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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Readme: the book thread.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The Book of Negroes (called Someone Knows My Name in the USA market) by Lawrence Hill, which is also just started as a miniseries by CBC, coming elsewhere next fall. It is excellent.
Read that last year and agree with you. There are a few places in the book where you realize that it is fiction, not biography, but it's still a cracking read.
Curiosity: thanks for that. I'm not keen on the faux archaic style that the Cadfael novels were written in, but the TV series was a lot of fun, so I'll see if I can get hold of a copy of one of Starr's books via the library.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've just read the second Lindsey Davis Flavia Albia book, and am barely containing myself until April 9th when the third comes out. {I have also seen a review which criticises anachronisms - rather missing the point of a series (including the Falco books) in which Anachron is an unlisted character, deliberately referencing more recent detectives by referring to walking down mean streets and so on. If you get irritated by people referring to legionaries as squaddies, not for you.}
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Sandemaniac - Yes - already read The Unrest Cure - that was fearsomely savage.
Given that Saki is considered anti-semitic in many circles these days, I was really interested to find at the end of it that I was questioning who was really the anti-semite - Clovis, the other protagonist, the author, or myself for laughing at it so hard. It's a very difficult question because looking at the likes of Chesterton it seems to have been an accepted viewpoint at the time.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Anyone read the new Murakami book in English (or in Japanese?) I plan to get it in hardback next time I go into the store. He is my favourite writer and I never buy his e-books. Any other fanatics?
I wonder if they have it at Costco.........
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
Just finished LTC Rolt's autobiographical trilogy (The Landscape Trilogy) - covering everything from industrial apprenticeship policy in 1920s Britain, Gloucestershire steam ploughing during the depression, the Foundation of the Vintage Sports Car Club, the beginning of the Inland Waterways Association and the death of canal freight, the rescue of the Talyllyn Railway, I could go on! A hymn for England (and Wales - but mostly my own native borderlands and Wyre Forest).
What a life...
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Just finished reading The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Funny, clever, well-written urban fantasy.
Also read 'With passport and parasol' by Julia Keay, a book about seven Victorian women who were travellers and explorers - which has made me want to go off and read all the books in the bibliography to find out more about them.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Finished off Rachel Mann's Dazzling Darkness last week. Have now moved onto F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Currently reading the 3rd Merrily Watkins book on my kindle ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) thanks to various people having mentioned this series on previous threads.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Ah! I have two Merrily Watkins waiting to be read (I'm up to about no.11 in the series) after I've finished Anthony Horowitz' Moriarty ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I too started reading them after threads here.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
A friend recommended "Death in Lacquer Red", by Jeanne M. Dams. I wasn't nearly as enthralled by this book as my friend! The story started a bit slowly for my taste, and ended in a manner that really didn't address the "Who dunnit" aspect very well.
Our detective claimed over and over to be very clever, but she seemed a bit of a butterfly brain to me.
I won't read any more of this series.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've been reading Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley books, after seeing Diana Rigg being her on TV. The TV changed the books far far more than it did Chesterton's Father Brown. And I have written to the local library to suggest that stocking one of them might not be appropriate. Re-issuing a book (The Saltmarsh Murders) with a black character in it of the sort that is in it is deeply questionable. Far, far worse than Pratchett on Mrs Gogol, it used not only the n word, but the attitudes that went with it back below the Mason Dixon line, and not only in the mouths of characters, as can be seen at times about Jews in books of the period, but in the whole drawing of the person, or rather, caricature.
Pity.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Just finished Danny Wallace's Who is Tom Ditto? Not sure why I picked it up after I was only so-so about his first novel Charlotte Street. But I did and it was also a bit meh. But it was a not unpleasant easy read I suppose. It's trying to say something about identity and the choices we make to live our lives but it's more of a light downbeat romcom, if such a thing exists.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
I am currently reading "Birds of a Feather" by Jacqueline Winspear, featuring Maisie Dobbs, which is leading me to compare and contrast the three female post WWI detectives I read about in library books. Maisie's world is definitely the bleakest (probably the most realistic but, not having been around at the time, I do not know for sure) and the only one to feature the suffering of injured soldiers, as opposed to having an occasional character (usually a doctor), who limps.
The Daisy Dalrymple series (by Carola Dunn) is great fun and wonderful comfort reading. A lot of young men died in the war but now all that is over and it does not impinge very much.
