Book Talk - What are you reading?

Karen_S

"A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail" by Bill Bryson. Even though I doubt if I'll ever do the entire trek, this book sure inspires me to consider it.

PF_Flyer

I always have multiple books in play, usually non-fiction, and a lot of them historical in nature. The one that has most of my attention at the moment is a book that was written by the father of one of my daughter's classmates about Thomas Jefferson's first inauguaral address.

Jefferson's Call for Nationhood by Stephen Howard Browne

stever

Bryson didn't manage to walk the whole thing either, but it's a funny read.

Recent reads include the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee (good at first but dragged bad) and my favorite SciFi of the last year or so, Counting Heads by a Fairbanks author, David Marusek.

Mr_Shiftright

If you'd like to combine horror & history I just finished "The Terror" by Dan Simmons. Two boats from the 1845 Franklin Expedition to the Arctic are frozen fast in the ice. And that's when they meet "it" (uh-oh).

It's not your usual formulaic Stephen King kind of book and it takes a bit of a commitment as it is 765 pages long. But it's a great read as the crew fight "it", the ice, and each other. It's also a rather scathing commentary on what, in the 19th century, was called "progress".

fezo

is a fun read. I've only read that one but he's got tons out so I'm in good shape.

If you want a good guy for writing thick books that you can't put down try Nelson DeMille. He is good at what Stephen King used to be good at - sucking you in with just enough perfectly plausible material that when it takes the turn you are hardly aware of it.

I particularly like his stories involving Detective John Corey - Plum Island, Lion's Game, Night Fall and Wild Fire. Best read in that order (chronological).

Have been reading State of Denial but it is slow moving for me and only gets me angry...

Sylvia

Very funny and quick read. Great for airplane rides!

rorr

I've only read a couple by DeMille: 'The Charm School' and 'Redfox'. I thought The Charm School was terrific.....couldn't finish 'Redfox'. I'll have to look at some of teh others you've mentioned.

'State of Denial' - I'm not surprised..... :shades:

fezo

"'State of Denial' - I'm not surprised....."

Nope. Not gonna go there. Wouldn't be prudent.... :P

I read the first Bush at War book at it was just a gush piece. Missed the second and that third one I'm just going to give up on.

The Charm School is an amazingly good book. DeMille writes all his stuff long hand. Ya gotta love that.

Sylvia

The Nanny Diaries - amusing tale of a young woman working as a nanny for New York high society.

The Friday Night Knitting Club - Story of a woman and her teenage daughter in New York. The woman owns a knitting shop where women congregate Friday evening's to share their life stories and experiences.

stever

n/m

PF_Flyer

Axis Mundi by David Warren Saxe - a thriller about the last surviving witness of Hitler's plans. Interesting because it's set here central PA area

The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz- one of those amazing true stories. The guy was a Polish cavalry officer captured by the Red Army in 1939 when Germany and Russia partitioned Poland. Sent to a gulag in Siberia, he esacaped with 6 prisoners and they walked 4,000 miles to India

fezo

Having lost what may be my favorite - Kurt Vonnegut. I was pretty amazed he lasted as long as he did as was he since he smoked straight Pall Malls for decades. He ends up dying from the effects of falling in his house.

Everything through Slaughterhouse Five was fantastic and even his lesser works had the touch in them. He'll be missed

Kirstie_H

Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins & the Masses, by Theodore Dalrymple (pseudonym).

His first book, Life at the Bottom, was fabulous and readable. This one is just plain educational, but I paid $25 for the hardcover and dammit, I'm going to finish it.

Off-season, but I'm also reading Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris.

stever

Getting to Know You by David Marusek. It's scifi or whatever you are supposed to call that genre nowadays.

I usually avoid short stories but I really enjoyed Counting Heads by the same guy. Plus he's not prolific at all, so this will have to tide me over until his second novel, which could be years.

stever

Another Larry McMurtry Thalia story featuring Duane. In the last Duane book (Duane's Depressed), the character parked his pickup and walked and biked everywhere in the Texas heat.

In this quick read, Duane gets some of his act together. Ok if you're a McMurtry fan but still a bit thin.

Karen_S

Finished! (At around 3 am this morning.) I was right on several events, but missed the mark on a couple of major ones, and very surprised on a few others. All in all, it's been a great series and I'm rather sad it's done.

fezo

I don't stay up until 3 AM so I'm not even halfway through. Racing my 15 year old daughter....

