Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for the comments.
I agree with Manx’s comments about Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I thought The Dragonbone Chair was pretty okay (as opposed to pretty good). However, by the time I got to the end of it, it looked like Williams had grown quite fond of his main characters, and that they were going to pass every test, meet every goal, and that they’d grown as much as they were going to grow.
I picked up the other two books in the trilogy and thanks be, there were summaries in the front. So I read the summaries, skimmed the end of the third book and the happy-ever-after, and was glad I didn’t spend any more time on them. The books were longer than they needed to be. Williams has a novella in one of the Legends anthologies – The Burning Man. Quite intense and well done.
Manx, if you’re reading historical fiction about Australia, you really need to read The English Passengers by Matthew Kneale, if you haven’t already.
Agreed. Scott Adams.
I’ve finished Survivor (which I enjoyed–I’m much more fond of his early work) and have *Eat, Love, Pray * and Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim’s Orthogenic School in process. I might add Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to my airplane stash.
Just finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943), for my book club. It’s a funny, warts-and-all, loosely fictionalized autobiographical novel of growing up poor in Brooklyn in the 1910s. Quite a few similarities (in both tone and content) to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, which I also liked.
Our next book club selection is The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham (1925), which I’ve just begun. It’s off to a slow start, but I’ll give it at least 50 pages. If it hasn’t hooked me by then, I’ll set it aside without regret - that’s my rule.
I’ve had J.R.R. Tolkien’s “new” novella The Children of Hurin on my bedside for more than a month, and have been dipping into it now and then. Slower progress than I would have liked.
I had to sorta force my way through that, too, but overall I’m glad I did. It’s uneven and a bit too melodramatic for my tastes, and it almost flunked my 50-page rule, but I persisted and I’m glad I did. Hope you will be, too.
It’s in my To Be Read pile. The review I read seemed “iffy”…if you don’t find it worthwhile, let me know!
I’m reading Gig: Americans talk about their jobs at the turn of the millenium, by John Bowe, and Microtrends: the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes, by Mark J. Penn.
I’m also interested in hearing feedback on this book. It looks interesting but my wishlist is getting ridiculous in length.
From the Dust Returned, by Ray Bradbury. In honor of the Halloween season, I’m reading this collection of related short stories about a family of other-worldly people, living in a mansion in northern Illinois. Mother and father, realizing that the real world is losing its faith in the magical, hold one last clan reunion; somnambulent daughter Cecy, whose mind can temporarily occupy any creature, wishes for human romance; adopted son Timothy, a normal human, wishes he could be like his family.
The quality of the stories, written over a 55-year-period, is variable. When Bradbury gets into an impressionistic flight of fancy in his descriptions, sometimes I’m not even sure what is actually happening — an overreaching to create a fantasy atmosphere. But at other times he does adopt a more concrete writing style, and the succinctness improves the stories.
Finished Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim’s Orthogenic School. I’ll review it over the weekend unless my grading is a more formidable task than I think it will be.
I picked up a couple of Jonathan Stroud’s (Bartimaeus trilogy) stand-alone YA novels, which appear to fall into the SF and/or SF/light horror category. I’ll read one of them next; the book after that is #100 for the year so I want it to be something interesting.
I recently mentioned to my partner’s ex-husband that my partner had managed not to roll her eyes when I exclaimed about a book on the history of daylight savings time in the Daedalus catalogue. He replied that he had not read it, but did own a book about when and where the time change happened in every US locality. When alerted to this, my partner replied wearily that yes, she sure knows how to pick them.
The more I fly and travel, the more I read. I was quite moved by The Glass Castle. Fascinating and written with a subtle brutal honesty. It’ll take you coast to coast. Water For Elephants was a bit breezier but still a good read.
Currently I’m reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I’ve never read it and after some joking around about having Scrapple at breakfast in Philly, that title came up. I figured I’d get it. Incredibly well-crafted novel. I’m only 23 pages in and I am hooked.
Cartooniverse
I loved Resume With Monsters (and highly recommend Zod Wallop, by the same authour). Let me know if this one is as good, and I’ll pick it up …
I think many of us who went to college in Pennsylvania read The Jungle for just this reason.
My own readings: I’ve just finished The Haunting of hill House (which inspired my “literary real estate ads” thread 
Great Literary Real Estate Ads - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board ) - deeply creepy; right now I’m reading Postwar by Tony Judt, which neatly fills many a knowledge gap.
I think Atrocity Archives is at least as good as the Spencer books. Some people compare Spencer to Jonathan Carroll. I like Spencer much better, but I can’t articulate why.
I’m still amazed that I enjoyed the Stross book so much, with all that jargon and scientific stuff. I didn’t understand any of that, but I could definitely relate to the HR crap. He gets the human relationships right too.
Just finished Wicked and started The English Passengers after reading all the raves on the Goodreads group.
Ordered.
You may be amused to know, if you don’t already, that there is a sequel: http://www.amazon.ca/Jennifer-Morgue-Charles-Stross/dp/1930846452/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/701-5884321-6017121?ie=UTF8&qid=1192740257&sr=8-1
Cool! Continuity too. In Atrocity, Bob and Mo talk about a Russian submarine accident as well as the Thresher accident, but without any details. It made me curious, so it’s good to know they’re investigating.
It’s silly, but if I read too much of this stuff, I’ll be even more skeptical and suspicious of what I hear on the news. What aren’t they telling us? What’s that SWAT team really fighting?
I have put down Potter for a while and taken up Alpine For You. I bought it because of the play on words and it was a mystery.
It seems more geared towards women. That isn’t a deal breaker, but I was a little surprised. (I may not have read the reviews closely enough.)
Jude the Obscure