Kate Shackleton (by Frances Brody) is in between the two; people are still suffering from the war but not as much as in Maisie's world and there are fewer seriously injured veterans.
One way of comparing them is fate of the heroines' partners: Daisy's fiance was killed and she is now happily married to somebody else.
Kate's husband is missing, presumed dead, probably blown to smithereens, and she desperately wants proof of his fate.
Maisie's fiance is a vegetable and she feels very conflicted about the idea of seeing somebody else - at least as far as I have read, which is not very many. Maisie is also the only one who was injured herself in the great war.
Does anybody else know all 3 and do you have any comments?
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Brilliant news today.
Harper Lee has announced she is to release her second novel on the 14th of July. Source
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Brilliant news today.
Harper Lee has announced she is to release her second novel on the 14th of July. Source
I can only hope it lives up to the first one
JJ I downloaded a Jeanne Dams book on my kindle and was really disappointed. I won't be reading any more either.
Joanna P I have really enjoyed the Maisy Dobbs books - although given how grim they sometimes are 'enjoyed' may not be the right word. I've read one of the Daisy Dalrymple series and while not as dire as the Jeanne Dams mentioned above, I'd only take it out of the library if I couldn't find anything else. I haven't read the other author but will follow up as I'm going on holiday on Friday.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
I am currently reading "Birds of a Feather" by Jacqueline Winspear, featuring Maisie Dobbs, which is leading me to compare and contrast the three female post WWI detectives I read about in library books.
I've only read the Maisie Dobbs books, not all of them, but I do really like Maisie and her use of her own finely tuned sensitivity to solve crimes. I haven't read the other two detectives but I've always like Carola Dunn and can imagine, her detective been amusing as well as clever. She wrote Regency Romances for awhile and like Marion Chesney's they were all very funny with loveable protagonists.
I finally finished all 1238 pages of my large print The Goldfinch. I thought it was wonderful and didn't want it to end. Adventure, original characters and I learned a little about art and antiques. I went to Amazon to write a review and saw people saying it didn't live up to "the hype," but I was unaware of all that, or that it won the Pulitzer and I still loved it.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Michael Snow
Shipmate
# 16363
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Kindle, paper, vellum, papyrus, clay tablet... What are you reading?
Firenze
Heaven Host
Why Kindle and not Nook? I'm not an e-reader. Just wondering how much of a monopoly Amazon has.
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http://spurgeonwarquotes.wordpress.com/
Posts: 62 | From: S. Dak./ Romania | Registered: Apr 2011
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Snow:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Kindle, paper, vellum, papyrus, clay tablet... What are you reading?
Firenze
Heaven Host
Why Kindle and not Nook? I'm not an e-reader. Just wondering how much of a monopoly Amazon has.
In the UK (from where Firenze is posting), whilst not a monopoly, Kindle is definitely the market leader by miles. I found an article from 2013 which said that it had 79% of the UK market, and I was surprised that it was so low - I would have been less surprised if it had said 95%. I happen to have gone down the not-Kindle route, as I didn't want to be tied into the amazon format, but apart from me I only know one other person who has done the same - everyone else I know who has an eReader has a Kindle of some description (or a tablet with a Kindle app). I would even go so far as to say that the word 'Kindle' is heading the same way as 'iPod' has with mp3 players or 'Hoover' has with vacuum cleaners, to delineate any eReader, rather than a specific brand.
As for Nook - it's virtually unheard of in the UK. I've only heard of it because of shipmates from across the Pond mentioning it (am I right in thinking it's attached to Barnes & Noble? That is a store that again is pretty unheard of here, although I gather - again from book threads on the Ship - that it is pretty big Stateside). Kobo is sold by WHSmith, so you see a few of them knocking about, and the only other one that you would find easily in the UK is the Sony eReader (I have a Sony and a Kobo).
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Blackwells is also Nook!
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Kindle ebooks are available from Waterstones now. Not that I have used that option yet.
I acquired my Kindle as a hand-me-down from my daughter when she bought an iPad and didn't need to carry both. I now read mostly on the Kindle as I read on my commute and it's so much lighter and smaller than carrying books when I'm already carrying textbooks and a laptop plus teaching resources and my lunch. Also I work in libraries, and the electronic tagging for my local library system triggers the sensors in the libraries where I work. Explaining why I have set off the alarms at every entrance and exit is not a good look. Particularly when I am working with a student who is likely to abscond. Being delayed by the security officers is a great way of losing the kid.
