What Are You Reading?

[Richard]

I'm currently rereading Fortune's Fool, by Rafael Sabatini. It's one of about four dozen swashbuckers Sabatini wrote between 1902 and 1950 (I have them all), featuring various locales and eras; this one is set in the London of the 1665 plague. After this one I'm not sure whether I'll read another Sabatini or find something else.

 

I recently read See Delphi and Die, the latest in Lindsey Davis' superb Marcus Didius Falco series. For those who don't know Falco, he's a typical gumshoe -- except that he lives in the Rome of Vespasian's time.

 

Before the Falco, I went through the entire Marcus Caecilius Metellus series by John Maddox Roberts; Metellus is also very good, he's a detective but not so firmly entrenched in the gumshoe tradition. He lives in the time of Caesar.

 

Last week I read about 30 pages of one of the Marcus Corvinus series by David Wishart. I pitched it without finishing. Corvinus is another gumshoe living in ancient Rome, but -- unlike Falco and Metellus -- he isn't an ancient Roman. Wishart's scholarship appears excellent, and his mysteries may be well crafted, but Corvinus used to be named Sam Spade until he stepped through Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine. He is seriously out of place 2000 years ago. Ah, well, can't win 'em all.

[cmeisenzahl]

I'm now reading this, it's phenomenal.

How Capitalism Saved America : The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present

by Thomas Dilorenzo

http://tinyurl.com/7ra4l

http://www.lfb.com/index.php?stocknumber=AH8872

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0761525262.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

 

 

Just finished this, also top-notch.

BARBARIANS INSIDE THE GATE (P)

by Thomas Sowell

Hoover Institution Press, 1999, paperback

http://tinyurl.com/98nr2

http://tinyurl.com/bu8f5

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/081799582X.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[Slush99]

the Perilious Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope.

 

I loved the Chronicles of Narnia series. Heard a movie was coming out, saw a poster, and first thought was "The White Witch never drove polar bears"

[Flere-Imsaho]

I´m currently reading Kafka on the Shore by Murakami Haruki

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1843431106.02._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

 

Very good read. I´m only half way so no conclusions yet except that it is an interesting book. Since there are a lot of good reviews of the book, I only give 2 pointers instead of my own review.

Ciao,

-Hans.

 

Dramas of inner life - Christopher Tayler reviews Kafka on the Shore in the Daily Telegraph

 

Zirkeltraining mit Johnny Walker - Helmut Böttiger´s reviews Kafka on the Shore in Die Zeit (german laguage review)

[georgem]

As a side note top of the sixes is a real address of I believe the company that Gaiman was working for at the time of the writing.

 

 

Kurt H

That brought back memories. The Top of the Sixes was a restaurant atop the Tishman Building in New York City, the address of which was 666 Fifth Avenue.

 

A quick google of the phrase returned this information.

[Blade Runner]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/jelb/IMG_3141.jpg

 

I've only just started this "anti-memoir", but I've read most of Lively's novels and two autobiographical works and enjoyed all but one early novel. I can only offer platitudes like elegant, noble and humane to describe her writing in this blurb. She has won the Booker prize for Moon Tiger and her last novel, The Photograph was gripping. The first part of this book draws from the author's memories of her childhood in Egypt during WW2 and reminds me of her autobiographical work Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived.

 

Regards,

J

[Titivillus]

Book 5 is Wolves of the Calla, Book 6 is Song of Susanna, Book 7 (the final) is simply The Dark Tower.

 

At the end of book 5 you'll think things are starting to go south in terms of the series, and by the end you might want to burn the books, but I see it all in a different way. Don't want to give anything away here.

 

I've been reading King since I was 13, actually buying the books as they were published, so I've really grown up on his writing. He's grown up too. People expect him to write a certain way or even repeat the formula of a favourite book, but he's been writing for over 30 years now and perhaps he just wants to write for himself now.

 

He began the Dark Tower series when he was just 22. In Book 6, there is a page at the front where all of his previous books referenced in the series are highlighted. I can see his dark humour clearly in this series. It's entertaining, it's not rocket science.

