn my will and my life over to the care of God. I understand to be a God that loves me and does not wish me to waste 4-5 hours of my life that I will never get back reading an Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel.
Step 4 – I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself and learned that I can live without vampires with drowning deep eyes, floor length hair, peek-a-boo shirts and over the knee leather boots.
Step 5 – I admit to God, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs, which include overlooking plot inconsistencies, mangled French phrases and the unlikelihood of preternatural penii of immense proportions that instantly bring our heroine to shattering ecstasy.
Step 6 – I ask God to remove all these defects of character and help me to never buy another Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel again.
Step 7 – I humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings and not be fooled by cover blurbs saying “Hamilton takes her world by the teeth and delivers another gripping installment…”
Step 8 – I will list all persons I have harmed by introducing them to the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels, and I am willing to make amends to them all. I apologize for introducing them to a series that has slowly, perceptibly and effortfully devolved into crap.
Step 9 – I will make direct amends to such people I have introduced to the series wherever possible by telling them to under no circumstances read beyond Obsidian Butterfly lest they be scarred by images of wereleopards tumbling naked into bed like puppies, Anita acquiring a supernatural power every 60 pages or so, endless and artless descriptions of giving fellatio and/or performing another unsexy and soulless sex act.
Step 10 – I will continue to take personal inventory of why I was initially attracted to this series and hope that these qualities will return. I recently read chapters of the next Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel at a Barnes & Noble. I realize I was wrong for doing so and promptly admit it.
Step 11 – I will seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand God, praying for knowledge of God’s will for me to live a productive life of enjoying novels that bring excitement and wonder instead of novels that leave me feeling duped, used and abused by an author who has abandoned what craft she has for a royalty check. I seek through prayer the knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry out that will and JUST PUT THE NEXT ANITA BLAKE VAMPIRE HUNTER NOVEL DOWN!!!
Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I tried to carry this message to other Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel addicts, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.
…Apparently, I won’t be reading Anita Blake’s works, then.
(I just got through Anchee Min’s The Last Empress, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars. Hopefully going for some more P.G. Wodehouse, next…)
La Reine Margot, like Les Trois Mousquetaires, is actually the first book of a trilogy (though there are less recurring characters in this series as compared to the Musketeer series - in this group of novels about the Valois kings, the last two books are the ones that have the most in common):
La Reine Margot
La Dame de Monsoreau
Les Quarante-Cinq
Not that you necessarily care, but Anita Blake is the character. Laurell K. Hamilton is the author. The first eight are pretty good, but they change direction after that and get pretty ridiculous.
I liked Red Mars and Green Mars, but I didn’t care much for Blue Mars.
I just finished Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog.
OMG, what a great book. I’m a sucker for dog books anyway, but this one was just outstanding. It’s a true love story (in a nice way) between a man and a dog.
Highly recommended.
Yes. In the Introduction at the beginning of my edition, David Coward writes, “The success of La Reine Margot prompted Dumas, in March 1845, to propose two sequels, which would complete a Renaissance trilogy, though they are unconnected save by the period in which they are set and do not pretend to the continuity of the Musketeer saga.”
I plan to read the other two in the near future. As for the Musketeer saga, the only one I have not yet read is Louise de la Valliere. I hope to correct that. Up until about 10 years ago, these types of books were almost impossible to find, but we now have two chains of Japan’s Kinokuniya Book Stores, and they’re really quite good. Unfortunately, books are considered a luxury here and are therefore very expensive, much more so than in nearby countries. Fortunately, I’m a member of the private Neilson Hays Library, which is housed in a beatuiful 19th-centruty French-colonial-style building. That helps.
And I finished La Reine Margot yesterday and will begin the new Harry Potter today.
I’m about two-thirds of the way through The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, a YA fantasy series by Clare Dunkle. The first book is about Kate, a young English noblewoman that the Goblin King is determined to steal away for his bride. It is traditional for goblin noblemen to kidnap their wives in order to strengthen their magic. This practice lead to war with the elves, who at this point are nearly extinct.
It is an engrossing read, but far more horrific and emotionally tense than I was expecting. Kate has to kill people, and Dunkle really shows how awful it would be to be locked underground for the rest of your life with a husband who understands exactly what you’re going through, but won’t change the traditions that continue to provide the goblins with a strong king.
Before that I read Martin Millar’s The Good Fairies of New York, and afterward I’ll probably start The Art of Detection, Laurie R. King’s latest Kate Martinelli novel.
So I’m not sure how the French titles are translated, but the original titles are:
Les trois mousquetaires
Vingt ans après
Le vicomte de Bragelonne
A much-abridged version of the third book has appeared in English under the tile The Man in the Iron Mask.
But I’m unfamiliar with Louise de la Valliere. Is that a fourth book in the series I had never heard of? Or just the title of the complete english translation of the third novel?
Since you mentioned the high price of books, I will add that the text of many Dumas novels can be found online here:
http://www.dumaspere.com/pages/biblio/index.html
Just in case you are reading them in the original French.
No, I don’t speak, or read, French. English for me, I’m afraid.
In the Oxford’s World’s Classics series, the final part of the Musketeer saga was SO long (it was originally published in newspapers in serial form, remember, and Dumas was paid by the word, I believe) that it’s been broken up into three discrete books: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valliere and The Man in the Iron Mask. I’ve read Vicomte and Iron Mask (I don’t know, but the latter could be the abbreviated version you’re thinking of), but have yet to read Louise.
In my copy of Vicomte, David Coward, in the Introduction, indicates this is common for the English translation. So I assume it’s all one book in the French.
Oh, and that was the Vicomte de Bragellone I said I was reading way earlier in this thread. The Man in the Iron Mask I read a few years ago. So Louise is, I guess, the middle part of the single book in French you’ve listed as Le vicomte de Bragellone.
I’m about halfway through In Bad Taste by Massimo Marcone. It’s about his experiences studying unusual delicacies like Kopi Luwak (the coffee that’s eaten by civets before being roasted), Argan oil (made from seeds that have been excreted by tree climbing goats) and Casu Frazigu (Italian maggot cheese). It’s a good read although the style is a bit weak at times.
Prior to that I got hold of a copy of Illegal Aliens by Phil Foglio (Girl Genius, Buck Godot, XXXenophile, etc.) and Nick Pollotta. I’d read it years ago and thought it was hilarious, but had lost my copy so I picked one up on Ebay.
Next…I’m not sure. We’ll see what pops up.
Just started America’s Constitution: A Biography by Akhil Reed Amar. It goes through each little bit of the Constitution and its amendments, why they’re put there, and the history and arguments behind them.
Hoping to get ready for law school, I suppose. Also, I love this stuff.