What BOOK are you reading right now?

I retrieved my full set of Roald Dahl from my parents' loft, and spent most of the weekend reading them for the first time in 10 years. And they are all brilliant. He was a genius.

Just payed for a complete set of FU Manchu on ebay...pricey, but well worth it. I can't wait for them to show up! Oh, happy hobbit!

hobitbob

LOL....how to spot an academic....book references on a2k follow the university style guide.

...or a librarian!

Grand Duke--

I didn't discover dahl, until I was searching for nightly reading material for my children. I LOVED him!!! I may have enjoyed his books more than the kids... Laughed out loud. He made for nice memories with the bairns.

I tried to read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. I lost interest in it before I finished 100 pages but I am re-reading for the second time, one of the best books I have ever read, and I have read a lot of them-

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

He describes the Modern Denial of Human Nature.

This is a great book in my opinion since a person's view of Human Nature must, in the final analysis, affect many of his or her opinions.

Has anyone read Pinker yet?

My favorites (so hard to choose) are "Danny, Champion of the World" and "Boy".

PS. I like your use of 'bairns' - you haven't got any Geordie blood in you by chance?

Tht Guardian collected Notes and Queries.

Good bedside reading, in small bite-size chunks.
Some informative, some fanciful, some funny.

I was given a book called "Schott's Miscellany" recently which seems to be similar in content to yours, McTag. It has everything from poker hands & the Plimsoll line to Bond films & birthstones. Excellent bed-time reading.

I have just started reading "The King of Torts" by John Grisham - so far there is nothing spectacular about it !

Grand Duke--
"Bairns" stuck with me from a childhood fable. I drag it out when I'm feelin' a bit of the warm maternal memories... And, I have a thick strain of the Scot-Irish, doncha know. (I can't fake you out--I don't get the Geordie reference. I hate it when that happens. )

Italgato--
We had a Book Club here for a while, which started with Salman's The Fury. I didn't read it with the group, but later-- I really learned to like his voice. I will pick up Midnight's Children on your recommendation. Thank you.

Sofia - It probably is a Celtic expression in origin but I knew it from my parents & grandparents who are "Geordies", the name used in Britain (along with "Mackams") for people born around the rivers Tyne & Wear in NE England. They were given the name as they were the only English soldiers sent by one of our many King George's to fight the Scots many moons ago. There are many similarities between the Geordie/Mackam dialects and the Scots'. Mildly interesting!

Italgato, I had the same problem with Midnight's Children. I managed about 150 pages and never finished. How goes it with the rereading?

I haven't read the Pinter book, yet, but have been impressed by a few good reviews. It is still in hardback, right? I hesitate to buy heavy books and usually wait until they come out in paper.

I just read John Trevor's The Story of Lucy Gault. It was excellent, as is almost anything he puts his hand to. Then I saw the short-list of Booker nominees and found three of the best reviewed out in paperback: The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut (he's South African); Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre (a reviewer compares it to one of my favorite books of all time, the name of which I'm blanking on but the author was Toole and it was a marvelously funny farce set, I think, in New Orleans); and Brick Lane by Monica Ali. I just finished The Good Doctor, and the images and characters haunt me in an odd way. A reviewer compares Galgut to Coetzee and Graham Greene, which works for me, too.

My husband finally finished Life of Pi and turned it over to me. I will begin it when I finish The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, which is okay although I am not, so far, as enthusiastic about it as my husband was.

Now, I must go back and read the earlier pages of this thread.

I've gone back just a few pages but I am delighted with your comments, Hazlitt and Tartarin, about Ann Coulter. Insightful and so funny.

Gautam, I should have asked you before I bought Brick Lane. Oh Dear. In what way is it a disaster?

Just finished a book I was annoyed with virtually all the way through and still appreciate. Appreciated it enough to take a quote for my signature here, for a while. In McKenzie's Friend, Philip Davison, an Irish writer, carries on his irritating tradition of extremely spare writing about people you want to hit upside the head. While it is a not very sensational (as in pulse points of terror) detective investigation, I would still warn that it isn't sweet in terms of events. Let's say I liked it more than I didn't. The characters ring true in their spare renditions and the reader sits for a bit in the minds of all of them..

Fealola and Sofia, my favorite Anne Tyler, after the Accidental Tourist, or maybe they were co-equal, was Saint Maybe.

Osso, what is the title of that book...the Irish one? Gotta read it.

Kara, McKenzie's Friend. He also wrote The Crooked Man, his first of this type.

Gotcha. I guess it was there before me eyes, right?

S'all right, I am pleased to see ya, Kara.

Kara !!!!! Good to see ya again - I was wondering if u had forgotten me. The problem with Brick Lane is that Monica Ali sticks to the cliche's - I mean I am sick and tired of reading how Asisn women are opressed in UK - how their life is a continuous struggle between the western and eastern cultures..I mean enuff is enuff guys - now move on !!

Plus the story never moves and the letters back from home from her sister - god save me from those - she cannot put together two sentences with proper grammer, but the words she uses in some of them - even I had to look them up in the dictionary !!