Excellent! Well, I don’t mean excellent on the animal abuse … but I was going to ask you if Circus Queen and Tinker Bell was safe on that issue (I’m also avoiding Water for Elephants.)
Am currently reading Jude the Obscure and re-reading my fave novel of all-time… Germinal…
I’m currently unemployed and have been reading tons. This covers what I can remember of September so far:
The Risk Pool, Richard Russo
The Fourth Bear, Jasper Fforde
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall
Sweet and Low, Rich Cohen
The Godfather, Puzo
Cujo, King
The Risk Pool was okay. I’ve never read Russo before and I understand he got the Pulitzer for Empire Falls. I have that book here somewhere but it won’t be one I pick to read any time soon. Considering he is also the author of Nobody’s Fool (great movie), I’m getting the impression that he is more of a guy writer. The Risk Pool was really the story about a man and his son. Not that there is anything wrong with that…just not that enjoyable for me personally.
The Fourth Bear was cute as are all of Fforde’s books. He’s extremely clever.
I thought The Raw Shark Texts vastly over-hyped. Interesting premise…it just went on forever and ever and I just knew how it would end with still 200 pages to read. I got bored but I finished.
Sweet and Low is the story of the family that started Splenda. I kid. It was just okay. Dysfunctional family runs business to ground while ostracizing and disinheriting portion of family (author’s). It would be of interest to anyone wanting to know more about Brooklyn and/or sugar substitutes.
Both The Godfather and Cujo were re-reads. Both are excellent. I was curious to re-read Cujo because of the information I recently learned about King being drunk while writing it. I must sadly say that the earlier works of King (up until about Pet Semetary, with a few exceptions after that one IMHO) were far and away better novels than those he wrote after he apparently became sober. I’m still glad that Cujo ends with the way that it does. Holds true to the story.
Right now I’m smack dab in the middle of Lucifer’s Hammer which I’m thoroughly enjoying. I LOVE dystopian, end-of-the-world fiction and I believe I got the recommend for this one off this board. So thanks!
And the new order came in from Amazon today so I have a new stack. It’s an addiction…and I LOVE it.
I haven’t re-read Cujo, but someday I want to sit down with pencil and paper and chart all the freaky coincidences that leave the woman and the kid in the car in that barnyard. That’s some fiendishly good plotting. Or fiendishly contrived. But it worked.
I’m still reading Freaks Amour. I’d be done by now, but I almost hate to pick it up – there’s so much ugly stuff going on. It’s really good though. (Also recommended by a Doper)
I finished Alias Grace last night. Not too bad. The interchanging character POVs actually worked at keeping the story moving along. I didn’t like the doctor very much, though. His issues with women seemed a little contrived, making him a convenient whipping boy for Victorian morality. The ending was a little contrived, too, but it was a good reward for Grace after all she’d been through. My biggest problem was that no one could have normal sex, it was all tied up with guilt and latent BDSM and shame which got old quick.
Just realized I didn’t say what I’m reading now: Moby-Dick, which I’ve had vaguely in mind to read for 20 years or so. I’m finding it way more readable (in the sense of good, not just good for you) than I expected – though why that should surprise me, given my fondness for 19th-century novels, isn’t clear.
Yes, I’d deem it ‘safe’. There’s one instance where an elephant is described as always having an infected ear due to overuse of the goad and another where some lionesses are underfed and come to a bad end but it’s not really described. (I can elaborate if you wish.)
For the most part the horses, elephants, wild cats and primates are described as being well-tended by their trainers.
Oh, there is a part where Tiny has to surrender her cat to a shelter because the circus won’t allow pets (or kids) on the tour. That’s a very sad part (I turn into a weepy pile o’ goo when it comes to bad catness in stories) especially when, and I’ll put it in a spoiler just for the heck of it:
She convinces a trainer that her cat is trainable and goes back to reclaim her. Tiny gets the address of the people who adopted the cat but the address is incorrect or fake and she returns to the circus empty-handed.
Terry Pratchett’s NATION just arrived from Amazon UK so I know what I’m gonna read tonight. I’m actually in the middle of Shatner’s Star Trek Memories but I’m putting that on hiatus until I finish NATION.
Because Terry demands it.
Finished Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh. Very good. What prompted me finally to read it was the new film version that came out in July. I don’t think I’ll see that one if it ever actually comes to Thailand, because it sounds like they’ve altered the plot a little, and anyway I would only want to see the 1981 mini-series, which I heard was excellent.
Monday, I’ll start Pompeii, by Robert Harris.
I started and then gave up on The Princess of Cleves. Not in a soap opera mood right now.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Santería lately, so I had to reread Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia. It’s a beautifully written book. I did remember to skip over the Thanksgiving dinner chapter this time–it always depresses me.
Also on the reading pile:
Quarantine by Jim Crace–It’s a look at Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the desert from a different angle. Jesus is considered a nut by his neighbors in Galilee and the devils that tempt him are other people on a quarantine in the desert. It’s fascinating.
Trader by Charles de Lint–this one’s not grabbing me. Right now the main character has switched bodies with another guy and he’s trying to get his life back. I expect it’ll pick up once they switch back.
The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes–Third in the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series. The battling is about to start and everything’s beginning to come to a climax. I need to get the fourth book if it’s in paperback yet.
Looks like The Born Queen is available in paperback. (I read the ebook version.)
Almost finished with Before They Are Hanged, the second book in Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. I really like this writer. There’s no pretentiousness in his writing and he’s great with dialogue. Almost no tags, which aren’t needed because his characters have their own voices – you know who’s talking by what they’re saying and how they say it. Not many adverbs either, and not one “suddenly”. I hate suddenly.
The story is fine too. Some wizards/magi have screwed up, and one of them’s trying to fix things before the world goes to hell. My only quibble is that there are no maps. I don’t pay much attention to maps but when a good part of the story has people on journeys, maps would be nice.
Grand. It’s off to the bookstore!
I’ve started Quicksilver, the first volume of The Baroque Cycle. I’m about 200 pages in, and so far I like it. I read and enjoyed *Cryptonomicon *a few months ago.
I finished The Nelson Touch, by Terry Coleman, a rather unflattering biography of Lord Nelson. It was readable but not riveting.
A Civil Contract was an unusual Georgette Heyer novel, being not very romantic at all, about a couple who, rather than falling in love, settle for good enough. It was a good read, but not one of my favorites.
Janet Kagan’s *Hellspark *was also a good read. It’s an older sci-fi first contact novel about the difficulty of ensuring accurate communication between people of vastly different cultures.
I read Waiter Rant over the weekend and liked it far more than Kitchen Confidential. Crazy-ass customers are lots more fun than crazy-ass co-workers for some reason. 
I started to read God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens next, but lost interest right off the bat when Mr. Hitchens dissed C.S. Lewis. Now that’s sacreligious!
Dabbling in George Carlin’s Brain Droppings while I wait for the next batch from the library…
I just got Annie Proulx’s third Wyoming Stories collection and I’m enjoying it so far.
I’m in the middle of the stunning The Names of the Dead, by Stewart O’Nan. If it keeps up the way it’s been going, it may edge out The Things They Carried for the coveted Best Vietnam War Fiction Ever™. Hard to believe this author was only 14 when the war ended.
Believe it or not, The Devil Wears Prada on which the movie was based.
I’m a guy and not the least bit interested in the girly-fashion stuff, but I just let my mind glaze over those parts. It’s not the main theme of the novel anyway, and there isn’t that much of it to get through.
The book’s really more about what it’s like when you work for a boss from hell. Few people who’ve worked any number of years would be unable to relate to that.
I’m currently reading several books, because I tend to be “ooh shiny” I think I’ll read this for a while. Some currently on the go:
The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship
by Roger Friedland. I’m about 300 pages in. Thus far, I’ve learned that Frank Lloyd Wright may have been a brilliant architect, but he was a bit of a loon, and wasn’t very fond of paying debts owed.
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
by Gary Marcus. I’m a third of the way through so far, and have found it both enlightening and well written.
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
by David W. Anthony. Barely started this one
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy
by Peter Gay. A couple of chapters in.
Just finished this month:
The Mother Tongue
by Bill Bryson Bryson is in his usual form,amusingly covering the subject of the English language, although itis now somewhat dated, being written around 1990.
And two novels by Suzanne Brockmann
Into the Storm and
Forces of Nature
As mentioned before, I’m on Pompeii, by Robert Harris. Good so far.
But I have a question about another book. Somene just gave me a copy of Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon. I’ve never read any Pynchon. Is this book any good? It’s War and Peace size, and I can almost never bring myself to stop reading a book once I’ve started, so I want to make sure it’s worth my while.