I’m giving up on Drood – I gave it 100 pages and I just don’t care.
I just finished, my first audiobook actually, * Water for Elephants* by Sara Gruen. It was about 50 times better than I expected it to be. Bittersweet story and an unexpected ending.
I just started Cloud Atlas but also as an audiobook. I never wanted to mess with cds or tapes, so having it downloaded to my Kindle has made audiobooks attractive for the first time. I drive about an hour and a half a day, so I move through them at a good pace although sometimes my mind wanders which is why I have re-start the first twenty minutes of this one.
Having a hard time picking what’s next to download onto the Kindle for actual reading. I want to read the latest *Mistress of the Art of Death *series but don’t want to pay $13 for it.
Well, I *did *warn you… 
(Of course, many other dopers liked it…)
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
//** First fiction book that I’m reading on my iPad. Taking notes has never been easier.
Yeah, exactly – seems like a real polarizing book, which is part of why I was so curious. I like Dickens, though I’ve never read “Drood” – perhaps that’s the problem? – and I like Collins, and I like long novels set in Victorian England, but … bleh.
I was going to say this was the second novel of his I’ve given up on in the last few months, but Kim Stanley Robinson wrote Galileo’s Dream.
I’m rereading Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. I bought a bunch of books the other day and I’m dipping a toe in them to see which I’ll read next; The High King of Montival by S. M. Stirling, The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland, and Without Warning by John Birmingham.
I loved that book. I think I will have to make it mine so I can re-read it any time I want.
Last night I finished reading The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson.
This is a history with two interleaved themes:
One of which is the planning for, construction of, and operation of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, with special focus on the man who led those efforts, architect Daniel Burnham.
The other being the actions of Chicago-based serial murderer Dr. H. H. Holmes (pseudonym of Herman Webster Mudgett), who committed his crimes in about the same time span as the book’s narrative about the World’s Fair.
(Holmes and Burnham never met.)
I was unaware of the book until last month, when someone I know mentioned it and talked about it’s topics. At that time I recalled having read in the past an online article about the Holmes murders, and had also seen period photos of the buildings at the World’s Fair, so decided to give the book a try.
It was fascinating; I highly recommend it.
Finished Death Most Definite. At times this was a page flipper (a book that you don’t care enough to read closely, don’t hate enough to put down, so you flip through a lot of the pages.)
It picked up nicely in the end and I ended up enjoying it. It surprised me a few times.
Steven de Selby is a “pomp” - what* Dead Like Fans* would recognize as a reaper. He gently guides dead souls back to the tree of life. (Aussies, is “pomp” a common term for this down under? The book is set in Australia. The term is not common here.) One day he meets a dead girl that he isn’t assigned to Pomp. This is a surprise in and of itself, but then she warns him to duck and he just misses getting shot. From then on, he has to find out who is killing Pomps and why.
Some of the mythology took a little long to develop and some of the running and hiding was boring, but as I said, in the end I guess I liked it and I may try the next one.
I wonder if this was the part of a conversation I heard two ladies discussing about a writer who died and his girlfriend or wife found a story on his computer that the writer’s family was now fighting over. I’ve been needing closure on the matter and I think I have it.
Getting to the end of Death in The Sahara, and reading The Whole Shebang, by Ferris.
Well, I finished “The Strain,” and I’ll probably read the next two in the trilogy, too, in spite of how bad the writing is. It’s a case of, “Great idea, poorly executed.” The idea is great enough to keep me interested, though.
I’m reading a collection of post-apocalyptic short stories, now, and it’s very good - “The Mammoth Book of The End of the World,” edited by Mike Ashley. It has the awesome short story in it, “When SysAdmins Ruled the World.”
I enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamora very much. It’s a dark book even though it has such a lighthearted tone - like a cheerful caper movie - that the brutal scenes are a bit jarring. It was a satisfying standalone story, even though it’s the first book of what looks to be a long series.
I read the newest book in Tanya Huff’s Valor series, The Truth of Valor, and I liked it, too. These are space opera/military sci-fi, and they’re a lot of fun.
Now I’m reading Flashman and the Redskins - Flashy in the American old west during the gold rush.
I’m listening to the first Flashman as an audiobook, and I’m all kinds of thrilled with the reader (David Case). However, the story’s bogging down a bit in the middle with fighting in Afghanistan. I think part of the problem is that I can’t see the strange names and unfamiliar words, which makes it harder to follow. One word in particular: sounds like can-tawn-ment, it’s the English soldier’s home base. Anyone know what that word is?
Webster’s says that “cantonment” means either “temporary quarters for troops” or “a permanent military station in India”.
I bet Flashman is great in an audiobook, with right reader, since the books are in the form of a conversational recollection. I think hearing some of the stuff out loud would be even more cringe-inducing than reading it, though. I avoided reading Flash for Freedom! in public, lest someone glance over my shoulder at a random page and be horrified. And *Redskins *is almost as bad. It’s hilarious, though.
Thank you, Eleanor!
I do like the reader so much that I’m not interested in continuing the series without him. Fortunately, my library has about six more on tape.
That sounds awesome, I’m adding it to my library list.
Recently finished:
The Passage by Justin Cronin. I liked this, it had somehow escaped me that it’s intended to be the first in the series, so I found the ending somewhat disjointed.
Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine. (kidlit) This was a really sweet story about a girl with Asperger’s, but I’m not convinced it’s very realistic. But it was certainly engaging. Also sad.
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno (YA) I got a huge kick out of this, because I was a sullen teenager who made too many mix tapes back in the late 80s, when this book takes place.
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy Frost. I keep meaning to post about this in the Hoarders thread. I enjoyed this very much – it’s a more clinical look at the mental and emotional conditions associated with hoarding, and it’s very sympathetic (not voyeuristic). I think it does a great job of explaining the drive to hoard, and how many of the characteristics of hoarding are related to “normal” ways people feel about their personal belongings, only taken to an extreme. I skipped the chapter on animal hoarding.
I’m currently reading Ransom by David Malouf, which is a retelling of the Achilles and Hector story from the Trojan War. So far, it’s pretty good.
I’ve just started John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, my book club’s pick, and I like it OK so far. Still dipping occasionally into Scott Turow’s Ultimate Punishment, a nonfiction book about the death penalty, as well.
I’m curious how the audiobooks handle the wonderful endnotes that correspond to the pages. They contain a wealth of information, and I can’t imagine reading the Flashman books without referring to them. I hope they are not omitted, that would be a travesty, but although I don’t at all mind flipping back to check them out while reading the written narrative, I can’t imagine how they would do that with a verbal narrative.
Reading on these board has got me in a Chicago state of mind.
I’m presently reading What Cops Know a compendium from interviews with members of Chicago’s Finest by Connie Fletcher.
It’s about what police do, how they do it and what it does to them to paraphrase from the subtitle. My interest was partially spurred by the recent cop bashings in The Pit.