Now that was a poision pen piece. 
[Ancient joke]Q: What did the Empress Theodora complain about? [/Ancient joke]
A: That her body didn’t have enough holes to have sex with.
Just finished For Whom The Bell Tolls and I’m continuing my Hemingway Fest by reading Old Man and the Sea. Should be a quick read. 
Meh, started reading it after work and I’m already done with it. On to The Garden of Eden although I feel a little weird reading an uncompleted novel.
Well, I kept going. (I gave it one more chance before ditching it, and managed to get past that slogginess.)
Overall: Not a great book. Fine, book about Columbine – do we really need to add Katrina and the war in Iraq to the mix? Plus the protagonist, who starts off as a selfish asshole, remains one pretty well all the way through it. (You’d think being a recovering alcoholic would make me more sympathetic to characters who are enmeshed in the disease – it doesn’t.) I like a big novel, but this goes well beyond sprawling and ends up utterly misshapen. I was disappointed by it.
Moved on to The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose, about the Brown student who went to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University for a semester. (My sister teaches at the “Quaker boarding school in the suburbs of Philadelphia” where he went to HS, and they had him come for a reading this past semester, so she loaned me her copy.) Liked it quite a bit. He was mentored by A.J. Jacobs, who wrote The Year of Living Biblically, which I read a year or so ago and liked quite a bit, and, like Jacobs, is genuinely open to the experience and isn’t operating from a set of snarky preconceptions.
Finished this last night – not sure what’s next.
This looks great – I’ve added it to my Amazon wishlist.
I finally finished “Nicholas Nickleby” over the weekend. I’m about two-thirds of the way through “Love is Eternal” by Irving Stone, and just started “Winter’s Tale” by Mark Helprin.
A high school friend has been urging me to read Winter’s Tale for decades but I have to admit I’ve never gotten around to it. Although I know the book’s apolitical, part of the reason I haven’t felt compelled to read it is that Helprin was a speechwriter and advisor to Bob Dole.
I didn’t know that. I haven’t read Winter’s Tale (it’s in the stack though) but I loved Soldier of the Great War and Memoir from Antproof Case (thanks koeeoaddi). I wouldn’t have guessed Helprin was Republican, or conservative. He seems more like an aging hippie. Besides, Bob Dole is fairly moderate, isn’t he?
I try to avoid learning too much about the private and political lives of authors I like.
I did not know anything about Helprin until just now. I can’t say that the Bob Dole thing bothers me, even though I’m pretty liberal. I’ve always kind of liked Dole, truth be told
I think “Winter’s Tale” ended up on my reading list after reading a thread here. It’s been on the list for almost two years and I’m trying to clean up my to-read list before adding any more.
Got a decent amount of reading done this weekend!
Read Small Favor, part of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. Very very good. I’m sad that I’ve nearly caught up with the series…
Next I started on Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud, who wrote the excellent Bartimaeus trilogy. Maybe it was too soon after the Dresden Files book, but by page 50 I realized that although it was a decent enough book, I just didn’t care enough to go on, so I didn’t.
Finally, I read The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle. It was nice, but didn’t move me as much as I’d expected from the reviews I’ve heard. I guess I waited too long to get around to it. It was well written, though. Sample enjoyable sentence: Soft, baggy birds squatted on the rocks, snickering, “Saidso, saidso.”
Just finished **The Bridge at San Luis Rey **and We Interrupt This Broadcast. I think I’ll start Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway next.
The last one is an outstanding piece of historical detective work, elegant prose, and erudite learning. I cannot too highly recommend it, IF you have a basic understanding of Midway. If not, start with something else, like Gordon Prange’s book. You’ll still need to read Parshall & Tully’s book, but it’ll get you the background you need.
I’ve had to alter my reading list somewhat. I’m done with The American Adam and have started instead on Henry Nash Smith’s Virgin Land, but my re-reading of The Known World was preempted by a first read of Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon which though a strange setup was excellent, I cannot recommend it too highly. I’ve also come into possession of copies of The Treason of Isengard and The War of the Ring, which have proved much more interesting (or at least readable) then The Book of Lost Tales (I).
I did enjoy the chapter about Theodora’s premarital whorin’ around.
I’m slogging through The Alexiad of Anna Comnena right now. It’s not nearly as much fun as Procopius. I’m also re-reading Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables. I read it back in high school, but I don’t remember anything about it except one of the characters was named Hepzibah, which I think is a cool name.
I just finished “Love is Eternal,” the historical fiction about Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. It was an interesting read. I didn’t know who Irving Stone was before I read it, but plan to check out his other historical fictions at some point. Up next is “Night” by Elie Weisel. I’m also about 250 pages into “Winter’s Tale.” I didn’t realize before starting that it was fantasy, which I usually don’t read. However, I really like it so far.
A Roman noblewoman in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part I, speaking to an aide as she eyes a well-built job applicant: “Do I have any openings that this man might fill?”
Speaking of famous whores (or whores who went on to be famous …) I’m reading a bio of John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (the original “Marlborough Man” :D) who has to set some kind of record in that line … he started his career (and personal fortune) as, essentially, a well-paid boy-toy;* his sister was whored out to James II; his wife was (perhaps) a lesbian mistress for Queen Anne before she fell from favour …
*He invested the gifts he received for carnal services rendered in an annuity when he was down-and-out - proved a very good investment.
I finally got around to finishing “The Left Hand of Darkness.” Winter was an interesting place, but much too cold for my taste.
I just finished the first chapter of “The Gun Seller” by Gregory House, MD. Apparently he submitted the manuscript anonymously because he didn’t want to be just another celebrity author and came clean when it was accepted for publication, to drum up sales.
Finished Garden of Eden yesterday and will continue reading Hemingway. I’m going to re-read The Sun Also Rises right when I need to go to the bathroom for poopy.
Finished Night Life by Caitlin Kittredge. This was a totally cliched and uninspired urban fantasy. I originally bought it because there are others in the series already and I thought it would be nice to have a fun read to fall back on. This won’t be it.
Lady copy, also a were without a pack.
Superior who hates her.
Alpha of nearby pack who wants/infuriates her.
Bad stupid dialog.
It is odd that I can suspend disbelief and accept weres and witches, but throw in stupid-made up curse words and it takes me right out of the story. The author substitutes the word Hex for Damn. So we have peoples saying stupid things like “hex you” and “Here, take the hexed thing” and - well you get the idea. Horrible.
I’m not even sure it will last to be traded.
Just finished The Garden at Buckingham Palace by Jane Brown, a big illustrated volume on… well, you know. Some great pictures and very interesting, well-researched text. The Queen has a veritable small forest in the heart of London, and it looks great. Some of the trees are hundreds of years old. Any Anglophile or person interested in the British monarchy should check this book out.
I just started The Wood Wife, by Terri Windling. It’s a fantasy/mystery that takes place near where I live, in the Desert Southwest. So far, I absolutely love it because both mythology she creates around the desert and the details of what it’s actually like here are dead on perfect. I hope the story lives up to the poetry.