I’ve finished Every Insomniac Has a Story to Tell, which was great. I don’t usually like poetry, but I think the fact that I knew the author helped a lot.
Also finished No Telephone to Heaven. I love Michelle Cliff’s books in general and this one is great, but I really wish I understood what the Sam Scratch was going on at the end.
I’ve started Virgin’s Triangle by Kevin Baldeosingh. So far I’ve only read the first chapter so I can’t say anything much about it yet.
Looks like I’ve had that on my Amazon wish list for a while. (I have over 1000 books on there!) I probably will bump it up in priority now since I’m really enjoying Horwitz’s style of writing. Thanks for the reminder!
Let me know what you think. I’ve recommended it to several different people – none of them necessarily with any particular interest in travel, exploration, and/or history – and all have enjoyed it. (Which reminds me, my friend Anne has my copy – I should get it back from her …)
delphia, my wife’s book club read Out Stealing Horses and was generally underwhelmed.
Ataraxy, glad you enjoyed Ken Grimwood’s Replay! I just read that for the first time last fall and raced through it, too (although not in one day). The scene where
the protagonist visits the love of his life at her home just before her high school graduation, and her parents are baffled by how happy she is to see him while he can hardly contain his delight and anticipation,
left me with a huge grin. Great book overall, I’d say.
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Dung Beetle**, I’m glad you’re reading Pat Conroy’s My Losing Season. I’m not a big basketball fan either, but I thought it was a terrific book. I can definitely see where he was coming from in The Lords of Discipline, too.
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Shirley Ujest**, I have seen the movie but not read the book of The Tale of Despereaux. I’d give the movie a solid “B.” Not terrible, but not great either.
As for me… I just finished Peter Carey’s True Story of the Kelly Gang, a novel in the form of a lost autobiography by Australia’s near-mythic outlaw Ned Kelly, and liked it very much.
A different, quicker but equally enjoyable read was Watchmen: The Film Companion by Peter Aperlo. It has interesting text and lavish illustrations, but also some spoilers for the movie that I’d just as soon not have read. (Yes, I guess the movie is different from the graphic novel in some key ways, plotwise).
Right now I’m reading A Tale of the Wind by Kay Nolte Smith, about the lives and loves of Parisians high and low in the early 1800s. It’s OK but not really wowing me. Doubt I’ll read it all the way through, even though it’s a pick of my book club.
I’ve managed to finish The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay over a long train ride yesterday. Once I got past the midsection, it was a much faster read for me, and I did not stop after a couple of chapters, as I had before. On the other hand, it also got a little less good. Particular spoilers of complaint:
Thomas’s death on the Ark of Miriam was terribly telegraphed, it was clear that that would happen about a hundred pages before Chabon actually told it; in fact, that may have inspired my reluctance to read on, because I really didn’t want to read it. And the ending was a letdown, not only as a matter of how Chabon chose to wrap the book up, but also because I don’t think it followed necessarily from the characters he constructed.
Otherwise, still a great read. I’ll have to go back to a couple of books that I have to read for university, so I’ll probably not crack open any more literature until the late spring.
Yesterday I read Fool Moon (book 2 of the Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher. These books are really fast-paced and fun. I have the whole series stacked up ready to devour…all except book 3, grrr! I’m holding the others hostage until my library comes across with it.
In the meantime, I’m getting ready to start the latest by Ray Bradbury (may he live forever). It’s a short story collection called We’ll Always Have Paris. Frankly, after the last collection I read, my expectations are not very high.
I’m reading Descartes’ Error, which is a neuropsych book about how emotion is necessary for reason. The book’s whole premise is basically that Descartes was mistaken when he said the body and the soul are separate entities. So far it’s very interesting, starting with the story of Phineas Gage, the well-liked and successful guy who in the 1800s took a 3 foot metal rod through the skull (litearlly through his skull, as in, ‘‘in one side and out the other side of his head’’) and survived. He retained perfect memory, coordination, lost vision in only one eye, was fully capable of speaking and performing mathematic calculations, but turned into a complete bastard and died friendless and impoverished.
It’s kind of a complicated book and I’m stuck on the part with the brain diagrams. The author writes like a philosopher, which is really annoying. I’ll get through it as soon as I’m no longer sleep deprived.
Finished both the books in my previous post. The Wayfarer Redemption was pretty good and it’s nice to know I have the sequels at hand for whenever I need a “loseable” volume. Bright of the Sky turned out quite well and I’ve just begun the next in the series, A World Too Near.
