Readers and Reading discussion

I couldn't figure out how i missed Sherry's post about Grey until i noted she posted almost the same moment i did. That explains it! I know i would have commented this way, had i read it.

When i read ROTPS i was dismayed at the way he depicted Mormons. It was unexpected. While i'm accustomed to such prejudices when reading early fiction about the south or about Mexico, Grey's words caught me off guard. When i did a little bit of research about it, i felt a dissatisfaction & ended up wondering how much was Grey & how much the characters he created. (Not that it mattered much, words stay.)

The recent remake with Amy Madigan & (brain freeze) her husband was a good one. If i recall the anti-Mormon aspects were minimized or mitigated with "good" Mormon characters. Meanwhile the issues arising from their presence from the book were still there. I was most eager to see how they handled the ending, which i continued to think about for days (well, years, as it's still on my mind as i type), wondering how that would work.

deborah, knowing that AM's husband's name will dawn as soon as i click on "post"

Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "That article about Zane Gray is very interesting. He was a handsome man, athletic, adventuresome. WHo knew? I may have to read a biography."

What I find interesting is that he apparently went after polygamist Mormons (although his historical info was apparently wrong about that) yet he had multiple girlfriends while married. He was the Tiger Woods of his era!

madrano wrote: "deborah, knowing that AM's husband's name will dawn as soon as i click on "post"
..."

ED HARRIS!

JoAnn/QuAppelle wrote: "Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "That article about Zane Gray is very interesting. He was a handsome man, athletic, adventuresome. WHo knew? I may have to read a biography."

What I find interesting is..."
Here is a rather mean-spirited poem that one of my frequent sends me all co-workers sent me yesterday...


Tiger Woods Holiday Poem


Twas the night of Thanksgiving and out of the house
Tiger Woods came a flyin', chased by his spouse.
She wielded a nine iron and wasn't too merry,
Cause a bimbos phone number was in his Blackberry.
Hed been cheatin' on Elin, and the story progressed.
Woman after woman stepped up and confessed.
Hed been cheatin with Holly, and Jaimee, and Cori,
With Joselyn, and Kalika. The world had the story.
From the top of the Tour to the basement of blues,
Tigers sad sordid tale was all over the news.
With hostesses, waitresses, he had lots of sex,
When not in their pants, he was sendin' them texts.
Despite all his cryin and beggin' and pleadin',
Tigers wife went investin' -- a new home in Sweden.
And I heard her exclaim from her white Escalade,
"If youre gettin' laid then Im gettin' paid."
Shes not pouting, in fact, she is of jolly good cheer,
Her prenup made Christmas come early this year.










--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading, Nov, Dec 2009

The Man in the Wooden Hat, Jane Gardam. This is a companion to Gardam’s excellent recent novel, Old Filth. These are complex, intelligent novels about marriage. This one centers on the story of the wife, while the earlier novel centered on the husband. These British expatriates met and married in Hong Kong. After his retirement as a judge, they return to live in rural England. The novels are stand-alone in the sense that Gardam doesn’t expect you to read one before the other, but they do work most effectively together. Each character has secrets and thoughts/motives that are inexplicable to the other partner (and to the reader) until you’ve taken in both sides. Gardam is a thoughtful, careful, expressive writer, and she also is witty and satirical.

One Second After by William Forstchen. If you said I would read a novel with a forward by Newt Gingrich, I’d ordinarily respond that you were smoking the Christmas holly berries, but this story was very compelling. It is set in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, an area I know and love. The protagonist is a retired colonel teaching history at a local college. A weapon called EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) has devastated the USA in an instant by knocking out all electrical and computer circuitry, plunging the country into a technological and social Dark Ages. The pulse instantly disables cars, airplanes, refrigerators, telephones, computers, and every piece of technology that relies on microchips or power. For me, the fascinating concepts were what would happen to our social structures in such a cataclysm: what happens in the immediate aftermath when there is no communication, no transportation and limited supplies? Who has leadership ability and how do they use it? Who has survival skills and how do they use them? What do local governments do and how do they see “outsiders?” In this case, people stranded on the interstate (I-40) seek help in the little town, and people from a city flee the city with the erroneous idea that rural areas are a place of refuge and food. Some social structures hold up; some people revert to barbarism and self-interest. It’s not good literature, since the characters are one-dimensional and the writing is plain. But it’s competently written and there are many gripping and disturbing questions and images. Gingrich comes in because this weapon is available to terrorists and enemies, and he is advocating for Homeland Security to immediately increase our preparedness by “hardening” essential communication and transportation systems against an EMP attack.

