I just finished His Majesty’s Dragon, the first book in a series about dragons fighting in the Napoleonic war. It’s Horatio Hornblower meets Dragonriders of Pern. Sounds ridiculous, but the author pulls it off pretty well. There’s no magic: it’s an alternate history where dragons are a normal part of warfare. It was a fun, light read, especially if you’re fond of Regency England to begin with. I’m looking forward to the next one.
Finished. It was good. I liked Dan Savage’s contribution the most.
I also read a little of Almost Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. It’s my current purse book; that is, I read it when I have to wait somewhere, but if I never finish or my purse gets stolen, I don’t care. It’s a YA series I’ve been reading since it appeared on the banned books list, but it’s really rather meh. I’m reading them out of habit by now.
Next up: The SAS urban survival handbook : how to protect yourself from domestic accidents, muggings, burglary, and attack by John Wiseman.
Dan Savage’s books are really good, particularly the one about the adoption of his son.
Yeah, I’ve read all of them, I think. This story was about how he became a Republican delegate. 
Finished my sister’s self-published collection of poetry, The Squandered Green, which was pretty good, even accounting for my bias in her favor.
Just starting The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, for my book club. Anyone here read it? Don’t spoil it for me, but what did you think of it?
That’s on my pile too; based on previous reading threads, we’re in for a treat!
The 5th one just came out in hardback in the last couple of weeks. And they keep getting better. I think I know where she is going with the war, but it involves spoilers from book 4, and I haven’t read 5 yet, so I will wait and see before putting my neck out.
I haven’t posted in a while; I’ve been reading a bunch of crap for my column, most of which isn’t worth mentioning. But also reading *The Secret City: Woodawn Cemetery and the Buried History of New York * by Fred Goodman, which is not at all what I thought it would be but quite engaging nonetheless. I love books about cemeteries and their architecture and the famous and notorious who are buried there, but in this book Goodman takes notable people from Woodlawn and fictionalizes passages from their lives.
Most interesting so far is a chapter about John Purroy Mitchel, at 34 the youngest mayor ever of New York, and his highly ineffective “efforts” at quelling a polio epidemic in 1916. (He really just wasn’t interested.) Also featured is Henry Bergh, founder of the ASPCA, as seen from the point of view of his nephew who is dragged along on Uncle Henry’s missions. It seems Uncle Henry didn’t really care for animals one way or the other, and was a real pain in the ass.
Just finished Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hine. A quick and light read about an unlikely hero - a goblin who is so small and weak, even the other goblins don’t like him. Over the course of the adventure he turns heroic and wins the day.
It was an OK read, and if you want something light, I say go for it. But it was not good enough that I will read the rest. I did like the ending, however.
Am in the middle of new Odd Thomas adventure by Koontz (whose name escapes me right now.) So far I’m enjoying it.
Have started The Arcanum by Thomas Wheeler, but am not in deep enough to have an opinion.
Finished The Secret City. He saved the best for last: A story about Ruth Nichols, pioneering aviatrix and founder of the Ninety-Nines. The story of how she, in 1959 at age 58, was called to take the rigorous tests required of those entering the astronaut program. (Just like in The Right Stuff.) She passed them all. She was fully qualified, had flown supersonic jets, was a lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, and wanted desperately to join the space program.
But the tests were all a sham. She said good-bye politely, went home, sank into a deep depression, and a few months later ate a handful of barbituates.
Now reading, as so many others, People of the Book.
Still reading The Sparrow (bedtime book). The daytime book is Gone With the Wind, after I realized that I might not have read it before.
As much as I love the movie, I’m thinking that I would like to see a remake – not a 3-hour movie but maybe a 30-hour miniseries.
Just finished The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. Excellent! A young woman in the midst of a personal crisis returns to her hometown (it’s loosely based on real life Cooperstown, NY, home of the baseball hall of fame) and starts researching her family tree. I thought it was a great family saga, lots of skeletons in closets. There’s also a bit of magical realism, I guess – doesn’t play a big part in the plot, but there is a family ghost and a local lake monster.
The funny thing is that I first saw this book mentioned in a column by Stephen King. As an aside, he wrote that he read an advance copy and loved it. He didn’t say anything at all about the subject matter. In my mind, because of who Stephen King is, and the “Monsters” in the title, I made the assumption that the book was about … monsters, like a zombie attack or something. It’s not about zombies.
I’m almost done with de Lint’s Memory & Dream. Now this…this is what I’m talkin’ about. What I like about de Lint’s urban fantasy is that he’s not afraid to get downright pitch black when it’s needed. He tears his characters up to exorcise their demons (sometimes literally), but it heals cleanly. Unlike, say, Hemingway whose characters are left bleeding to death in a back alley. Alone. In the rain.
I’m also celebrating Frankenstein’s 190th birthday with a re-read.
Just finished: The Innkeeper’s Song, by Peter S. Beagle. It was…decent. Fantasy isn’t my favorite genre, but the story held my attention and Beagle writes it well. I’ve read other things by him that I liked also, but not his most famous book (The Last Unicorn). The title keeps scaring me off.
Just started: The Film Club, by David Gilmour. The first thing about this book that caught my eye was the author’s name. I realized right away it wasn’t the guy from Pink Floyd, but then the premise drew me in anyway. This is a non-fiction book by a divorced dad who has a fifteen year old boy that skips school and blows off his assignments. He decides to let the kid quit school and live with him rent free, on the condition that the kid will watch three movies a week of the dad’s choosing. He also permits the kid to drink, smoke, and screw girls in his room. Here I’m screaming, “Are you insane?” Mr. Gilmour is rhapsodizing at this point about how his teenager talks to him about everything. :rolleyes: Well, of course he does, it’s not as though he’s in any danger of being parented! Sorry, this is a topic that hits close to home for me.
He also has some interesting bits in there about the movies.
Finished Verne’s The Mighty Orinoco, a Nero Wolfe book, and Max Barry’s seriously off-the-wall Jennifer Government, which I got as a gift for Christmas and just got to.
I’m now continuing The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, and am starting Verne’s The Golden Volcano and Dana Kollman’s Never Suck a Dead Man’s Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI. We picked it up last week at the Muttter Museum, and Pepper Mill was laughing all the way through it, and left it on my nightstand when she was done.
Just finished The Arcanum. It wasn’t too bad, a light and fun read.
A mystery involving the occult and well-known (real-life) characters from the early 1900s. Houdini, Conan-Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft and others, pursue the mystery behind the death of an occultist and leader of their group The Arcanum.
It was fast-paced and easy to read. And although it had its problems, I enjoyed it.
Just finished Odd Hours. A pretty typical Odd Thomas book, and even though the plot was more realistic than the last one, I had more trouble accepting it. He did introduce a new character that I expect will make the series more interesting.
Three Cups of Tea The story and writing have just sucked me in. If I could kick my kids out and have the housework magically done, I would lay on the couch and read this until done.
*The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry * by Kathleen Flinn, based on her experiences as a student at Le Cordon Bleu. Just started; on Page 27.
Reading Moby Dick and enjoying it, but it’s slow going; the damned New Yorker keeps coming, and if you let those suckers pile up, they just take over. . .
The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Sabbath’s Theater- Philip Roth and am curretly reading Purity of Blood by Perez-Reverte. I really like his work.