If I'm buying books to read commuting, Kindle is cheaper than lumps of tree. I'm currently reading Arcanum for the book club. I also own it in paperback, weighed it up for carrying, and bought it again on Kindle to stand a chance of reading it in a month. My Kindle also contains a library of books - complete sets of EF Benson and Saki, several by Ben Aaronvitch, Terry Pratchett and a whole range of other books.
Returning to books, Sandemaniac was commenting on the anti-Semitism of one of the Saki stories The Unrest Cure which I reread to see what he meant, and I hadn't picked up on it being particularly anti-Semitic. I read it as anti-unthinking Christianity at the time, as found in many of the hymns that have been rewritten to still be acceptable to sing. More very much of its time, the inter-War years, and dated, like the early Christie's or Allingham's or early Wimsey books.
Those Imperialistic attitudes are also expressed early in the E F Benson story Queen Lucia when the neighbour introduces an Indian yogi. Not that I've got further than that as I began to find it mentally indigestible.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Talk of the past being a foreign country - ebooks have enabled the re-issue of shedloads of period detective fiction: anything which could plausibly (or implausibly) be described as 'Golden Age' has been dredged up.
And what's the first thing happens in these books? They find the body and immediately move it somewhere else. and then trample up and down the scene of the crime, pocketing any interesting items they find.
Nowadays we are so imbued with the idea of CSI that it completely destroys the credibility of the narrative - and no amount of railway timetables or poisoned golf balls or whatever engine the author uses to manufacture the puzzle can rescue it.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Just finished "The Music Room" by William Fiennes, the autobiography of someone who grew up in a historic house that his family have owned for centuries. It's a fascinating tale of growing up in a place I know and like a lot, with lots of quirky anecdotes, but also overshadowed by the story of his epileptic brother who had so severe a fit one day that it left him with partial brain damage resulting in aggression and behavioural problems, which come to dominate the family. Interestingly, the narrator doesn't seem scared of his brother. His writing style is very articulate, poetic, fluent: at times a delight, at times I wonder whether it's a bit over-written, but he certainly captures the atmosphere of a place I enjoy visiting.
On to Ian Mortimer's "Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England" next, in between the Anya Seton historical novels I've been saving.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Harper Lee actually wrote the novel that is now being released before she wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird". It is about an older Scout going back to her town to revisit the crime. Her editor told her to rewrite it to be about young Scout so she did. The first book was allegedly lost behind another manuscript for a few decades.
Harper Lee is very old, fairly deaf and somewhat confused. Her lawyer refuses to let anyone talk to her about whether she wants to release this earlier effort. So there's this awkwardness about whether we're reading something that the author may not have thought worthy of being published.
It may or may not be a good book. It's hard to imagine it expands on the other book given the chronology of the writing.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've got a Nook - from John Lewis. I had some vouchers from their credit card, and could get it for nothing, which I was pleased to do as I did not want to support Amazon. I don't just put novels on it, as I have found I can scan things to PDF and load them, such as extracts from relevant texts to trips. I shall be doing this with Othere's voyage up Norway as told to Alfred, rather than lugging the actual book, together with guides to photographing Aurora and eclipses.
What I find irritating is that there seems no way to remove things that I have finished and don't feel I want filling space. I can get library books off it, and my files, but not bought books.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Firenze I'd agree that some of the golden age mysteries do not hold up well. I was disappointed in reading John Dickson Carr locked room mysteries.
Besides the police practices, the stereotypical broad foreigner; Scotsman/Jew/Italian can be hard to take.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
JDC I like - besides the ingenuity of the plots, he can generate a real frisson of atmosphere: though I agree the characters can be a bit of an eye-roll. But I am currently about to give up on a Ronald Knox because I can see that the Reveal is going to be that the corpse of an unknown character you don't care about will turn out to actually be that of another UCYDCA.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Talk of the past being a foreign country - ebooks have enabled the re-issue of shedloads of period detective fiction: anything which could plausibly (or implausibly) be described as 'Golden Age' has been dredged up.