While My Sister Sleeps, by Barbara Delinsky. This is a light, but far from light-hearted, look at contemporary family relationships, told in Delinsky’s reliable way. I always worry that Delinsky will sink to the level of Jodi Picoult, and there are similarities, but this one works. Her plots and themes have that “ripped from the headlines” quality. This one involves a young woman who is a marathon runner and Olympics contender. One afternoon during a routine run she has a heart attack and falls into a coma. The plot revolves mostly around the responses and decisions of her younger sister and her mother, although the guys in the family are also involved. It’s a familiar treatment of jealousy, guilt, denial, and secrets, but also of course all the love and joys of family life.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. This one is hard to characterize, maybe in part because it is a translation from the French. I ended up loving it. The story is told from the interior monologues of two unusual and charming characters, a dumpy, frumpy concierge in an upscale apartment building, and a wealthy 12 year old girl who lives on the 5th floor. Both have chosen to disguise their great intelligence, and live in relative isolation. However, the concierge is actually an intense autodidact who lives a rich interior life, and the young girl is a gifted observer and natural philosopher. In the course of the story, they each find excitement and redemption in their relationship with a new tenant in the building. It’s a funny and intelligent book, and I found a lot to contemplate in the way these characters think and reflect and react. And I loved the inherent message that appearances can be deceptive, and that there is value and beauty in the least among us. This is powerful social satire. Although the occasional erudite passages and references sometimes brought me up short, they also made me think.

Sarah wrote: "Reading, Nov, Dec 2009

The Man in the Wooden Hat, Jane Gardam. This is a companion to Gardam’s excellent recent novel, Old Filth. These are complex, intelligent novels about marriage. This one ..."
The Elegance of the Hedgehog was a recent read for my book club and I wound up like you enjoying it but the book was not one that I couldn't wait to get home to...if you know what I mean...I didn't realize it was a translation and to top it off written by a French philosophy prof--if I had known those basic facts in would have been easier for me to figure out where the hell we were going...it took about half of the book for me to realize that the narrator was trying to impress me, the reader on how much she knew...ok..hated the end...really hated it..
Happy Holidays to all..Susan

Just finished Night Frost an English police procedural featuring a detective who, though he doesn't follow the rules, manages to get the job done.

Since I am now on vacation for the rest of the year I am going to start Advise and Consent. It is a massive book with 616 pages of small font and no blank spaces for chapter breaks so I expect it will take me a while to finish.

On the audio front I am listening to The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Sandi wrote: "Since I am now on vacation for the rest of the year I am going to start Advise and Consent. It is a massive book with 616 pages of small font and no blank spaces for chapter breaks so I expect it will take me a while to finish."

Sandi, have you ever read this before? Have you read any of Drury's other books?

Coincidentally, I recently found this article about ADVISE AND CONSENT, written 10 years ago and published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/po...

>>Sandi, have you ever read this before? Have you read any of Drury's other books? <<

No, this is my first by Allen Drury. Thanks for the link to the article. I skimmed over it a bit and will read it after I finish the book.

Susan wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Reading, Nov, Dec 2009

Susan, I agree that it's not a good idea to try to rush through The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I found it worked best in short spurts. My face-to-face group will be reading it soon, and I think I'd better caution everyone not to wait until the last minute to start reading!

I just finished Mute Witness, a mystery taking place in pre-revolutionary France with a multi-talented and spirited central character who is a teacher of the deaf. There was also a rather remarkable deaf character.

Next up isDelilah A Novel, a revisionist Biblical novel in which Delilah is a priestess.

I thought the Tiger Wood's poem was funny. It is sad however,as an editorialist pointed out that he is one of many who fooled us in the last decade............
Considering all the rancor out here with Tiger,the healthcare debate I decided to absent myself from the news and busy myself with Christmas preparations and reading a a "light" book. This morning I got up early and finished Our Yanks by Margaret Mayhew. Not the fastest paced book but it sure redeemed itself in the end. So touching it made me cry! It would make a wonderful BBC Christmas movie with all those wonderful character actors they have over there!

Has anyone here ever read Of Human Bondage? I downloaded it to my iPod, but m wondering if it's worth the time.