Just finished book 7 and have to say that I was SEVERLY disappointed about the whole ending. Well not the ending but the last bunch of chapter.

 

 

I expected more and got much less. I find it funny that he recommends that people not send him hate mail in the afterword I can understand why.

 

 

I would go into spoiler mode and list all of my gripes but just can't. As soon as I saw the new character with Deus Ex Machina written across his forehead I just cringed knowing what would happen.

 

 

There's a book quote that says: this is not a book for reading this is a book that should be flung away with great force away.

 

 

ooh

Kurt H

[Leslie J.]

Gee, I can hardly remember what I thought 7 months ago. I do think it was within King's humour, the way he ended things. I loved the series until Book 5. The end is kind of zen in a way. It makes me smile to think of the thousands of pages I read to get to that point. (again)

[Leslie J.]

For Christmas, I bought my husband some books, as I always do. This year the theme I was going for was classic strategy in business. These were my choices:

 

Book of Five Rings: the Classic Guide to Strategy

by Miyamoto Musashi

 

Sun Tzu's the Art of War: Plus the Ancient Chinese Revealed

 

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

 

It's sort of a joke really, but I'll read the books when he's done with them.

[Karin]

I`m reading "Clara Callan" by Richard Wright. Really enjoying it.

It`s about two sisters from a small town in Ontario.

I`m impressed with how a male writer can capture women`t voices so well.

He`s a truly gifted writer.

[Bill D]

I just finished re-reading The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers. I've heard that it is sometimes considered the first spy novel ever written (1903), but I like it because it's a great sailing story, set in the days before auxiliary engines and electronic navigation. I read this book again because over the summer we met a lovely family from Bremen, Germany that sail the same waters, the North Sea's Frisian coast. Uwe and I had some great talks about the book and the islands and towns featured in it, as well as the tricks of navigating in an area like that. It really made for a fun read

 

Bill

[Sonnet]

Just finished Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire last month and now I'm in the middle of the second book, The Vampire Lestat. I'm slowly making my way through her Vampire Chronicles series as you can see.

[Titivillus]

Just finished Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire last month and now I'm in the middle of the second book, The Vampire Lestat. I'm slowly making my way through her Vampire Chronicles series as you can see.

Living outside of New Orleans it's interesting to see some of the locations she wrote about as well her house in the Garden District.

 

I find it funny that I probably live near the major location of her last vampire book.

 

Kurt H

[Sonnet]

It's the same with a book I read several years called Catch Me (can't remember the author). A few chapters take place in New Orleans-- the setting becomes as much a character as the protagonist and her arch-enemy.

[Slush99]

Well, I'm now reading Prince Caspian from the Chronicles of Narnia.

 

I that book.

[Sidney]

I am cruising my way through the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

[Slush99]

I should read those. Are they good?

[tntaylor]

I've just taken up "A Streetcar Named Desire" (Tennessee Williams) and will be following that with "Oedipus Rex", "Oedipus at Colonus", and "Antigone" (Sophocles) for a theatre course due to start in January.

 

Reading course material before the semester starts? Yikes, turns out I'm a swot after all. Lol! Hmmm, where's the "bookish" Smilie? Guess this one will have to do: :blink:

 

t!

[handlebar]

I'm a history buff and am usually reading about that or classical music. Right now i'm reading Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars","Civil Wars" and a bit of Plutarch.

Also a new Mozart biography and an book of Gustav Mahler's letters to his wife from 1895 to 1911.

 

I know it sounds rather dry and boring to most, but: Hey,i LOVE it!!

 

Handlebar

[TheRover]

I just finished the Aeneid. Now working on one called "The Question of God", a sort of comparison of the views of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. Also reading Schopenhauer and always have Faulkner open to something. I must say that one of my goals this year is to finish each book I start! I don't know about you guys/gals but I've gotten into a habit of starting several books at once and taking FOREVER to finish them. That was the case with the Aeneid....but on New Year's Eve I decided that enough was enough....so I finished it that night. What a wonderful feeling!