Right now I am in the middle of Unfit for Command, while also re-reading SM Stirling’s Island in the Sea of Time trilogy.
Yes, I’ve read that, and it’s sequels. Sir Apropos was pretty funny. The second, The Woad to Wuin, was good, but not quite up to the first. The third one, Tong Lashing, was not nearly as entertaining to my mind, so the series kind of went downhill.
I really liked Sometimes a Great Notion. The Northwest was a mythical place of tall trees, mountains, and mist when I read it, so it’s images really stuck with me. It wasn’t obvious to me that Kesey was under the influence when he wrote it.
I’m about 3/4 of the way through A Man in Full. I like it, although his central character, Croker, so far is too cartoonish. The various threads are beginning to come together though, so it’s getting better.
That would be Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full
This is my current pile (I also have a list of stuff to get after this). A lot of these books are “recommendations” from the banned book list. And as you’ll also notice, most of them are children’s books, which I love. I tell myself that I’m making up for all the things I wanted to read as a child, but Mom made me go to bed! Even if they hadn’t been written back then.
**Miss Julia meets her match ** Ross, Ann B. Just finished. It’s an unusual sort of book for me, but for some reason I really like the Miss Julia books. Not as romance-novel as it sounds.
**The haunting of Granite Falls ** Ibbotson, Eva. Halfway through. I like Eva Ibbotson’s books for my kids, but they’re too silly for me to really dig them myself.
**The Great Brain ** [sound recording] Fitzgerald,John D. I’m introducing the kids to this series. Some of the most enjoyable books you will ever read.
**On account of darkness and other SF stories ** Pronzini, Bill. He also writes westerns and detective novels, but I prefer his scary stuff.
**The wish giver : three tales of Coven Tree ** Brittain, Bill. I have no idea where I got this recommendation. If you see something on my list that you’ve recently mentioned in Cafe Society, you’re probably the reason I’m reading it.
**Borderlands 2 : an anthology of imaginative fiction ** Monteleone, Thomas F.
The very worst thing [sound recording] Hayden, Torey L. Her first foray into fiction. We liked it.
**Slow motion ** Shapiro, Dani.
**The face on the milk carton ** Cooney, Caroline B.
**The goats ** Cole, Brock.
**Godless ** Hautman, Pete
**The great Gilly Hopkins ** Paterson, Katherine.
**On my honor ** Bauer, Marion Dane.
**The agony of Alice ** Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
**Blue highways : a journey into America ** Heat Moon, William Least.
**The view from the cherry tree ** Roberts, Willo Davis.
**Julie of the wolves ** George, Jean Craighead
**We all fall down ** Cormier, Robert.
**Fade ** Cormier, Robert.
**Beautiful child ** Hayden, Torey L.
**Ordinary people ** Guest, Judith.
**The bluest eye; a novel ** Morrison, Toni.
**The kid : what happened after my boyfriend and I decided to go get pregnant : an adoption story ** Savage, Dan.
**Native son ** Wright, Richard.
I read that one several years ago, when it was new in paperback. IIRC, the threads start coming together, it seems to be going somewhere interesting, and then it goes somewhere brain-crushingly idiotic. The equine porn section of the book was quite memorable though. Oh, and Tom Wolfe’s attempt at writing hip-hop lyrics. So, uh, happy reading. 
I just finished reading the graphic novel *The Golden Age * by James Robinson. Next on the list are Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country–And It’s Time to Take It Back by Jim Hightower and America (The Book) : A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction by the staff of The Daily Show.
Currently, I am 3/4 of the way through **Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All ** American Meal. Wow! I will never eat at a McDonald’s again! If even half the information is true, this is a very disturbing industry.
Next on the list is another Captain Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novel by Patrick O’Brian, The Reverse of the Medal.
I just finished Harlan Ellison’s unproduced script for I, Robot. I found it highly overrated and almost certainly unfilmable, but it was a pretty darned interesting read.
Right now I’m reading Fredrick Pohl’s The Space Merchants as part of my research for a screenplay I’m writing. It’s alternately dated and timely. I don’t know how I missed it in my voracious science fiction reading phase.
I’ve read most of Sedaris’ books, and, in my opinion, NONE are as funny as Me Talk Pretty One Day. (Which is not to say the other aren’t funny – they are! But when I read Me Talk Pretty One Day on an airplane, the other passengers were concerned for my health, based on my stifled gasps, shuddering shoulders, and the tears rolling down my cheeks. I finally reasurred them that it was a mere fit of stifled, uproarious laughter, and not some kind of ebola virus.)
I’m fairly close to finishing up Eric Lustbader’s Mistress of the Pearl trilogy that-should-have-been-one-book. After that I want to hit Ursula LeGuin’s Changing Planes. One of these days I’m going to get to Infinite Jest. I’ve had the book for years, but it’s so scary to read. It has footnotes, and it’s the size of my DSM, but without the handy outlines and charts. :eek:
I just began Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt, and we’re finishing up the Odyssey in one of my classes.
I have Vanity Fair on the table, along with Dante’s Purgatorio and re-readings of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Travels With Charley, and maybe On the Road.