Sherry - as an English major, I did read Of Human Bondage, but my thoughts about it were compromised since I was also reading a lot of Dickens at the time. Whereas this was believed to be Maugham's masterpiece, for me it did not offer the likeable characters and come-to-life action which David Copperfield, Great Expectations, etc. did. I remember just wanting to get thru Of Human Bondage and not savoring it. To be fair, in a different mindset, I would probably concede the writing to be wonderful, but still I thought the book overlong. I'd be interested to hear what you think if you do read it.

Shomeret wrote: "I just finished Mute Witness, a mystery taking place in pre-revolutionary France with a multi-talented and spirited central character who is a teacher of the deaf. There was also a ..."

Shomeret, thanks for mentioning this one. The setting and issues intrigue me and reflect some of my interests (France in history, deafness and deaf ed). This is one of the reasons I love reading these boards.

I read the book, One Second After, and after returning it to the library, forgot it's title. Thanks, Sarah, for posting about it. Reminds me to keep journaling. I wanted to tell people about the book and couldn't. After reading this book I spoke with a man who had just been to a conference about the possibility of this kind of terrorism act. It's scary and I continue to wonder about my survival skills.

Riders of the Purple Sage was published in, Wikipedia tells me, 1912--not 1927.

I deleted Of Human Bondage from my iPod, and downloaded Jack London's The Sea Wolf instead. That, plus I'm going to read the sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage, The Rainbow Trail. I have to find out if they ever get out of the Hidden Canyon...

The Sea Wolf
The Rainbow Trail

>>I deleted Of Human Bondage from my iPod, and downloaded Jack London's The Sea Wolf instead<<

I enjoyed the audio version of The Sea Wolf that I listened to back in 2004. Dick Hill did the narration.

I have so many books here to read, audio and otherwise. Even some in large print in case I have vision issues after my surgeries (I am not anticipating any trouble, but you never know!)

On audio, I have Tim Green's The Fifth Angel and The Great Gatsby and "in transit" to my library is Moms: NPR driveway moments : radio stories that won't let you go.

In large print, I have People Like Us (Dominick Dunne) and Third Degree (Greg Iles) and Heartbreak Cafe is on its way to my library for me.

I also have a slew of other newish books here, including Queen of the Road which looks entertaining, Let the Great World Spin, an ARC of Brava Valentine - the sequel to Trigiani's Very Valentine, the latest Kick Keswick book Friends in High Places which I bought at ABEbooks for $5 since my library did not have it, and The Blind Side on which the movie was based.

Finished Advise and Consent late last night. Very good and thought provoking though I agree with Roger Kaplan (who wrote the article JoAnn linked to above) that: "Drury’s prose has all the grandiloquence and turgidity of the repressed wire service man, New York Times reporter, and Reader’s Digester that he was." The plot and characters were excellent and I will probably try to hunt down a copy of the movie soon.

I am now reading Silent On The Moor the third book in a historical mystery series that mixes suspense, humor, and just the right touch of romance for my taste.

Sandi wrote: "I am now reading Silent On The Moor the third book in a historical mystery series that mixes suspense, humor, and just the right touch of romance for my taste.

I loved all 3 books in this series. You're right about the suspense, humor and romance mix.

Sandi wrote: "Finished Advise and Consent late last night. Very good and thought provoking though I agree with Roger Kaplan (who wrote the article JoAnn linked to above) that: "Drury’s prose has all the grandiloquence and turgidity of the repressed wire service man, New York Times reporter, and Reader’s Digester that he was." The plot and characters were excellent and I will probably try to hunt down a copy of the movie soon...."

I agree about the characters and plot and did not even mind the turgidity!

You can buy the movie new from Amazon for $5.79

http://www.amazon.com/Advise-Consent-...

Right now I am re-reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for a book group discussion on Monday evening. I had to break away from what I was reading--a very old book called The Haunted Bookshop, whose author I cannot recall at the moment.

The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley (read 3 Jul 1998)

My comment on it:

The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley. This is the 1919 sequel to the preceding. It tells of a German spy planning to blow up the USS Washington, which took Wilson to Europe. The plot is far-fetched but it is a pleasant enough book, though it is hard to see anyone getting very excited about it. I didn't. (Read July 3. 1998).

