I’m reading Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. It was very hard to get through the first few pages, where the young girl narrator describes how she was murdered, but it is exquisitely written.
Rereading Tom Robbin’s Fierce Invalids Home From Warm Climates while also trying to get through Guns, Germs, and Steel. I feel like every other professor on campus assigned that book but mine, so I felt left out of the loop.
Shirley: Lamb (The Christopher Moore book) was hillarious! I just finished it! I’m waiting to read his new-new one, when I can wrench it out of my boyfriend’s hands.
I’m now on Ghost Riders by Sharon McCrumb and next up is The DaVinci Code. I know I know, but I have to read it to know how to argue people down about it!
So far, yeah I do.
Im reading Dreamcatcher by Stephen King and Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, I cant get into either of them though. Im also rereading LOTR, my all time favourite!
Ach, you would ask.
I’m in the middle, and so far only the first story (the Antarctic traveler) has stayed with me. Even reviewing the synopses in the index doesn’t help bring those other stories back.
The stories are entertaining enough and none of them are bad, but they’re not very memorable.
I’m about finished with Return of the King (my first time through the trilogy and it’s taken me forever but I love it!) and so I plan on taking a trip to a used book store tomorrow to pick up a book or two to read to keep me busy until The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket is released in September.
I’m nearing the end of Hamlet, which is on my summer reading list for Honors English 12 next year. I’m surprised by how much I’m liking it, actually. After that, I’ve gotta read The Odessey, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf,, and re-read A Tale of Two Cities, and Wuthering Heights.
I’m reading Charles Van Doren’s A History of Knowledge for a class. It’s slow-going and I have a lot of nits to pick, mostly concerning the lack of mention of almost anything that isn’t connected to western civilization (in a chapter solely about describing several world religions, Hinduism doesn’t merit even a mention?) and the mix of opinion and fact. If I wanted a personal judgment on Aristotle, I could come up with one on my own, thanks, just give me the facts.
But it could be worse, I guess.
Currently rereading Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, which is about some of his visits to Australia. Like all his travel books, it’s lots of fun and very interesting.
And it makes me very much want to visit Australia some day!
As usual I have several on the go, leaving out the technical books such as Practical PostgreSQL which I tend to dip and skim for my needs rather than read though.
Iain Pears Dream of Scipio - 3 parallel stories from different eras, roughly 500AD, 1200AD, 1900AD
Tim Flannery ** Eternal Frontier** - an ecological hoistory of the North American continent since the dinosaurs.
The pelican history of music
And unusually, no light SF/detective reading going right at the moment. Perhaps I will have to re-read all the Miles Vorkosigan or Honor Harrington novels again… (Yes, I did say re-read again).
“What Should I Do With My Life?” by Po Bronson
Just finished Brave New World by Huxley
The Callahan Chronicals by Spider Robinson
Short Story Collection: The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner by Sillitoe
Currently: Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye, and Kafka’s Metamorphosis and other Stories. I’ve really just started both, but hey, can’t really go wrong with either, right?
Plus I just recently finished Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Douglas Adam’s The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. Rushdie was good, but Teatime was pretty much a mess. Largely blathering instead of humorous, a tedious setup to a punchline Adams barely remembered to include.
Finished in the past week -
To the Nines - Janet Evanovich
Hidden Warrior by Lynn Flewelling
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
A Man to Call My Own - Joanna Lindsey
The Probable Future - Alice Hoffman
Currently reading…
Children of the Lion - Jennifer Roberson
The War of the Flowers - Tad Williams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Toole
Six Wives - The Queens of Henry VIII - David Starkey
What your 6th grader needs to know - E. D. Hirsch
Greg Keyes’ The Briar King
Two books on Jams, Jellies and Preserves
The Ring of Five Dragons - Eric Lustbader
Yeah, I got books stashed everywhere!
I just started The Element of Fire, by Martha Wells. She’s a new author in fantasy who’s extremely talented at fast-paced, complex plotting with lots of political intrigue.
I’m also working on Machiavelli’s The Prince. A truly eye-opening book, I don’t think I’ll ever look at politicians or business leaders quite the same way again.
I was just as surprised by parts of it as you were, but then again my twenty years in the South were mostly spent in suburban areas, rather than rural. I do know that in the city of Lexington, Ky. (pop 250,000) the local organization for supporting confederate memorials and such is constantly holding protests, but they only seem to have about ten members.
“As Meat Loves Salt” by Maria McCann. Jacob Cullen is our unusual narrator, a rapist and murderer who tries to flee his own insanity and is rescued by Ferris, a soldier in Cromwell’s New Model Army. After a few gory battles, they decide to go AWOL and start a utopian commune.There’s a BIG shocker or three about half-way through the book, and the protagonists are utterly fascinating.
“Preacher: War in the Sun” by Garth Ennis. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Awesome, awesome, awesome. Herr Starr becomes one of my favorite characters with this one, and he has all the best lines. I quote:
General: “I’ve begun to take a strong dislike to you.”
Starr: “I don’t care if you like me, loathe me, or masturbate screaming my name.”
“The Speed of Dark” by Elizabeth Moon.
Addictive.
You might like Rohinton Mistry’s books, A Fine Balance and Family Matters. They’re both set in India and really delve into the culture. The first one covers about 40 years in the lives of four people who end up living together in unusual cirumstances, and the second covers a long period of one family’s life. Fascinating, both of them.
The Magician’s Assistant by Anne Patchett. One of my favourite books.
Naked in the Promised Land by Lillian Faderman.
Lyllyan, how are you liking this series?
I just started this one last night. It was great, being back in that world again. It was only a few days between finishing The Bone Doll’s Twin and getting The Hidden Warrior in the mail, but I was dying to find out what happened to Ki and to get Tobin’s reaction to you-know-what, and I really missed being around those people.
What a great series! I wonder how long it will be for the third and final book.