What I'm Reading in October - 2012

[Ruth]

Ellie, what are those books? I can't see them on my iPad. Could you post the titles?

[Marjorie]

Carol wrote "Marjorie, The Guns of August is a good book for understanding the why of WWI."

Thanks, Carol. I've had Barbara Tuchman's book on my shelf for some time and have meant to read it. I'll do so now.

Marge

[Carol]

Ellie, Ellie,Ellie, please help my tired eyes,and sore finger by posting the title's of the books you have read. Thank you for your consideration, it is much appreciated.

C

[Carol]

Marjorie wrote: "Carol wrote "Marjorie, The Guns of August is a good book for understanding the why of WWI."

Thanks, Carol. I've had Barbara Tuchman's book on my shelf for some time and have meant to read it. I'l..."

I think you will enjoy it. I know I learned far more than I ever did in school.

[Greer]

Finally finished The Big Rock Candy Mountain -- what an interesting journey Stegner took trying to get inside the heads and hearts of each member of his family.

[Aloha]

I haven't been here in a long while since I've been with groups that are focusing on specific books. I belong to so many groups that it would be a chore posting in all of them what I'm currently reading. I came back because I noticed that Constant Reader will be reading Cloud Atlas. I am joining in the discussion with another group that is currently reading the book. I thought I'll join in this discussion, too, while it's fresh in my mind. Here is my review for Cloud Atlas:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Aloha]

I'm currently reading Women and Men, which has become the holy grail for seasoned people who are into reading difficult literature. It is an almost 1,200 pages postmodernist tome which pulls references from basically everything in history. Here is an interesting article on it:

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/t...

This is the group that is currently tackling this curious monster that makes literature and philosophy majors tremble:

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/7...

It is difficult finding a copy of this book that is not under $150, but there is a rogue eBook floating around. With the mod. leader's help, I managed to snag a used $25 library hardback that is worth $150.

I finished Skippy Dies in October. This is a terrific book that is full of Physics references but is highly enjoyable, and you don't need to know Physics to enjoy it. If you do know Physics and some classical music, then you would enjoy it more. The author has that special Irish way of telling a rousing and emotional story. Here is my review for that:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Ann D]

Aloha,
I admire your persistence with WOMEN AND MEN. It sounds like an good book to read with a group.

I loved Skippy Dies, although I know many others threw in the towel before they got very far into it. I don't know any physics, so that part went over my head, but I thought it was a very touching, and sometimes funny, story of the difficulties of passing through those horrible teen years.

[Ann D]

I just finished Peter Robinson'sBefore The Poison. Robinson is my favorite mystery writer because of the quality of his writing and his emphasis on characterization. This one isn't a traditional mystery like his Inspector Banks series, but I still liked it. It involves a widower who buys an old house in the Yorkshire area and discovers that a former inhabitant was hung for murdering her husband 60 years ago. Did she or didn't she? There are lots of journal flashbacks to the woman's service as a nurse in World War II, which are harrowing and very interesting.

[Aloha]

Thanks, Ann. WOMEN AND MEN is a book that you should read with a group, especially one that contains people who can help you through it. It's starting to absorb into my head. I read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, and I find GEB easier to understand than W&M.

SKIPPY DIES is brilliant in how he managed to blend Physics and music into multiple point of views, and tragedy and humor into a coherent whole with an unceasing entertaining pace. It looks easier than it is to do.

[Joan]

Just finished this one. Here's my review
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes. Not mine. The narrative was choppy and while individual scenes were well wrought, the discontinuity made me lose focus, thinking that Homes should have written this as a group of interrelated stories. While the central theme of a man’s psychological disintegration followed by his halting return to social interaction is one of promise, as a character he just wasn’t absorbing. Homes can write well, but to bring off a novel like this, one needs the mastery of a Joyce, Nabakov or, descending a step, DeLillo. In sum, I simply didn’t like it.

Now, I am reading A History of the Amish by Steven M. Nolt. Coming back from a trip, we drove through Amish country in southwest Wisconsin which make me decide I need to know more about their beginnings.

[Mary Anne]

I'm reading The Buddha in the Attic. So far, I'm not very impressed.

[[deleted user]]

Mary Anne wrote: "I'm reading The Buddha in the Attic. So far, I'm not very impressed."

I didn't like that one much either, Mary Anne. It read like a list, and was mostly in the plural, "We suffered this terrible thing, we suffered that terrible thing, we, we, we." I couldn't get emotionally invested because the writing style annoyed me so much. I had the same issue with Then We Came to the End, which is also written in the first person plural.

[Ruth]

Joan wrote: "Just finished this one. Here's my review
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes. Not mine. The narrative was choppy and while individual scenes were well wrought, the discontinuity made me los..."

I'm becoming fond of books that are a series of linked stories.

[Larry]

Just started Ken Follett's Fall of Giants. This is going to take some time. I've liked some of Follett's books a lot, e.g. A Dangerous Fortune and others not so much, e.g. The Third Twin. With respect to his longer books, I thoroughly enjoyed The Pillars of the Earth but couldn't finish World Without End.

