I’m glad you found it more interesting than I did. I thought the story-within-a-story-within-a-story had promise, but I got bored and frustrated with the gimmick of the text and fonts. Just tell me the story instead of making me chase it around the pages! Clearly, I don’t think I “got” it. But that’s OK; there’s lots of books. Something for everyone!
Finished The Journeyer, by Gary Jennings. An excellent read, every bit as good as the author’s Aztec, perhaps even better. But his praise of the durian fruit while in present-day Burma is just plain wrong. That is evil fruit indeed. He does engage in threesomes with a Thai lady, but hey, who in this world, past or present, has never done a threesome with a Thai lady, I ask you, heh :D.
One date at least was a little off. Kubilai Khan’s succesor was his grandson Temur. He seemed to be drawing attention to the “new grandson,” and I thought this might be the Temur or Timur who became known as Tamerlane. But no, that Temur was born long into the following century, long after these events, and in Uzbekistan, not Beijing. But in looking this up, I see this Temur who succeeded Kubilai Khan was actually born much earlier than he was in the book; in real life, he was born while Marco Polo was still a young boy back in Venice. I suspect this was just literary license to advance certain plot points though and not a mistake. I highly recommend the book.
Next up: A Passage to India, by EM Forster. I’ve seen the 1984 Daid Lean production, but that was years ago.
Yesterday I took a mental health day off and finally finished Flashman at the Charge. A good book, but it was starting to feel like a slog because I only had time to read for a few minutes every few days! I’m going to get a fresh grip on my New Year’s resolution and start reading every day.
I also got a good start on The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton. This book involves an English castle, a long-lost letter, a children’s book author, madness, family secrets, etc. I’m having a glorious time so far. 
Thanks for the review! Someday I hope to get to it.
I ditched The Lovely Bones a third of the way through. It just wasn’t for me. So many of people love this book and while I knew going in that a novel about the rape and murder of a child would be depressing, I thought at least narration from the afterlife, or the afterlife itself might be interesting. It isn’t.
YM(probably)V.
I passed on it for the same reason. I have heard great things about it, but I think it would just be depressing.
I started “They Marched In Sunlight” last night. It’s about the buildup of the Vietnam war and the first anti-war protests.
I’ve only finished the first chapter so far, but I’m loving it enough to actually download the book.
Just read this Tolkien-inspired picture book, which I got from the library - the artist, Donato Giancola, has a different take on things than Lee, Howe, etc., but some of his imagery is quite arresting: http://www.amazon.com/Middle-Earth-Visions-Modern-Donato-Giancola/dp/1599290472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1298520807&sr=1-1
Oh, good - are you planning to continue with the series? After the dramatic ending of *Outlander *I was a little worried that Gabaldon was going to try to one-up herself in subsequent books, but now I still think that Jamie/Jack Randall scene is the most disturbing of the whole series. The third book, Voyager, is my favorite.
I finished Flashman’s Lady, and while it’s not my favorite Flashman book, it was a lot of fun. It was very nearly shocking to see Flashy actually worried about somebody (Elspeth) besides himself. I had never heard of James Brooke or Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar before this book, so I’ve been hitting Wikipedia.
Now I’m reading Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold, and I’ve ordered his new book, Heroes.
IIRC, the Brooke dynasty of White Rajas did not end until WWII, and the Japanese occupied Borneo.
I’ll be going on with Gabaldon’s series, but probably at a sedate pace. I know people who can devour an entire series, one book right after another, but not me.
Just read Crown of Shadows, the third in the Lovecraft, Mass.-set Locke & Key graphic novel series written by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez. It’s as spooky, intricate and well-drawn as the previous two. Worth a read for any fan of horror or comics.
Seconded. Excellent series, an a great installment. Handsomely bound and presented, too–as usual, I just hope the story arc works. But I get the feel that Hill has it plotted out.
I finished two books today (lazy Sunday!): William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, which too awhile to get into but was absolutely fabulous overall, and yes, even the famous chapter which simply goes “My mother is a fish” makes sense. Who would have thought.
