I got 2/3 through In Defense of Food and started getting a bit bored with it, so I’ve put it down for the moment. It is a good read though (I’m bored easily) and I’m looking forward to Part III, where it looks like he has some good suggestions for how to maintain healthy eating habits.
Oh no, I sound like one of THOSE people! :smack:
I got about halfway through Christopher Moore’s You Suckbefore I realized it was a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends. I am such a doofus! The first book clearly explains things referred to in the second, about the old vampire and how he was bested.
Both very good books, by the way. Moore has a wonderful sense of humor,
I finished “The Hour I First Believed.” For the most part, I enjoyed it, though there was quite a bit that could have been edited out of this 700+ page book. I’m starting “Prodigal Summer” by Barbara Kingsolver next.
I also started “The Crimson Petal and the White.” Not sure what I think of it so far, honestly. I’m having a bit of a hard time getting into it. I’m also still listening to “The Almost Moon” by Alice Sebold with two discs left. I’m going to scope out another audio book at the library today when I go to return “The Hour I First Believed.”
For my fellow adult fans of children’s literature, I just finished a great new book, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Set in NYC in the late 1970s, Miranda is a latchkey kid who reads A Wrinkle In Time over and over. While busy trying to navigate the social politics of the 6th grade, she starts receiving mysterious notes from an unknown person. I loved this because it was very simple, very solid writing that ends up creating a fairly complex story.
This is my audiobook this month. I’ve read *Omnivore’s Dilemma *and The Botany of Desire… both of them managed to make me pretty paranoid about my food choices and the food industry in general, but in a good way.
I’m also reading George R.R. Martin’s Fevre Dream, a vampire story set in the 1860s on a grand steamboat. I’m enjoying his treatment of the vampire mythology so far.
My favorite vampire novel, along with Salem’s Lot.
Fevre Dream is the August book of the month at SFF World. Link to the discussion.
I’ve recommended Fevre Dream quite a few times on the Dope over the years, and I’m glad it’s getting some attention. A great, great novel in virtually every way - plot, characters, setting, etc. Bram Stoker meets Mark Twain, kind of. The last chapter is, IMHO, the perfect ending to the book (don’t skip ahead, though, please!). I simply love it.
Right now I’m reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien for I think the fifth time (I seem to come back to it every seven or eight years), and have been enjoying it all over again. As the mythic backdrop to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, it has a tragic, sweeping grandeur that I’ve never found anywhere else. Sometimes all the names get a bit in the way of the story, but I elbow my way ahead anyway.
I’ve also just started Danny Wallace’s Join Me!, a daft, lighthearted tale of how he good-naturedly started a kind of cult and then had to decide what to do with it. So far, so good.
I finished Oliver Twist, which I had started in July. Also read two books by Bradbury: The Homecoming and Marionettes, Inc. Now I’m re-reading The Hobbit until I have time to go to the library to pick up a few more books. Any suggestions?
If you got bored with In Defense of Food, then I don’t recommend Omnivore’s Dilemma. I thought it was an interesting idea, but you can only read about corn for so long. (I really liked In Defense of Food, though.)
I am currently reading: ‘‘From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans’’ by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss. This is required summer reading for my class on American Racism this fall, and I haaaaaaaate it.
The worst thing about it, is that I feel guilty for hating it, because it’s about an important topic. It is one of the single most heavy handed books I’ve ever read. Like, okay, it’s slavery–you don’t really need to add anything to a book about slavery other than the facts in order to get across the idea that it was a horrible atrocity, right?
But no. Every paragraph closes with some variation on, ‘‘No really, guys, African culture was super advanced. Africans were not savages! Slavery was bad!’’ At one point the book even implies that Native American slaves were replaced by Africans because Native Americans weren’t as culturally advanced and therefore made crappy slaves. It intersperses this profound cultural bias with passages full of dry, mind-numbingly boring academic text. Instead of talking in detail about the lives of slaves, or using the words of slaves to paint the picture, it reads sort of like a fifth grade social studies textbook – systematic dissemination of information with no emotional resonance. This is the sort of book where you read two pages and then realize 10 minutes later you’ve been daydreaming.
This book is old; it was first published in 1947, so I guess I can kind of see the need to be overzealous at time in history. But reading it as a 26-year-old social work student in the year 2009 it just seems a bit unnecessary.
I am especially disappointed because the other book I just read as a requirement, ‘‘A Different Mirror: A Multicultural History of the United States’’ by Ronald Takaki was awesome on a stick. Most of the information in that book was relayed using the actual writings of people from that time. It was extremely vivid. I wish I’d saved that one for last.
I just checked my book log, and I finished reading it on July 5th. I had to think very hard to remember the ending. Not a good book.
Right now I’m reading Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong, and trying to force my way through Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon. So far the first is fun, and the second deadly boring. I picked up Twilight at the library today so I can make fun of it properly.
Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a biography of Galileo, with extras! Like mysterious strangers dropping hints about what he should investigate, and 'dreams’of the far future involving the moons of Jupiter.
