What BOOK are you reading right now?

I am reading The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien right now.

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LIFE IS GOOD!

good book, i've ready it about 5 times in my life

never been able to get through the lord of the rings, but i keep trying

Try harder. It's worth the effort.

Quite right, Meriadoc!

every few years i like to join the sci/fi book club, hit them up for some huge expensive books for the introductory penny a piece, fulfill my commitment on cheaper books and get out relatively unscathed, this time i ordered the hobbit and the collected lord of the rings as part of my introduction, hope to plow through the LOTR volumes this time

To the Stars (3-in-1)
by Robert A. Heinlein

Four Frontiers (4-in-1)
by Robert A. Heinlein

Outward Bound (3-in-1)
by Robert A. Heinlein

The Lord of the Rings (3-in-1 Omnibus)
by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien

A Tolkien Miscellany
by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Taken Trilogy (3-in-1)
by Alan Dean Foster

pretty good deal for first order including a discounted book that counts toward fulfilling my commitment, basically 17 novels for $26

When that lot gets delivered you may never do anything but read, ever again.

I just finished The Tiger in the Tiger Pit (Thanks msolga)

The language was beautiful, luscious in parts. It took me more than 4 weeks to read because I had to pause to absorb little kernels of truth. That, and rereading the lovely expression.

currently listening to



OVERVIEW: When Grace was younger she was attacked in her backyard by a pack of wolves. No one in the area knows why the wolves decided to attack or even how she survived an attack that should have killed her. Grace knows the reason that she is still alive today is due to the fact that a certain wolf stood up to the pack and helped her in her time of great need. From that day on Grace has had a very special connection the "her" wolf. She sees the wolf in the woods behind her house every winter, but magically it disappears during the summer. An unexplainable bond between the two has formed.

Six years later, Grace finds out the truth about the mysterious disappearance of the wolf in the summer. The wolves in the back of her house are actually werewolves that change not by the moon cycle but instead by the temperature. When it's hot out they are human but during the colder winter months they are wolves.

After a string of events Grace finally meets Sam (her wolf) and a beautiful romance forms between the two of them. The only problem is that tensions are high in the city as there was another more public wolf attack and this time the boy that was killed is missing.

Shiver follows the events leading up to the romance of Sam and Grace. The point of view switches between both of them. Readers are introduced to Graces life at school along with her two best friends. While Sam focuses on staying human so he can spend time with Grace and learning more about the life of the pack (other werewolves who have formed a family like environment together).

The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson, about a father who, literally, goes to the ends of the earth to heal his young son of autism. Fascinating, loved this book. Very funny, if you can imagine considering the subject.

Ok, so it's old, but I just finished reading "Dragon Wing" by Weiss and Hickman. I read the Dragonlance Chronicles, and my favorite character died in the second book, but in these my fave guy died in the first book. I'm wicked pissed, man. It seemes like they like to f@#$ with me and my favorite characters. I'm a writer...I understand the validity/romance of death, but damn, it's always my fave first. It's mean. Anyhow, for anyone who's into more than sci-fi, I'm about to read "A Long Way Down" again. Hornby's mint. Dry, witty, satyrical...what's not to love? Enjoy your books, fellow geeks. Mine are my mainstay.
Jules

You know what? We should all get on the same page (literally), like an Internet book club. We should read the same thing so we're not having forty-three different conversations (which, ultimately-let's face it- are only with ourselves, anyway). Pick a book, fellow readers. Let's read the same thing. At least the same author...
Jules (again...I know, I'm pathetic... hehe)

The Sicilian Mafia based in the town of Corleone make American gangsters seem downright peaceful in comparison.
Fascinating read

On the last chapter of:

Goat Song by Brad Kessler

Lovely writing that often flows like poetry or an epic ballad. The stories of mating and sick goats reminded me as to why I don't want goats. You don't have to like goats to like this book, but if you already like goats you will love this book. It might create an urge within you to visit the Pyrenees just for the cheese - at least that was my experience.

I've recently read several books -

Claudio Magris' Danube, previously mentioned a few times, but I finished it in the time my computer was in the shop. I found it very dense going to start with and then got increasingly interested. Easily one of my favorite books in the last ten years.

Christopher Hibbert's The House of Medici - I stopped reading it about half way through because the writing style was grating on me. Picked it up and finished it after the next book to be mentioned. Glad enough I finished it, as it had some information about the Medici that I previously didn't know, or had forgotten.

Jacob Burckhardt's The Age of Constantine the Great - a fast read for a book with such tumbles of information, a keeper for me. I'll try to pick up some of his other books - one on the italian renaissance and another on greek civilization. It's a translation (well, so is the Magris book above), this one of the second edition in 1880, first being in 1852.

Jakob Arjouni's Happy Birthday, Turk! - an investigational procedural set in Frankfurt. I've read it before but it's short and interesting, was a change of pace from the last three books.

John Grisham's The Rainmaker - a couple of things bothered me about the main character's actions, but the book was good enough escapist reading. I hadn't read Grisham for years and years.

Another Grisham, this one about high school football, Bleachers. I liked it. (fairly short read)

A legal type procedural by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg - forget the name, already gave the book away. The main interest to me was that it was set in Ventura, a California city I like.

Yawn.

And then, kaboom, I read Lorenzo Carcaterra's Sleepers. Strong book about the juvenile detention system in New York. There was a movie made based on it. Parts of the book are you-are-there descriptions of being boys in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood of NYCity back in the early sixties; some other parts are hard to read later on. I take it as largely true, Carcaterra being one of the boys.

Next in line - I'm about 50 pages into Henry James' The Ambassadors.

Among these authors are several good writers - but, man, what variation in style.

Re-reading my entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes books

Cuba Libre, by Elmore Leonard.

I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

Elmore Leonard can do that too ya. I think we all have Elmore books that we read amd enjoyed so we read a new one and find them a bit..... wanting.

Just finished "A Different VAlor" the biography of Civil war CSA general and his lifelong dealings with his nemesis, Jeff Davis. It was good and a good read. (I just hop the facts are correct since I refuse to do my own fact checks)
Its by Gilbert Govan and James Livingood.

As the "second to last " of the Civil War generals to surrender to the inevitable loss of the war, Johnson has often been overlooked in history to his more famous predecessor in line , Gen R E Lee and he missed being the last of the generals to surrender . That position was taken by the Native AMerican Gen Stand Watte and his band of several thousand native regulars.

I just gave up on Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar after reading 25 pages. I was reading it on my own accord rather then for an assignment of sorts. Made it easier to walk away from.

Started to read one of my books I own but never got around to reading. The Coroner's Lunch, a mystery by Colin Cotterill. So far, I'm really glad I made the switch. The 72 year old Laotian medical examiner trumps a twentysomething college student and her early 60's sensibilities anyday.

I liked a book I read by Cotterill too -
http://able2know.org/topic/106740-1#post-2935829

Finished Moby-Dick. I was amazed at how much I had forgotten.

Madame Bovary

I'm reading No Impact Man (with a long subtitle), by Colin Beavan. He wants to write a book about global warming and how everyone should change their lifestyles to prevent it. He realizes he has no moral authority. So he lives the change he wants to see happen. In the heart of Manhattan, his wife and their toddler make huge changes to their lifetyles for a year to have a zero net impact on the globe. It's a super quotable book!