Ha! Mockingbird went from that book I somehow avoided reading during school to (many years later) one of my top five favorites just last year. Damn that’s a good book.
Partially read, then abandoned: Project 17, by Laurie Stolarz, a YA novel about 5 teens spending the night in an old mental hospital in order to film a class project. Amateurish.
Then I read The Bad Seed, by William March. Decent. I vaguely remember the movie, and think it was probably even better.
Beginning Dark Sister, by Graham Joyce.
The movie was okay, until the end anyway.
I thought I had a copy of Katherine but I don’t (sob!) so I’m reading a Christmas gift, Russian Spring by Norman Spinrad. The weapons/tech talk is way over my head but the rest is fine.
Made a lot of progress through Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply last night; now more than halfway done. Good stuff. The pieces are falling into place and I think I figured out who one of the characters really is.
Also off-and-on reading Vanished Armies by A.E. Haswell Miller, a wonderful contemporary handrawn picture book of European military uniforms from before World War I, and Monarch by Robert Lacey, about Queen Elizabeth II’s life and times.
Actually, I do remember a very striking scene from that movie…
I’d like to see it again because I think it would be a lot more interesting to see the little girl act the part of Rhoda than to read about it.
I finished the Marcus Didius Falco book. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, because Falco has always had mixed feelings about this particular ambition, but:
Falco has spent the last eight books trying to achieve elevation to the middle class so he can marry the senator’s daughter. In chapter two of this book Vespasian adds him to the equestrian list, and the event couldn’t have been more anti-climactic. Falco is almost depressed about it. I want to see a wedding!
I’m reading Quite Ugly One Morning, by Christopher Brookmyre, which is a mystery/crime novel set in the 90’s in Edinburgh. It started out kind of gross, but now that it has eased away from vivid descriptions of bodily waste I’m enjoying it. It’s funny but quite cynical. Reminds me a little of a Coen brothers movie.
For some reason this made me think of Blue Denim. If you became an adult “post pill” you’ll probably think the story is an exaggeration. It’s not. I grew up during that era (late 50s, early 60s.)
All that aside, it’s a pretty good book, and the movie’s okay too. I’m going to read it again.
From your mouth to Coen ears! I read this one a couple weeks ago and liked it, but the only thing about it that has stuck with me is the turd on the mantel. 
mangeorge, I begged the Blue Denim movie poster from the theater owner and he gave it to me. And while we’re on the subject of teen sex in ancient times, TCM showed Splendor in the Grass last night. I went to school with a girl who had a crack-up similar to Deenie’s, for much the same reasons. Parts of the “good old days” really sucked.
Interlibrary loan request placed, thanks for the recommendation!
Finished John Dos Passos’ 1919. Just as good as The 42nd Parallel. Am about to start the third book in his USA trilogy, The Big Money.
Russian Spring is interesting but there’s too much sex for me. I heard a good review about So Cold the River on NPR yesterday and went ahead and ordered it.
Auntie Pam, I’ll have to see if I can find the podcast of that review! I’m going to an author signing for that tomorrow night!
Ditched on page 76 for plot holes and implausibility. :mad:
I’m now on to House, by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker. I’ve already found that it has cardboard characters and two word errors (both “discrete” instead of “discreet”), but it hasn’t quite bucked me off yet.
Thanks many! Can’t listen at work, but will tonight at home (have to go to funeral first :().
Took a while to read all the posts from May & June and I’ve added 7 new books to my wishlist! Damn you all! shakes fist
Completed:
The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon ~ Reread. Liked it better this time around.
Quest for the White Witch by Tanith Lee ~ This was the third in a series so I had no real idea of what was going on. Wasn’t interesting enough to backtrack.
Assassin’s Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1) by Robin Hobb
Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo ~ Meh. Slavery reversed where black people enslaved white. Just not very interesting.
Banewreaker: Volume I of The Sundering by Jacqueline Carey ~ Fantasy told from the POV of the ‘bad guys’. Think Lord of the Rings from Sauron’s POV. Boggy in the beginning but it soon snapped me up.
Pig’s Don’t Fly/Master of Many Treasures/Dragonne’s Egg by Mary Brown ~ The first story is good, a girl goes on a quest with random animals and a blinded knight. The ending falls apart and the next two books are basically the same.
The Unteleported Man by Philip K Dick ~ The first half is intriguing where a man is determined to take the slow boat to another colony to prove that the faster one-way teleporting system is sending people into a trap. The second half degrades into a prolonged LSD trip that was hella-lame.
Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong by James Loewen ~ Rant much? Holy crap. I felt that the author was in the same room as me, screaming and waving his arms around. Yes, people did shitty things in the past, it doesn’t mean that we all have to feel guilt for it. We all know that history is a constantly shifting beast but those that care will take the effort to look past what we’re told. You can’t bully people into giving a shit.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson ~ As a fan of Bryson, I was hoping for more but it was just an ‘ok’ book although I was entranced by his descriptions of the town and stores of his youth.
Evil for Evil (Engineer Trilogy) by KJ Parker ~ All the engineering you wanted to not know and just like the first in the series, it took a while to get going. I still have issues with the motivations of one of the characters and hope that the third book will solve the mystery.
**Royal Assassin (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 2) **by Robin Hobb ~ Enjoyed. Plan on getting the last in the series in my next book order.
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel ~ Excellent.
Life List: Remembering the Birds of My Years by John N Cole ~ So-so memoir that uses birds to tell stories of his life.
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich ~ Excellent.
FAIL:
Ulysses by James Joyce ~ I gave it about 130 pages but wasn’t getting into it.
Reading:
Morte D’Arthur
The Quincunx
The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia
If you do, please post the link here so I can subscribe to the thread. My version (the extended mix!) is still in storage somewhere.
All excellent reads.
I also liked the next two trilogies by Robin Hobb, set in the same universe as the Farseer books. She’s working on a fourth set now, and I’m waiting for her to complete it before buying them.
I’d be in for a group read of The Stand, too. Haven’t read that in many years.
I highly recommend Thomas Berger’s Arthur Rex for a wry but respectful recent retelling of the Arthurian legends. It seems I re-read it every decade or so and always enjoy it.
I’m a bit fixated on composers’ general biographies these days - searching out the ones that focus most on the composers’ lives, circles and influences and less on analysis of the composers’ works. I’ve read three of them in the last little while.
I just finished Britten by Cristopher Headington, which is part of the Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers series. It was well written, striking a good balance between writing about Britten’s open homosexuality (at a time when homosexuality was still a crime in the UK) without sensationalizing it. I did find the last section, which reprinted his various obituaries, to be rather odd - the book had documented reviews of his musical works throughout, and in that context, it struck me as being like the author was giving the critics’ reactions to Britten’s life.
It was also interesting to read the biography of a composer whose death had affected my life - I remember the piano teacher at my small town conservatory had studied at the Britten-Pears school in Alderburgh, and posted Britten’s obituary on the door to his studio. It stayed there for months and I must have read it weekly while waiting to be picked up after guitar lessons.
I finished the Gabriel Fauré by Jessica Duchen that I mentioned last month. It was well written - Fauré’s life is a difficult subject for a biographer because he is a much less controversial figure, and his influence on the music of the time is much more subtle than that of his contemporaries. It felt, at times, like I was reading yet another Carol Shields novel about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.
Finishing the Fauré prompted me to re-read the Satie Remembered by Robert Orledge, part of a series of (Composer) Remembered books which I want to pursue. The idea is simple - the composer’s contemporaries give their reflections and recollections, and those are edited into a loose chronological order, with all the contradictions and inaccuracies left intact.
Of these three, the Satie is the one I would most recommend for someone who isn’t a musician - it is an exploration of an incredibly influential person in that great creative period that is Paris in the early 20th century. He was a character in the film “Moulin Rouge”, and he is one of history’s greatest eccentrics who deserves to be remembered for so much more than that one piano piece, “Gymnopédie No. 1”.
I’m still reading through the Dorothy Sayers’ “The Complete Stories”. On the ‘to be read’ pile, I got the first Charles Todd Inspector Rutledge novel which I’ll start when I’m done the Sayers. I also got “Cigar Box Banjo”, Paul Quarrington’s posthumous ‘Notes on Music and Life’.
The Can Lit section of the University Library is under renovation right now, so the contents of the shelves have been completely scrambled, the shelves themselves form an odd sort of Lab Rat maze and there’s nowhere to sit and sort through an armload of books. Rather than stopping me or even slowing me down, (I’m collecting poets and poems to suggest to composers as texts for contemporary art songs - yet another of my mad schemes!) I plunge on with fierce determination. Recent discoveries include Jill Battson, Ken Babstock, Jan Zwicky, Dave Margoshes and Tim Bowling.