House to House by David Bellavia, about his platoon’s experience in the battle for Fallujah in November, 2004.
Shadow Family–A Japanese murder mystery by the same author of All She Was Worth
I just finished The Godfather. I’m also trying to get through Unholy Birth, a cheesy Rosemary’s Baby type rip off. (Except this time they’re lesbians.)
That’s on my “started but put back on the shelf” pile, along with “Cellophane” and “Gilead”. Nothing wrong with them, I just got my head turned by something else.
Speaking of which, has anyone read anything by Valerie Martin? I saw a good review for her latest, Trespass, and saw that she won the Orange Prize for Property. Of course Ann Patchett has a new one too… Gah! Must wait for soft cover…
If we’re talking “must wait,” Robert Charles Wilson has a new one.
Fiction: Pratchett’s Making Money
Non-Fiction: Laura Thompson’s biography on Agatha Christie, An English Mystery
I liked Property but I wish I’d read it with a buddy. I was going “She did not just do that!” and “What do you think about such-and-such?” and “How realistic is this?” but I was talking to myself.
Today I read Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata. It’s a Newbery Medal winning Young Adult novel. I thought it was great; very affecting and gracefully written.
Before that, I finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I loved it, but I can see why it would not be to everyone’s taste.
Next up is The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich, but I probably won’t start it until tomorrow.
Jackpot!!!
When I got home today, I discovered that the Postal Person had left not one, not two, but…wait for it…seven packages from Amazon, Amazon.uk, and other purveyors of Fine Reading Material. So now I have to decide between:
Making Money - Terry Pratchett (UK Edition)
The Wit and Wisdom of the Discworld - TP
Mission: Cook! - Robert Irvine
Serenity: Found - Jane Espenson
1634: The Bavarian Crisis - Eric Flint
2 trade collections of PS238 comics
or the latest Nodwick collection.
Decisions, decisions. I think I’ll save 1634 for reading at the tournament this weekend. The Irvine book will make a nice dinner companion while the wife is away. The comic collection go into the bathroom, and the Pratchett go into the pile by the chair.
I am in a woman’s book group
a few months back this was the group’s selected book
it was the first time in awhile that everyone loved reading the selected book
the animal cruelty took some air-gulping on my part … in order to proceed with the story
For my reading of all of the Hugo winning novels I just finished Blue Mars which I thought had interesting terraforming science but utterly horrible characters, economics, and societal examination. Any radical economic system used in a science fiction book that requires the vast majority of a society to give up ambition, doesn’t cause massive changes in day to day lives beyond the characters commenting occasionally on how evil the old ways were, and doesn’t feature any rigid system propping it up makes me want to throw the book across the room. Longevity played a major part in the book but Robinson apparently kept forgetting just how much time he was dealing with; there were 65-year-old “renegade youths”, a total of three generations across nearly two hundred years, and almost anyone who wasn’t part of that first generation had nothing significant to add to events.
I’m starting on Forever Peace which I have not read before, but given that Haldeman could keep track of massive societal changes in Forever War it has to be better than that.
I see the board ate my post during the recent unpleasantness. It admired silenus and said that he was hot, though more eloquently than this gloss would suggest.
Ooh, let us know how you like Pontoon, please. I love Garrison Keillor, and had no idea he had a new book out. I recently re-read Wobegon Boy and appreciated it a lot more than I did when I was 12.
I’m currently reading The Time-Traveler’s Wife by mumble and Coyote Love by Christopher Moore. Early predictions are saying that the writing in the former will make me go a little crazy with the syrupy pretension, and that the latter will make me go, “Guys think like that?” at least once, but I will enjoy both of them, anyway.
I have Making Money on reserve at the library, and two books on Victorian sewing/patterning requested through ILL. I’m beginning to think the librarians have a pool going on what I’ll check out next – “OK, last week it was pirates, a medieval romance novel, Wisconsin ghost stories and some David Sedaris. Five dollars on the French language and something about cheese.”
I’m currently reading Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick. It’s historical fiction set during the 1100s with the occasional dabbling in romance scenes; I like it so far.
Since I’ve bitched about two books, I need to balance that out with some praise: Devil in the White City is terrific. Even the bits about planning and organizing the World’s Fair were interesting. The serial killer bit was just icing on the cake.
Speaking of, I need to start on my own serial killer book. It’s been a rough night.
I’m currently working on two books. First is **The Worst Journey in the World ** by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. The author travelled to the Antarctic as part of Robert Scott’s last expedition to the South Pole in 1910 and, needless to say, things didn’t go so well. It’s an interesting contrast to Shackleton’s South!, which I just finished a few weeks ago.
Second, I’ve got some compendium of H.P. Lovecraft stories that I’ve been picking up here and there. It came highly recommended to me, but I’ve read a half dozen stories and so far I have to say “meh”. The stories are so predictable, he telegraphs everything from a mile away.
I decided I’ve been reading too many Dungeons & Dragons novels (there are so many of them!), so the other day I picked up a copy of City of Golden Shadow, the first book in Tad Williams’ Otherworld series. A friend gave me War of the Flowers a couple years ago and I really enjoyed it, so I figured I’d try some more TW. I just started City of Golden Shadow today.
I’m flipping through the parts of the new Lonely Planet Thailand guide that are pertinent to the wife and me. It was published this past August, and a new edition comes out about every two years.
But I just finished **No Country for Old Men ** by Cormac McCarthy, and I have a question. He makes two very explicit references to the gas chamber in Huntsville being used for execution. But Texas has never used the gas chamber. They use lethal injection now, but at the time the book is set, circa 1980, it was the electric chair. I cannot believe McCarthy would make such mistake, so he must have done this on purpose. But why?
McSweeny’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
(note:underlined as a link, but also because it’s a book title)
----the probably out-of-date-and-undoubtably-unqualified grammar nazi
It was already October here when you posted, so I’m not put out. 
The Fifth Elephant by Pratchett. But most of my time is being taken up by Ken Burns at the moment.