I’m reading A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore and Being Dead by Vivian Velde.
As for recently finished books, I have a new nomination for “You’re kidding, right? They paid them to write this?”: House by Ted Dekker & Frank Peretti. Wow, was that awful.
Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw because of a Dope thread about how some reviewer had ripped Gladwell to bits. Looks like good fun so far.
Just finished rereading the entire Preacher comic series. I can not believe I was reading that in class in 7th grade. Still would like to see this as an episodic HBO or Showtime show.
My old crazy French friend at work Yvette gave me a book that I will start reading tonight but I can’t remember the name. It is a modern retelling of the Rasputin story in Washington DC. The author is a dead white guy who wrote 20-30 books starting in his late 50s. Any clue, anyone?
I am also currently reading Killing the Buddah: A Heretic’s Bible because I just found out my friend Debra has a chapter about her in it.
I too am enjoying the writing of Jim Butcher, I’m working my way through the Dresden Files, so far I’m on book five, Death Masks.
Really good fantasy fiction. Bob the skull is my favourite of the supporting cast.
What a nice thing to read this morning. Thank you for that gift on my birthday. And thanks for the other birthday greetings as well!
Last night I bailed on What the Dog Saw, and started on Peter and the Sword of Mercy, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It’s the fourth in their series of Peter Pan prequels. Ahhh, now I’m having fun!
Lanark by Alasdair Gray; about 50 pages to go. Enjoying it very much so far but am a bit worried about the direction the end is going; I’ll hold off forming my verdict until I’ve finished it.
The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. It is unputdownable.
Happy Birthday, young 'un! 
I enjoyed that myself. It didn’t feel like I had to “plod” through it, but then I read it at home at night during a cold Albuquerque winter while the wind was howling outside, so it was a nice, cozy setting, reading it in my toasty apartment with a big mug of hot chocolate.
Myself, I’m about halfway through Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage and enjoying it immensely. As usual, I should have been finished with it by now, but it seems harder and harder to squeeze in much reading time.
The hero’s sojourns in Heidelberg and Paris: I see that expat communities have changed very little in the past 100 years; I recognize many of these characters. And I caught the couple of brief, unnamed Paul Gaugin cameo appearances, described by the character Clutton as someone he’s met recently in Brittany, and it’s up to the reader to know who he’s talking about; he was, of course, the indirect subject of Maugham’s later novel The Moon and Sixpence.
Where I am now, the hero, Philip Carey, has recently become enamored with the slatternly waitress Mildred Rogers, and this mirrors so very exactly the way farangs (Westerners) over here fall head over heels in love with bargirls. A truly uncanny resemblance. Maugham did, of course, spend some time in Bangkok, but that was long before the days of bargirls. One wing of our world-famous Oriental Hotel, on the bank of the Chao Phraya River that runs through Bangkok, is named for him. And legend has it that Maugham showed up at the Oriental from Burma with a huge dose of malaria and was so sick that the German manager of the hotel insisted he be removed, because he did not want anyone dying in his hotel.
I am working my way through The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and it is great reading. I will surely pick up *Theodore Rex *soon after.
Of course I find Theodore Roosevelt to be one of the most compelling figures in American History and our greatest President.
Yellow Back Radio Broke Down by Ishmael Reed
He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
Astral Dynamics: A New Approach to Out-of-Body Experience by Robert Bruce
Ah, Mildred Rogers. If you can imagine it, Bette Davis portrayed her in the 1934 film version. The film obviously didn’t begin to do the book justice, but Ms Davis sure put a spin on the way I saw Mildred.
I hope you enjoy the novel. He’s got to be one of my favorite authors. I’m actually disappointed I didn’t read the Moon and Sixpence before Of Human Bondage solely to have caught the Clutton reference…
I’m approaching the end of The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory. Fifteen years ago a small mid-West town was hit by a devastating series of illnesses…
Good, if a little bit icky when it comes to the ‘charlie’ mutants’ symptoms and their alleviation!
It feels a lot like a James Blaylock novel, but not so whimsical…
Just started reading Tolstoy’s* War and Peace*, as part of my long going quest of becoming a pretentious twat. It’s started off quite well, though.
Just finished The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss which has a lot of interesting ideas. Many of them not practical for my line of work and the rest of which I do not have the energy to try at this time - but I am glad I read it and will keep it on my shelf.
Finished Nine Gates, the book I mentioned last month. The scope of the original mission has widened and the stakes are much higher at the end of this volume, but it’s building in a plausible way and I like the characters. Looking forward to the next installment.
I borrowed Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld and tore through it in two days. It’s a rousing adventure set in an alternate history/steampunk WWI, with two young protagonists. Because so much of the plot depended on fantastic technology, the illustrations by Keith Thompson were much appreciated. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to predict that girls will like this story as much as boys (it’s marketed as YA). Supposedly there’s a sequel in the works.
I have no books checked out from the library at the moment - what a strange feeling that is! Of course there’s a pile of used paperbacks to read, I just have to decide what’s first.
I tried over the last couple of weeks to read Leon Uris’ Mitla Pass, but I’ve been bored to sleep within 50 pages. This is the first of his books that failed to catch my interest.
It’ll be a flip of a coin that decides if I start Stephen King’s Insomnia or Cell.
Have I mentioned how much I love used book sales?
Well, he was no Washington, but he was pretty damned good. 
I’m reading Dog Eat Dog by Jerry Jay Carroll, the sequel to Top Dog.
Bogey has made it back to this world after joining in a Good v. Evil fight in an alternate world where he encountered various monsters, an angel, an evil wizard, and Satan (who appeared to him as Elvis Presley). It’s a nice mix of fantasy and reality and adventure and social commentary, with some philosophizing about God and why he doesn’t pay more attention to the worlds he created. I’m starting to wish Carroll had written more than three books.