Karen_S

Welll...in chapter 34....

just kidding :P

fezo

Is that the one where Snape is named CEO of the Ford Motor Company?

jlbl

Currently reading Ryszard Kapuscinski's Travels with Herodotus.

Easy to read (a simple, clear prose), enlightening, amusing, amazing, moving. Present history wisely confronted with ancient times. I am enjoying this book very much.

For references
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400043385
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travels_with_Herodotus

Regards,
Jose

fezo

We may need to start a Harry Potter thread..... I'm done.

Loved every bit of it. Thought it was much better done than the last couple.

Nice tying together of things.

stever

The series is on my list. They couldn't be any longer than Cryptonomicon that I'm reading now (an 800 pager by Neal Stephenson - I'm on my first renewal at the library. )

Karen_S

Hmmm...a "Deathly Hallows" thread? Some folks might think it's a new dealership. :P

fezo

Does this mean Fiat is coming back to the US? :confuse:

PF_Flyer

I finisihed it just after you did karen. I thought it was the best of the seven books! Not a dull chapter (or even page really)

fezo

I'll agree with you on that one. This last one hung together better than any of them. Could not put it down.

kyfdx

Haven't even started it yet...

stever

No one would move to Boise if they read this book first. It won a Pulitzer back in '72 and the wheelchair bound narrator must have been the model for Dr. Scott of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame.

Since the narrator is comparing his failed marriage (and his hippie helper's rocky relationship) to his pioneer grandmother's unhappy marriage in the late 1800's, it is all a bit of a time warp.

stever

"A techno-thriller (or very near-future SF, looking at some of the gimmicks) about a cyber-security expert who goes to work for the U.S. government fighting terrorism after 9/11."

The Wiki summary covers it, but the book was quite an enjoyable read. Especially after having to give up on Digging to America, the Echo Maker and Baroque-A-Nova after about 50 pages each.

stever

Neal, that is.

PF_Flyer

I'm always reading something, usually more than one something at once. :P

And my list tends to be a bit...well... different than most.

Right now I'm reading a book on Bayesian probability and one about the politics of the 1800's that lead up to the Civil War (which some refer to as the war of Northern aggression)

stever

I probability should have guessed you'd be reading something like that.

I'm winding down on The Baroque Cycle, so I'm ~100 years ahead of you.

Mr_Shiftright

I'm reading Charles Bukowski's "Hollywood", about his experience of the making and filming of the movie "Barfly" which he wrote. Hilarious true send-up of L.A. lunacy.

jlbl

Michael Crichton's Next on the one hand; Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence on the other.

Making out the possible next future with Crichton's scientific insight and irony; peeking at the XVI Century global past with Rushdie's fantasy and scholar classicism.

I'm enjoying both.

Regards,
Jose

michaellno

...and I will reinforce the opinion that Bill Bryson is hilarious!

I've read pretty much every one of his books, and his travel tales from Australia are wonderful ("In a Sunburned Country").

Am currently re-reading all of the Tom Clancy novels (currently on "Executive Orders"), plus I've got a few books from the local library that are in the queue. One on the NFL, one on NASCAR, one on marketing / branding and the last on professional golf during WW2.

jipster

After about page 200 it was a hard book to put down. The plot was a bit far fetched, climax not a strong as I had hoped, but overall character development was excellent. I'd give it 7 Jip"stars" out of 10.

Mr_Shiftright

Finished "The Dirk Gently Wholistic Detective Agency"--that was a wild ride---by the guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"---Doug Adams.

Now reading Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut---also very weird indeed.

stever

Those are a couple of fun ones Shifty.

Currently on the nightstand is The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. The story of a mute Wisconsin boy and his dogs, aka a modern take on Hamlet set in rural Wisconsin. Good read and good North Woods local color.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh yeah I read a review of that book! I think I'm going to get it. I hesitated because it was on Oprah's list, and quite frankly, 90% of those books on her list are disappointing to say the least. Poofy pop trendy gimmick books, or dreadfully narcissistic memoirs. (Do I really care how hard it is to be a celebrity? Nooooo)

But with a review from you, I'm confident this may be in the 10%. :P

Have you heard about www.paperbackswap.com?
PAPERBACK SWAP

I joined and I really like it. For joining you get 2 credits. Then you list all the books you want to "trade away", and you get 1 credit for each listing.

In turn, you can create a Wish List and if someone else has posted a book that's on your Wish List, you order it from them and spend 1 credit.

The sender of the book pays the postage, you get the book "for free" so to speak.

