Wasn’t that an interesting book? I picked it up on a whim and really liked the point of view of the story. Good book, glad someone else has read it.
I finished up Wrath of a Mad God the latest (and last I think) book by Feist in this particular universe. I liked it better than some of his last offerings, but I’m not sure how I feel about the end.
There has been repeated critisism that Feist has kept well loved characters around too long through “magic” or other means. But the way he killed off some of the characters was just…wastefull. More like he was killing them just to kill them if that makes sense.
I finished grad school last week and can finally read for pleasure again! Yay! I might even be able to be active in the SDMB Goodreads group! What a concept!
On my to-read list I have:[ul][li]Books 4-7 of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series[/li][li]Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami[/li][li]The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker by Charles Harrington Elster [/li][li]The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer[/li][li]The Art of War by Sun Tzu[/li][li]Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi[/li][li]The Good Guy by Dean Koontz[/li][li]Lucky Man: A Memoir by Michael J. Fox[/li][li]I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe[/ul]I have had most of these books since September, and am looking forward to finally getting to them![/li]
On my Amazon wish list I have:[ul][li]Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath[/li][li]The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell[/li][li]Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America by Jonathan Gould[/li][li]2 Dean Koontz books that aren’t released yet[/ul]A note on Dean Koontz: He was my favorite author for many years, but lately I’ve been somewhat disappointed with his stuff (though I wish he’d hurry up and finish Frankenstein!). Still, for some reason I’m still compelled to read him, and I usually have something new of his on my wish list. I can’t get away from this guy. ;)[/li]
That’s also on my list of books to read; I’ll keep in mind that it won’t be light entertainment.
That sounds very interesting! I think I’m about to add it to my wish list.
It really is! I’m on the part where, while spiking the second baseman is “considered dirty and disrespectful,” spiking the first baseman is totally egregious. I’m learning a lot and I think I will be a much more informed spectator from this book.
I thought The Professor and the Madman was far too long and should have been written as a journal article for something like Smithsonian. I’ll be interested in your opinion.
Just finished I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith. I really enjoyed it. It was first published in 1948 but still reads very well. I had never heard of it before I ran across it in Barnes & Noble.
Now I’m reading Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. It’s pretty good so far.
Next up is Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. He also wrote In the Heart of the Sea, which I very much enjoyed.
I’m finding I’m reading more and more creative non-fiction these days (though not many memoirs). I like the genre a lot.
I recall the Hobbit was easy going the first time, but I stopped partway through Fellowship because it got too scary for my taste. I was in third grade then. I chickened out halfway through Beowulf then for about the same reason. I didn’t want to see the hero die. (Not saying he does, if you haven’t read it, just that I thought he would.) You can guess I was an early Heinlein fan in those days.
More recently I get uncomfortable when I think the protagonist is being incredibly dense, so I quit before the comeuppance. Emma comes to mind. And I still don’t know what happens in part II of Great Expectations. No, don’t tell me.
TheMerchandise, I enjoyed both of those books. Witchfinder started me on a James Morrow kick, and I’ve liked all of his stuff, so far.
If more nonfiction books were like Mortality, I’d read more nonfiction. Just enough of the author’s personal opinions to add flavor.
I dumped Twilight after about 100 pages. It’s kinda sad that this series has such a rabid teen girl following. Why can’t they get excited about the good stuff? Maybe it’s a puberty thing.
I recently finished re-reading Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. I had read it when it first came out, and enjoyed it much more this time, since I read it a bit more slowly. I have a bad habit of barreling through books that interest me, and forgetting what they are about only a few weeks later!
I’ve just started Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Last Light of the Sun. I have no idea why I had this on my bookcase, as I don’t remember ever buying it, but a few months back my brother insisted that I read The Lions of Al-Rassan and I enjoyed it, so I figured I might as well give this a shot. I’m not far enough into it to have an opinion of it, yet.
This is, I think, the last book in the house that I haven’t read at least once, so I’m either going to have to raid my brother’s bookcase again (my usual method of acquiring reading material) or go to a book store. I never know what to buy when I’m there!
Finally sitting down to read the Repairman Jack novels i’ve let slide for almost a year: Infernal, Harbingers and Bloodlines.
since i only have Bloodlines for a two-week library check-out, and i have the two books to read *before * i get to that one, my nose is gonna be in a book pretty much around the clock.
I’ve started Cryptonomicon, so you won’t be hearing from me for a while. I’m 100 pages in, and so far I really like it.
I just finished David Weber’s Honor Among Enemies. I’m enjoying this series. It’s a bit formulaic, but I get this little thrill at the end of each book when everyone gets pretty much what they deserve. If they survive, that is. The series has an extraordinary body count.
I’m almost finished with Quicksilver and will go on to the other two books, but I really, really want a non-fiction book that Maureen Corrigan raved about on Fresh Air today.
The title is *The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective * by Kate Summerscale. It’s about the murder of a three-year-old in Victorian England and how the investigation nearly destroyed one of Scotland Yard’s best detectives.
Finished Thunderer by Felix Gilman at the end of last month; it was okay, but a little slow at times with the conflict not hitting a very high peak, thus leaving “not much” for a denouement.
Right now, I’m reading:
My Mistress’ Sparrow is Dead, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides. Compilation of love stories “from Chekov to Munro.” So far, I really like the first one the best.
The Dark Knight Returns (Batman comic) by Frank Miller. I’m reading it as a preview of what I might see in the new movie by the same name.
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This one’s a Victorian era fantasy-romance historical novel aimed at teens. English 16 year old girl lives in India; her mom dies, and she’s sent off to London to attend finishing school. Weird stuff happens. The cover looked neat when I saw the #3 book in this series, so I decided to try it.
[sub]For those who are interested, here’s my aNobii page.[/sub]
Edit: I also read 2/3 of Censoring Science by Mark Bowen, but discovered after getting most of the way through that I needed some lighter summer reading. I might return to it eventually.
Just read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow when I was supposed to be cleaning and packing my room. It was amazing. You can read it for free on your computer, which is how I got to read it.
Khadaji I saw Magic Bites in a display and picked it up to read at the store. I got so hooked I also got Magic Burns the next in the series. Kate is allowed to make mistakes. I also liked how magic and tech ‘work’ together in the same world. Enjoyed both very much. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Just finished the best book I’ve read in quite a while, The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson.
The book is about a cholera outbreak in 1850s London. A physician made a very famous map listing the deaths by address, showing they were clustered around one public water pump. Fascinating discussion of Londin and urbanization at the time, the development of public efforts to address the needs of the poor, the development of germ theory, and much more.
I STRONGLY recommend it.
I picked up Anansi Boys from the library today. If it rubs me the same way as American Gods I am hereafter swearing off Neil Gaiman and going back to Charles de Lint.
That does sound good, I like books about the history of medical discoveries.
It reminds me of another book I liked - The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis. It’s about the doctor in Vienna in the 1840’s who first figured out that childbed fever could be prevented if the medical staff disinfected their hands before delivering babies. (Docs were sometimes going straight from the autopsy room to the delivery room without so much as a rinse-off in between.)
