This is the group read for April at the Doper Goodreads group. I liked it a lot.
Currently reading In A Faraway Place by Thomas Spanbauer. It purports to be a coming of age story – I like those.
Since I’m the last Doper on earth who hasn’t read it, I picked up Ender’s Game to tide me over until Anatomy of Deception comes in for me at the library. I really like it, so far.
I’ve not read it either.
I finished Carl Hiassen’s Nature Girl. Very good.
Today I begin Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike, the third in his Rabbit series.
I’m reading the assignments for my English MA class this semester (Literary Criticism Theory) so right now that includes Freud’s “Civilization and its Discontents”; Shoshona Felman, “Teaching terminable and interminable”; Joan Copjec, “Sex and the euthanasia of reason”; Joan Copjec, “The Tomb of Perseverance: On Antigone”*; Tim Dean, “Art as Symptom: Žižek and the ethics of psychoanalytic criticism”
Okay, okay, that’s what I’m supposed to read. I’ll be lucky to get through the fucking Freud!
It came! It came! I dug right in to it. I’m probably a quarter of the way through. The Scots talk so cute, don’t they? I knew I was going to like it on the first page, when Maureen realizes that her interest in a romantic relationship of several months has “passed as suddenly as a fart.”
Have you read her other books?
I loved that line too. Wasn’t it an “enormous” fart? 
I haven’t read any of her other books yet but I probably will. She has a series with a woman cop or detective named Paddy something, and those sound pretty good.
twickster, send me your address soon–I’m almost done with the Mina book. Then I’ve got the other that AuntiePam sent me, a couple of Atrael’s suggestions ready at the library… wipes away a tear I’m going to *live! *
PM sent – yay! looking forward to reading this!
Currently reading My Mother’s Lovers by Christopher Hope – about South Africa, and a guy’s relationship with his larger-than-life, Karen-Blixenish mother. Liking it a lot.
I gave up on Mean Spirit. Too much despair for me right now. I picked up The Dragonbone Chair again now that I have the whole series (SDMB rocks!).
I also found Kushiel’s Justice at the library when I popped in on Monday and I grabbed it. I haven’t seen it there in months. So now my Huge Fantasy Tome requirement is filled.
Huh, I just saw your PM from last week, AuntiePam. I never notice that I have messages in there! I’m not much into the gory books either, but I recall thinking that the author had good credentials. I’m going to try it out, at least.
Finished up The Outlaw Demon Wails the other day. Not bad. I like this book better than the last one. A bit too much drama there. I hate authors that take their strong female characters and wussify then. Lilith Saintcrow did that for the middle couple of books in her Dante Valentine series. And I haven’t picked up the new book in the Rogue Angel series by Alex Archer just because he’s made his main female character so simpering.
Currently reading The Unnatural Inquirer. The latest in the Nightside series by Simon Green. Good non thinking fluff. I was worried after he reached the climax of the series that he’d keep it going in subsiquent books and they’d suck. So far they’re at about the same level as before…which isn’t saying much, but at least they’re still readable.
I don’t really have anything up next…I need to re-read The Pillars of the Earth again so that I can go ahead and get the sequal. Although I’ve heard the two stories aren’t really that related.
Several friends of mine have read Pillars of the Earth and praised it. The only Ken Follett I’ve ever read was Eye of the Needle, which was a great WW2 spy thriller.
Sorry for the delay in responding to this. I did want to take a few minutes and think about my reply. I agree that the original Tom Swift series had inventions that were more plausible, there were a couple in the Tom Swift Jr. books that have some basis in fact. More importantly I think it shows a difference in public awareness and imagination between the time periods in which they were written. The Jr. books were (mostly) during the 50’s and 60’s. An overlap of the Golden Age of Science Fiction the stories were about the impossible today that might mearly be the difficult tomorrow. Back then, all sorts of things were envisioned for the future.
To me personally, the spark of what might be possible was more of an attraction than something that strictly wrote about what was truth at that day and time. It’s a trap that I think we (as a collective society) fall into much too often. I see statements all the time about how X " just isn’t possible" where the statement should really be “X isn’t possible given the understanding that we have now”. A slight, but definite difference.
Anyway…I digress. I have about a dozen of the original books, and almost all of the Jr. series. I hope my children get as much enjoyment out of daydreaming about what could be as I did.
I’m waiting for an Ellen Glasgow title from an Amazon seller. It’s been 14 days. I think my book is lost. 
I started reading More Tales of the City but it’s just too light and fluffy – I don’t do fluffy. So I picked up Weary Men by Arne Garborg. It’s this guy’s diary and he’s a jerk. Not as much of a jerk as Bartjur from the Laxness book – he’s more articulate – but he’s still a jerk.
People at SFF World are raving about The Orphan’s Tale by Catherynne Valente – it’s tempting. Any Dopers read it?
Loved *The Air We Breathe * by Andrea Barrett. Top o’ the stack is Touchstone by Laurie R. King.
Just finished The Face of Death
A very strong second showing. Better than the first. Very powerful writing. It evoked strong emotions - both good and bad - from me. If you like the Psychological thriller genre, try Shadow Man, then read this.
I will move on to something lighter now. I need a little respite.
Just finished *Iron Kissed *from Patricia Briggs. As Eleanor of Aquitaine mentioned it falls in the same genre as many of the other books I have recently read.
I enjoyed it. It was a light, fast paced fantasy adventure. Not too heavy. I spent far too much time reading it yesterday, when I should have been working it.
Up next: I just picked up the The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes. I have a rule about buying new books while there are so many in my queue at home. But I ignore the rule so often that we can really just call it a suggestion.
Although the plot summary in the jacket was enough to get me to read it, the first chapter hooked me (from the first paragraph): Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and willfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll believe a word of it.
It just seems like the author had fun with it. We’ll see.
This weekend I finished Garnethill by Denise Mina (sending it to you today, twickster)! It was pretty good. I think I cared for the characters more than the plot. Apparently it’s a trilogy, and although Garnethill can stand alone, something happened at the end that does make me want to read the next book. I’ll be getting it soon from the library.
After that, I re-read The Ruins by Scott Smith. I nearly want to see the movie now, just to see what they’ve done with it. It’s amusing to see the trailers for this because they are careful not to show the antagonist. SPOILER WARNING
It’s a plant! I guess that doesn’t seem scary enough. There’s also one scene in the trailer that makes me go WTF?
I’m reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, but I might put it aside when The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth arrives. It’s a sequel to River of Darkness. It’s a mystery set in England in 1932.