What BOOK are you reading right now?

Just finished The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

...'twas amazing.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
only have 4 more to read and I get the cupie doll

I'm having another attempt at Maggie Gee's novel, The Flood. Rather heavy going (especially in fits & burst of reading) but I'm persisting. I admire her writings enormously.

The Flood by Maggie Gee

The President, Mr Bliss, is handling a tricky situation with customary brio, but after months of ceaseless rain, the city is definitely sinking under the floods. The rich are safe on high ground, but the poor are getting damper in their packed tower blocks, and the fanatical ?'Last Days' sect is recruiting thousands.

When at last the sun breaks through the clouds, the city rejoices. Spoiled, sexy Lottie heads off to the opera, husband Harold listens to jazz and their ditsy teenage daughter Lola fights capitalism by bunking off school. Shirley takes her twin boys to the zoo. The Government declares the floods are over and announces a spectacular City Gala complete with tigers, fireworks, hip-hop stars and even a guest spot by the ever-smiling President himself.

But not even TV astrologer Davey Lucas can predict the extraordinary climax that follows …

http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/2004prize/longlist/flood.html

The Mercy of Thin Air. Another strange one narrated by a dead person, but it's so well written by new author Ronlyn Domingue.

I keep re-reading Rising Tide by John Barry, the story of the other flood of Mississippi and Louisiana, in 1927. More a history of that stormy muddy river, and a sprinkling of the beginnings of jazz, those crazy rich white men and their all-male clubs, not to mention just how "Carnival" ruled.

I am reading a book which somebody loaned me that is so bad and so badly written that I doubt I'll be able to finish it. It is amazing to me that it was even published, let alone that it became -- according to the jacket blurb -- a New York Times best-seller. It's by Dan Bown (DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons) and it's called Digital Fortress. Spare yourself the intellectual pain -- do not pick this dog of a book up. Dick and Jane Go to the State Fair is more intellectually challenging. And the comparison is apt, as that's basically Brown's writing style. Yeccchhh.

I just went to the bookstore.... I bought 2 Terry Pratchett books ("The Wee Free Men" and "A Hat Full of Sky"), a Douglas Andams book ("The Long Dark Tea-Time of The Soul"), Roy Blounte Jr.'s "Be Sweet" and Steve Martin's "Pure Drivel". I'm set for at least a few weeks. Now, which to start with.....?

"No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy. Has anyone read it? I just finished it and was aware of violence in his previous novels, but it was so suspenseful and the characters so well drawn that I could not put it down. "Blood Meridian" reminded me of "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad...I would be interested to hear if anyone else had read this book.

Vietnamnurse, where are you from? And what do you do for a living?

Books I am reading...
Retired nurse...but that says nothing about me! I read almost voraciously!..am a gardener, dog enthusiast (raise Irish Wolfhounds and Border Terriers and show them),cook, drink lots of good wine, married to a physician who has many of the same interests and we love to travel. I love the New York Review of Books...am quite liberal...not Marxist! and just generally love life and most people. Is that enough? Oh, I live in Maryland, not far from DC but out of the beltway on 12 acres!

Thank you for your reply. I have entered the information in my ledger.

<glad to see you here, Vietnam Nurse..>

I haven't read Cormac McCarthy, mean to one of these days.

Vietnamnurse, you're an old Abuzzer, aren't you?

Did you just call her an old buzzard, Merry?

I'm reading ten books right now and i'm on the first or second page of everyone.

Hi Ossobuco and Merry Andrew! Yeah, I am an Old Abuzzer. I have been away for awhile from Able...after Mamajuana died (we were close), I just lost interest in posting. I am back and hope to contribute from time to time. I just started "The Girl With the Pearl Earring"...and am planning on rereading "Lord of the Flies" after hearing the Diane Rehm show on PBS.

Ah, mamajuana..... I miss her. Missed seeing you around, too, v-nurse!

So, I decided to start with "the wee free men".

am reading "between extremes" by brian keenan and john mccarthy. it's a story about travelling through chile , north all the way to the south, during the nineties.
you might remember the writers better as two of the captives who were held in beirut/lebanon for four years. to keep their sanity during captivity, they would devise elaborate trips that they would take throughout the world - but only in their minds at that time.
this is a fascinating story, exploring chile, the land, but also trying to understand why most of the chileans the met and spoke with found it difficult to talk about pinochet's discredited former dictatorship. the answers they received were usually along the line of : ...that was sometime ago, but look, we are having beautiful sunshine today... hbg

Hey VNN.

Nice to see one of the PUP's back here!

Simon Schama "Landscape and Memory":



A real pleasure.

The book itself is worth it. Nice heavy pages for quality reproduction of images, lovely typeface and spacing. You just know, like a good melon, that this will be excellent.

I've wanted to read that for years, and been put off by the money. <thinking, I bet I could order it used..>