Thomma's comments
(member since May 15, 2009)
Thomma's comments from the The Next Best Book Club group.
(showing 1-20 of 93)
Puff, the Magic Dragon by Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton, and Eric Puybaret
I highly recommend The Talisman, which Stephen King co-wrote with Peter Straub. In a word, it's amazing. I read it for the first time when I was a kid, and I've probably read it about ten times since. Yup, it's one of those books I like to re-read every few years; it's that good. It's adventure, fantasy, horror and wonder rolled up in one, and the young protagonist of the story, twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer, is utterly sympathetic and engaging.
I'm still working on And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer. It's good, but it's a bit boggy in places. I am, however, determined to finish it.At the same time, I'm reading Afternoons With Emily, which is also a slow-paced book, but I'm loving it. It's about a young woman who forms a friendship with Emily Dickinson, and it's intensely character-driven. I'm close to the end; I'll probably finish it tonight.
Next on my list is Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of the "madwoman in the attic" from Jane Eyre. I've heard it's an excellent read, and I'm really looking forward to it. :)
I'm listening to I Need a Man, a debut CD by Jannie Funster, an Austin, TX-based singer-songwriter. Her music has folk, blues, and classic rock influences, and her lyrics are a wonderful mix of powerful, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny.
There's an indie bookstore in Knoxville, TN called Carpe Librum.
How sad. From what I know of him, he was a wonderful, warm person. And his books are treasures. He was an incredible storyteller and will be missed.
Lilly wrote: "I have a small, furry black Persian cat called Squiggles. She doesn't like anyone except me so when anyone else in the family comes in the room she goes out. She's been like this since I brought he..."Squiggles sounds like a kitty I had when I was a little girl. She, too, was a Persian cat (a blue-cream, in her case), and she was so sweet and precious -- loving toward me, but shy with everybody else.
Marsha wrote: "Oh, Joseph, isn't Wyoming majestic? As we were driving across the state, I kept shouting at my husband, "Pull over! I have to get a photo of this!" Living all my life on the east coast, I never saw anything like that in person before ..."I hear you! I visited Wyoming as a child of eight or nine, but I've never forgotten it. It's a gorgeous place. Don't get me wrong: I love our mountains here, the Appalachians (I love hiking here), but the Rockies have such a craggy and jagged majesty.
Right now, I am wishing it would quit thunderstorming so that I can go out and pick veggies from our garden. There are green beans hanging in wads that need to be picked! :)
I have a typed-up TBR list that's over 200 books long. I haven't had time to add them all to my TBR shelf on Goodreads, but perhaps one of these days. And yup, when I find something interesting, I add to my list. *sigh* So many books, so little time. ;)
I recommend Possession A Romance by A.S. Byatt. Outstanding read, and both Dr. Maud Bailey and Christabel LaMotte are strong-willed, fiercely intelligent characters.
I second Abigail's recommendation of Haruki Murakami! Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun are great, too.I'm currently reading a wonderful novel Afternoons with Emily by Rose MacMurray. Absolutely engrossing!
If you want doorstop books, try And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer or A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.
And you can't go wrong with either of Khaled Hosseini's novels: A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner. Outstanding.
Have a great road trip, and happy reading!
I highly recommend Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. And an oldie-but-goodie YA book that makes me feel wonderful every time I read it is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.
Allison, I highly recommend Les Miserables. It's one of the best books I've ever read. It moved me so much it almost turned me inside out. :)Here are classics I want to read:
Ulysses - James Joyce
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Outsider by Albert Camus
Ada by Vladimir Nabokov
A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve. The ending is... well, I don't want to include spoilers, but the ending made me think about all that had come before. On one level I liked the ending, on another I wasn't crazy about it. But it was good food for thought, either way.Another book that made me think: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. This is an amazing book, rich and deep and finely wrought. By the end, I was a sobbing mess, and I thought about the story and its characters for weeks. Heck, it's still with me. :)
I'm a huge Haruki Murakami fan. He's quite a celebrity in Japan, but not quite as well known elsewhere, from what I understand. He's an amazing writer and storyteller, and so far, I've read Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, and South of the Border, West of the Sun.On my to-read list is a little-known book called Afternoons With Emily by Rose MacMurray (came highly recommended by a friend, and I can't wait to dive into it).
Anything by John Gardner is an excellent read (The Sunlight Dialogues, October Light, Freddy's Book, Grendel).
Michael Jackson was stunningly talented. I grew up on his music -- loved Off the Wall and Thriller. From what I read, he died of cardiac arrest, and one story speculated that perhaps heart rhythm problems were involved. I guess we'll find out more as time goes on.And Farrah Fawcett was famous when I was just a little kid -- I still remember Charlie's Angels.
RIP, Farrah and Michael.
I, too, would recommend you start with Pride and Prejudice. I love Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine. :)
Welcome, Monique! I'm relatively new myself, but this is a great group. :)
