What are you reading?

Just finished Carl Hiaasen's Basket Case.

A good friend had been recommending him for some time and he was right!
http://www.carlhiaasen.com/index.shtml

On the planes on my recent vacation we both devoured 'American Wife' by Curtis Sittenfeld; it's a thinly fictionalized imagined biography of Laura Bush.  It's a little creaky in spots but a very engaging and fascinating read; we couldn't put it down.

edited to add: NY, I forgot to say I went through a Carl Hiaasen thing back in the late eighties.  My favorites are Native Tongue and the one with the bass fisherman, I can't remember the name.  You will love the characters of Skink and Jim Tile.

  Right now I am reading "Alaska" by James A. Michener. I recently moved here and wanted to get a little history of the region. It is a fictionalized version of actual events that took place from 1500 to 2000 a.d.  

  Most of the historical facts are true but acted out by fictional characters. I was appalled by the way the area was exploited by many peoples including the Russians, Asians, English, and various other nations.

  I learned a lot!!!


David O.

Greetings!

Once again, after very many years, I read Die sieben Säulen der Weisheit, Seven pillars of Widsom, written by T.E. Lawrence in the early 1920s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w..Seven_Pillars_of_Wisdom

An epic work, absolutely fantastic, besides Irisches Tagebuch, by Heinrich Böll, one of the 5 books for the desert island...

Kind regards

Michael

Just finished "American Fuji" by Sara Backer. An american woman loses her job at a Japanese university and then helps a grieving American father whose son died accidentally while attending that University deal with the subtleties of Japanese culture while he tries to find out what really happened to his son. A very good fish out of water story, a subtle study of how to deal with chronic illness and  keen observations about American and Japanese cultures and how their interactions shape perceptions and/or misperceptions about one another. Also a good mystery.

The Snakehead by Patrick Radden Keefe...True story of a middle aged Chinese woman who becomes the biggest smuggler of Chinese peasants ever, in the 80's and 90's, made millions... she was a onetime Red Army recruit, gets to New York and never looks back, I highly recommend it, it is amazing what goes on right under our noses, the lawlessness is frightening!

"Stop Dressing Your Six Year Old Like A Skank" by Celia somebody. She's a hoot!

Atlas Shrugged

baileysoriginal


Just finished Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides for the second time in perhaps 20 years - I often like to go back and read certain books that I really enjoyed at the time.  I've got his latest - South of Broad - on the list for the next book store run.


  Read some reviews before you buy it.  Prince of Tides was one of my all-time favorites, but this stinker wasn't worth a fraction of what I paid for it in hardback.  His descriptions of Charleston are close to lyrical, but the dialogue is wooden and unrealistic, the plot convoluted with  far too much going on, and the character development is stiff and not well- planned.  He can do better; I wonder if maybe a better editor might have helped.  My copy is on half.com for sale.

I just finished Bel Canto Patchett and This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, and hopefully this week should get two books in transit from one of our library branches - The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and the Last Ember by Daniel Levin.

Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) by Jules Verne.

  I am sure that most of you have seen some of these "local History" paperbacks done by Arcadia Publishing. Literally hundreds of them have been published, covering many cities and towns and geographic areas in the USA.

When I was checking out my Mother's Family residences and schools in the Cicero area of Chicago, I was guided to these descriptive books (booklets??) for that town and neighboring Berwyn. They really helped me get a handle on how the cities grew and how the Czech people in that area lived in the 20's and 30's.

Since then I have checked a number of those books dealing with target areas for our Roadfood Roadtrips.

Well, just this week a friend of mine had her historical research published by this Print-house covering the Cajon Pass area in SoCal. Some of the photos used were taken by friends of mine. I am looking forward to reading the full volume (just ordered from Amazon!).

sudie - thanks for the insight - although my reading friends have recommended it highly I haven't bought it yet ---
Now I'm hearing all these great things about Jonathan Tropper's latest - I'm told it's a true laugh out loud novel -

The Know it All, by A.J. Jacobs. One man's attempt to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. It's a great read.

