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What Are You Currently Reading? (doesn't have to be an Aussie book)
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Jim
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Aug 02, 2012 08:03PM
Currently reading (and only have 30 pages to go) 'The Secret River' by Kate Grenville and LOVING it!! Cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone who enjoys Australian literature (even though it does get a little graphic towards the end).
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The Secret River by Kate Grenville... I have this one to read for my Sept read in the Aussie Authors challenge...glad to hear you're enjoying it James:)
Mish wrote: "This is a re-read but I'll be starting tonight The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón"OMG, I'm reading that too :P
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OMG, I'm reading that too :P"
Haha, you two!!! I'm reading The Language of Flowers and it's really good!
Just finished Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Don't know why I waited so many years before I read this book. It was fabulous.
Rebecca is a remarkable book. There is so much tension in the book. The characters are brilliant.
Michael wrote: "Mish wrote: "This is a re-read but I'll be starting tonight The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón"OMG, I'm reading that too :P"
OMG fancy that ;)
Let me know what you think of it Michael, I have it on order from the library :)
Deb wrote: "Rebecca is a remarkable book. There is so much tension in the book. The characters are brilliant."Rebecca is definitely not for "The Birds!" :)
Michael wrote: "Just finished Darkness on the Edge of Town and found it a great read.Review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Will be reading this one next Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar ..."
Michael, you're in for a peculiar treat with Miss Peregrine, I really enjoyed it.
James wrote: "Currently reading (and only have 30 pages to go) 'The Secret River' by Kate Grenville and LOVING it!! Cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone who enjoys Australian literature (even though it do..."I am just over halfway through Sarah Thornhill, the sequel to The Secret River, one of my all-time favourite books.
Really enjoyed reading The Angel's Game now I've decided to read Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel
Deb wrote: "Just finished Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Don't know why I waited so many years before I read this book. It was fabulous."Years since I've read that. But remembering loving it Glad you enjoyed it, Deb.
Just finished Detective Piggott's Casebook Famous True Crime Cases and have just started The Undertakers' Mother. Thoroughly enjoyed the former and look like enjoying the latter. I seem to have picked up a few good Australian books lately. Is it my imagination or has there been a sudden influx of them?
Michael wrote: "I'm currently reading Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, it's hilarious"Heh! I'm on the version about computerized fish: "Fifty Shads of Cray."
Surprisingly the parody I'm reading is not self published.
Unsurprisingly, the parody I'm not reading doesn't exist at all. :) (I'd actually thought that you were kidding, too.)
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Haha!! No, he's not, I saw a copy in Big W yesterday:)
How about the Earl of Moray?(They hae killed the Earl o' Moray,
he's fifty shades of green.)
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Georgina wrote: "I'm reading: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry. Great author. :)"That book sounds awesome, but I've never gotten around to read it. Maybe I should have a Non-Fiction month; because I need to read You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself and The Know-it-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World as well
Added the first one, thanks, Michael!
I really enjoy non-fiction breaks in between my fiction. Jon Ronson is a favourite now. His books manage to be funny and unsettling at the same time. Some journalists seem to set out to prove a point, he asks questions and strives to find answers, often arriving at a different viewpoint by the end of the book. I really recommend The Men Who Stare at Goats and Them: Adventures with Extremists. The last book in particular is almost unbelievable.
I really enjoy non-fiction breaks in between my fiction. Jon Ronson is a favourite now. His books manage to be funny and unsettling at the same time. Some journalists seem to set out to prove a point, he asks questions and strives to find answers, often arriving at a different viewpoint by the end of the book. I really recommend The Men Who Stare at Goats and Them: Adventures with Extremists. The last book in particular is almost unbelievable.
★ Jess wrote: "Pet Sematary by Stephan King & Macbeth by Shakespere for school."
Pet Semetery, the grit between the teeth...That was a very scary book!
Pet Semetery, the grit between the teeth...That was a very scary book!
Georgina wrote: "I'm reading: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry. Great author. :)"I understand that, according to the Hare Scale, only about 1% of people are psychopaths, which I guess would be sufficient to account for corporate CEO's, serial killers, and all the commentators on Fox News. Sociopaths (viz. Martha Stout) are only about 5%, so assuming the world population to be something on the order of 7 billion people, that would mean that only about 420 million of them would like to see the rest of us dead. Which is encouraging news. I guess.
Reading Hunger Games ATM :) finished City of lost souls a few days ago, not looking forward to waiting for the new book to come out!!! LOL
Exactly, Mark! Reassuring isn't it? :) You know it makes sense too, the idea of them gathering in the upper reaches of business. It fits the profile type. Also the idea that they alter things around them in a chaotic way, like the ripples in a pool when the rock strikes the water. I never really knew much about psychopaths, but the fact that the amygdala doesn't work properly and they are born that way, surprised me. Also that it can't be cured.
