Gautam wrote:How are you finding A Fine Balance olga ?
Early days yet, Gautam, Jer & PamO. I like what I've read so far but need to get deeper & deeper into the plot before I can seriously comment. I will keep you posted! I got side-tracked by
Cloudstreet. <sigh> Just delightful! So I'm juggling both.
Cloudstreet? What's that about, Olg?
I am reading "Great Expectations" because it's a required book for Grade 9 Honors at my school, and I will need to present a review for the eventual test on it. As I read, I feel only true honors students will reasonably "get it." It's beautifully done (so far) - so well-written, but the problem I see is the readability is "up there." Quite complex sentences, occasional dialect, and vocabulary are above your typical ninth grader. For the student who doesn't like to read (wouldn't be in honors to begin with), this wouldn't increase a love of reading. For the person who loves reading, it puts much of toady's fiction a large step lower.
It's a story about the trials & tribulations 2 country families in Perth in the 1950s who find themselves sharing a big house on Cloud Street. Both have fallen on hard times & are making the best of it. It is delightful, drom, at turns hilariously funny, quaint, then moving & quite sad. Very nostalgic stuff for Australians who remember the period. Tim Winton is an exceptional contemporary Oz novelist & Cloudstreet is one of his most loved books.
I'm reading Paradise Lost by John Milton and The Queen's Fool by Phillipa Gregory right now.
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum.
Perth is my favourite place...
msolga wrote:It's a story about the trials & tribulations 2 country families in Perth in the 1950s who find themselves sharing a big house on Cloud Street. Both have fallen on hard times & are making the best of it. It is delightful, drom, at turns hilariously funny, quaint, then moving & quite sad. Very nostalgic stuff for Australians who remember the period. Tim Winton is an exceptional contemporary Oz novelist & Cloudstreet is one of his most loved books.
The Hamilton Case-deKretser
sparked my interest after a long dry spell
I gotta get hold of a copy of Cloudstreet!
Has anyone read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? He is my next door neighbor and a very nice man. If you didn't like it, I promise not to tell.
No, Pam, I haven't.
I like the cover of Cloudstreet shown in that link.
I just finished, about fifteen minutes ago, The Los Angeles Diaries, by James Brown, a novelist whose memoir this is. As it is a story of alcohol and more alcohol you know where it is heading, so suspense is not the thing, but the writing is strong, I liked it.
PamO. wrote:Has anyone read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? He is my next door neighbor and a very nice man. If you didn't like it, I promise not to tell.
Read it a few years back...a good book - next time you meet, smile at daniel for it.
I'll tell him you liked it Jer. I need to read his books myself though...
Another Tim Winton novel I read recently:
Dirt Music
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/wintont/dirtmusic.html
Loved it! Now I'm wondering why it's taken me so long to read Winton's work? People have been raving about his books for years ....
I'm reading "The name of the rose" by Umberto Eco. Thrilling, but I must confess (Like Carly -the gymnast-) I don't understand all the Latin and all those GRE words.
I checked "The Third Deadly Sin" by Sanders out of the library at the beginning of this week. My only problem with it is that I'll finish it before the four hours of helicopter/fixed wing/bus gets me home tomorrow.
One of the Brits at work just lent me "The Seventh Scroll" by Wilbur Smith. Now I can go ahead and finish inhaling "The Third Deadly Sin", and won't be without a book to read for the trip down.
Me? I'm reading The Dark Tower, Book 7.
