Tore thru Christopher Moore’s latest : Sacre Bleu over the weekend. We follow a young baker/aspiring painter thru Paris during the dawn of La Belle Epoque as he and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec - an acquaintance- attempt to find out exactly what happened to Vincent Van Gogh. Beware of lovely women (who are not quite what they seem) and the color blue…
As always, Moore is vastly entertaining, occasionally bawdy, and you end up learning a thing or two along the way. For me, I’d put this novel just behind Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, which is my favorite Moore novel. (Tho I need to re-read Fool, which may push this novel into third place)
While I’ll probably end up revisiting this story via audiobook or e-book; I really have to recommend that you check out the print version, as it includes full color (albeit smallish) repros of many of the works of art discussed within the novel.
Politzania, Christopher Moore’s been posting this online chapter guide to Sacre Bleu on his facebook and twitter feed.
I haven’t been on Twitter much lately, but I do follow @TheAuthorGuy - will have to give this CG a look!
And here’s one more review:
Read the Kindle version of Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton courtesy of the local library… while I enjoyed it more than some of my GoodReads friends, I’m just as happy I didn’t spend money on it.
I didn’t particularly like Gabrielle as portrayed in this memoir; she seems very self-involved, inconsiderate and less than appreciative of her situation. That said, she pushes herself harder than anyone else in her life and has worked hard for what she has.
Surprisingly truthful at times; her adventures and travails made for engaging reading. While I’m in no way a foodie, she wrote about her dining and cooking experiences in a compelling way that made me appreciate what they did for her, even though I can’t imagine spending that kind of time and/or money on the dishes she discussed.
I particularly enjoyed the segment where she discussed going to a conference on Women in the food industry and the contradictory feelings she experienced; your gender (and sexuality) shouldn’t matter in the work environment, but your experiences do.
Recommended to foodies or those interested in reading about foodies, looking for a relatively straightforward memoir. Worth a library read, at least.
Missed the edit window & wanted to add the following:
While Hamilton is no Bourdain (which is just as well, I think!) I believe this memoir is worth a library read, at least. Now I want to go back & read Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras - Jeff Henderson faced similar (if not sharper) challenges to Hamilton, but seems more cognizant of his success.
Well, it took me long enough, but I finished The Cider House Rules, by John Irving. Never saw the movie, as I heard it was not good regardless of it winning two Oscars (for Michael Caine’s performance of Wilbur Larch and John Irving’s own adapted screenplay). In some Author’s Notes in the back, he discusses the changes necessary for the movie, and it feels like it must be a very different story indeed. The book I liked and can recommend.
This week I shall start reading a book that is banned here in Thailand, so I’m not giving any details about it until I’ve finished it and returned it to its owner.
Finished Inheritance (Inheritance Cycle, Book 4) the last in the series that started with Eragon. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed it. I had found the last book rather tedious and still maintain that he could benefit from a good editor, but overall it was readable.
I just finished Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre, a Cold War spy thriller about a British agent called out of retirement to find a mole in his agency.
It was my first exposure to Le Carre and I thought it was okay. The main storyline was interesting, but there was a lot of backstory and characterization that came across as filler and made the book meander a bit. Apparently, it’s the first of a trilogy, but I’m not sure yet if I’ll read the others.
Anyway, starting now on Soccer in a Football World, which chronicles the history of soccer in the US from the 1920s to the 2000s. I’m mainly interested in the earlier stuff, since I know very little about it.
Finished Demons: encounters with the devil and his minions, fallen angels, and the possessed, edited by John Skipp. Better than average, though I’d read several selections already.
I’m about halfway through The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie. I have enjoyed Alexie before, but this book’s not doing it for me, so I’m about to set it aside.
I read it for my book club some years ago and really enjoyed it, but it’s not for everybody.
Just finished The White Plague by Frank Herbert, which is not at all like his classic Dune. Even if it had been by a different author, though, I would still have been underwhelmed. Too much happens offstage - too many characters make inexplicable decisions - and the tremendous social consequences of a post-plague world with a thousand men for every woman are just too damn offhandedly discussed.
I had gotten a Kindle for Christmas, but didnt’ use it at all for months.
