What Are You Reading

[Diamondback]

BC, interesting--one of the managers at my local bookshop asked me to give it a read and give him my thoughts on how Stephenson characterized Mac. (I thought he did pretty well with it, the "second chance" thing struck me as consistent with his principles.)

Right now, back to work on the Bourne Trilogy on Plate 1, and on Plate 2, D-Day 1944: Omaha and Utah Beaches, a History Channel Club combined edition of Osprey's Campaign 100 Omaha Beach and Campaign 104 Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings.

 

[Harp]

Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise; Alaska Quarterly Review,
Spring/Summer issue; Iowa Review. AQR has an excellent
poetry section.

 

[Lancealot]

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

Amazon.com
If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.

 

[Pip]

Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945 - Patrick Bishop.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bomber-Boys...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213014373&sr=1-1


Only a couple of chapters in but the book is proving to be a riveting read and also one that is extremely compassionate and human, unlike many 39-45 publications.

Recommened.

Phil

 

[LocktownDog]

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.

 

[AmateisGal]

Lauren Bacall's autobiography, By Myself and Then Some. Excellent.

 

[Smuterella]

I am about to start another Andrew Vachs - modern pulp fiction, as dark as Hammett and slicker than Chandler - in my opinion

 

[Beowulf67]

I just finished "See you Later, Alligator" by William F. Buckley Jr. It's one of his Blackford Oakes novels, set in Cuba after the revolution.

 

[Darhling]

I just started on American Gods by Neil Gaiman and I really like it so far, I enjoy his way of writing, straightforward, honest without too much hoopla.

 

[Smuterella]

I just started on American Gods by Neil Gaiman and I really like it so far, I enjoy his way of writing, straightforward, honest without too much hoopla.

Oh yes - his books are wonderful. I also adore the graphic novels

 

[AmateisGal]

I am VERY excited. Just got back from a trip to the library (which is conveniently located down the block from where I work) and came back with some great finds.

I am in a WW2-reading mood right now, so here's what I'll be diving into in the coming days:

Wave Me Goodbye: Stories of the Second World War, edited by Anne Boston.

Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery by James R. Benn

Crossing by Night by David Aaron

 

[Harp]

I have not, but I will.
Read Wills "Why I am a Catholic".

...forgot to mention GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy.
speaking of Thailand, ever dive there?

 

[hepkitten]

Darhling, I liked American Gods very much--I enjoy his writing for the same reasons you do. He just sort of gets on with it.

AmateisGal, the Wave Me Goodbye book sounds wonderful. I'll have to check our library and see if it's on the shelves.

I can't remember if I mentioned this one before (old age catching up early) but a while back I read Your Kids and Mine by Joe E. Brown. He had a comedy radio show, and was one of the first performers to go overseas in WWII to entertain the troops. For him it became a personal mission, as his son had died in a plane crash during pilot training. It's a memoir of his experiences, written as an open letter to American parents, and it's profoundly humbling, poignant and heartbreaking.

At the moment, I'm just finishing up Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Unlike Gaiman, it's very indirect and roundabout, but definitely good enough to keep me going.

 

[V-Sweetheart]

Reproduction books by Women writers

I just discovered (perhaps you already know!) a small publisher in London named Persephone Books. This woman reproduces obscure English women writers of the 20th century. They are responsible for rediscovering the story Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The American books have age appropriate covers and the insides have age appropriate fabric reproductions. The stories are fiction like Miss Pettigrew or practical, like tips for dealing with rationing or life on the home front. I just love finding books that tell me more about the era I love.

 

[dhermann1]

I just finished reading "1676: The End of American Independence", by Stephen Webb. It's a tough read, but very worthwhile. In 1676 there was a small but violent revolution in Virginia, where a shortlived republic was set up, similar to the Cromwellian Commonwealth of the previous generation. At the same time the racism and greed of the New England colonies touched off a ferociously violent war with the Native Americans, known as King Philips War. At the same time in New York, which had just been retrieved as a crown colony from the Dutch, was establishing peaceful relations with the Iroquois Confederacy, which enabled the King of England to rescind all previous colonial charters, and set up centralized autocratic rule in all the colonies, based on the alliance with the Iroquois. This new establishment of law and order enabled the colonies to progress and prosper, and ultimately set the stage for the revolution of 1776. The book is a real revelation. Highly recommended to those who can handle the difficult style and structure of the book.
I just started a new one. "After Elizabeth", by Leanda de Lisle. It's about the transfer of royal power from Elizabeth I to James VI/I of Scotland/England. More good assumption overthrowing history. Great stuff.

 

[CeceliaRose]

Currently alternating between 5 different books:

Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Close Combat by WEB Griffin

Does anyone here use Shelfari? I just discovered it today, and it's a great way to keep track of the books you've read, are currently reading, and plan to read. I'd love some friends with the same reading tastes as me!

 

[ADHD librarian]

Dross? The supurb Pratchetts?

The book you are thinking of is called "The Fifth Elephant", and if you don't find at least 2 layers to each Pratchett novel, then you aren't getting full value. May I suggest "Going Postal" as a modern commentary on the corporate world?

My Dear Miss Crisplock,
I assure you that my comments insinuating Pratchet was dross, were made very much tongue in cheek.
I am a fan of the man and his work and I do indeed recognise that the books have a significant layer of modern parable underlying the fantasy element of his creation.

 

[Nick D]

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, JRR Tolkien, 1936

 

[Beowulf67]

Does anyone here use Shelfari? I just discovered it today, and it's a great way to keep track of the books you've read, are currently reading, and plan to read. I'd love some friends with the same reading tastes as me!

This was the first I've heard of it, but thanks for bringing it to my attention. It seems like a really cool site.

Or I guess in the spirit of being vintage I should say "Gee that's swell!" lol

 

[Beowulf67]

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, JRR Tolkien, 1936

:eusa_clap
I'm glad you like my book