And what's the first thing happens in these books? They find the body and immediately move it somewhere else. and then trample up and down the scene of the crime, pocketing any interesting items they find.
Nowadays we are so imbued with the idea of CSI that it completely destroys the credibility of the narrative - and no amount of railway timetables or poisoned golf balls or whatever engine the author uses to manufacture the puzzle can rescue it.
I'm watching "Have His Carcase" at the moment, and Harriet very carefully, knowing that the place where the body lies will soon be covered by the tide, removes identifying material from the corpse, and photographs it and its location from various angles. I can't remember if she did that in the book.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
She does. In that case, the fact that the body covered by the tide has a significance for the plot over and above setting up an original situation.
My quarrel is with the ones where the locus of the crime is treated as inconsequential. There were forensic detectives of the period - besides Holmes and his magnifying glass and monograph on the hundred and forty varieties oftobacco ash - preeminently Dr Thorndyke.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boadicea Trott
Shipmate
# 9621
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Posted
Has anyone read Peter May's mystery/detective trilogy set on the Isle of Lewis? I read "The Black House" and it was very, very dark indeed, but a cracking good story. I read it with a horrified fascination but could not put it down.
I'm part way through no 2 - "Lewis Man" and enjoying it, though the descriptions of Tormod's dementia and his family struggling to cope are heart-rending.
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X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
Posts: 563 | From: Roaming the World in my imagination..... | Registered: Jun 2005
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Yesterday, for the first time since primary school, I read Ruskin's King of the Golden River and thoroughly enjoyed it.
My "main" book at the moment is John Keay's The Spice Route, which I last read just after it came out - an excellent writer.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I only read The King of the Golden River for the first time last winter and re-read it again this winter.
It is wonderful.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
Still with historical whodunnits but in a different time period, I have recently read The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis, featuring Falco's (adopted) daughter, now working as an informer herself. It was odd... The main problem was that the attitudes of the characters were definitely more 21st century than Roman. The second problem was that the narrative voice was almost the same as in the Falco novels, so I tended to forget that it was a different narrator, until she mentioned her parents.
Having said that, I did eventually get into it and enjoyed it, but I did have to consciously decide not to get worked up about the attitudes. I will probably get the next one out of the library but would not buy it.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I have just finished We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I loved it.
I can’t actually say that much about it without some kind of gigantic spoiler, but I highly recommend it. I’ll just say it’s an amazing take on the (unintentionally) dysfunctional family and what it means to be human.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
This weekend I had an Audible credit to spend and a lot of time to listen to something (would've been podcasts otherwise) so I chose Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson.
It's a SciFi-ish fantasy set in a world ten years after an event where "Epics" have arisen. These are people with superhuman abilities. But not superheroes as they all seem to be bad. The story follows a group of non-gifted rebels who oppose one such Epic. They call themselves the Reckoners.
It was fun. It wasn't terribly deep as you'd expect but I enjoyed it. I did find that in the various action scenes I didn't feel the need to rewind if I'd missed something the way I would for dialogue.
I've since seen it, and the series it kicked off, described as 'YA' which kind of makes sense. He did seem a little coy about sex and swearing, but there was plenty of violence.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I have the paperback version of this sitting on the TBR pile, and you make it sound interesting.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Definitely worth a read. I bought the next book pretty much ASAP (ebook this time).
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Just read "The Last of the Tin Can Sailors". It's a historical work about the Leyte Gulf naval battle in WWII where a small group of destroyers and destroyer escorts had to fight a large armada of Japanese Battleships.
Interesting, and reminder of what the war in the South Pacific was and how politics shaped the history.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I read "Foxglove Summer", the newest volume in the Rivers of London series that was a book group selection earlier. It takes the hero out of the city and into the country. It's ok, but it makes me realize how much I enjoyed the part that the City played in the earlier books.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
My current kitchen* book is Gary Schmidt's Okay for now.
It's not just the onions that make me cry.
*i.e. the audiobook to which I listen while preparing dinner.
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Just read "The Last of the Tin Can Sailors". It's a historical work about the Leyte Gulf naval battle in WWII where a small group of destroyers and destroyer escorts had to fight a large armada of Japanese Battleships.
I read that a few years ago. I thought it was very well-written.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Scots lass
Shipmate
# 2699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Just finished reading The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. Funny, clever, well-written urban fantasy.
