An good editor certainly would have helped. But to be on the safe side, I’ll avoid the author in the future. One of my biggest complaints is:The presentation of hypnosis is ridiculous. Mind you, it was presented in a way that likely accurately reflected the beliefs at the time, but it isn’t the way hypnosis works (if you accept that it works at all)
About halfway through So Cold the River, by Michael Koryta. If it goes on as well as it’s begun, I will be very happy with it.
I’ve wanted to read Invincible for awhile now. Sounds like a fun premise, but the reviews have been mixed. I’ll be interested to hear your reaction.
I finished Justin Cronin’s The Passage this weekend. It’s one of the big books of the summer and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Many, many people have described the book as “*The Stand *meets vampires.”
In my opinion, it’s over-rated. The characters are flat and many of them are interchangeable. And I think I can finally admit that I’m bored with reading about vampires… all vampires! “Romantic” vampires, scary vampires, brooding vampires… it’s all been done to death.
I thought The Sparrow was not good science fiction, but it was a gripping novel - even though I was annoyed at the ridiculous conclusions that had been drawn about what happened to Sandoz. The sequel is worth reading, but I didn’t like it as well.
So to speak. 
Good, because I’m all vampired-out as well and now I can say, “I heard it was no good.” 
Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand, about a Houston detective trying to find the missing daughter of the late founder of a megachurch (sounds convoluted, but it’s pretty good and gritty). Cover says “A Roland March Mystery”; the author’s web site says it’s the first in a series.
My little seven year old sweetie pie daughter is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She’s decided it’s officially the Best Book Ever!
Well, it is a contender. 
Has she seen either of the movie versions?
Oh, that thrice-blasted donkey-cock sucking blackguard of an overrated hack writer!! He not only didn’t resolve any…single…issue which he opened up in the bloody book, but managed to end it on a not-really cliff-hanger again (goddamn you, man, you **know **we think that all of Manticore’s production will go kablooie now, you’re just not good enough a writer to make several thousand pages and fourhundred make-belief years of preparation vanish without Mesa getting its first licks in!). And what’s more, all the while I’m secretly grumbling about how everyone is either on bloody great joking terms with each other regardless of where in the chain of command they are, or they are a bunch of inept blowhards you couldn’t find their ass if it was waved in a stick in front of them. A thousand frickin’ pages to get exactly one space engagement and now I’ll have to spend something like fifteen bucks on the next volume and lug it with me on holiday so I can get to the juicy stuff…
Not yet. I want her to enjoy the imagery of the book in her own brain first. She’s into Nancy Drew graphic novels, Rainbow Magic books and the Little House on the Prairie series this summer.
My little bookworm. So cute!
Man, that’s the best thing I’ve read all day.
I had never read it, but James and the Giant Peach was one of my favorites from my youth. I did listen to it on tape a few years back.
The 1996 Tim Burton-produced movie is very good, too. Our boys loved it.
Favorite kids’ chapter books in our household:
The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Richard C. O’Brien
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
Captain Kidd’s Cat by Robert Lawson
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
… to name only a few!
Check out Black Hearts in Battersea and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken, my most favoritest from when I was a kid.
Thanks! Can you tell me a little more about them? What most appealed to you about them?
Finished listening to the audio version of The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson. This is one of my favorite books of all time, however, this version was also the worst match of book and narrator I have ever heard. This is an American book, written by a woman, with a female main character, and the reader in this case was David Warner, an English actor who has been in some horror films. He has a lovely voice and I’m sure he would be a great choice for some other spooky novel, but he completely screwed the pooch on this one.
The book itself benefits far more from a silent reading than from any possible audio version anyway, IMO.
I like Shirley Jackson’s funny books about her kids. Horror isn’t my thing, but I really need to read that one.
Jackson’s chilling short story “The Lottery” is a great place to start.