Yes, the story about his French class trying to have conversations using the 50 words of French they all know is my favorite Sedaris bit so far.
Recently finished:
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon ~ Didn’t really like it.
In the Company of Ogres by A. Lee Martinez ~ ok fun read
Etta by Gerald Kolpan ~ Historical fiction about Etta Place & her adventures with William “Sundance Kid” Longabaugh. It’s a bit too fanciful & she was a classic “Mary Sue” but I still enjoyed the read.
Presently reading:
*Bones of the Dragon * by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580 by Samuel Bawlf
I really need to read some Sedaris.
Finished The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard. I liked it – not as much as I liked The Black Tower, and I’m not sure what I think about the twist.
Next up is Drood, unless The Brothers K arrives today, or Gunpowder, the new Joe Hill novel. I haven’t paid $45 for a book for years, but it’s Joe Hill.
Just finished The Big Over Easy. Really enjoyable characters and situations, with some laugh-out-loud moments. Don’t pay too close attention to the plot… it doesn’t make much sense on serious examination and isn’t that important to the enjoyment of the book anyway.
I’m a little late to this thread, but betterl ate than never!
I just finished Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts. It’s the story of Science Fiction authors in soviet Russia who, at the behest of Stalin, write about an alien invasion of the earth. It’s a convoluted plot to keep the republic united against a common enemy. Then, a few decades later, the events the authors wrote about right after WWII start to happen around the world. Pretty interesting, and I’m still thinking about it, which normaly bodes well for a book.
just picked up Christoper Moore’s Fool which I start tonight.
Also on Deck…Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, (I missed it when it was first released and picked up a bargin copy at the Tattered Cover.) and Matter by Ian Banks. Can’t wait to get my teeth into that one.
That series has actually gotten better than the Thursday Next series. I especially like the way it kind of spun off from Thursday Next during The Well of Lost Plots. Subtly done!
That’s one of his best collections. I read it about 40 years ago, but still remember it - and have it. Did it get reissued?
I’ve been reading Tom Swift Jr. books I got from my wife’s house, and just finished Tom Swift and the Space Solartron which is maybe the worse book the Strattemeyer Syndicate ever published. The level of science in this series is never very high, but this one was Pel Torro bad - or worse. The two worst howlers: first, Tom builds a matter synthesizer which works by spinning a single atom really fast - because, you see, it spinning fast increases its mass due to relativity, so this mass obviously comes from new atoms popping up. :eek: At least they admit this takes of energy. Tom takes his invention to the nuclear reactor he owns, but that isn’t enough - so he takes a solar power cell into orbit, because obviously there is more solar power up there. :eek::eek: This book came out in 1957, and amply demonstrates why the Russians beat us to orbit. Sadly, the original Tom Swift books were far better written and more accurate.
Now I’m reading Obedience a mystery, which is quite odd and not at all what I expected - probably far more interesting.
Just finished Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. A very entertaining story that was difficult to put down. I slept less this week than I would have if I hadn’t been reading it, that’s for sure.
Not sure what’s up next. I have too many choices at the moment.
I just gave up on Paula Gunn Allen’s Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat. I tried to like it. I did like her take on Pocahontas–she ripped out all the Disney romance and explained the Algonquin take on the universe which gave an interesting (and probably more accurate) explanation of Pocahontas’ actions. However there is way too much theory mixed in with the biography. When PGA started yapping about reality and how different belief systems change it I had finally had enough. Either write another book of American Indian theory or write a biography. Don’t do both at the same time.
Finally finished The Gone-Away World. Although I didn’t hate it, I am not as enamored with it as many on this board. The idea was very interesting. I said in another thread that I wanted to sit the narrator down and say: you don’t have to tell us *everything *that pops into your head.
No doubt what I found to be self-indulgent “comedic” wanderings are the same things that make others say it is brilliantly funny. But much of it was not needed to further the plot. As I mentioned in another thread, as an experiment one night I only read the even pages of the chapters to see if it made a difference in my reading experience. It didn’t seem to and after I finished I went back and read the chapter properly. Sure, I missed tons of details of the kind that I referred to as wanderings above, but none of it seemed to really make a difference, for me, in the reading experience.
The author did bring some those wanderings home and later tie them in at the end.
I liked it well enough not to be too upset that I read it, not well enough that I would recommend it to someone I liked. Over all I found the concept for the Gone-Away world the most fascinating thing about the book.
