What are you readng now?

[SeaCat]

Okay I couldn't find the old thread so I'm re-starting it.

I'm reading "Shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson. SO far it's been hard to put down.

Cat

 

[glynndah]

Okay I couldn't find the old thread so I'm re-starting it.

I'm reading "Shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson. SO far it's been hard to put down.

Cat

I recommend it. I listened to it and was entertained the entire time.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LOUIS L'AMOUR wrote more than Westerns, and I just read an anthology of his boxing, detective, and mystery short stories. Theyre good but have that 40s Pop Eye pulp fiction flavor.

JAMES SCOTT BELL wrote a marvelous book about how-to-plot, so I got 3 of his novels from the library. Bell is an ex-lawyer like John Grisham, and his style is Grisham Lite. But the big problem is his Christianity. His writing is plotted perfectly but the effect of his story is like kissing your aunt. In the tale I read dad's a work-a-holic lawyer, mom's a passive-aggressive nag, and sis is a rebellious teen who refuses to go to college! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. His conflicts are limp, his descriptions of women are flaccid, and his Christianity is a rotting carcass he throws around.

No one dies during a conflict; they come to their senses, apologize, and go off together to Starbucks for decaffeinated coffee.

MARK TWIN: LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
Excellent.

 

[oggbashan]

Zane Grey: Spirit of the Border

Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes

McGuffie: The Siege of Gibraltar

Og

 

[SumLightCat]

Yeah, I've always loved a good Mark Twin ... I also like the Marx Triplets.

On a less snarksome note: Anathem by Neal Stephenson, preceded by Nation by Terry Pratchett, preced by The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins ...

 

[TE999]

'The Air Raid Warden Was A Spy and other tales from Home-Front America in World War II' by William B. Breuer. A collection of vignettes about America prior to and after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

There are several other books in Breuer's series on WWII including 'Secret Weapons, Deceptions, Daring Missions, Top Secret Tales, Unexplained Mysteries', etc. All equally interesting and entertaining.

 

[sr71plt]

Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked, among other lushly fractured fairy tales). A delicious melding of Sleeping Beauty and Lucretia Borgia.

In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson. God knows why, steeped in Jefferson country and lore, I'm reading another Jefferson book--and I have no idea where and when I acquired this hardback. But I'm enjoying it for its thus-far reminders to me of Jefferson's early life. I was particularly amused last night to see that Jefferson mixed up it's/its in his draft of the Declaration of Independence.

On Cats by Doris Lessing (2007 Noble Prize winner for literature). I bought this book last Christmas as a "cute cat vignette" stocking stuffer for my wife--because of its diminuitive size and being sold by Bas Bleu, which I find rarely off base in its selection. My wife mumbled through it, though, and I've just picked it up to find that at least the first 100 pages of it is a Lessing memoir on the cats she has killed. Strange.

 

[oggbashan]

John Buchan: Castle Gay. I enjoy his Dickson McCunn stories.

Local Council agenda: General Purposes Committee proposed Dog Control Orders. I'm going to have to shout at them again. They're planning to ban dogs from large areas of the district because of a very few dog-hating residents. They haven't consulted anyone. Once the Dog Control Orders are implemented, changing or rescinding them is very difficult. It won't have any impact on the irresponsible dog owners. It will just turn responsible dog owners into unwitting criminals. They have one part-time person to enforce the existing and proposed orders and no money to increase the patrols.

Og

 

[Xelebes]

Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions

Not really a fan of the book but trudging through it.

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

It's very rare to catch me in the middle of a book (I read fast), but right now I am reading Dead Days of Summer by Carolyn Hart. It's a Death on Demand mystery. I am trying to read all of the ones I haven't already read (and in order).

I am also still trying to read the Anita Blake vampire series books by Laurell K. Hamilton, but I haven't gotten any news ones lately from the library. They only had a handful of them and so I requested the rest through the InterLibrary loan system. I got a few right away, but no more have come in two or three weeks now and there are still 7 or 8 books in the series I haven't read yet.

 

[SlickTony]

Currently reading The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold; also, Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, I forget who wrote it.

 

[vrosej10]

I'm reading Beloved. by Toni Morrison. I am finding the descriptions of the treatment of ill treatment of the black people in it mortifying, but I feel like the book might have an agenda.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm reading Beloved. by Toni Morrison. I am finding the descriptions of the treatment of ill treatment of the black people in it mortifying, but I feel like the book might have an agenda.

No way! Toni Morrison is a Usual Suspect and they never-ever bend the truth like balloons.