[Ruth]

I made it through Pillars of the Earth because so very many people recommended it highly. But I found it so unsatisfactory that I doubt I'll read another Follett.

[Ann D]

Larry,
My in-person book club read The Pillars of the Earth. Follett is a good story teller. I liked it.

I also enjoyed his Eye of the Needle, which I read a long time ago.

[Aoibhínn]

I just finished by Stephen King earlier today and I absolutely loved it. I'm a huge fan of Stephen King and The Green Mile has got to be one of the best novels he has ever written. In fact, it's one of the best novels I have ever read in my entire life. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down! It is very beautifully written and extremely moving at times. The plot is original, gripping and heart-breaking. I'd give this book more than five stars if I could! My full review is here.

Now I'm about to start by Shirley Jackson.

[Ruth]

What books are those, Ellie? Can't read those little pictures on my iPad.

[Larry]

Ann wrote: "Larry,
My in-person book club read The Pillars of the Earth. Follett is a good story teller. I liked it.

I also enjoyed his Eye of the Needle, which I read a long time ago."

Ruth, one of Follett's virtues is his ability to work in different genres. He is good at suspense novels. I liked the EYE OF THE NEEDLE also.

[Ruth]

Larry wrote: "Ruth, one of Follett's virtues is his ability to work in different genres. He is good at suspense novels. I liked the EYE OF THE NEEDLE also. "

Didn't realize that was Follett. Rings a bell. I don't know if it's because I read the book or saw the movie, but I remember thinking it was a well done thriller.

[Sherry, Doyenne]

Ellie wrote: "I just finished by Stephen King earlier today and I absolutely loved it. I'm a huge fan of Stephen King and The Green Mile has got to be one of the best novels he h..."

Ellie, I've tried to email you with this request, but you aren't accepting new friends. Please add the title of the book, in addition, or in place of the book cover. I can see the title of "Shirley Jackson" but that is rare. On my iPhone, I get three little dots and no information. Many folks here use their smart phones or their tablets to read these threads.

[Joan]

Ruth wrote: "Joan wrote: "Just finished this one. Here's my review
This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes. Not mine. The narrative was choppy and while individual scenes were well wrought, the discontinuit..."

Like Olive Kitteredge. though that's not such a good example, as some of the stories were clearly constructed to slide in Olive so they would "count."

[Susan_T.]

I started Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace), but didn't get very far. Any of y'all read it? I am wondering if I abandoned ship too early. I'm not all that post-modern in my reading...

I'm looking forward to reading a book that was nominated for a National Book Award; finalists were announced yesterday. The Boy Kings of Texas: A Memoir. About growing up in Brownsville, Texas, on the border. I'm intrigued. I definitely like memoirs.

[Ruth]

Susan_T. wrote: "I started Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace), but didn't get very far. Any of y'all read it? I am wondering if I abandoned ship too early. I'm not all that post-modern in my reading...."

Me, too, Susan. Me too.

[John]

I have started listening to Rules of Civility, but there seems to be no plot after a couple of hours, just excellent turns-of-phrase and description.

[Janet]

I'm desperately trying to finish SIMPLE in time for our meeting in Pittsburgh with the author. I might need to take the phone off the hook and put my Kindle on text-to-speech while packing. That’s not a great option, but I started it later than I’d planned to.

[Nicole]

Finished A Thousand Splendid Suns 4 stars!

[Ann D]

John,
I really thought Rules of Civility got much better the more that I read. I wasn't very impressed in the beginning. I don't have the patience to listen to books, so that experience could be different.

Nicole, I thoughtA Thousand Splendid Suns was a really good plot driven novel.

[Mary Ellen]

Ann & Nicole, my favorite part of ATSS was the first section, when the narrator was a boy in Afghanistan. I knew virtually nothing about that country apart from the long USSR war and then the Taliban; this section made me feel that I was getting a more human view of the people and the culture. I also thought the depiction of the narrator's father's adjustment to life in the US - how it diminished his larger-than-life stature in some ways - was thoughtful and interesting. (I still remember the flea market sections.) The last section, the narrator's return to Afghanistan as an adult, was less satisfying. But in all, I enjoyed the book very much.

[Geoff]

Susan_T. wrote: "I started Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace), but didn't get very far. Any of y'all read it? I am wondering if I abandoned ship too early. I'm not all that post-modern in my reading...

I'm looki..."

Susan, I read and liked Infinite Jest, but I can easily see how someone might get annoyed by it and give up. It's not (in my opinion) terribly successful as a novel, but it has lots of tour de force passages and represents an enormously intense bundle of energy, which has its own kind of appeal.

Started rereading Jennifer Egan's Emerald City, which I like a lot.

[Susan_T.]

Geoff wrote: Susan, I read and liked Infinite Jest, but I can easily see how someone might get annoyed by it and give up...