Just finished Wilbur Smith's Blue Horizon.  This afternoon I picked up Dan Brown's new book The Lost Symbol.  I will start that tonight.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It is an unerving experience and from what I understand you'll either love it or hate it. THere are few middle of the roaders (no pun intended)
bkk

bkk-
if you liked McCarthy's The Road, you will probably like his No Country For Old Men.  While the movie was very good, it left out a very important element from the book.  Probably the most important element.  Without it, some parts of the movie did not make sense.  With it, the whole story is made richer.  It is really what the book is about, and I was surprised to see it gone from the movie.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be mysterious.  Just don't want to spoil it for you in case you go for it.

I just finished reading Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker, by Randy Palmer; it's a biography of the man who designed and built some of the most memorable movie monsters of the 1950s. A couple of days ago, I started on Stoogeology, edited by Peter Seely and Gail W. Pieper. It's a series of essays, all dealing with various aspects of the Three Stooges and their films. 

I pre-ordered The Lost Symbol from the book of the month club - as a Freemason, I'm curious to see how we come off in it.

Just finished Spartan Gold, Clive Cussler and some other guy, it was ok, but so improbable as to be almost laughable......CLIVE IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, WRITE YOUR OWN DAMN BOOKS, BRING BACK DIRK PITT!!!!!

I'm currently reading The Shaman's Bones by James D. Doss. It is the fourth in a mystery series featuring Southern Ute Indian Reservation policeman, Charlie Moon out of Ignacio, Colorado. Yesterday, I had a green chili cheeseburger lunch at the Patio Restaurant in Ignacio and am now camped in Pagosa Springs, CO near the Southern Ute Indian Reservation on our 30th day out West in our camper van. Angel's Cafe is the fictional place Charlie Moon, the giant six and a half foot policeman, packs away the food, but I couldn't find it.

Davydd, maybe you would also like Tony Hillerman and his series about a Navajo tribal police detective, who operates on the reservation in northern New Mexico.  Tremendous local lore and color, a couple were made into movies.

Hillerman was an interesting guy in his own right, WWII vet, journalism instructor, and wrote about 30 books.  He just died about a year ago.

Greetings, Movie-Fans!

One of the very rarest and early Books about Fantasy-, and Horror Movies is "Le Fantastique au Cinema", written in the Year 1958!,  by the french Author Michel Laclos.

Cover:


As a PDF-File, 200 Pages strong, a MUST-READ for every Fan of this Genre, out of Print for many Years, a true Rarity...

Info/Download: http://www.archive.org/de...lefantastiqueauc00lacl

Enjoy, Genre-Fans! 


Michael

P.S. A few Years ago, I had the the Chance, to buy one of the very rare original Prints from the Year 1958, the Price was 280,- Euro, mint Condition, like fresh out of Print, I did not buy the Book, my fault...

F. Paul Wilson'e newest RepairmanJack novel..."GROUND ZERO" It is a mystery-fantasy thriller...with 9?11 as a central part of the mystery....Repairman Jack is a hard series to describe...but after the movie now in the works comes out, millions more will know of this SUPERIOR series....I'd suggest starting with the first in the series, THE TOMB, which is a hell of a read...GROUND ZERO is # 13...with two more books planned. Any one who has read a "Jack" novel...what did you think?

Just started the new Dan Brown book, can't even remember the name, 50 pages in and loving it!

chewingthefat


Just started the new Dan Brown book, can't even remember the name, 50 pages in and loving it!

Just finished it - wonderful - now I have to get the 2 preceding it!

I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "Thud!" It's one of his books about the Night Watch, a beleaguered city patrol in charge of a city that's like Harry Potter crossed with Lord of the Rings. Really loving it.

Going out of town this weekend, so I'm loading up on books for the car. Got George Pelecanos' Hard Revolution, it's about his Derek Strange character back when he was on the D.C. police force. Can't wait to start it.

I've also got Kim Newman's "Dracula Cha Cha Cha" the third in his series of book set in a world where vampires and humans live uneasily side by side. In this one, Dracula travels to Rome in 1959. Dracula and Fellini, what's not to like?

I'm deep into "Have Mercy!" the autobiographic of DJ Wolfman Jack. I'm really enjoying it. He's a hustler supreme, always working the angles to makes his dreams come true. I highly recommend it.

I'm in the middle of Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I find it deeply disturbing and, at the same time, compelling. A most strange and interesting story.

Another F. Paul Wilson Novel...this a reprint of his great WWII novel, Black Wind. So far, a great plot and great characters!