I found Chalice (2008) by Robin McKinley in the “Young Teens” section of my local branch, but there’s nothing juvenile about it; the story is sweet (literally) and made fine bedtime reading. It helps that I like bees.
Almost finished with Death From The Skies! by our very own Philip C. Plait. It’s about how we can be smashed, fried, or otherwise killed in nasty ways by astronomical phenomena ranging from meteor srikes to super massive black holes. The informal style is often engaging but a few things annoyed me - humanity is “mankind” and each hypothetical “person” is always “he”, and measurements are in the archaic/English system. None of this is unique or even uncommon, but I suppose I hold science books, even irreverent ones, to a higher standard. On the whole, however, I’d recommend this title.
Lastly, I’m up number one on the library’s waiting list for Lois McMaster Bujold’s latest, Horizon. [does very quiet happy dance so as not to disturb other patrons]
I’ve read all of her Vorkosigan books but I haven’t started the Sharing Knife series yet.
Finished *Life of Pi *yesterday. I was surprised how quick a read it was. I was also surprised how violent and graphic it was. The cover art was so cute! I was utterly unprepared for …
…the main character to start eating tiger poop!
But I did enjoy it.
Possibilities for my next read:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Fool, by Christopher Moore
The Book of Dave, by Will Self
Reading Iodine by Haven Kimmel. Very odd book.
I like the Sharing Knife books, but they are… odd. They are a blend of fantasy and romance that ends up… odd. 
I’ve read all the Vor stories too but also her non-sci-fi (the Chalion series, The Sharing Knife series, etc.), and I can tell you that Bujold puts as much care into her fantasy worlds as her science fiction universe. Just be aware that the first two (Beguilement and Legacy) are really one book divided in two. That way it’s less jarring when the first ends a bit randomly and the second picks up half an hour later. Very, very good though.
I’m glad to hear others with the same problem I have. I just don’t like either of the main characters. My copy is signed, as well, (Yay Tattered Cover!) so my traveling reading has become Fool, by Christopher Moore and Sagan’s Demon Haunted World.
I found it pushed to the back of one of my bookcases the other day and started re-reading it. It’s as good as it was when I first read it in the ninties.
I buy my signed books at The Signed Page.
Still hating both the Dickens and the narrator. The narrator seems to have a love/hate relationship with Dickens. I’m about 1/3 through, so I’m guessing I’m gonna hate them both throughout. We’ll see if that ruins the book.
I am liking The Walking Man. It might be the best one from this series. At least so far I think it is. I’m about 1/2 way through it.
On the other hand I can’t stand her fantasy books despite enjoying her science fiction. It’s just more generic fantasy novels featuring characters that might as well have been transplanted from the modern day and worldbuilding that has more in common with a renaissance festival than anything real.
Low expectations met.
Now I’m on to Skeleton in The Closet, a short story collection by Robert Bloch. So far, also profoundly lame. I’ve run across a few typos, though I’m only about three stories in. Worst of all, one story describes how a magician calls up a demon after drawing a pentagon on the floor. Now, it’s been a long time since I called up a demon, but I’m fairly certain you have to draw a pentacle. That error was repeated several times within the story.
I suppose you’ve read this, then? My book club really liked it: http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Bees-Monk-Kidd/dp/0143114557/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236782681&sr=1-1
I finished Virgin’s Triangle. Was not impressed. According to the blurb it was supposed to be “a humorous commentary on contemporary relationships and Caribbean journalism.” The commentary on Caribbean journalism was limited to two departmental meetings, one at the beginning and one at the end of the book. Both meetings took up about four pages altogether. The “commentary” on relationships was the stuff bad soap operas are made of. It’s clear from the very first page which guy the lead character is going to bonk, the second relationship is just there to take up space.
Oh, and it’s so convenient that when she breaks up with the Nice Professional Man that he turns out to be an abusive jackass. :rolleyes:,:rolleyes:,:rolleyes: and again :rolleyes:.
Done. Do not recommend, despite *Publishers Weekly *starred review. About a “brilliant and psychotic” college student who is a bit of a Mary Sue (from the press release: “Wildly intelligent and fiercly independent, she is an enigma to her classmates, a loner with lavender eyes and long, raven black hair. She captivates her professors with her vast knowledge and intellect, speaking with an insight far beyond her years of the works of iconic psychologists Freud, Jung, and Hillman.”
She has been squatting in an abandoned farmhouse with her dog while attending classes; she then begins living with one of her professors who had been dating another of her professors. When her new lover tells her he won’t tolerate dogs, she abandons her dog.
Some of it has grit; some has just “Look at me! I’m an Important Writer!” all over it. Pretentious.