I’m engrossed in Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which I picked up based on numerous recommendations here – totally digging it. (For those who have read it – I just finished the Hawaii section, so am on my way “back out” of the story; just started the second Somni section last night and am trying to get reoriented to that storyline.)
It’s a cross between Years of Rice and Salt and The English Passengers, two Doper favorites – strongly recommended.
Anyone else reading anything good?
The Face by Dean Koontz is my current bathtub book.
Princesses, the Daughters of George III by Flora Fraser is on my bedside table.
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford is in my office for those rare days when I get a lunch break.
“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein. Premise: a grown human male born of human parents on Mars, and raised by Martians, voluntarily returns to Earth with human space explorers. His abilities and adjustment to the new environment, his human protectors, political maneuvering within the World Federation of Free States, the bad guys, media, and extremist religions all play a role and make for an engrossing, suspenseful, and thoroughly enjoyable read. A classic, it was written in 1961 but the first edition was censored because of some scenes that were considered to be potentially offensive. (Of course, by today’s standards, it’s pretty tame stuff.) If you want to read it, get the uncut version – over 500 pages long.
I’m in the middle of A Storm of Swords, by George R. R. Martin. I’m loving this series, but the chapter titles that indicate which character the chapter is about are distracting to me. I got interested in Jaime’s story and I skipped through the whole damned book reading only those chapters.
I just finished reading a collection of Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn mysteries. When I finish the 4th Martin book I will track down some more of those.
I’m reading Cheaper By the Dozen out loud to my kids. I had forgotten how much I loved that book when I was a kid. Belles on Their Toes is next.
Ooh. Is the Flora Fraser book any good? I’ve been thinking about asking my local library to do an inter-library loan. They have the book in the system but not near me.
My current read is Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber. She really makes a case for Antoinette as innocent victim rather than deliberate beast.
“The Plague” by Albert Camus. I like post-apocalyptic fiction.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Very readable, like the best bits (well, for a godless heathen like me) of his past books all put together.
Just started “The Bible Unearthed”.
Princesses is okay, not great. As biographies go, it’s not nearly as well-written as the ones by Flora’s grandmother, Elizabeth Longford, or her mother, Antonia Fraser.
I bought it because I was interested in Princess Sophia, who gave birth to an illegitimate son. Contemporary rumor said that the child might have been fathered by Sophia’s brother. Alas, the scandal, the most interesting story in the book, is given short shrift in Flora Fraser’s book.
If your library can’t get it for you, it’s worth a read but it’s not a book to rush out and buy at full price. I’d recommend waiting to get it at half-price when it’s remaindered. Probably Edward R. Hamilton Booksellers, my favorite purveyor of remainders, will have it next year.
I’m looking forward to reading the Marie Antoinette book. Are you enjoying it?
St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell. I read “Haunting Olivia” in The New Yorker a while back and thought it was fantastic. This collection doesn’t disappoint; the stories are similarly surreal and borderline sci-fi/fantasty in parts, and very absorbing.
I just hope that Flora is half as good a writer as her mother and grandmother. I really enjoyed Antonia Frazer’s biography of Mary, Queen of Scots.
The Marie Antoinette book is very good. She straddles the line between academic writing and popular non-fiction and does it very well. What I like about the book is the focus on Antoinette as a product of her time rather than a more modern spin. Sometimes the fact that she was only a very young woman when forced to marry the heir to the throne gets lost by biographers. The only thing I would like is more pictures. She makes refences to clothing and doesn’t always let the reader see exactly what she’s writing about. But all in all I’m about three-quarters of the way through the book and so far a very good read.
For Edgar about a serial killer who’s schtick is an Edgar Allen Poe theme. I am not hating it but find it pretty typical for the genre.
BirdmanAnother serial killer story. I’m not far enough into it to determine whether I like it.
Apache: The definitive guide Already outdated, but sufficient to teach me the rudiments of Apache.
Kokology
Kokology (koh-KOL-oh-jee; from the Japanese kokoro, meaning “mind” or “spirit”), a book that contains 55 psychological questions that aim to delve into your subconscious, revealing how you truly feel about work, love, family, sex, and much more. I am stunningly underwhelmed. Perhaps I have no imagination, or am not throwing myself into the game, but so far I’m left feeling WTF? 
Goody! I’m needing recommendations.
Just finished The Contract Surgeon by Dan O’Brien. It’s about a young doctor assigned to the US Cavalry during the Plains Indian wars in the 1870’s.