Geoff and Ruth, thanks for weighing in on this. Because of the recent biography of David Foster Wallace, his name comes up often on all the lit blogs. I've read some of his essays but none of his fiction, and was trying to remedy that. I like the description "an enormously intense bundle of energy"; I can see how that would be appealing. Junot Diaz's novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao struck me that way. I couldn't believe it. It was like reading a hurricane.

[Lyn]

I finished Shantaram. It's a wonderful adventure+ novel for those who like to get absorbed in a book for a long time (enjoyable to read and v. long).

[Ruth]

Still plowing through Cloud Atlas. Glad I gave myself more than my usual time for this one.

[Susan from MD]

I just finished The Counterlife - I gave it a 3.5/5; definitely not my favorite book of the year. My review of the book is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....

Next up is It Can't Happen Here - as we head toward the elections!

[Carol]

Lyn wrote: "I finished Shantaram. It's a wonderful adventure+ novel for those who like to get absorbed in a book for a long time (enjoyable to read and v. long)."

I picked it up at the friends of the library, so .I am hoping to get to it soon.

[Nicole]

Susan_T. wrote: "Geoff wrote: Susan, I read and liked Infinite Jest, but I can easily see how someone might get annoyed by it and give up...

Geoff and Ruth, thanks for weighing in on this. Because of the recent bi..."

Yes, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was a interesting reading experience. He is a great writer. I just wasn't in love with the story.

[Nicole]

Lyn wrote: "I finished Shantaram. It's a wonderful adventure+ novel for those who like to get absorbed in a book for a long time (enjoyable to read and v. long)."

this is on my TBR. Good to hear that it was a good experience.

[Nicole]

Mary Ellen wrote: "Ann & Nicole, my favorite part of ATSS was the first section, when the narrator was a boy in Afghanistan. I knew virtually nothing about that country apart from the long USSR war and then the Tali..."

I think you are actually thinking of the The Kite Runner, which I LOVED! Even more than A Thousand Splendid Suns

[Nicole]

started The Lucky One and The Book Thief

[John]

Halfway through Rules of Civility, the storyline has picked up, focusing on Katey the protagonist herself. Writing is amazing, as is the audio narration.

[Marjorie]

I just finished GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn. Wow, what an imagination that author has! About a woman who disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary and her husband is suspected of killing her. Starts out kind of slow, but I got so engrossed in it I couldn't put it down.

Marge

[Ann D]

John,
Glad to hear that Rules of Civility picked up for you. I wasn't too sure about it during the first part either.

[[deleted user]]

John wrote: "Halfway through Rules of Civility, the storyline has picked up, focusing on Katey the protagonist herself. Writing is amazing, as is the audio narration."

Rules of Civility was my favorite book of 2011. I enjoyed the audio narration so much that I immediately read the text, so I could savor and highlight my favorite passages. I'm glad you are enjoying it.

[John]

The emphasis on Tinker and Evie in the first part was rather ... distracting, but once they were out of the picture (at least temporarily), and the story became about Katey, I could get into it more easily.

[Ruth]

Just finished The Lifeboat by Charlotte Regan. I nominated this for our Reading List on the strength of a review in the LA Times. Since it didn't make the cut I decided to go ahead and read it alone. (sniff, sniff)

However, the lifeboat idea, in its various incarnations is such an overworked idea that the book had better be pretty damn good in order to overcome the setup. This wasn’t. It was a pretty good read, but I never felt fully invested in the characters, and never truly believed the story.

[Carol]

I am reading From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia a recommendation from Robert. It is about western imperalism in India, China and other countries throughout Asia and parts of Africa. I have just started it and already I have lots of questions.

[Yulia]

Carol, I also just read a book on that subject, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power by Robert Kaplan. I can't say I recommend it and hope yours is more engaging and focused.

After reading six Harry Hole novels in a row (I tend to read all the works of an author straight through), I finally had enough and need to put aside the latest in the Hole series to be translated, The Bat, which also happens to be the first in the series. I can see why it wasn't released sooner. It may get better, but I'm more interested in The Unconsoled and This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. I hadn't been tempted to try the latter until today when my brother raved about it, saying it was unapologetic in its depiction of a narcissist as he cheats on one woman after another. That intrigued me. Maybe in better understanding these ducks, I can understand how to deal with them. Wishful thinking.

[John]

Monsoon is on my TBR pile - what about it was lacking?

[Yulia]

Well, he was just trying to accomplish too much. He went from one country to another, giving the history of how it was colonized by different nations, then fast-forwarded to the present and described the current political challenges (often relating to religious conflict, lack of strong leadership and resentment over an occupying force) and ended by giving suggestions as to how America might better shape its role in this region and be a better superpower. I suppose it would be fine if you wanted a brief historic and maritime background to a number of places but in only one of the cities highlighted did I get a sense of what life was like there for the citizens. And he was rather haphazard about what he chose to mention (even including the plots of various fictional works that took place in the areas he was covering, which had no place in the book at all), so the book lacked momentum. It is well-regarded by many, so maybe you'll like it more than I did.