Also started and finished (a really lazy Sunday!) Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which unfortunately didn’t rise to the expectations. It was heartwarming alright, but mediocre. Not National Book Award material, I shouldn’t have thought, but they also gave it to Tree of Smoke, and my God what a stinker that book was.
I’m also through with Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, which had an interesting idea in its setting and some bits and pieces here and there, but overall was disappointing. I’m not quite sure what it wanted to tell me.
Other recently finished reads, of which I only need to say they were as good as expected: Flashman at the Charge, and A Ship of the Line, the sixth Hornblower novel. Now, I’ll be starting on Seth Hunter’s Time of Terror–yet another Napoleonic War naval adventure, and on E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime.
Still plugging away at Gödel, Escher, Bach. On page 324. I dreamed about it last night, which was interesting.
Recently finished The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Heartstone by CJ Sansom, and a couple of Barbara Michaels books. Oh and Shadow of a Broken Man, the first Mongo book. I’ll admit I was taken aback by it. I didn’t expect the turn it took.
Also started Spousonomics, which is a book that applies lessons from economic theory to marriage. Very highly recommended, so far. It’s funny and it’s smart.
This morning I finished Emlyn Williams’s 1980 novel Headlong, about a young British actor in 1935 who, after an airship disaster (a la the Hindenburg) wipes out the rest of the Royal Family, learns to his surprise and chagrin that due to his bloodline (his grandfather was a royal duke), he’s the new King. It’s essentially a fish-out-of-water story with a bit of what-if-I-were-king comedy. Pretty good, and much better than the movie which it very loosely inspired, King Ralph.
Yesterday I completed a very cool steam-punk novel called The Strange Affair Of Springheeled Jack by Mark Hodder. Quite an interesting book. Very stylish and generally a good job of blending fiction and fantasy, particularly with regards to the characters, the main ones being Jack Burton the English explorer and Algernon Swinburne, Victorian era poet.
It has great cover art, too!
Currently nearing the end of A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin.
I have been super impressed with A Song of Ice and Fire every step of the way, and my only real nitpick about this entry is the sheer number of new plotlines and characters that slightly deviate from the already established story. I was juuust starting to understand the interplay of the hundreds of players, the seven kingdoms as a political landscape, the geography of dozens of cities, townships, rivers, mountains, and islands… and here comes so much more to take in… but I am still in love with it.
To my delight I found out twenty pages into the first in the series, A Game of Thrones, that HBO is turning this into a new series, and it looks EXCELLENT! Can’t wait for April now.
Psst! It’s March now. See post above yours.
“Lost in the Jungle: A harrowing true story of adventure and survival” by Yossi Ghinsberg;
“Survive the savage sea” by Dougal Robertson;
“Beware of the Dog: Rugby’s hard man reveals all” by Brian Moore;
“Feet in the Clouds: A story of fell running and obsession” by Richard Askwith.
I went through a phase of ‘survival stories’ and ‘sporting biographies’ for a few weeks, and all of the above are recommended, especially the latter. Even if you have no interest in fell-running, the history and challenge of it I found facinating. I still have *“No Limits: The will to succeed” *by Michael Phelps on the side to read in this catagory ( I have lots of books on the go at any one time ) but have since moved on to “Social Engineering: The Art of human hacking” by Paul Wilson & Christopher Hadnagy and am finding this also absolutely facinating (and not a little bit scary!)
Next up is “Touching my Father’s Soul: A Sherpa’s Sacred Journey to the Top of Everest: In the Footsteps of Tenzing Norgay” by Jamling Tenzing Norgay. Looking forward to it, especially since my trip to Nepal last year really whetted my desire to return soon and climb some Himalayan peaks; A wonderful, magical place.
And always in the background for reading times when I am awake enough to concentrate, I have been working through “Defence of the Realm: The Authorised history of M15” by Christopher Andrew.