What BOOK are you reading right now?

Decline? Probably, all the book's characters were bloody miserable. Such books I end up with when I visit the used bookstore, good as it is, but I just don't have the patience to search. Don't suppose I'll be reading Oates again.

I quit reading We Were the Mulvaneys for a spell. Another one I dropped after about ten pages.

I'm not surprised about the kind of relationship (some) men of John Kennedy's generation could have had with women. They didn't know anything about women, (some of) those guys of the 1930s, 40s. Also, you have to consider the Kennedy boys learned whatever they knew about women from their father. I'm struck dumb regarding all the illness, and understand completely Jacqueline's reactions to what little she knew.

Frankly, I can't see how a man serving as president of the U.S. had time for all that. But, then, whado I know?

The Coke Machine - The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink

by Michael Blanding

Antonio is out of the tub and has his PJ’s on. On my way home from work I picked up a book called Bink and Gollie. The sales girl tried to tell me it was for girls, yeah like boys can't enjoy it too.

http://www.binkandgollie.com/

What book?

Not a book I like. I could decimate it if I were in the mood. What a lame production in sequence. How could this person be published? Writer on stilts.

And so on.

Turns our to be a best selling type.

I could back down if she were a beginner. The woman does not have any idea of how words move.

Sorry all, I was off on a conversation with self.

I am reading 'The Help', just started it

I couldn't put it down once I started it...

I enjoyed it a lot too!

I just stared reading 'If I stay' by Gayle Forman. It's already really sad and I just started!

So what's in it that makes it addictive - please tell us....

I'm almost done with D.A. Diaries by Kenneth Eichner. Pretty good read so far, especially if you like Grisham. I highly recommend it!

If this Eichner writes anything like Grisham, I'll skip it, thanks.
Grisham has to be one of the two or three worst, most execrable writers of the past 100 years. Dan Brown's the champ ,of course, but Grisham runs an awfully close second. Sucks (imo, of course).

No, Patterson is the champ

I think Patterson and Grisham run pretty much neck-to-neck.

I'm reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles - volume 1.
It's alright - a little rambling and/or meandering.
More of a reminiscence than a memoir I'd say.
He does a nice turn of phrase every now and then.
I like his melodies and lyrics better.

high fructose corn syrup and sugar.

@Pemerson,
I agree. Just read one, called "Cross". Well, his writing isn't all that poor, in comparison to some others, but that book was an exercise in sadistic episodes. It's the kind of book I have railed about here on a2k several times, a best seller type that functions by pulsing the text with gore every x number of pages. I did finish it (do I ever not finish a police procedural?) but it left me feeling semi ashamed that I did.


On the other author I didn't like, a few posts back, I was being cagey, not identifying her out of a sense of "you shouldn't shellack by name an author who obviously doesn't know better".

On second or third thought, I will identify her: after all, she sells a lot of books.
Her name is J. A. Jance, and this one featured Sheriff Brady. What drove me nuts about the writing? Very stiff wording, especially the dialog, but somewhat overall. No flow, somehow.

It's interesting to me that I would say this, since I often mention that I like taut writing (not only taut writing - since I like other kinds too - but I admire taut writing well done). Whose taut writing? Offhand, Henning Mankell and similar. I'd have to cogitate more to come up with some other good examples. Anyway, I didn't think of A. J. Jance's writing as taut, just airless.

Another female writer whose work use to startle me sometimes with what I took as strange sentences is Linda Firestein, a new york prosecutor/writer - but I would read more of her books, finding them interesting, involving, overall.

Really - to be honest I used to be addictive to it. I had to have a coke each day. One day I went cold turkey. Not that I was overweight, but I lost 5 pounds or more when I quit. And now - I rarely drink the stuff - it seems way too sweet.