Very good, so far.
It’s only out in the UK so far, afaik.
Thanks for posting that link… I’ll have to check it out when I finish the book.
I’m reading Spent: Sex, Evolution, & Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller. It’s sort of a slog right now…I think I’m more in a fiction mood this year.
My audiobook is The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, read by Simon Prebble. I haven’t read this before and I’m honestly finding it a little annoying. “The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is the caprice lasts a little longer”…really, Oscar? :rolleyes:
I’m picking up a lot of recommendations in this thread, though…
There were a couple of good scenes in Speaks the Nightbird, one at the beginning and another somewhere in the middle (with a bear). Other than that, the book had way too much to-ing and fro-ing, characters walking up and down stairs, in and out of rooms, this way and that around the village. Fat book, thin plot. I didn’t bother to get the sequel. Before this, I had read everything McCammon wrote. I can see why he had to find a different publisher for it.
Read:
Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas by Morgan Llywelyn ~ Didn’t like it. I’d rather find a bio on Gracy O’Malley aka Gráinne Mhaol instead. Too much postering and “ha HA”-type dialogue.
How Come I’m Dead by Glen McDonald ~ the book that started my forensics obsession. A regular reread for me.
Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman ~ Amazing biography of Jim Jones. It’s scary how some of his tactics paralleled those of the Manson Family and Scientologists. Reiterman was present at the shootout at the airfield where Congressmen Ryan and four others were killed and the description of the night the survivors spent in fear is absolutely chilling. There are also some first hand accounts of the mass suicide by a few survivors.
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle ~ I can’t recall if I read this when I was young so gave it a shot. Wasn’t wowed.
Trick of the Eye by Jane Stanton Hitchcock ~ Fluffy chick read about an artist hired by a rich widow to paint a ballroom and ends up getting wrapped up in a 15 year old unsolved murder. Decent enough for an afternoon at home with some tea.
We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee ~ A family takes a huge financial risk to buy a foundering zoo. I hope he continues to write more as it only documents up to the opening. BBC did a documentary on it but it’s not available here, dammit.
The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World’s Greatest Traveller by Giles Milton ~ Great book! I did not want to put this one down.
Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York by Kenneth D. Ackerman
The Mercy Seat by Rilla Askew ~ did not like this whatsoever. If you like books that are concentrated on dynamics between people (including children that think way above their age level), then this may be for you.
Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood’s Darkest and Best Kept Secrets by Kenneth Anger ~ Trashy! I needed trashy…
Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin
No Touch Monkey!: And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late by Ayun Halliday ~ People that are too trusting/naive just drive me nuts. This book was a bit of an exercise in frustration.
Big Open: On Foot Across Tibert’s Chang Tang by Rick Ridgeway ~ Great read on the search for the birthing grounds of the chiru (Tibetan antelope that are being slaughtered for their wool).
Heir to the Empire (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 1) by Timothy Zahn ~ Yes, my Star Wars geek is showing.
Dark Force Rising (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Book 2) by Timothy Zahn
Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat ~ one of my favourite childhood reads. Still doesn’t disappoint.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Reading:
*The Moonlight War: the Story of Clandestine Operations in South-East Asia 1944-5 *by Terence O’Brien
Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling ~ I’m not liking this at all but will keep on trying.
Yes Man by Danny Wallace
The third in that Star Wars trilogy from above.
A Sundial in a Grave: 1610 by Mary Gentle
Consider me intrigued. Added to my wish list.
I read this and the other one (Out of the Blue) and I consider them two of the best autobiographies to emerge from WW2.
The best probably being either Going Solo by Roald Dahl or Quartered Safe out Here by George MacDonald Fraser - but they are both famous authors (Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fraser wrote the Flashman series).
The Moonlight War is a rare treat - he’s a great writer, with many very interesting things to say.
If you’re not liking it now, I’d advise you to give it up. Dies the Fire is the good book in the series… the others are far more tedious and rambling. It seems Stirling wants to write anthropology textbooks and not fiction.
Out of the Blue is on my list to be read soon because I’ve always wanted to read more on the Chindits. I did add those other two to The List, they both sound great. (I read The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington a couple months ago and it was bor-ring. I’m sure a book BY Mr. Dahl would be much better.)
I’m SO bad at putting down books and force myself to wade through them. I’ll try. 
(I find the characters are so SMUG. End of the world? Bah. I can shoot a bow, I’m fine. eyeroll)
Try My Uncle Oswald, if you haven’t already; it’s a hoot. It’s about:
The cunning and shameless Oswald sets up a business to procure and then sell the sperm of the kings, great artists and scientists of Europe to eugenically-minded rich women. Zany hijinks ensue.
You got that right. I also read The Irregulars and was mildly annoyed that the author made boring what was such promising material.
If you haven’t already, check out “Boy” and “Going Solo”.
An interesting part of Out of the Blue is that the author was strongly of the opinion that Wingate was a dangerous lunatic, and not at all the military genius that his supporters believed him to be - and had some sort of inexplicable charisma that made otherwise intelligent people believe in him.