I need to run to Acres of Books again to pick up some stuff I’ve been wanting to read. Last time I had to rush through because my parking meter was running out, and the bookstore is like a warehouse - you can’t really rush through it with a clean conscience.
I’ll bet you read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. I read that myself many, many years ago. I may have to re-read it though. From what I recall, Wolfe comments about Kesey’s writing “Notion” and says it was primarily about Hank Stamper defying the logging union. Wolfe insisted Kesey’s novel got bashed by the “liberal press” who were livid because of Kesey’s portrayal of the union as corrupt and shady. But I’m 300 pages into it, and thus far this has been a minor subplot to the main story - about Hank & his brother Lee. Is this an example of Wolfe’s own anti-leftie /anti-union bias?
I just finished John Sandford’s latest Prey book (I’ve lost track of the names). It was okay but not as good as his best.
I’m at the beginning of Vonnegut’s Hocus Pocus. I’ve liked everything I’ve ever read by KV.
I’m trying to read A Confederacy of Dunces but honestly I can’t stand the main characters so far and none of the narrative has struck me as overly inspired. I’m on the brink of tossing the book under the couch and forgetting I ever bought it. (If you’ve read it and think there’s good reason for me not to do this, please let me know.) I can’t believe (so far) that it won a Pulitzer.
Lastly, I’m trying to finish The Botany of Desire, as well as A Debt to Pleasure. Both are going more slowly than I’d anticipated.
I’m making my way through The System of the World, but that goes on the back burner today.
In the mail, there arrived Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal plus a new novel by Christopher Moore The Stupidest Angel (subtitled, “A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror.” I also discovered that the copy of Jasper fforde’s The Well of Lost Plots that we ordered showed up a couple of days ago.
That’s going to keep me very busy. Luckly, they’re all fast reads.
I love this book. I lived in New Orleans for awhile, so I could picture the places referenced. I swear I knew some of those people in the book (even though it was written over 20 years before I lived in the Crescent City. I think they must have been the same barflies and eccentrics that John Kennedy Toole encountered, and they simply hadn’t changed locations (or barstools) in 20 years. And there was more than one Ignatius J. Riley wandering the Tulane campus, so I feel a little nostalgic towards the character.
I loved this book. I’m a gardener, though, so I’m a big fan of Pollan’s.
I agree with you. I had heard great things about the book, but I was disappointed when I finally picked it up. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but yeah, I’m surprised that it won a Pulitzer Prize. I supoose it does represent New Orleans well (I have a lot of family in Nawlins, so I’ve been there many a time) - I can see Toole sitting in a French Quarter coffee house and taking notes on the Big Easyans walking by - but I just don’t find the book very compelling or funny.
Currently I’m reading The Dick Cheney Code by Henry Beard (yes, it’s a parody of Dan Brown’s The da Vinci Code, which was an exciting story but terribly, terribly written—like all of Brown’s books. But they’re strangely hard to put down, for all the bad writing.)
Commodify Your Dissent also, which is a collection of essays from The Baffler, compiled by my new political and cultural hero, Thomas Frank.
Most recently I finished What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank, which is subtitled How the Conservatives Won the Heart of America. This book made Frank my hero. Before that I read Les vacances du petit Nicolas by René Goscinny. I don’t know if these are available in translation, but they’re funny as hell. Reading Goscinny is reason enough to learn French!
I recently reread Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe, all three volumes, which is wonderful, and I can’t wait for the fourth!
I’ve put aside Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary until after the elections, because I can’t force myself to read anything but political stuff for the time being. I pick at Michael J. Holt’s History of the American Whig Party from time to time, and I’ll probably throw myself into it completely after the election’s over and elections don’t dominate the news, giving me nothing to fret over anymore.
I also read The New Yorker all the time, which is the greatest magazine in the history of the universe.
Interesting Story on this one. Willo Davis Roberts originally wrote it as an adult novel but her publisher asked her to rework it for a young adult audience. That began her YA novels.
I like children’s lit a lot-- The plots seem more original & varied to me than much of the adult genre fiction.
Just got through Garth Nix’s Sabriel and Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass series.
Also read Lemony Snicket’s The Bad Beginning. I think the reason I didn’t enjoy it is because I don’t really like gothic lit.
I haven’t read The Great Gilly Hopkins, but I love Katherine Patterson’s writing. She’s the daughter of missionaries, so perhaps her growing up outside the States helped her have such a unique voice. If you like Katherine Patterson’s writing you might want to check out Cynthia Voigt’s & Madeleine’s L’Engle’s books as well.
If you like Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves, you should read My Side of the Mountain. It will make you want to go camping.
Judith Guest’s Ordinary People was good. It was hard not to compare it to the movie.
singersargent, I don’t know how much I would have gone for the Lemony Snicket books myself if I hadn’t started them as audiobooks. Tim Curry reads most of them, and he has the most sexy wonderful voice. I think it was a big part of getting me and the kids hooked.
Re: My Side of the Mountain. I read it as a kid, and I believed every word of it. It was my dream to run away from home one day and live in a tree, only Florida is too far from the mountains. 