In the past two weeks, I’ve used it to read James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Right now, I’m 20% through Dorothy Sayers’ ***Clouds of Witnesses ***(an early Lord Peter Wimsey mystery).
I’m still alternating between mysteries and the Modern Library’s “100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century.” Cain’s*** Postman***, I suppose, qualifies as both.
Finished Raven Cursed (Jane Yellowrock, Book 4). It was pretty mediocre and I think I’m done with this series. It wandered with too many subplots - most of which I just didn’t care about.
We’ll see. When book 5 comes out this fall, if I have nothing else to read (unlikely) I may give it one more go.
Just started The Shack by William Paul Young, a Christian-themed novel about love, loss, and evil in the world despite God’s presence. It’s meh so far.
I’m also reading Once Upon A Secret by Mimi Alford. It’s a memoir about an affair she allegedly had with JFK when she was a White House intern in 1962-63. So far, so good.
Me too. There’s no way the author can possibly wrap this up to my satisfaction at this point (maybe at the end, we’ll find it was all a dream! 
) but I must see what he pulls out of his butt anyway.
I’m starting this tonight. My daughter loved it – said it had none of King’s annoying quirks.
Just finished a re-read of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin.
Also On the Night Plain by J. Robert Lennon, post WWII, a man returns to his family’s sheep ranch after tramping around for a few years. I really liked it. It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy in style, except that it wasn’t as dense as McCarthy, and while nothing much happens, there was enough everyday detail and insightful characterization to keep me interested.
If anyone has picked up my highly recommended Eli Monpress series - just a note to let you know that the new one came out early (mine came yesterday.)
I’m with you. I loved the first 50 pages, and suffered through the next 900.
Revisited Stephen King’s The Eyes of the Dragon - I read the Kindle version courtesy of the library & was disappointed to see how many OCR-based typos there were. 
Not quite what you usually expect from Stephen King, as it’s fairly basic fantasy - old king with evil adviser/wizard who pits one brother against another. Injustice is done, but good eventually wins the day. Some clever thinking/plotting, good imagery, and the characters are reasonably well-defined, but it’s not his best work, IMHO. (not his worst tho, not by a long shot!) Worth revisiting once a decade or so, at least for me. Another GoodReads reviewer said this was probably the closest King gets to a YA novel & I kinda agree.
I’m not quite sure how it ties into the Dark Tower series, but it must, as the bad guy is named Flagg. The Roland in this story may be an ancestor of Gunslinger Roland? I know I could check the Concordance, but can’t be arsed at the moment.
Lucked into an ARC of Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas - John Scalzi’s latest (coming next month) and tore thru it in a matter of hours. The tagline “They were expendable, until they started comparing notes” along with the name of the novel should be a pretty good clue to the basic plot; a group of Ensigns assigned to the space ship Intrepid learn that a good number of their cohorts die while on away missions with Senior Staff. While researching this situation, they end up making an unsettling discovery about their reality and find a almost-too-clever way to solve their dilemma. Lots of funny moments (laugh out loud even!) but some surprisingly touching ones as well. It started a bit unevenly, with lots of characters being thrown at you all at once; but they managed to sort themselves out eventually. The “Three Codas” were an interesting addition to the overall story, and provided some closure on minor plot points. If you enjoyed the movie Galaxy Quest, you’d probably enjoy this novel as well. I can’t wait til the audiobook (read by Wil Wheaton) is released!
Ya know - I finished reading it just a few weeks ago (May 4th) , and now I can’t even remember how it got wrapped up? Guess I waited too long to write up my review. About all I do recall is that Dashner took the coward’s way out when resolving the Love Triangle; and that I still don’t know what Wicked really hoped to accomplish.
Glad to see others feel the same way–I finished The Death Cure a few months ago.
I have persevered through Someone Come to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow and am thankful that it was a library book rather than something I spent money on. A very surreal plot premise: a guy who has various strange beings for relatives (mother is a washing machine, father is a mountain) is stalked by his dead brother whilst helping a cyberanarchist in downtown Toronto.
I’m now working on From the Realm of Morpheus by Steven Millhauser. I love Millhauser’s books but have discovered I can’t read this one while going to sleep…I lasted about two pages into the description of the room of sleeping people and the big cozy bed before nodding off.