There's a conventional wisdom about the South that doesnt square with the real meaning of the facts. It's like the conventional wisdom about Vietnam War soldiers...we were all baby killers, dope fiends, and traumatized by war.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI by Mark Twain.
A hilarious account of Twain's youth as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot. It includes a chapter he removed from HUCK FINN (very funny) and an observation about scientists and what they do to facts (that is, if you take their alarms seriously, then the Mississippi River was once over a million miles in length and will shrink to less than a mile, so that New Orleans and St.Louis share the same city government).

 

[vrosej10]

No way! Toni Morrison is a Usual Suspect and they never-ever bend the truth like balloons.

There's a conventional wisdom about the South that doesnt square with the real meaning of the facts. It's like the conventional wisdom about Vietnam War soldiers...we were all baby killers, dope fiends, and traumatized by war.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI by Mark Twain.
A hilarious account of Twain's youth as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot. It includes a chapter he removed from HUCK FINN (very funny) and an observation about scientists and what they do to facts (that is, if you take their alarms seriously, then the Mississippi River was once over a million miles in length and will shrink to less than a mile, so that New Orleans and St.Louis share the same city government).

Unfortunately to the victor go the spoils of war and that includes the right to the dominant strain of propaganda. All is propaganda for something. Intelligent people know there is alway more than one side to a story.

Regarding Beloved, I just don't like to be emotionally manipulated by authors. If something is as bad as you say (and in this case, the treatment of slaves was that bad), then just tell the story and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions and make their own moral judgements. Don't preach at me. It makes the author look pompous and presupposes that the reader is a fool.

 

[Handley_Page]

Another "Mma Ramotswe" story by Alexander McCall Smith.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

White Oleander

&

All I Did Was Ask

 

[vrosej10]

White Oleander

&

All I Did Was Ask

Is White Oleander any good?

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Is White Oleander any good?

Have you ever read a book that was deliciously written, where the words caressed you and looked so good off the page that you had to mouth them or read them aloud to actually feel them against your lips and tongue? That, to me, is White Oleander. It's a wonderful book, with much more to offer than the movie. I suggest reading it. Just don't take it to work, otherwise you'll never get anything done!

 

[SnoopDog]

García Marquez - "Crónica de una muerte anunciada" (Chronicle of a death foretold)

---> my favorite book right now (and it's short , too =) )



Snoopy

 

[Guest]

"The Paradise War" by Lawhead

Fantastic book. I need to get the sequels

~Paul

 

[jomar]

Wicked Prey - John Sandford

Next up is "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy. Thought I'd give it a shot since I didn't get how "The Road" was Nobel worthy. Then again, I don't see what the expert judges see on American Idol so maybe I just don't get it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Unfortunately to the victor go the spoils of war and that includes the right to the dominant strain of propaganda. All is propaganda for something. Intelligent people know there is alway more than one side to a story.

Regarding Beloved, I just don't like to be emotionally manipulated by authors. If something is as bad as you say (and in this case, the treatment of slaves was that bad), then just tell the story and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions and make their own moral judgements. Don't preach at me. It makes the author look pompous and presupposes that the reader is a fool.

The records dont validate the claim that slaves were abused often or as a matter of policy. Most lived much better than white subsistence farmers. And there isnt THAT much labor involved in cotton or rice cultivation, once the crop is planted and after its harvested.

If a slave murdered he was hanged. If a slave deliberately burned a house or barn, he was hanged. If a slave raped or battered women/children he was sold. If a slave destroyed or abused an animal he was whipped.

When you abuse a slave you lose their labor and the money their labor creates. When you neglect a slave you lose their productivity and affect their sentiments and attitude for you. Slaves were expensive. And when the crop failed they still had to be fed, housed, clothed, shod, and medicated. So mistreating slaves was crazy and self defeating. Extra labor or loss of liberty was the usual discipline.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm re-reading IT by Stephen King.

I didnt care for it the first time, and it didnt improve, but it could be a great book with some editing.

 

[oggbashan]

...

Local Council agenda: General Purposes Committee proposed Dog Control Orders. I'm going to have to shout at them again. They're planning to ban dogs from large areas of the district because of a very few dog-hating residents. They haven't consulted anyone. Once the Dog Control Orders are implemented, changing or rescinding them is very difficult. It won't have any impact on the irresponsible dog owners. It will just turn responsible dog owners into unwitting criminals. They have one part-time person to enforce the existing and proposed orders and no money to increase the patrols.

Og

I spoke to them today. They didn't take any notice.

Now hundreds of local dog owners are going to be very angry with them. The local paper is starting a campaign immediately after Christmas...

Now my phone line and email account are going to be red hot and I won't have time to read anything recreational. Sigh.

Og

 

[Tio_Narratore]

148 student essays!