Just finished Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris, this is a rare thing for one of Harris’ books, it was better than the film. Normally I think his great plots and characters are spoiled by his writing style, but this time he kept it together. The ending was also much better than the film (as I recall).
Next on the list is Attila by William Napier, heard good things about it and look forward to reading it.
I also got Dark Symphony by Christine Feehan form the library, I’m a bit dubious about it, is the Carpathian series any good? (This is the only one they had at the time.)
I didn’t like the couple of early Carpathian books that I read. They were the type of romances where a powerful alpha male becomes obsessed with a rather pathetic woman who is his “lifemate” whether she wants to be or not, and begins to control her life for her own good.
Just finished *All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well *by Tod Wodicka. Very funny and peculiar. Glad I read it but pretty glad I didn’t buy it. About a recently widowed medieval reenactor who can’t hack it in modern life and tries to mend fences with his estranged children. He’s kind of a literary descendent of Ignatius J. Reilly.
Now reading *The Bodies Left Behind *by Jeffrey Deaver, more of a cat-and-mouse than Deaver’s usual procedurals.
Got a bunch of books on clearance at Vroman’s yesterday. I’m flying home for Christmas (since I worked the Thanksgiving) and then going to my long-anticipated Belize vacation in January. You all have given me lots of ideas for my Belize trip booklist, too.
Vromans:
House with the Clock in the Wall: John Bellairs
The Figure in the Shadows: John Bellairs
Labyrinthe: Kate Mosse (it was practically free, I swear)
The Indian Clerk: David Leavitt
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The Far Side of the World by Patrick O’Brian ~ I really enjoyed this one although I felt it ended rather abruptly.
The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo ~ It was ok. A quick little read. I hope I’m not the only person who had a gigglefit when the character “Gregory” was introduced. (I’m partial to this Gregory)
Other than some other books I’m still working on, I added:
The Briar King by Greg Keyes ~ I got the third in the series and decided to reread the previous two first.
I finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale, and I would recommend it highly to fans of British golden age detective fiction. It’s a true crime type book about a sensational child murder in the mid-19th century, and all the crazy coverage in the press shaped how the English public viewed the whole concept of crime investigation. I liked how the author formatted it to mirror the style of a detective novel. If you read a lot of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, John Dickson Carr, etc, you would probably enjoy this (although, being about a child’s murder, it’s a little bit of a downer in that regard).
I’m currently reading Joe College, which is a weird and somewhat uneven humorous novel about Yale in the 80s, Not a Happy Camper which is a very amusing memoir about a girl’s experiences at summer camp, and Outside Beauty the most recent YA novel by Cynthia Kadohata who won the Newbery a few years ago for Kira-Kira.
Just finished I’m A Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski by Bill Green et al. (Bloomsbury 2007), which is a wonderful, funny, offbeat fans’ tribute to one of my favorite comedies, The Big Lebowski. It has interviews with Jeff Bridges, John Goodman and much of the other cast, a glossary of movie catchphrases, a discography, a quiz to determine just how Dudelike you are, a chronicle of the evolving Lebowskifests which have been held across the country, and lots of other cool shit. The Dude abides, man.
Its an okay book , I think that people reacted the way they do because of its release date in 85 it was probably one of the few adult scifi novels. Sort of like how on the beach became a seminal work to read for a lot of people back in the 60’s.
While its set on another planet which makes it scifi, I would think that you might like speaker for the dead better.
I read something really great yesterday afternoon…a Christmas card from Auntie Pam! I was really surprised and cheered.
I also got a laugh when I saw that the envelope was addressed to Dung Beetle. The postman had put a question mark by it. Thanks, Pam! That made my day.
I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m disparaging what they’re reading, so I tend to avoid commenting negatively most of the time unless it’s someone I know will take my comments in a good way or if someone asks for feedback.
Does that make sense or do I need to rethink my approach? Khadaji, you start the threads. What is your intent?
My personal rule is that negative comments are fair game in general discussion (like this thread) but should be avoided in things like recommendation threads since it can derail things.
Thanks, Pam! That made my day.