I am currently reading The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny On the Bounty by Caroline Alexander, which is extremely fascinating.
I also have a copy of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks, to read on the plane to Ireland in a couple of weeks.
I loved Prep and identified strongly with the main character, so I sprang for The Man of My Dreams in hardback (amazon discount). I’ve just started it and already I am connecting with the characterization of the main character’s dad–he’s just like mine was, with his mood dictating how the rest of us were allowed to act. I also have Saturday by Ian McEwen and Gilead by Marianne Robinson in the partially-read stack.
Pardon me, Marilynne Robinson.
I am reading our very own, Malacandra’s Dreams of Flight. I am really enjoying it so far, I am about 75% of the way through it.
It is a fantasy coming of age story, quite a good read.
Jim
I’m about a third of the way through Robert McCrum’s biography of P.G. Wodehouse. It’s a great read, and I’ll likely be reading McCrum’s My Year Off before the year is out.
Before that, I’d read Meet Mr Mulliner, the seventh or eighth Wodehouse book I’ve read, and which inspired me to read his biography. Prior to that, I’d read and much enjoyed The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins. I might read The Selfish Gene when I’ve finished Wodehouse (the biography, not Plum’s entire literary output).
CQE Primer by the Quality Council of Indiana.
Coupled with Business Statistics by Triola, Mario, and Franklin.
Got to take a test in December. :rolleyes:
I’m enjoying it enough to finish it, but I’m not particularly wowed by it. One possible reason is that that book has been seriously overhyped by now. Another is that I’m not unfamiliar with some of the stuff she’s talking about, since I read a fair amount on plants, gardening, natural history, travel and exploration in pursuit of all of these. Plus, I don’t think the book is particularly well done – it’s repetitive, and not terribly cohesive; it reads more as a series of essays that she didn’t take sufficient time to knit into a single narrative.
Plus, there’s a fake interview of herself by herself at the front, which strikes me as pretty :rolleyes: – esp. since she misspells Nicolas Cage’s first name in it, which just seems careless as hell to me.
So – I’m finishing it, but I’m pretty damn “meh.”
(BTW – never saw the film; may add it to my Netflix queue, may not.)
Re enchantment, Jeffery Paine. (I love the crazy wisdom!)
But I just now finished, A River Sutra.
::::swoon::::
I read the book before the movie was made, so I never saw that part.
Yeah, I think the less hype you’d heard about this book, the more you’d enjoy it. It’s not a bad book, but it’s making me cranky on a number of levels – all of which are probably more about me than they are about the book itself.
I read The Road yesterday, Cormac McCarthy’s new book. It’s about a man and his son trying to survive after an apocalyptic event – probably something nuclear. It’s very bleak but very affecting, and probably the most realistic PA book I’ve ever read. Yes, people will eat people. It’s a given. Highly recommended.
Fury by Salman Rushdie. And the Florida Life, Health and Variable Annuity Study Manual.
Just finished reading In Cold Blood. While I found it fascinating, I was left with the distinct impression that the book could have been whittled down somewhat, as there was a lot of needless repetition. The product, one supposes, of Capote’s anxiousness while awaiting the execution of the killers.
My next project is Bleak House (Darles Chickens). I started it a couple of months ago, but had to put it down for one reason or another. Since I liked what I’d read up to that point, I’ll give it another go.
I got several of Rhys Davies Constable Evans mysteries from the library but could only finish two of them. Somehow the quaintness made me want to puke after two of them in a row. Before that I finished several of Christopher Moore’s novels. That guy is talented and funny.
In a more serious vein, I bought Mark Kurlansky’s 1968 and George Crile’s Charlie Wilson’s War, both on the recommendation of friends. I’m trying to broaden my horizons, I don’t read much (OK, any) non-fiction and these were touted as both very good and very readable. And I haven’t started either one yet, life and sleep have been keeping occupied. :o
Primate Behavioural Ecology. It’s a page turner, for sure.
Dreams of Trespass Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi
Great book, here’s a little synopsis
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/mjiyad/forum/messages/204.shtml
**The Tale of Murasaki ** by Liza Dalby
I like to read two books at once, and alternate between them.
I just finished Scott Smith’s The Ruins and Douglas Preston’s Tyrannosaur Canyon. Loved the former, thought the latter was mediocre and disappointing.
Next up: Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston (again) and Lincoln Child. I have very high hopes for this one. Simultaneously, I’ll be working on Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer. I love Connelly’s tough-cop books, but dunno about his entry into Grisham/Turow territory.
Just started Turow’s The Laws of Our Fathers, with Self-Consciousness by John Updike on deck. A friend moved and purged his book collection, so I ended up with several by Updike, all hardcovers in new condition.
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
I’m re-reading two Star Wars novels and I just checked out a bunch of books from the library as well. I’m reading them two at a time:
Princesses: the Six Daughters of George III by Flora Fraser
Guinistasia, I’m looking forward to reading that, too! It’s on my Christmas wish list. Since I probably won’t get to read it until January, would you kindly spoil it a little for me? Who does Flora Fraser think fathered Thomas Garth? Does she lean toward the Duke of Cumberland or general Garth?
That is so funny to me, because I really really really wish I could manage to read one book at a time, all the way through.
Even more than that, I really really really wish I could stop leaving my books stacked up all over the place.
My sister reads one book at a time…it sits on the table next to her reading chair, and when she is done, she puts it away. That is awesome to me, and something I don’t think I could ever do.