What BOOK are you reading right now?

Bernie, your book reviews are more entertaining than most books.

I'm working my way through The Western Intellectual Tradition. Fairly heavy reading for me yet I have found it fascinating. This is one of Dys's favorites and we have had some wonderful discussions about each phase, starting with the Renaissance.

For pure entertainment, I think Nevada Barr books are good. The author, was a park ranger and writes with authority about the various National Parks, which is where the stories take place. The protagonist, Anna Pigeon, is a park ranger in each book. Some of the locals have been, Natchez Trace, Mesa Verde, Yellowstone and Big Bend.

Diane:-

It is a great pity that it should fall to me to try to explain to you that your admiration would be better employed on items with a little more taste and grace than the one to which you referred.

It is a distinct possibility that young threaders may be swayed in directions which are not particularly of advantage to them when you go out of your way to express admiration for posts which are the satirical equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel and
which rely for their style on ideas which could just as easily be applied to our own mothers,daughters,sisters,wives and aunties and which do indeed apply to someone's mother.

Had the poster you admired so much as to take the trouble to point it out to us been concerned with any Disney characters with long ears he might have referred to piercings and lead weights and public displays.

If I was you I would edit my text into oblivion.

<I shouldn't be laughing right now>

Diane: WIT is an outstanding book. Recomended it somewhere on this site (don't remember where) a while ago after having read it for a history class.

edit - I changed my mind on what I said about Nevada Barr books - which was along the line of my not thinking they are all so special, and add instead that yes, they are entertaining.

Edward: Actually, I wrote about Finn and Melanie 5 years later, both of them living in a tiny apartment in North London. Melanie is a barmaid; Finn is a drug dealer and a caricature artist in Covent Garden. At work he sees Melanie's little brother (what was his name?) who, I remember, disappears without explanation at the end of Magic Toyshop. He is a homeless street urchin, and Melanie is too afriad to try to help him out.

Right now, reading The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon. A devastating memoir about a fourteen year old boy who tried to kill himself by lighting himself on fire. This book is told in a first person character voice, a very convincing 14 year old voice. It's about his rehab, and returning to school again with some deformity. At times hilarious, at other times crushing. Curious? Check out Brent Runyon's author profile at www.randomhouse.com.

The Sea Road ... click ...

back to throw in an excerpt I found

http://www.canongate.net/TheSeaRoad/GudridMakesHerFirstVoyageFr

Skeptic by Holden Scott and Pattern and Recognition by William Gibson.

I'm pretty tired of thrillers actually, and Gibson's book isn't my taste, but I started reading it, so might as well.

Jane Fonda's "My Life So Far" and "According to the Rolling Stones".

According to the Rolling Stones, I can hear it now...

Just finished a detective piece by Roger L. Simon, probably to distinguish him from Roger K. Simon, or Roger M. Simon, titled "California Roll", a Moses Wine Mystery.

It was a fairly interesting read for my light reading hours. The book was an early takeoff on security in computerland, which included a swath of pages set in Japan.

Also just finished Evelyn Lau's Other Women, a short dense book about being a woman crazed for a married man. While the subject interests me, my main pull to the book was her tight right way with words. By the end of the book, not a long book, I was a little weary of the way with words, but I'm sticking the book in my keep it pile.

Now to pick up my Cortazar book again...

Osso,

What Cortazar are you reading? I just finished Hopscotch. Have you read it?

I'm about to start Delilo's White Noise.

["According to the Rolling Stones".[/quote]

So whatcha think about it (so far), EOE? I've read a lot of biographies about the Stones (among other artists), and this one was pretty good for letting the group members tell their own versions of their history. Notably absent, however, was much credit (or even mention) of their long-time bassist, Bill Wyman. Reading this book alone might make you wonder if they just used studio musicians all those years until they enlisted Darryl Jones in the early 90s.

Gargamel, I just started Cortazar's Blow-up and Other Stories, a collection of 15 stories.

AllanSwann, I've only read a few pages so far. In their own words, the stories we may have heard before take on a whole new vibe, don't they? It always amazes me to hear them speak or read quotes and they sound so regal and articulate, having been such wild boys. But it is The Queen's English afterall, huh? The layout and design of the book knocks me out. Great photos. I too was wondering about ol' Bill but I guess his sordid mess from a few years back was even too nasty for his bandmates. They had to cut him loose. All the way loose, apparently. And that's a shame.

This book was on sale for 5.99 at Barnes and Noble. I almost didn't buy it because I had an armful of books already but 5.99? How could I have NOT gotten it?

Gargamel, White Noise is a good choice.

I'm reading 'Domino's Effect' by Paul Heiney. It seems to be about Mad Cow Disease and the parlous state of British agriculture.

EOE: I, too, couldn't pass up the Barnes and Noble "steal" on this beautiful book. Although he's apparently a "minor player" in the Stones' legend, Bill Wyman's book "A Stone Alone" is an interesting account from his point of view of his years rolling along with the rest of the band. Your allusion to his "troubles" was foretold in his book in which he recounts numerous exploits with various groupies over the years. Oddly enough, Wyman apparently outstripped (sorry...bad pun) the rest of his mates in the groupie dept. and that combined with his somewhat odd fixation on monetary matters (both large and astoundingly small) seems to have been his raison d'etre for being in the group. Still....a truly great band truly for the ages, IMO.

who is this Cortazar person?

Julio Cortazar.
Let's see, I think it was Rodbogey who started a thread on latin american lit, and then from comment there I ordered a half dozen books, now of course in my stack.
Others can answer better than me on who Cortazar is.

Ok, I'll wait.