What BOOK are you reading right now?

MsOlga, I've read very little JCO, but what I have read I liked. It's been miscelanious short stories. Most notable among them is Where have You Been, Where are You Going, which is a classic of modern ss writing. It's beautifully constructed and horrifying.

There was a movie made of the story called Soft Talk which is good except that the ending was changed, as might be expected of Hollywood in a case like this. This was Laura Durn's first movie.

She's totally new to me, Hazlitt. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through We Were The Mullvaneys & getting very involved in the story. The many layers of each person, the complex relationships between the different family members are very interesting. Something devastating has occurred to the only daughter (at this point in my reading) & it's obvious that there are going to be huge changes in the family dynamics as a result.

The Pilgrimage-Paulo Coelho

Just read The King of Torts, latest paperback by John Grisham. Man, I love this guy. He can write. The pages just kept turning. Great story!

On deck: Another Grisham, The Summons. Read the first chapter, but put it down because my wife was reading it. Also wading through The First Horseman, by John Case. You may remember his book The Genesis Code. This one looks to be as good as TGC.

Three, Civl Tort Law, Civil Litigation, and Paralegalese. Very interesting stuff, not.

msolga -- I was a college student at Detroit's Marygrove College when Joyce Oates taught at the University of Detroit, a short walk down McNichols. The word on the street was if you met Joyce at a party, be very guarded in what you said to her lest your dirty linen ended up in a short story. A friend of mine became a legend in his time by driving a Harley chopper through her classroom. I've tried to read her but can't.

About 1/4 into A God Against The Gods by Allen Drury. Reading about the Egyptians because it is the only book on my bookshelves I haven't read.

Bah, how boring, bored, were these old ancient people, having to pretend they are Gods so the (5 million) people would not find they were not. Can't find another reason they were living. Just getting to where Amonhotep IV (pharoah's odd son with the pointy head, later renamed Akhenaten) is constantly attracted to the young beautiful girl, Nefertiti.

Interesting, plainoldme, interesting ....
The book I'm reading is so thoughtful, introspective .... I have trouble imagining her at a party, say nothing of viraciously collecting people's stories to use in her writing. What was she like as a teacher, a person?
Did her personality put you off her books, or the her writing?

Tex-Star, is that the same Nefertiti as the famous bust? I think there were quite a few Nefertitis... the Egyptian dynasties tended only to have a few names "royal" enough for the princes and princesses....

Just finished Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly. Excellent, if a bit far-fetched.

Just started Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. Very good so far.

Wy, yes, I'm taking for granted, was later Eighteenth Dynasty.

The book is getting interesting, intriguing. It's just that I have to constantly reread back pages to remember just who everybody is.

Akhenaten was son of the Pharoah Amonhotep III. He married Neffertiti. Akhenaten was considered to be deformed from a childhood disease(he was described as that strange, gangling, malformed, horsefaced boy) but Neffertiti adored him since childhood and they later married. The two seem to have some secret plan to bring together two empires but obviously instead destroy one. This destruction had never happened before and was considered terrrrible.

Such are the stories of pharoahs, kings, queens, princes and princesses. Really getting into this story now.

Has Ahkenaten discovered monotheism yet?

I just started a Neal Stephenson book, The Diamond Age... nanotechnology in the fairly near future. I love it so far.

I'm reading Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I'm also in the middle of Red Dragon.

Wy, yes, I think so. He and Nef don't believe in "The Gods" any longer. Making shocking changes already, that lady, with the crown, her hair, etc. Beginning to get the idea...wondering why I've never studied the Egyptians.

Vacant Throne by Ed Greenwood. It's a fantasy novel. I confess I am addicted to fantasy novels. It's the second book in a series of I don't know how many. The first book was good, until the end. Then it was like the author got tired of writing it and just ended that particular part of the story with no explanation. I hate that. But I'm willing to forgive if this next book redeems itself.

Just started reading Michael Wood's Shakespeare, which is the companion book to his new television series which at least WGBH will air soon. It's wonderful!! As a Shakespeare fan and a nay sayer to the anti-Avonians, I love it. Am also reading Cymbeline.

msolga,
I wasn't ignoring you: I don't get updates on all threads I participate in. Hmmm. Wonder why?

I didn't have Joyce Oates as a teacher but friends did. I don't like her writing, which I find morbid and over-detailed. Apparently, as a teacher, she was a bit petty.

My wife has today bought for me- I learned this not long ago on the phone- a compendium of 3 John Updike "rabbit" books.
J U was profiled on a radio programme on BBC Radio 4 one afternoon this week, and this prompted me to try him.
I like the style, and I liked "New Yorker" way back when, for which he wrote "Talk of the Town" column.
I'll let you know how he seems to me now.

I'm reading Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao. My copy is a Penguin paperback, published 1997. Lan Cao describes the lives of a teenager and her mother who arrive in the US around the time of the fall of Saigon in 1975. I am about 2/3 through it at this point and recommend it highly. I'll probably be changing my a2k signature soon to fit in some of the evocative imagery in the book.

I absolutely love "Where I am calling from"...short
stories which I can manage to read quickly without
distraction in my usually distracted life.....