I am currently reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter…interesting so far. I did just read Madness of Angels- it was very good, but it didn’t grab right away the way Neverwhere did. But got better as it went. Also just finished Imager by LE Modesitt Jr and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I just finished Never After, by Dan Elconin. It’s a re-telling of Peter Pan, only with more sex jokes and curse words. (On page 5, I flipped the book over to see if it was really YA…yep). Also, Peter is the bad guy. By the halfway point, I was writing rave reviews in my head, and looked up the author to see what else he’d done. I was shocked to find out he’s a kid! Nineteen years old…well, that explains why the book felt aimed at teen boys. After a great start, the book unfortunately fizzled, but I still added the author’s name to my list of writers I will look for in future.
Currently reading Publish this book : the unbelievable,¹ true ²story of how I wrote, sold, and published this very book³
¹unforgettable, heatwrenching inexplicably profane,
² for the most part
³that you’re about to read
by Stephen Markley.
The premise is dumb, the footnotes are annoying*, but the guy is actually pretty funny. I’ll hang in there.
*Who does this guy think he is, Dave Barry?
Wish you Weren’t Here: The Black Cat Anthology of Travel Humor…
Most travel writing is absolutely crappy…but this is great…features Bill Bryson, Pico Iyer, PJ O’Rourke, Twain, Sarah Vowell…
Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation is very good, although she makes some minor historical errors. She’s even better reading her own stuff, if you can get the audiobook.
I love Bill Bryson. I read his Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe while traveling in Europe.
Hysterically funny stuff if a bit juvenile at times. He gets Florence, Rome, Sorrento, Capri and Paris exactly right.
Finished Geek Mafia. Mostly enjoyed it and never was sure who the con was going to be on until the end. The ending was a little bit of a let down for me, but I will likely read the next one.
The second Benjamin January book was good, very well written. It’s an historical mystery set in New Orleans in the 1830’s, in the middle of a yellow fever epidemic. The ending was terribly gruesome, but otherwise I really enjoyed the book.
I didn’t much like the new Patricia Briggs book, Silver Borne. It’s full of the Fae, which I dislike in my urban fantasy.
I have the new Jim Butcher book, Changes, and I’m trying to decide if I should read that next or save it for an upcoming long plane trip. Butcher would be a good airplane read.
Right now I’m reading a murder mystery called A Matter of Roses, by David Manuel, that is billed as having “a contemporary monastic sleuth in the tradition of Brother Cadfael”. So far I don’t like it very much. The author has a detached writing style with a lot of exposition. He’s summarizing the whole life story of every character he introduces. He’s just set up the murder by giving the point of view of all the suspects when they’ve reached the height of their anger towards a universally disliked victim. Now I suppose the sleuthing will begin, but I find myself not really caring which one of them did it, so I may not finish the book. The “contemporary monastic sleuth” isn’t a very interesting character.
I’ve finished two books over the past weekend. Karl Schroeder’s Sun of Suns is the first book in the Virga series, and it was great fun. The world is this intriguing deep space ‘balloon’, which immediately puts me in mind of Larry Niven’s Ringworld, but there are also elements of steampunk, political intrigues, some very interesting tech ideas. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
I also finished re-reading Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music, which is one of my all time favourite novels about classical musicians. (Parenthetically, I have to throw in the caveat that I mentioned this book to the string quartet with which I have performed, and their reactions were immediate and forceful “Oh, I hated that book! Musicians are nothing like that!” whereas I had been thinking “Yeah, he absolutely nailed how neurotic string players are!” I didn’t say that out loud, however - what’s the point of telling someone they’re a lot more f*cked up than they realize?) Fantastic, loved it, loved it, loved it.
I just started Carol Shields’ The Republic of Love.
For its time, it is actually quite amazingly anti-racist.
In the introductory chapter addressed to the narrator’s son, the author has the narrator, Alan Quatermain, explain that following his experiences in Africa he refuses to use the word “nigger” and “doesn’t like it” when others use it because he now believes that many Black Africans are more worthy to be called “gentlemen” than Whites.
In addition, the love interest for one of the White characters is a Black woman - although the narrator dreads the social consequences. The various film adaptations replace her with a White love interest.
One of my favorite Haggard novels is one of his obscure ones - aside from King Solomon’s Mines and She, he published literally dozens, now mostly obscure - called Nada the Lily, which is written with an entirely African cast of characters (except for the framing naration). Available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1207
FAIL: The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson ~ Made it about a third of the way through before I decided that my time was better spent elsewhere. The book was also in ‘letters written to others’ format which I’m a huge non-fan of.
Finished:
The Last Templar by Michael Jecks ~ Enjoyed and will continue with the series at my usual pace.
Heartless (Tales of Goldstone Wood) by Anne Elisabeth Stengl ~ Weak fantasy aimed at young adults. While I enjoyed most of the characters, the ending was confusing and I lost interest quickly.
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell ~ LOVED this. You can almost hear him narrating this as you read it. I learned that he & Sam Raimi grew up together & didn’t just meet in their field of work.
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews ~ LOVED this. Rambling narration by the main character, Nomi, who lives in a Mennonite community. Her mother & her sister have disappeared and she alone takes care of her absentminded father while acting out in wonderful teenage angst-ridden fashion. I absolutely adored her.
Ragged Dick: Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks by Horatio Alger, Jr ~ I thought this would be a biography or history of the boot black boys but it turned out to be a moral tale of a young boot black who slowly starts to come up in the world due to his honesty & hard-working nature.
Lobster Boy: The Bizarre LIfe and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr by Fred Rosen ~ Very trashy & badly written but sometimes you just need that. True-crime novel covering the murder of a carnival freak show performer.
The Innkeeper’s Song by Peter S. Beagle ~ Enjoyed! Haven’t read any of his other stuff and plan to do so eventually.
Presently Reading:
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier ~ and loving it so far
I tried that, bogged down and put it aside, and then saw the movie. Then I picked up the book again and just raced through it. The movie, although not perfect, opened the book to me tremendously.
Cool, I’ve read several Rumpole stories and I did not know what the reference was.
I’m about halfway through Dead Men’s Boots, by Mike Carey, which is urban fantasy set in modern-day London. I like it.
Game Change, about the 2008 Presidential election.
I also just read Peter F. Hamilton’s two books in his Void Trilogy.
Just finished Tripwire by Lee Child. Fast thriller, with Child’s protagonist, Jack Reacher, in all sorts of situations.
Right now I am reading “Midnight in the garden of good and evil”. If the real people portrayed in the book are just 1/4 as weird in reality as they appear to be in print, Savannah is definitely rich in weirdos! XD XD
I finished Robert Harris’ Fatherland and The Ghost and am about halfway through John le Carre’s A Most Wanted Man. All excellent.
Glad you liked Fatherland! A great book. I’d like to read The Ghost, although I guess the movie hasn’t done all that well since its recent release.
The wife is reading Fatherland now. I liked The Ghost just as much, and our favorite movie reviewer, Roger Ebert, loved the movie; sorry to hear it’s not doing well.
I added the movie to my Netflix and will probably get it next week. 
Just getting into Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking.