I am in the proccess of reading this , this , this , and this .
Nothing but the Vonnegut book has been able to keep my interest long enough to read straight through, although they are all good so far. I just wasn’t in the right mood when I started them.
Ooooh, thanks! Yeah, that’s right up my alley. I’ve been wanting to read more about Cook.
God help me, I’m reading Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. I know it’s bad (when I’m embarrassed to describe the plot to my husband, I can tell it’s bad) but I keep reading anyway. Finished three of them over the weekend.
I’m reading Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership Nixon to Clinton by David Gergen.
Good stuff, but I have had so little time and energy lately that I am churning slowly.
Just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, about two Afghan boys divided by social class, the Soviet invasion/civil war/Taliban takeover, and the attemps of one to atone for his childhood sins. A sad and compelling book.
Also just finished Joss Whedon’s Serenity, an illustrated companion to the movie. Lots of good pictures, behind-the-scenes tidbits, and the complete screenplay.
Right now I’m reading David McCullough’s 1776, about that tumultuous year in American history. I’m only about 30 pages into it, but so far, so good. I’m a big George Washington fan (as many of my fellow Dopers know), and McCullough seems to have a pretty good grasp of GW’s flaws and strengths, and what made him great.
After reading Way Station by Clifford Simak as part of my Hugo-novels reading project, I picked up Ring Around the Sun.
I’ve found Simak’s work intruiging, because it’s so un-clichéd. I don’t know if it’s just because he’s an early SF writer, and it hadn’t yet been established, that this is how you write an alien-contact novel, and this is how you write a time-travel novel, etc., or if he’s just one of those writers who bring a unique perspective to everything they approach.
Anyway, I haven’t got the first freakin’ clue what’s going on in Ring Around the Sun. At first I just assumed it was time travellers, then I thought it maybe it was aliens, and now they’re hinting about “mutants,” and I don’t know what to believe anymore.
I’m also reading Half-Blood Prince a pages at a time at bedtime, and the hubby has lured me into picking up V for Vendetta.
I read Blue Latitudes a couple months ago and second the recommendation.
Along similar lines, I just finished Two Years Before The Mastby Richard Henry Dana. Nonfiction of what life was really like on a merchant sailing ship. It was absolutely fascinating, but if you read it print out a sheet showing you the names and locations of all the sails and masts on a tall ship or you will be bewildered when he starts talking about sky-sails and royal yards and such.
I need to get to the library bcause I’m out of books, have been reading some gardening stuff and re-reading some of Emerson’s essays just because I haven;t picked it up in a while.
Welcome to **Dung Beetle’s ** to be read pile:
Bodies we’ve buried : inside the National Forensic Academy, the world’s top CSI training school by Jarrett Hallcox. I’ll probably finish this today. I find the tone of the writing rather smug and condescending, but I considered this a worthwhile read if only for the very detailed description of an autopsy. don’t ask, take note! 
A primate’s memoir by Robert Sapolsky. Recommended by Mrs. furthur. I know it’s going to be good because I just finished Monkeyluv and it was fabulous. Thank you!
Leave me alone, I’m reading : finding and losing myself in books by Maureen Corrigan.
The unquiet dead : a psychologist treats spirit possession by Edith Fiore. I expect to look this one over, roll my eyes, and send it back to the library, but that’s fun sometimes!
Self-made man : one woman’s journey into manhood and back again by Norah Vincent. A Black Like Me kinda thing.
World as laboratory : experiments with mice, mazes, and men by Rebecca M. Lemov
The politically incorrect guide to science by Tom Bethell
Teacher man : a memoir by Frank McCourt.
Greatest secrets of the coupon mom by Stephanie Nelson. Y’all just hush!
We’re all in this together : a novella and stories by Owen King. Son of Stephen; another board recommendation.
This day in the life : diaries from women across America by Joni B. Cole
The evening dress by Alexandra Black. Coffee table book with pictures of pretty dresses. I’m going to look at this one with my daughter.
Suburban safari : a year on the lawn by Hannah Holmes.
My fundamentalist education : a memoir of a divine girlhood by Christine Rosen
The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. I’m a little scared to start this because it’s a big thick book with a complicated plot and I have almost no time to read these days. Another board recommendation.
The demon-haunted world : science as a candle in the dark by Carl Sagan. I don’t want to be the only one here who hasn’t read it!
Four currently with several in the “to be read” pile. I need a new bookshelf, too.
Snow White & the Seven Samurai. I love Tom Holt. Very skewed sense of humor.
Love & Other Near Death Experiences by Mil Millington. I’ve been a fan since i accidentally happened upon his website.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda which is very intense, very good and very depressing.
Also re-reading To Kill A Mockingbird because my daughter has to read it for school and we’re reading it together and discussing it as we go along. I still love it.
I’m currently in the middle of Wicked by Gregory Maguire; I’m familiar with the cast recording but haven’t seen the show. I’m really enjoying this book! (Maybe it’s different in print than on tape, Khadaji?)
Before this were Empire Falls and Straight Man by Richard Russo, thanks to recommendations I saw in a previous “what are you reading” thread. I enjoyed both of them, but liked Straight Man a little more.
I wound up at Borders on Saturday and picked up 3 books to add to my “to be read” pile: Cell (Stephen King), Rage (Jonathan Kellerman), and The Best American Erotica 2006 (Susie Bright, ed.). They join The Lighthouse (P.D. James), Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests (James A. Miller and Tom Shales), Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies, and Denial in Black America (Keith Boykin), and The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3) (Stephen King).
Sounds interesting … I’ve just added Shadow Touch to my wish list.
I read that a few months ago – I quite liked it! In fact, I’ve been thinking about picking up her new book, Spook.
Heh. But actually, the early part of the series was very good! I used to really love her books. It’s only the last 2-3 that became pure porn, and badly-written porn at that. While at Borders on Saturday I saw Micah on the shelves, and this is the first book of hers in the Anita Blake series that I’m deliberately not reading.
Nope, sorry. There’s been three more books set on the same continent, in German: Ensel und Krete, Rumo und die Wunder im Dunkeln, and Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher. All of those are excellent, if none can match Blue Bear for its humor, they are all very gripping. Very different, each from the other, as well. Rumo has definitely been translated, I’ve seen it recently. Not a bad investment by any means, but don’t expect a follow on exactly true to the predecessor.
It is the unabridged audio cassette version.
I very much disliked the first third or so. There was just not one sympathetic character in it. Turtle Heart was the least detestable, and maybe Nanny. But I didn’t really like one of them. It got somewhat better as they entered college, but in the end, I still just don’t care what happens.
One thing to note though: Perhaps reading it makes it better. Reading and listening are, after all, two different experiences.
I am winding down now, with the Wicked Witch of the East having just been killed. Glynda is still annoying, although Elfaba is not as much.
I guess I don’t hate it, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it enough to recommend.
No, no. If I hated myself I’d be reading Kant. I tried that once; didn’t work out so well. Aside from curiousity as to what post-Nietzschean types are up to, I think I’m trying to work off some of my mental flab to get ready for law school; it’s been a while since I’ve had to -think- about reading.
What blows my mind is not the thrill that’ll getcha when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone, but that Harry Potter arouses the ire of the fundamentalist book-banners while His Dark Materials slips by almost unnoticed. I’ve never read the Potter books, but I find it hard to believe that they could even approach the level of anti-clericalism/anti-Christianity that HDM attains.
Recently finished In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Abbott, which was recommended on these boards. I marvelled at how someone with such an effed-up life could be so preachy. The story of his (short) life after prison is actually more interesting and instructive. It put his self-righteousness in perspective for me.
Now I’m about half way through Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy. Sebastien, the main character, is an absolute ass but I can’t wait for his next altercation and to see how the story ends. It’s mind-boggling to read about just how poor those people are and still manage to get by.
Update: Finished it this evening – it’s very good, I’ll second Judith Prietht’s recommendation. First book I’ve read by that author; I’d definitely check out other stuff by him.
I’ve got three books going right now.
Rivers of War - Eric Flint
The first of a projected two-volume series, Flint’s witty, tightly written alternative history presents a subtly revised version of events in the final year of the War of 1812.
Grantville Gazette II - edited by Eric Flint
The second volume of Grantville Gazette also contains factual articles which explain some of the technical background for the 1632 series, including articles on practical geology, telecommunications, and seventeenth-century swordsmanship.
The Big Oyster - Mark Kurlansky
*Here’s a chatty, free-wheeling history of New York City told from the humble perspective of the once copious, eagerly consumed, now decimated eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginicas). *
“Wolves Eat Dogs” by Martin Cruz Smith - I just love his Arkady Renko crime novels
“Teacher Man” by Frank McCourt - Just in time for St Paddy’s Day!
This afternoon I finished The Gathering Storm by Kate Elliott, which is the fifth book of the Crown of Stars. I’m sort of confused about what happened in the last couple chapters, since what *I think * happened seems to gloss over something pretty important, and if so I’m not sure what’s left to have written the last two books about. With luck the sixth book will come in through inter-library loan this week.
I’m also a little more than halfway through Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell Hamilton. I’ve owned it, and the two books that follow (and I’ve ordered the last two as well) for a long time, but never got around to reading them. Now I’m tempted to go back and reread all the older books again
Next up will be Dry by Augustine Burroughs. I hope that this follow up to **Running With Scissors ** will be just as entertaining, and I’m fairly sure it will be just as lurid.
Wait… another Arkady Renko novel :eek: I thought Havana Bay was the last one! Must find this! 