I finished that last week. I really enjoyed it as well, it felt like a sequel was likely. Nice touches with the bits of other stories being woven in as well - master thief, werewolves, detectives, and all very cleverly done.
Posts: 863 | From: the diaspora | Registered: Apr 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I read "Foxglove Summer", the newest volume in the Rivers of London series that was a book group selection earlier. It takes the hero out of the city and into the country. It's ok, but it makes me realize how much I enjoyed the part that the City played in the earlier books.
Yes, I agree with that. I enjoy the excursions out of town but it's pretty clear that the author's altogether more comfortable with the London setting.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
My new mobile [cell?] phone has a read facility so I have loaded it with a few .txt files from the Gutenberg Project and yesterday, whilst hanging about waiting for something, I read Anthony Hope's The Heart of Princess Osra which was fun if not wonderful - Hope never quite makes it, does he?
[Though I loved the Miller of Hofbau, great character!]
Next I'll try Rupert of Hentzau just to see if he handles it any better.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm reading a biography of Brazilian singer / accordeon player Luiz Gonzaga. It gives an interesting image of life in rural North-East Brazil at the start of the last century.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I have just finished We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I loved it.
I can’t actually say that much about it without some kind of gigantic spoiler, but I highly recommend it. I’ll just say it’s an amazing take on the (unintentionally) dysfunctional family and what it means to be human.
Yes. I enjoyed that too. I'd seen a documentary about one of the real life cases a year or so back so I felt I had some context.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I have just finished We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I loved it.
I can’t actually say that much about it without some kind of gigantic spoiler, but I highly recommend it. I’ll just say it’s an amazing take on the (unintentionally) dysfunctional family and what it means to be human.
Yes. I enjoyed that too. I'd seen a documentary about one of the real life cases a year or so back so I felt I had some context.
I believe we have that scheduled for a book club discussion here in our Heavenly book club sometime this year, so that will be a good opportunity to discuss it spoilers and all!
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
I just finished "Through the Evil Days" by Julia Spencer-Fleming, featuring crime-fighting military veteran/priest Claire Fergusson and her sheriff husband Russ Van Alstyne...I've liked these mysteries in the past, but this time around my suspension of disbelief came less willingly -- so many improbables, too much melodrama piled upon melodrama. (Yes, I know it's genre fiction.) Reading this book felt a bit like watching a new season of a formerly good television drama that's refused to make a graceful exit at its peak and kreps banging out increasingly unsatisfying stories. And judging from the cliffhangers at the end, Spencer-Fleming has at least one more Claire Fergusson mystery in the works.
I'm now headed to the nonfiction aisle, specifically: "One Summer: America, 1927" by Bill Bryson. It's about what it says it is; just a snapshot of what was going on in the US, both in pop culture and in politics, during a few months in 1927. Bryson is an entertaining, witty author, whether he's writing about his own travel adventures or tackling other issues, so I'm looking forward to his take on the Roaring Twenties.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I'm now headed to the nonfiction aisle, specifically: "One Summer: America, 1927" by Bill Bryson. It's about what it says it is; just a snapshot of what was going on in the US, both in pop culture and in politics, during a few months in 1927. Bryson is an entertaining, witty author, whether he's writing about his own travel adventures or tackling other issues, so I'm looking forward to his take on the Roaring Twenties.
I read that as my vacation book this summer. Left it in the lounge room of a budget hotel in Copenhagen when I was finished, hoping someone else would enjoy it (it was too thick to carry home). I liked it a lot; a good book to dip into and out of while travelling.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I'm currently enjoying Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It's one of those books recommended more than once by shipmates (and others) which I put off reading for ages, partly because of its length. But it's definitely been worth finding the time. I was just wondering if it could be film-able and now I find out that BBC America will be releasing a version later this year.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
In a fit of enthusiasm at WorldCon last year, having just met the author, I bought "Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable", a series of academic essays on his work. I've just finished it, reading a little bit at a time because, to be honest, it was rather too academic in places for me. However, there was lots of interesting stuff about his Mars series, and his Science in the Capitol series - and I've been persuaded by the essays on the Orange County series to give that another try.
At least, I've got The Wild Shore, which is apparently the most utopian of the three. When I tried reading these before, I started with the one where the main character is doing some illicit archaeology, and I wanted to smack him around the head, so I gave up on that one.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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