I am excited to have two ARCs to read soon:

Brava Valentine - the sequel to Adrianna Trigiani's Very Valentine which I loved

and on its way to me is Anne Lamott's new novel (it has been so long since she wrote a novel) Imperfect Birds

I was interested to see that David Sheff had reviewed it. He said "Heartbreaking and delightful, moving and hopeful, Imperfect Birds reminds us how our children are connected to and independent of us, and that no matter how difficult our struggle is with them, love underlies it all and saves us. This novel captures the deepest, purest, most terrifying experience of parents fearing for their children. With great insight and humor, Anne Lamott shows us what it means these dangerous days to be a parent, what it means to be a child, and what it means to be a family."
-David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy

I started an amusing little book last night, chosen because it is something that would not require a lot of thought. This is non-fiction....a sort of memoir.

Queen of the Road - follows a couple (married psychiatrists) on a year-long journey around the country in a converted bus. Doreen is an avowed "princess from the island of long" and Tim is an outdoorsman. I knew I liked Doeren when she said she once spent 112 hours in her pajamas! LOL LOL

The Oregonian's comment "The Elizabeth Gilbert Antichrist. That had me laughing aloud.

Sounds good, JoAnn. Tell us more when you've finished. I like the very idea of hitting the road!

deborah

I, too, love these "hitting the road" books. I've added Queen of the Road to my TBR list.

JoAnn/QuAppelle wrote: "I have People Like Us (Dominick Dunne)..."

I heard a Terry Gross interview with Dunne's son, the actor Griffin. He told some rather sad stories of his father's odd life, his craving for celebrities and celebrity-hood, and how it finally wore out everyone in his family.... but, once the marriage had ended, his father got a clue and became more human. And Griffin had funny stories of him.... one of his favorites was when he got a call one morning from his father, who was in Switzerland at some fancy hotel doing God-knows-what, and the son did that Dominick Dunne voice so perfectly, saying, "Griffin, I was just in the elevator with Bono. And Bono knows who I am! Bono knows who I am, Griffin! I love my life!!"

Griffin's eulogy for his father, in which he apparently told many family anecdotes, is online somewhere, probably under a Griffin site, I would guess.

Here is that eulogy. Thanks for mentioning that it was online, Michael.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-an...

and here is the text and audio of that Terry Gross interview:

http://www.wbur.org/npr/121458755

Just started Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or Competition. I first heard about this culinary competition on Top Chef and am hoping the book lives up to one of its blurbs ("Top Chef meets Season on the Brink"-L. Jon Wertheim)

Am currently listening to Sworn to Silence which is becoming a bit of a chore. I am not a huge fan of serial killer plots usually but thought the premise of a formerly Amish woman as the Chief of Police sounded interesting so I decided to give it a listen. Am hoping for a rousing and logical finish but am not optimistic.

Sandi wrote: "Just started Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or Competition. I first heard about this culinary competition on Top Chef ..."

Sandi, please be sure to come back and let us know if this book lived up to your hopes!

The other book - oh, well.

I'm currently reading The K Handshape, a mystery taking place in Canada in which a deaf woman was murdered. She had become notorious because she deliberately conceived a deaf child with a man who had been born deaf, so that her child could participate in deaf culture. This reminds me of a science fiction novel calledSilent Dancesin which the protagonist refused a cure of deafness that had been developed because she thought there was something unique about her perceptions as a deaf person that would be lost. It's a perspective that has interested me enough that I want to explore it more.

Shomeret wrote: "I'm currently reading The K Handshape, a mystery taking place in Canada in which a deaf woman was murdered. ..."

I see that this is the second book in a series with this forensic specialist. Did you read the first?

No, I didn't read the first one, JoAnn. I'm not a read in order kind of person. I latch on to characters, plots or concepts that sound interesting to me. If I read the first one when I'm really interested in the second, I might end up being so disappointed in the first novel that I never get to the second book which would have changed my opinion of the series.

Sandi wrote: "thought the premise of a formerly Amish woman as the Chief of Police sounded interesting so I decided to give it a listen...."

The premise sounds neat, i'm sorry it isn't living up to it.

deborah

Shomeret wrote: "No, I didn't read the first one, JoAnn. I'm not a read in order kind of person. I latch on to characters, plots or concepts that sound interesting to me. If I read the first one when I'm really interested in the second, I might end up being so disappointed in the first novel that I never get to the second book which would have changed my opinion of the series...."