I’m still on my historical mystery kick, so I just finished:
Revelation, by CJ Sansom, set in the reign of Henry VIII. Very enjoyable.
The Last Kashmiri Rose, by Barbara Cleverly, set in the waning days of the Raj. Not very enjoyable.
Just started:
The Doublet Affair, by Fiona Buckley, second in a series set in the early days of Elizabeth I’s reign. I loved the first in the series and this one is just as enjoyable.
The Silver Pigs, by Lindsey Davis, set during the reign of the Emperor Vespasian. So far, a little odd but enjoyable.
For those of us strapped for cash, but with a jones for reading, I found this website: www.paperbackswap.com. Sounds like a good deal, so I joined up.
Quasi
It isn’t so much that I’m strapped for cash - but I have to find a way to get rid of my books. I have way too many. I’ll look into it.
I had been giving them to the son of a friend who was selling them on eBay. At first he was really into it, but I guess the novelty wore off.
Did anyone else like A Thousand Splendid Suns?
I suppose I need to read *Kite Runner *next.
No, I ran across a copy in a used book store. I actually wasn’t that thrilled with it; for that style of writing, I guess I prefer Fredric Brown.
On a related note, does anyone know if the Lefty Feep stories were ever collected into a single volume?
On another topic, I got about halfway through my copy of Return of the Crimson Guard before running into a binding problem (page 302 is followed by page 351, and a couple chunks of pages are repeated).
This is one of the most awesome ways to recycle, and I too, have just been giving my books randomly.
At least this way, we’ll know our books are finding themselves new and interested readers.
Hey!
I think I just heard an Ent beginning to snore softy…
Quasi
Whenever I go see my surgeon for a check up I take some books and leave them in the lobby of the hospital. My thinking is that there will one day be someone who is there in the middle of the night, waiting to hear about a loved-one and they’ll need a distraction. Maybe I’m deluding myself, maybe the cleaning staff throws out my books, but I’m hoping they help someone out.
I liked it well enough, though it’s not one I anticipate re-reading. I thought the story was interesting, but none of the characters resonated with me all that much, so I didn’t get that sense of personal connection in the book to really draw me in.
I just finished reading The Damned Utd by David Peace. It’s a fictionalized account of a real event - Brian Clough’s 44 days in charge of Leeds United during the 1974-75 season. As portrayed in the book, Clough is a near-complete bastard, but oddly likeable nonetheless as he self-destructs in brilliant fashion. Highly recommended. And there’s a movie based on the book, which is coming out next month in the UK and stars Michael Sheen (of Frost/Nixon) as Clough.
I got somewhat sidetracked, I’m afraid, in my scheduled February reading. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is still barely arrived in Chicago, and Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke is back on the shelf. Unfortunately, Amazon delivered a bunch of graphic novels / comic books to me that I had to crack open. I can unreservedly recommend:
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, by Chester Brown. It’s stupendous. Fast-paced, interesting, and an amazing use of the comic medium.
The Invisibles: Say You Want a Revolution, by Grant Morrison. Dark, gruesome, and confusing so far, but a great read. Sadly, I’ll have to wait until I have more time to get to the other volumes, as so much more important reading is waiting for me.
The Walking Dead Vol. 9, Robert Kirkman. I’m not sure I like where it’s going, but at least it’s getting moving again!
American Born Chinese, by Gene Yang. Lovely book, and not just for YA readers.
Other reads that went by fast, but did not really further my work:
Day by Day Armageddon, by J.L. Bourne. I’m rather ambivalent. On the plus side, it’s got zombies, so it’s not all bad. On the minus side, it’s really badly written. The conceit is that it’s a diary (which I like, as it leaves open the possibility that the lead dies!), but it’s an oh-so-bad diary. I’ve never written one myself, but I would suppose that entries don’t go like this: “Cousin Harry, who was married to my second wife’s aunt Brunhilda, who owned a gun store in Tampa that was devastated by Hurricane Andrew, called me, to ask me if I, the Navy fighter-jock that I am, knew anything about installing intruder alarms, which I do!” [Well, I made that one up for effect, but you get the drift…way too much information]
And lastly, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon. I’m also ambivalent about this book. It’s great writing, and the movement between comic world and real world is done amazingly well. Still, I can’t bring myself to read more than a chapter every time I pick it up. Why that is so, I don’t know – it’s not that I dislike the book at all…
I’ve been using this site, with great success, for over a year now. I’ve gotten rid of about a hundred of my books… and somehow ended up with 122 new ones.