I finished Why We Suck by Denis Leary and loved it. I also finished Party Monster (originally titled Disco Bloodbath) by James St. James, about Michael Alig and the “Club Kids” of the late 80s/early 90s. I’ve seen the movie with Macauley Culkin and Seth Green, which is a lot better than you’d think. I enjoyed the book as well.
Just started Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates this morning. I want to read it before I see the movie (if I see the movie).
I recently finished Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and it is definitely geared towards the teenage female. I can summarize the first 80% of the book for those who can’t be bothered to read it or watch the movie:
Bella: Edward is so good looking, so handsome, so perfect. swoon Why does he hate me?
Edward: I am too dangerous for you Bella, but I cannot resist you, but resist you I must.
Repeat until you can’t take it anymore… and then repeat for another 200 pages.
I liked A Fire Upon the Deep, but I wasn’t amazed by it. The aliens with pack minds were fascinating and the “zones of thought” concept grew on me, but the story didn’t have much of an emotional impact. Not sure if I’ll read more Vinge.
I’m in the middle of Dark Fire, the second in C. J. Sansom’s Tudor mystery series.
Huh, I just noticed that’s two “Fire” books in a row.
I recently finished Katherine Neville’s novel The Eight, after a recommendation from a Doper in another thread. It flips between the 1970s and the 1790s in a global chase for Charlemagne’s mystical chess set. Definitely entertaining, though there were a few moments where the plot’s twist and turns seemed a bit too contrived, even for the genre.
I’m now wrapping up The Barrytown Trilogy, by Roddy Doyle. Already finished The Commitments and The Snapper and am close to finishing The Van. Doyle has a real ear for dialogue and makes even the most mundane scenes entertaining. Highly recommended. O’ course, tha’ book make me want to eat chips, drink pints o’ Guinness and speak with a Dublin brogue, so tha’s an added benefit, yeah. : )
Next up: Once In a Lifetime: The Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos by Gavin Newsham.
Finished Echoes from the Dead by Johan Theorin and heartily recommend it if you like dark twisty mysteries with realistic characters. It was a pleasant surprise.
Back to a re-read of A Game of Thrones.
Good luck with this one. I made it about 100 pages before giving up. Someone spoiled the ending for me, which didn’t help.
I’m reading Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City and really enjoying it.
Just finished reading “Dewey” the library cat and am working (and I mean Working) on “Wesley.” These books are proof that no matter how cute or moving a story is, it still needs to be written by someone who can effing write! I loved the stories these books had to tell, but the writing is so bad that it’s hard to get through.
Let me try again. (My thanks to AuntiePam View Post who caught me posting this in the Watcha Watchin thread.)
After months of trying to finish it, I finally put down Un Lun Dun. Maybe it was aimed at too young of a crowd. Maybe it is a British/American humor thing - maybe if you liked Monty Python you would like this. I dunno, but it was never mildly humorous and seemed to me the author was just making up odd things because he was trying to make it silly for the kids. The final straw was when
he introduced a character who had a bird-cage for a head - and the bird whistles instead of him talking. There seemed to be no reason for him having a bird cage for a head, other than the protagonist needed to catch a bird.
I just don’t care what happens.
I like Monty Python and found Un Lun Dun unreadable and grotesque.
I finished Charles de Lint’s The Onion Girl yesterday. It’s one of his better ones, but my GOD he put Jilly through hell. I would not want to be a heroine in one of his novels. You’ve got to earn the happy ending in his books.
I’m not too thrilled with the ending, though. I thought that the sister didn’t get what she deserved. Yeah, yeah, forgiveness and letting go of the past and all, but she really should have been punished a bit more for all the crap she did.
The current book pile looks like this:
The Pesthouse, Jim Crace
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Emma, Jane Austen (this is Austen’s last chance with me)
Children of Dune, Frank Herbert
The Baker’s Boy, J.V. Jones
I really liked The Pesthouse. It went in an unexpected direction, and was very satisfying.
I’m finally reading Silverlock by John Myers Myers (probably recommended by a Doper). I like it a lot, even though I’m not getting all the literary references. It’s sort of a road trip/adventure tale, and it’s lots of fun.
I just finished American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. The book was highly recommended by many reviewers. It is supposedly based on Laura Bush’s life.
My take? Very well written fiction but she should have either written a biography of Laura Bush or just plain fiction. As a hybrid of the two the book is interesting but disjointed and a bit frustrating. The last hundred pages could have been done away with entirely.
I also abandoned Un Lun Dun but mostly because I found it to be boring and a weak copy of Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
I’m halfway through Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer, the last book in the Twilight saga.
I have to say i’m very much enjoying it!
I just got done with Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. He seems a dependable non-fiction writer; I’ve liked all his books so far.
I’m on my second attempt at The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll. This one is from a woman’s point of view, and I think he’s doing a good job with it.
I made the mistake of going to Messrs. Barnes et Nobél yesterday. They finally had a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2. Said copy has left the store and is now residing in my closet to-read pile.
I’m halfway through Lonesome Dove. I think I like it, but I’m not sure. Sometimes at the halfway point I’m in love with a book and only a truly rotten ending could spoil it, but this is one of those novels that could easily go either way for me.
Typically I only check in at the beginning of the month with these threads and usually mainly due to my bad luck I’m reading or about to read something absolutely terrible. However I have just read an absolutely brilliant book, one so good that I felt the need to rush out and share it with people. After years of it being on my “I should read that sometime” list I finally got to the often recommended Bridge of Birds and it was everything that it was promised to be. It was witty, charming, more clever than it had any right to be, sorrowful, and touching. It’s magnificent and I could not put it down.
So there you go, I do read great books occasionally. 
And continuing that theme I’m about to read the last two volumes in the Lone Wolf and Cub graphic novel series but that may deserve a thread of its own when I finally finish it. For prose novels my next one is Mythago Woods.
I’ve had Bridge Of Birds in my Amazon queue more than once, but for some reason never buy it.
Maybe it is time I did.