Finished the curious incident book last night - loved it!
Now I'm not sure what to read. Could pick back up either cold mountain (ptht) or the first of an L Ron Hubbard series (eeehhhh). Or I can read a book about Japanese feminism.....
littlek
I tried to read Cold Mountain, years ago & just couldn't get beyond about a 3rd of it. Hope you like it better!
msolga, I just acquired a copy of Rachel Cusk's Saving Agnes. It begins well. I have also bought The Three Janes after seeing it on table at Barnes and Noble. An acquaintance tells me it was very good.
I have just rented some books on tape for a drive (eight hours) to Florida next week: Elmore Leonard's Mr. Paradise; Dubus' House of Sand and Fog: Pete Dexter's Train. They are all unabridged and will keep me happily oblivious to the traffic on I-95. (May also make me a risk...? LOL).
LittleK, did you like Curious Incident?
Saint Maybe, Accidental Tourist, read 'em, hated 'em. Tried two more over a couple of years. Hated them even more. I'm just giving up on her.
I'm going to try to finish the Barbara Kingsolver I've got in my desk at work. I've been working on it for close to a year and a half now. I find her a bit of a dry, predictable writer. She telegraphs her plans mightily.
My next subway book will be A Woman Unknown, Voices from a Spanish Life by Lucia Graves. It looks promising.
http://www.counterpointpress.com/1582430977.html
Quote:Her beautifully nuanced memoir, already published in England to great acclaim, is a profound meditation on the three cultures -- and the three languages -- that have shaped her life and thought. It is also a many-voiced portrait of Spain under Franco, tracing the patterns of love, sacrifice, and female forbearance that mark not only her own life but those of other Spanish women she has known. Her individual portraits are masterly -- "through them," said the Daily Telegraph, "matters barely mentioned in most histories of the Franco years become appallingly real" -- and her ability to articulate the "Spanishness" of Spain has won her deserved comparison to Orwell and V.S. Pritchett.
Quote:kara : try to get your local librarian to order "sixty million frenchmen can't be wrong". you may not agree with the french way of doing things after having read it, but i think you'll at least understand why they are so different from north-americans. (i usually get my books from the public library or buy them second-hand; i would go broke buying all the books mrs. h and i carry home from the library every week). hbg
Hbg, I will find this book. I am a francophile bigtime. I lived in the UK for seven years and went more than once to France. I never did understand them -- nor they, moi -- but I am drawn to them and their culture and their persistent stubbornness about all sorts of things. (Like Muslim head wraps, among other unimportant challenges.)
Quote:She telegraphs her plans mightily.
You are spot on. I never realized until you said it why I lost interest in her books.
i just finished reading the perks of being a wallflower. very good book. i recommend
Currently reading 'Harry Potter, The Order of the Phoenix'
Just picked up a copy of 'The Red Badge of Courage', 'Alls Quiet on the Western Front' and 'Poland'. and still working on a compilation of O. Henry short stories.
Half way through an oldie that I found on my shelves. The Middle Ground - Margaret Drabble. Am quite enjoying it, some very amusing moments.
Timeline by Michael Chrichton
saw the movie "the shipping news" , and both mrs. h and i thought it was quite an exceptional movie - not cheerful at all, i'll grant you that. if you have ever seen a documentary about "life on the rock" , you might get a better understanding of the movie. life in newfoundland has always been -and still is - a hard one. hbg
msolga, I love Margaret Drabble.
Hbg, I was warned not to see The Shipping News. I loved the book, hung on every word, she is an awesome writer. But the film was a disaster. I am interested that you liked it.
I gave up on Pompeii
and have picked up Rachel Cusk's Saving Agnes. It is marvelous, right from the beginning.
Kara wrote:msolga, I love Margaret Drabble.
You like so many of the same authors I like, Kara!
Which of Drabble's DID YOU LIKE MOST?
The Millstone and the Needle's Eye. Oh, I must go back and read some of those again.
Kara, I too loved the Shipping News book, and have loved or liked others of hers.
Well, me, I have read most of (not the last two segments yet) Bill Barich's Traveling Light. I had read an article in the New Yorker by him back in 1982 on he and his wife staying in Arcetri near Florence... and somehow that stayed with me, so that when I finally got out of landscape architecture school and passed my boards two more years after that and held my head up for a vacation, I had that in mind as my husband and I decided where to go. So I said Italy? France? England? New York? and it was my luck he said, Italy.
So the Barich compilation is kind of a renewal for me. He is a NY'er editor, I think. Much of the book is about fishing and horseracing, but I don't mind reading him on those either.
I bought some grocery store books this week, having not had time to go to my dear Booklegger's Used Book store, and got Michael Prescott's In Dark Places and Martin Cruz Smith's December 6.
I bought the In Dark Places because of some blurb that said it wasn't sensational, in the beginning hoohah. It is in the wastebasket, at page 52. I rarely throw a book out, as I have regular cartons for going to SalvArmy or St. Vincent's. I usually only throw books out that might give a killer handy hints, and is badly written. This one, wooden writing and fear-mongering at the same time. This combination really annoys me when I see it.
Started December 6 this morning, quite wary, though I have usually liked MCSmith, and was engaged by the first pages, still was as I tore myself away to get going, on page 28.
Quote:I bought the In Dark Places because of some blurb that said it wasn't sensational, in the beginning hoohah. It is in the wastebasket, at page 52. I rarely throw a book out, as I have regular cartons for going to SalvArmy or St. Vincent's. I usually only throw books out that might give a killer handy hints, and is badly written. This one, wooden writing and fear-mongering at the same time. This combination really annoys me when I see it.
That is too funny, osso. I have only thrown one book in the trash (that I recall.) I bought a currently popular screed from a Love-Your-Husband type, the one who suggested you meet him at the door unclothed. I bought it at Waterloo Station for the train trip to my house in Surrey. I was half way home when I deep-sixed it in the trash basket by the train-loo. I probably said something when I tossed it.
I have thrown out maybe three others, ever, but I read voraciously so this is a very low percentage. This one might not have warranted the full hurl, but I have no patience at all these last few weeks. Gone.
Right now I am reading the Silmarillion by Tolkien but I am having a hard time getting through the biblical feel of it. I just finished reading Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.
Kara wrote:The Millstone and the Needle's Eye. Oh, I must go back and read some of those again.
I enjoyed those, Kara, but such a long time ago that the details escape me. Some of her later novels were also good: eg The Radiant Way.