Also reading The World I Made for Her by Charles Moran. It’s from the point of view of a young man in an intensive care unit. He has a trache so can’t speak and his condition is grave. I want so bad to skip to the end to see if he recovers. He slips in and out of a coma, has scary dreams, and interacts with two of his nurses. It’s beautifully written, and if I were a nurse, I think I’d learn something from his experience.
Dumped A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore – I guess I can’t handle sibling incest as well as I thought I could.
Started Lisey’s Story by Stephen King – too many words, again, but I will persevere and hope I can get into it before too many pages.
Coincidence; I’m reading this same book.
I’m simultaneously reading the last book in the Dark Tower series, getting more and more ready for disappointment. There is no way in heaven or on Earth that any author anywhere could finish this in a non-disappointing way. It’s just logically impossible. What was King thinking?
I loved Gunslinger - it was moody, dark, evocative, mythical, original. As much as I like most of King’s work, what made Gunslinger so good was that it was so utterly different from what he usually writes. The Drawing of Three was good too, but much more standard King fare. The Waste Lands wasn’t bad. Wizard and Glass was one huge flashback that didn’t bring the story forward, so to me it was just hard slog to get through. Wolves of the Calla was miles and miles of buildup and then a payoff of about two seconds. Song of Susannah wasn’t bad, but the whole “author as a character” thing just gave off a real wankery vibe. Vonnegut did it right.
So far, The Dark Tower is going even further in the wanking direction, but it’s holding up. I hated the death of Randall Flagg though;that character deserved more than that.
But how the hell is it going to end? I’m prepared to be disappointed, but I doubt I’m prepared enough.
I’m reading an old book I found in the secretary in the livingroom. I mean, I knew it was there I guess but it kind of got buried.
It’s called Something Doing. It’s an old pulp detective novel set in New York City. It was written in 1919 by a guy named Varick Varnady. (Never heard of the guy.) Apparently it’s one in a series of his detective novels, but I don’t have any of the others. It starts with a murder and shadowy activities, natch, and follows the career of Birge Moreau, a society artist by day and underworld anti-hero, Crewe, saloon-keeper, by night. Moreau gets into a cool disguise to be Crewe and solves mysteries and stuff with his Damon Runyon-style cast of bad-guys-gone good informants and sidekicks. It’s pretty awesome. I’m going to look at my parents’ house for the other books.
I’m trudging thought Lisey’s Story, too. It’s okay, but I’m not sure I can judge fairly. I’m reading it right on the heals of Memoir from Antproof Case, by Mark Helprin, which was wonderful, intermittently hilarious and gorgeously written – almost approaching A Soldier of the Great War in literary perfection. It’s hard to read anything after living inside 500+ pages of that weird litte fictional universe.
Well shit, here I go getting all gooey about Mark Helprin again.
I’m currently reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, and it is really disturbing me - and I’m only in the first part!
Susan
It ends, at least IMO, the only way it could. It might make you mad, but if you think about it, it’s really the only way it could end.
I just finished Lisey’s Story. I found it a little hard to get into, because I didn’t get all the references until I was further along in the story.
I’m rereading The Talisman and I need to hunt up my copy of Tai-Pan by James Clavell. I think it finally fell apart and I’ll need to visit the bookstore.
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope. Just started it, less than 100 pages in, so I’m reserving judgement, but the story does seem to take a long time getting started. Backstory, backstory, and more backstory!
I just got finished reading the Tao of Pooh. Maybe I’m just turning into a cynical curmudgeon, but I failed to be as charmed & delighted by it as the author so obviously expected me to be. I found it rather cloying, and not nearly as interesting as reading the ‘pooh’ books themselves.
I’m in the middle of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, just starting the 3rd book, The System of the World. I will admit that when I read a recommendation on here for the series and then went out to Borders six months ago, I wasn’t entirely sure that a 3000 page series of books about the 17th and 18th centuries would catch my attention all that well. It’s pretty much why I only bought Quicksilver first, and why that same book sat on my bookshelf for almost six months without even being cracked open. But I was bored, and curious, so I started it.
I love this series! He intertwines the historical persons with his fictitious ones very skillfully (though, of course, the historical persons have quite a bit of fictitious in them in these books anyway), and even three-page treatises on the fiduciary idiosyncracies of the merchants of Amsterdam has me turning the pages…