In reality, it's costing you about $2.50 a book because of the postage you will have to spend to send your book to others.

So far i've gotten 4 books, all promptly, all in good shape. They also do books on CD.

Karen_S

Re: Oprah's book club - I gave up on that when she was pushing "How Stella Got Her Groove Back." Hated. It.

Mr_Shiftright

UGH--she's pushed so many grotesquely bad books, I don't even bother anymore.

michaellno

UGH--she's pushed so many grotesquely bad books, I don't even bother anymore.

Then, of course, there was the travesty of one of her recommended books being pure fiction, when it was meant to be a first-person account of substance abuse.

Oops!

Sounds like there will be a few folks here who are glad this is her last season.

stever

My sister gave the Sawtelle book to my wife when we were visiting last month (a whole bag of books in fact); otherwise (being more of a cat person) I probably wouldn't picked it up. It was a nice surprise.

Famed Seattle librarian, Nancy Pearl, taught me, in her book, Book Lust, not to bother with any book that doesn't grab you within the first 50 pages. I make frequent exceptions to that rule (otherwise I wouldn't have plowed through Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy last summer), but it's a pretty good rule of thumb.

Hm, a bit of channeling Faulkner there with all the comma delineated clauses instead of readable sentences. :shades:

(I enjoyed breezing through Stella btw).

Mr_Shiftright

There are a few books that require more patience than 50 pages, but damn few!

Among the ones I threw out the window at 50 pages (that I recall)

Eat Love Pray (chick book, all the way--the women's version of Raiders of the Lost Ark fantasies).

The Da Vinci Code (beach book for a rainy day I guess---nonsense and surprisingly badly written IMO)

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo --- people swear to me you have to stick with it past 50 pages, but I just couldn't. Maybe I'll come back to it someday. Sooo boring in the beginning.....

Fat Girl --- I actually did come back to this one. It was painful to read in that it was so self-denegrating, but I gave it a second chance. Great book? Nah. But morbidly seductive I suppose.

stever

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I like Stieg Larsson’s books but they do take a while to get into. Haven't read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest yet (my wife liked it but said the first two were better). Winter reads for long dark nights.

Am curious to see how the movies turn out.

Mr_Shiftright

Movies are *rarely* as good as the books, usually far worse....but, the exception proofs the rule, and I recall a few movies that equaled the book:

1. Catch-22

2. Remains of the Day

I even recall a movie that was *way better* than the book -- JAWS :P

jipster

There are a few books that require more patience than 50 pages, but damn few

I've been on page 75 of Ann Rice's "Interview 'With A Vampire" going on 18 years now. Just couldn't get into it.

"Salem's Lot", a vampire book by Stephen King, was awesome. A book I could really sink my teeth into.

Mr_Shiftright

Ever read Bram Stoker's original "Dracula"? It's pretty darn good. Very dark. Not at ALL like the Hollywood fluff. For instance, in the book Dracula can turn into a large lizard and crawl down building walls at night.

Aside from the usual blood-sucking, there is a very conspicuous nod to both Mesmerism (popular in the day as a form of hypnotism performed by quacks, mostly on delicate Victorian females (actually M. Mesmer lived long before this time)...and also hints of sexual predation of course.

kyfdx

"Salem's Lot" made me afraid to turn out the lights and go to bed... I stayed up until 4:00 AM, just so I could finish the damn thing...

Also, can't tell you how many times I started to read the 3rd book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.... and, just got put to sleep by the dwarf and the elf promising how they would die for each other, yada, yada, yada... zzzzzzzzzzz.. (and, I loved those books...)

What am I reading? Tonight, it's Sports Illustrated..

michaellno

"Salem's Lot" made me afraid to turn out the lights and go to bed

That reminds me of an incident that happened to me many years ago.

I'm not much of a Steven King fan, but my first wife was. She bought the book "Four Past Midnight" and I picked it up and read the first story "The Lingoliers".

I was scheduled to travel from CA to Boston on a red-eye flight for business not long after I read the book. Had no idea what the story was about when I started it, but, let me tell you, that book made it real tough to sleep on the flight.

I got into Boston very bleary-eyed.

Kirstie_H

Am curious to see how the movies turn out.

Let me save you from that pain. We rented "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and couldn't get past the first 30 minutes. It's in Swedish with dubbed voices - very BADLY dubbed voices. I suspect that if you spoke Swedish it'd be pretty good, but the dubbed translation made the conversations seem very stilted and it was dead boring.