I put the Dunnett book on hold for a minute so I could read Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon. I feel a teensy bit ripped off – I was expecting a big, fat historical. Or even a mid-size historical. This was more like a few chapters – I think it’s novella length.
It was a good read though. I re-read many passages that were really good, poetic and heartfelt. But I also re-read some passages because of Chabon’s unusual sentence structure. And it should have been longer.
Back to Dunnett.
I’m reading **Never Surrender ** by Michael Dobbs, a novel based on Winston Churchill’s first three weeks as Prime Minister. So far it is very good, if a bit harrowing, reading about the carnage on the beach at Dunkirk. But did Churchill really speak in such a florid, grandiloquent way? Did all British politicians in 1940 sound as though Dickens or Thackeray were writing their everyday speech for them? In all, an excellent book, so far.
Finished *Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside * (which I found interesting and reasonably well written) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which I bumped up after the recent Bladerunner threads, and which was poignant). I was going to start Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation, but wedged as I was into one of United’s extra-tiny window seats, there was no way to free it from my suitcase, and I was reduced to perusing the SkyMall catalogue for two hours. Now that I’m home, I’m back to Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird.
Just finished:
Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge, a recommendation from Auntie Pam. Enjoyed it very much; the author has a nice easy style and the tale kept me riveted throughout. My only complaint is that I wanted to know more about the how and why, but since this was a story of the supernatural, fleshing that part out could easily have resulted in disappointment. Best to let your imagination run wild!
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I picked this book up reluctantly, thinking I’d read a few pages and then let myself off the hook, as I really don’t care for science fiction. But it grabbed me, and I wound up liking it much more than Handmaid’s Tale. My only complaints here were A)I didn’t understand Crake’s motivations regarding the BlyssPluss pill, although like Snowman, I have theories. And B) I wish the story had gone on longer. Is that a complaint or a compliment? 
Next book of any consequence will probably be Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It’s the final book in their Peter Pan prequel series. I don’t expect it to be great, but solid.
I’m glad you liked it! Partridge wanted to do a story with a Twilight Zone feel and I think he succeeded. I didn’t question the premise until it was over. Best not to think of it too much. No one ever got out of that town? :dubious:
After listening to a fun program about books on the radio yesterday, I decided to finally read War and Peace. It’s the ultimate big fat historical, isn’t it? I’m about 50 pages in and enjoying it.
(The Dunnett will have to wait.)
Finished Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird. Can’t recommend it. (This is in contrast to many Amazon reviewers who just love it, but I think the tone is contemptuous.) Maybe I’ll read Jon Swain’s River of Time–he’s one of the people dramatized in The Killing Fields, and people seem to hate this book because he whored around and got high in Southeast Asia and now is sad that things have changed. This seems much more promising than the previous book’s revolted fascination with the fact that pigeons shit.
I’m reading Churchill’s own work Their Finest Hour, the second in his WW2 series. It includes many original letters and memoranda drafted at the time, and exerpts from Churchill’s speeches. Of course, it was dictated after the war, but from the letters and memoranda you do get the feeling that Churchill, and those around him, did indeed speak (and write and as far as I know, think) in that manner - but also with considerable clarity and humour. He is relentlessly quotable.
A favorite passage - Churchill on being made Prime Minister and the seductions of power:
I just put the audiobook on hold. Do you think I’ll have to back a truck up to the library?
I finished two of these last night, so I’ll update with my impressions of them.
Dead Lovers Are Faithful Lovers: About two women in love with Charlton Cunningham, the youngest vice-president of Southeastern Railroad Company. One woman is his wife Evelyn, a high-society dame who spends all her time preserving her veneer of perfection. The other is his mistress Isabel, a librarian at the Carnegie Library whose career doesn’t stop her from obsessing over Charlton. It’s written in a stream-of-consciousness style with a lot of repetition, especially of colors. A good book, but it didn’t strike me as a keeper.
Geisha, A Life: About Mineko Iwasaki, the most famous geiko in the 1960s-1970s. She describes her life in meticulous detail, explaining all of the nuances that Western audiences wouldn’t understand like the importance of kimono and the Japanese definition of art. There are two picture inserts that are both beautiful and useful as they show the kimono and hairstyles that she mentions. I did have trouble keeping track of the relationships among everyone in Gion Kobu and I had to keep looking back to remember what some of the words meant, but that’s my only complaint.
Hah! Maybe. Who’s doing the audio?
I have the Inner Sanctum edition (the Maudes translation) from 1942. It’s neat – there’s a map, and a booklet with character info. I’m smiling a lot at some of Tolstoy’s asides. Smiling at the footnotes too – when Pierre is introduced, there’s a footnote telling me “Pierre is one of the two major characters.”
I think my copy is unread. Some of the pages needed clipping.
It’s a Books on Tape audio.
Holy cow! 45 sound cassettes in 4 v. (67 hrs., 30 min). Read by Walter Zimmerman.
Time to start looking at truck rentals…
Finished " The Crimson Petal and the White", thoroughly enjoyed it but a bit disappointed with the ending.
Started "Casino Royale this morning.
It has been years since I read any of the original books. You’ll have to let me know what you think.
It was kind of open-ended, wasn’t it? I think Sophie will be fine, but that might be wishful thinking. The odds were against her.
I read some good historicals that year, and Crimson was my favorite.
Ooh, I just bought The Crossing. I failed to get more than a couple of pages into Blood Meridian, so gave up on him for a few years, but read The Road (loved it to post-apocolyptic pieces) and All the Pretty Horses, which was different to what I expected (I’d read Close Range a couple of weeks prior, and while they have their similarities they’re not especially comparable) but I really enjoyed it.
I went payday mad down Charing Cross Road, and I now have, to read
The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly,
Count Zero by William Gibson,
Welcome to the Human Heart, a collection of Janet Frame’s short stories,
The Bridge and Walking on Glass by Iain Banks
as well as some Walt Whitman, Gerald Manley Hopkins and E.E. Cummings. Hopefully this will tide me through to Christmas.
I finished more Dorothy Sayers - Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon were great. I’m starting Thrones, Dominations now, and I have A Presumption of Death to read next, although **MarcusF **in another thread warned me off it. Then I’ll go back to read The Nine Tailors.
I also read the third of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. I’m enjoying those.
I started the famous A Wrinkle in Time. Maybe you had to read this as a kid to fall in love with it, because at the halfway point I don’t really like it very much. I put it down for other things, but I’ll finish it over the weekend.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.
I’m really liking Cold Sassy Tree, haven’t gotten too far in GwtW yet.
After I finish George MacDonald Fraser’s Mr. American, I have Cities of the Plain sitting on my shelf waiting. It’s the third of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, after All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing.
George MacDonald Fraser’s The Reavers. Worst book I read this year. GMF, in the Foreword, stated that he set out to write an utterly nonsensical book for the young uns’ who seem to have forgotten how to have fun. But it’s just a nonsensical book with absolutely no fun. He chose to write this instead of the next Flashman book? The mind boggles.
I need to read something non-fiction-y to wipe my brain clean of that trash. Schultz and Peanuts: A Biography looks good.