Don’t Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball. I really liked this guy’s bio of Josh Gibson, so I hunted up this one of Satchel Paige. Has some of the same photographs in that de rigeur center photo section biographies have.
Just finished Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre and liked it. It’s a fast-paced detective story set in Edinburgh. I think it’s the first of a series, but will be picking up more from Brookmyre in any event.
Just started Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence.
I finally finished Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed last week, which took longer than I expected thanks to schoolwork and hellish finals. I’m still wrapping up finals but am trying to decide what to jump into next. I have a whole bookcase of things “to read” that I picked up supercheap at the used bookstore, and I usually browse through until I get a “feeling” about something. The two that I am trying to decide between right now are Atonement and The Historian. I really need to catch up on my modern lit.
As for Good in Bed I was surprised at how well-written it was. This book is usually hailed as the definition of “chick lit,” implying insipidness and corny writing, but I found it very well-written. It was the first “chick lit” book I’ve read in ages where the dialogue didn’t make me want to stomp down the main characters. There were some intense moments that hit close to home, too, such as Cannie’s upbringing. Plus, the setting was in my hometown of Philly, and the author name-drops some great restaurants and eateries; I squealed with happiness when my favorite Center City restaurant, Dmitri’s, was mentioned. I thought that place was a secret!
Finished The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 2). It was much slower than the first in the series and if I didn’t already own the book 3, I may not have chosen to continue the series. (Originally I picked up book 3 in the bargain books bin and that is why I purchased the first two.)
Having said that, it picked up in the last third of the book and overall it was not bad.
Ooo, you’re in for a treat. But I cannot urge you strongly enough to get it as an audiobook. As good a writer as Sedaris is, his reading of his own material makes it 200% better.
Over this weekend, I finished two books. William Styron’s The Suicide Run is a posthumous collection of several short stories (one of which is so short the afterword calls it a “vignette”) about his service as a Marine officer late in WW2 and during the Korean War. There are no combat scenes in it; it’s all about his fear of being killed and his dissatisfaction, as an intellectual and an aspiring writer, with the Corps mentality. Worth a read.
I also finished Barlowe’s Inferno, artist Wayne Barlowe’s nightmarish depiction of what Hell looks like - plenty of horrific beasts, scary cities and deformed souls. Dante and Lovecraft fans will enjoy it.
I am currently enjoying a fascinating book by the name of War Trash by Ha Jin. It takes place in a prisoner-of-war camp…in South Korea, 1952. The camp is run by the American army and the POWs are Chinese and North Koreans. So far, very good.
Started Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett. Love Barrett, but do not love books set in the frozen Arctic. It’s cold enough in Cleveland, thank you. So far my love for Barrett has overruled the descriptions of “Esquimaux.”
I’m about two pages into The Knife of Never Letting Go. I don’t usually like science fiction, but someone made this sound interesting.
I enjoyed “SantaLand Diaries”, and I liked “Dinah, the Christmas Whore”, which I’ve read before in another of his collections. But I didn’t like the other four purely fictional stories at all. They’re the first non-autobiographical pieces I’ve read from Sedaris, and I was really disappointed in them.
I really, really liked that book. Have you read The Terror by Dan Simmons? It’s about the Franklin Expedition, with a supernatural touch. I read both books in winter, and they made me feel better. No matter how cold it gets in Iowa, it’s colder in the Arctic.
I finished Good Omens. Very clever and funny.
Next up is Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin. I think a Doper recommended it, and said it was much better than the movie. I’ve read Property by Martin and liked it, so I have high hopes.
I’m finishing up Stephen Clissold’s In Search of the Cid, because I always wanted to know more about him. I’m cheating and re-reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Riverworld on the side, when the history gets to be too much.
After that, I’m finally going to read James Kakalios’s The Physics of Superheroes(The Spectacular Second Edition!), which Pepper Mill got me for my birthday.
It might answer the questions raised in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=543257&highlight=Superman
I read half of “You Better Not Cry” by Augusten Burroughs and threw in the towel. Not funny, not all that interesting, and distasteful, to boot. Is he trying to be David Sedaris? If so, he failed failed failed.
Now I’m reading an oldie, “On The Beach” by Neville Shute, since I loved the movie. It’s slow going, not too exciting, but holds my interest. Sad and thought provoking, they seem like such nice people that you would like to know. The fifties-housewife stuff is maddening, the women are always preparing the food while the men sit, drink, and ponder the inevitable calamity.
You may also be interested in this book Becoming Batman - I heard the author interviewed on ‘Quirks and Quarks’ last year, and immediately had to read the book.
One of my best friends is the author of The Science of Superman, so skeptics may take my recommendation with a grain of salt – it is a fun read, though!
That was possibly me, because I have been pushing on everyone, including strangers on the street, so I will look forward to reading your reaction.
I thought it was probably you. I’m going to have to start tagging my Goodreads list with the names of people who recommended stuff.
I try to do that with my Goodreads, and I never remember. And they provide you with a field for it, too! Technology is wasted on me, I swear.
I read Knife of Never Letting Go a while back. If you’re interested in reactions, I loved it. I read it nonstop in 2 days. It was one of the best books I read this year, after Hunger Games. I’ve been on a YA sci-fi kick.
I do have the sequel, The Ask and the Answer, but I’m having a hard time getting into it. Did you read it? Should I persevere?
I read The Ask and the Answer, and my big impression is that it reads like the bridge book in a trilogy, which is what it is. There were a few high points, although overall I didn’t love it the way I loved Knife of Never Letting Go, but it did make me excited for the third (and as far as I know, final) book in the series.
Gosh, yes, The Knife of Never Letting Go is one of the best things I read this year YA or otherwise, right from the first line.
Okay, I’ll take it with me on a plane later this week. I felt the same way about Catching Fire, the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy- it had its highlights but was a bridge book. I’ll let you know what I think when I finish AatA.