No apologies needed! 
I’m always glad for a recommendation.
Damn you! I have to wait at least a month before I get it from the library. I read the first one several months ago, not expecting much, and it turned out to be much better alterna-history that I thought it would.
slortar, why are you torturing yourself?
Just finished Not Buying It, by someone or other, about a year spent without buying anything but the necessities. Interesting but not amazing. I liked Better Off, by Eric Brende, a lot better. His book is about whether a wholehearted embracing of technology really makes for happiness.
I’m also reading a one volume three novel Miss Read book, which is nice and gentle, and nothing happens, and rereading A Breath of Snow and Ashes, the lastest Diana Gabaldon. I maintain that too many bad things happen in this book.
I’ve also recently read The Nasty Bits, by Anthony Bourdain. It was okay.
Next I’ll probably re-skim through The Rattle Bag, a collection of poetry edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes, maybe reread The Abolition of Man, and finally get to Three Day Road and The Kite Runner.
I quite enjoyed this one. I still believe that Lord of Light is his best, but this was a fun book.
That series rocks! I’ve been through it twice and liked it even better the second time. Kind of pricey, tho.
I do envy you reading Three Men In A Boat for the first time, cactus waltz. It remains one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
“I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
Right now I’m halfway through Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted. I read his Fight Clubbefore, so he’s still keeping me interested. Worth a good look, it’s funny, gory, yucky, creepy and very smart.
Let’s see, 21 novels times $13.95 a pop comes out to almost $300.00. Oh well, at least the second reading will be free!
After the third book, when it became clear I was going to read all of them, I bought the box set from Amazon. It’s a pretty set and it takes up less shelf space than 21 individual books, leaving more room for the supplemental books like Sea of Words and Harbors and High Seas.
I’ve just finished the first three of Tanya Huff’s Blood series, and I’m in the middle of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books.
Just finished Settling Accounts: Push to the East, by Harry Turtledove (alternate-history SF). In the middle of 1634: The Ram Rebellion, by Eric Flint (ditto). I’m also reading Crimes of Passion, an anthology of sex-themed horror stories – part of the “Hot Blood” series.
I started reading ‘Zauberberg’ in German but have to admit that had to give up 100 pages into the first volume (which sucks cause I read it before in high school, and I love reading German, and German 2nd hand books are hard to find (at least here in DC)).
Then I went on and read “Oh the glory of it” by Sean Wilsey - can not recommend it enough.
And currently I’m reading “Neither here nor there” by Bill Bryson
Just finished Flight of the Intruder, by Stephen Coonts, an EXCELLENT novel about a frustrated Navy bomber pilot and his bombadier during the closing years of the Vietnam War, written by a decorated former Navy Intruder pilot.
I am currently reading Rifleman Dodd, by C.S. Forester, a book about a British soldier trapped behind enemy lines in Portugal during the Napoleanic Wars.
Under the Black Flag is a good book, I’m a little more than halfway now. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the historical realities of pirating. If there’s one thing I would criticize the book about is that it doesn’t tell the whole story of specific individual pirates very often, but rather talks in generalities. I’ve already read a number of books referenced as source material for this one (Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates, The Pirates Own Book, et al.) so I’m already familiar with most of the notorious pirates, but if I hadn’t I’d probably be left wanting more.
I’m about halfway through Down the Great Unknown, which recounts John Wesley Powell’s trip down the mighty Colorado and through the Grand Canyon.
Before that, I heartily enjoyed The Devil in the White City, which many on this board have read. I’ll probably try to schedule Isaac’s Storm, by the same author, sometime this year.
Heh, I read Fight Club, and I gotta say, for the most part, I wasn’t overly impressed. Still, I could easily see how it became such a freaking awesome movie, and a couple lines from the book are near and dear to that part of my heart that loves good lines in books, such as the final line about using parafin. 
I’ve finished all of the Preston/Child series of books about Aloysius Pendergast and company (save two which are on reserve at the library). I loved them all. Can anyone recommend some similar books by another author? I’m out of things to read right now. It would really be appreciated.
(sorry for the minor hijack)
pullin, I think David Morrell and Nelson deMille might be close to what Preston & Child are doing. You’ve read Thomas Harris? Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs? Also John Connelly and Michael Connolly. (I might have spelled their last names wrong – they confuse me.)
isaac’s storm is very good. i had to go to visit galveston island after reading it. of course i went before hurricane season, in 2000. it was interesting seeing the places i read about.
isaac is on the hurricane list this year (as it was in 2000 the centenial of isaac’s storm).
I’ve read a lot of Michael Connely’s (sp?) books, but I’ll try Harris, Morrell, and deMille.
Thanks for the advice (heading to the library tomorrow).
Currently re-reading Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds. This is one of a series of novels (and a collection of two novellas) set in the same science fiction universe.
Reynolds creates a strong gothic feel in his writing that I have found to be unique in my own reading of science fiction. A common element in this universe that is a big factor in creating this feel is the “Melding Plague”, which radically transforms people and the things they use. The descriptions Reynolds writes of the results of the Plague can be spooky.
Beyond the gothic feel, Reynolds provides lots of space opera elements that are just plain fun.
I expect to have that tomorrow or Thursday. So far the mail has been quite kind in quickly getting my books to me.
I need to dig out these again.