A good book has multiple uses, osso
Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats -- by Steve Ettlinger
Well, I have to say it's fascinating (and of course a little scary).
mmm.... well, I've only just finished one, so I am not reading it anymore, so does that count? "House of Echoes" by Barbara Erskine. Before that I read her "Midnight Is A Lonely Place". They were both about ghosts. I like most yarns about ghosts, but not the silly blood n guts sagas. Just the ones like Barbara Erskine wrote about. Now I'm on the scrounge again, looking for something else to fill my empty life up with. I remember years ago a book by Wilbur Smith, called Sunbird. That got me right in. I like to read in here about what other people are reading. It sort of reminds me of some sort of a "book club" on tap.
cheers. :wink:
I am finally getting to Primo Levi's The Periodic Table
The No A$$hole Rule : building a civilized workplace and surviving one that isn't by Robert Sutton - but it's really for Mrs Hinge.
Primo Levi - I await your report.
Me, I'm off on an extravaganza of used book ordering, primarily crime fiction, so help me.
I read the best of the batch first, re my laser like view, based on the publisher and sometimes the book cover....
from soho press,
Thirty Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill - really interesting, whole new place for me (Laos), bright writer, thoroughly engaging. I highly recommend it, and I don't often do that.
The Hollow-eyed Angel by Janwllem van de Wetering (I've read many of his in the past) - the crew at work again, and I tend to like the crew.
The Torso by Helen Tursten - have read one of hers in the past. Both thorough.
All soho press crime books are several notches above what you get at your grocery store bookshelf. A certain lack of predictable pulsing of violence is common to them. Not that they don't have violence, but that it tends not to show up every predicted number of pages. Not that I've graphed this out.
So I've been lent Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Now, I read a ton of fiction, but rarely contemporary bestsellers, as I am still overcompensating for residual insecurity expereinced as an English Major--I'm still trying to read every great "classic" novel ever written.
But has anyone else noticed that every "literary" (a term that excludes John Grisham and the usual suspects) work of fiction, particularly short story collections, that makes the national bestseller list features infidelity as a central theme?
There are so many things to make a story about. Could we please stop writing about infidelity? It's getting so boring. And it depresses the **** out of me. I've read so many short stories, I'll NEVER get married. Worse is that this is the way to sell fiction in this country. Awesome.
That being said, Lahiri's prose is clean and well crafted. As is the structure of her stories. I mean she's a pro, that's for sure.
Dag--Candide is one of my favorites. I'd love to hear what you think of it.
Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
not even close to his best stuff
ossobuco wrote:Primo Levi - I await your report.
Uhoh, don't hold your breath - still in chapter one!
the stephanie plum novels. just a bit of light reading. read the first five, but i don't have 6,7 and 8. i managed to get my hands on the rest of them, though.
after that i feel like reading something set in the victorian era. but not really FROM the victorian era. i like it as a setting, but find a lot of the writers from that particular period kinda dull (ofcourse, there are always exceptions). any recommendations?
just started reading :
"GOLD AND IRON " bismarck , bleichroeder and the building of the german empire by fritz stern .
i'm only at page 35 of 600 pages ! fascinating story of gerson bleichroeder who as a minor jewish banker in berlin eventually became bismarck's confidante . he also kept the rothschild bankers informed about goings on in berlin .
sometime ago i read the story of the the warburg banking family - of course interested because of the hamburg connection .
reading about bismarck in his earlier years in power , it's almost like reading about vice-president cheney !
seems like bismarck - certainly in his ealier years - was a very nasty fellow !
have read books about his later years , and he seemed to have mellowed later on .
hbg
Just finished 3 books:
Charley Wilson's War by George Crile
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Different Suns, both by Khaled Hosseini
All fascinating, plus I know much more about why we are in Iraq fighting this terrible war, also why the entire area is sooo screwed up.
Hey has anyone read anything by Gary Shteyngart?
I'm reading "Absurdistan" right now. Blooming brilliant.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