I've had mixed success with this idea. Usually i like reading from the beginning but a couple of times i've picked up a mystery in the middle of the series & gone back to read from the first, only to be disappointed. This happened with the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton. I liked one, set at a British country estate. When i read the first in the series and didn't like it, i decided to go for a tie-breaker & read the second in the series. Nope, i just lucked out the first time.

I know many, many people like the series but it just wasn't for me. Generally speaking i'm not a fan on intuition-based mysteries unless they are extrememely well-written. However, i like experimenting.

deborah

I am still very much enjoying the characters and drama of East of Eden - and I am about halfway through. I think I'm just getting to the part covered in the James Dean movie, which is going on my Blockbuster queue.

I stopped at my library yesterday and couldn't resist picking up The Selected Works of TS Spivet. This one is about a 12 year old boy genius cartographer living in Montana. There is the regular story, then the margins are filled with sketches and notations from his journals and notebooks. I can only read it by doing the regular novel part, then going back into his maps, sketches, and notes afterward. There is a creative website too that suckered me in for about a half hour last night.

Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "I stopped at my library yesterday and couldn't resist picking up The Selected Works of TS Spivet. This one is about a 12 year old boy genius cartographer living in Montana. There is the regular story, then the margins are filled with sketches and notations from his journals and notebooks. I can only read it by doing the regular novel part, then going back into his maps, sketches, and notes afterward. .."

Sherry, did you just happen upon this book or had you heard about it? Interesting concept.......I read the Amazon page which has a lot on it....sounds sort of "out there"....Barabara Hodgson's books immediately came to mind.

A friend on Shelfari recommended The Selected Works of TS Spivet. I read a Barbara Hodgson book last winter, and I don't find them particularly similar. So far the Spivet book is a straightforward novel, with the exception that every page has examples of the main character's notations and drawings. It isn't a mystery, and not so "arty" as Hodgson's.

The Larsen novel sounds good. Thanks for mentioning it, Sherry.

deborah

I adored Dominick Dunne and read every single book he wrote, and that's quite a few, as well as all of his columns in Vanity Fair. I loved his last book and I could tell it was written knowing it would be his last. I will miss him!

Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "I am still very much enjoying the characters and drama of East of Eden - and I am about halfway through. I think I'm just getting to the part covered in the James Dean movie, which is going on my B..."

East of Eden, oh, my goodness. I can still smell the pages of that book and see the print after all these years. The movie is good, too, in that nice, old melodramatic way.

Sherry (sethurner) wrote: "I am still very much enjoying the characters and drama of East of Eden - and I am about halfway through. I think I'm just getting to the part covered in the James Dean movie, which is going on my B..."

Sherry,

I envy you because East Of Eden is one of my all time favorie books

Meredith

I'm reading Sonnet of the Sphinxfor the F2F mystery group that I attend. It's the third in a series dealing with an American literary scholar and a sardonic British antique dealer with a shady past (Lovejoy type)whose cases always involve one of the Romantic poets. In this one they're tracking down a lost sonnet by Shelley. In the process they become suspects in a murder investigation. I did read the first one in the series last month, and it was a light fun read.

Shomeret wrote: "it was a light fun read.
.."

I don't know whether it is the dreary weather, my age, or my aging brain, but recently light fun reads are what I am craving.

I'm reading a light, fun read called In the Merde for Love by Stephen Crane, which I thought was a mystery when I bought it, but it turns out to be a slightly jaundiced look at French culture as the author opens a tea shop in Paris.

I've picked up Simple Genius by David Baldacci last yr in a book sale. Im really not into crime, mystery investigation book but really don't mind as Deborah said 'experimenting' and as it turned out I like it. Thou its ending was not to my liking but the journey towards cracking the mystery was for me, so that counts. So am gonna go for 'second helping' under the same author when my pocket permits :). Just finished Sue Miller's - Lost in the forest and i like the family drama potrayed in the book. They were not kind but great reading.

Stayed up late and finished Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or Competition last night. While parts of the book were completely over my head (The only food show I watch is Top Chef, I don't cook, and I have minimal experience with fine dining) I did enjoy the look at the magnitude and logistics of competing in such a large cooking competition. A bit of a warning though, if you do not know the final results and don't want to be spoiled, do not look at the last page in the picture inserts.

Because of library due dates, I also finished The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby. This was a short book of columns, written for a magazine, that chronicled both the books Hornby read vs. those he purchased during a particular month. A very quick and enjoyable read and he mentioned a number of books that looked interesting.