I've added Martha Stout's book and also Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work
, which Hare co-wrote. I find this subject fascinating. Personally I am more like Ronson, i.e “I have panicked unnecessarily in all four corners of the globe.” :)
I've added Martha Stout's book and also Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work
, which Hare co-wrote. I find this subject fascinating. Personally I am more like Ronson, i.e “I have panicked unnecessarily in all four corners of the globe.” :)
Georgina - You speak my mind. Not to put too fine a point on it, the world is a Catherine wheel for most of humanity, run on an engine of Schadenfreude by the monstrous criminals who invariably rise to the top, because the culture for some reason inexplicably worships and elevates psychopathic predators. It's sad to think that it all may just be the product of a bunch of genetically-damaged amygdalas, and a sociobiological predisposition to defer to the gorillas who growl most belligerently. I, myself, panic of necessity quite incessantly in virtue of past exposure to some of them. Not really a fan of the predatory class. :(
Sorry to rant, by the way. The fact that this is hell is just a particular sore point of mine. It's nice, at least, that there's an explanation for it. :)
It is a fascinating idea: the wars, the strife, the unrest, all stirred up by a few. I agree, I'm no fan of the predators either. It also explains the cold callousness of people like Machiavelli.
I do think that the lesser disorders are being over classified though. I'm reading about the childhood bi-polar cases at the moment. I can't remember where I read this quote but I think it's spot on: 'If Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were around today, they'd be diagnosed with ADD and put on Ritalin.'
I do think that the lesser disorders are being over classified though. I'm reading about the childhood bi-polar cases at the moment. I can't remember where I read this quote but I think it's spot on: 'If Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were around today, they'd be diagnosed with ADD and put on Ritalin.'
Georgina wrote: "It is a fascinating idea: the wars, the strife, the unrest, all stirred up by a few. I agree, I'm no fan of the predators either. It also explains the cold callousness of people like Machiavelli. ..."
And Ayn Rand (though she may also have had a measure of autism).
No question but that ADD is systematically overdiagnosed. I think it has to do with a confluence of the financial benefit that accrues to pharmaceutical companies, and the desire of school systems not to spend money on contending with students' learning issues in more humane and appropriate ways. It's part of the "smaller government" (and bigger class sizes) ideology. It's not the function of government to help people, God knows, unless the "people" are corporations or kakistocrats.
It seems to me that a lot of the pushing of inappropriate and deleterious pharmaceutical "remedies" proceeds from the same causes.
Well put! The pharmaceutical companies are raking it in! And yes, the argument about the schools, makes a lot of sense too. Anything that falls out of the sphere of 'normal' creates problems in large classes, and schools in general. In fact society has been culling its outsiders since the Renaissance.
Georgina wrote: "Well put! The pharmaceutical companies are raking it in! And yes, the argument about the schools, makes a lot of sense too. Anything that falls out of the sphere of 'normal' creates problems in fact society has been culling its outsiders since the Renaissance. ..."As one of those sitting on an ice floe, I hadn't entirely failed to notice. :) :) I had twenty-five years to observe the monotonic decline in student literacy resulting from the decision to starve public education. And I taught at a fairly decent college, so my students were among the "better-prepared." Of course, now, at least in the States, it barely matters whether students go to college. Jobs, except the ones reserved for the privileged and connected, have practically ceased to exist. Of course, Job hasn't. He's all of us.
Job as in the God? And yes, agreed on all points about the deterioration of the education system. It's sad. Even universities are changing. I could be courting a backlash here, but the fact that the 50 shades trilogy holds the top three positions on the amazon best seller list, speaks volumes about the state of the world.
Georgina wrote: "Job as in the God? And yes, agreed on all points about the deterioration of the education system. It's sad. Even universities are changing. I could be courting a backlash here, but the fact that th..."You got it. Job as in the one afflicted by every possible human misery. As Archibald MacLeish said, "somebody's always playing Job." Now, it's nearly the full cast and crew. I don't think you'll be courting much of a backlash in stating the obvious about 50 Shades of Gaah, the illiteracy of which is pretty universally acknowledged, at least insofar as the prose is concerned, but you never actually know. There may be a member of the "Hare-identified" 1% out there who really loves it, and will take lethal umbrage. I haven't encountered anyone who sounded like that in this very friendly group, though. :)
David wrote: "I'm reading NW by Zadie Smith. I was pleasantly surprised to see this on the new book stand at the library today so I quickly grabbed it. I was actually going to order it y'day at the book store. S..."Wow I would of thought that one would of been popular
Georgina wrote: "Well put! The pharmaceutical companies are raking it in! And yes, the argument about the schools, makes a lot of sense too. Anything that falls out of the sphere of 'normal' creates problems in lar..."Georgina and Mark - may I recommend a book I haven't read yet (but which is sitting on my bedside table if you can come and pick it up!). It's called Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche and describes in part about the pharmaceuticals spreading their pills and potions around the world,inventing and encouraging certain diagnoses so they can then on sell their drugs. Heard a good interview with the author on Radio National recently.
Georgina wrote: "Job as in the God? And yes, agreed on all points about the deterioration of the education system. It's sad. Even universities are changing. I could be courting a backlash here, but the fact that th..."I agree with you, Georgina, about the entire "50 Shades...." phenomenon. I guess being on the top seller lists does not make it a worthwhile read, just a popular one. Which in turn speaks volumes for the masses buying it.
Maggie wrote: "Georgina wrote: "Well put! The pharmaceutical companies are raking it in! And yes, the argument about the schools, makes a lot of sense too. Anything that falls out of the sphere of 'normal' create..."Thanks, Maggie! I'm intimately familiar with the syndrome, but I hadn't yet seen that particular book, which I'll put on my TBR. Of course, reading about pharmacological conspiracies from the United States is a bit like buying a book on the dangers of solar radiation if you happen to live on the surface of the sun. You'll probably have noticed something already. :)
Maggie wrote: "Georgina wrote: "Job as in the God? And yes, agreed on all points about the deterioration of the education system. It's sad. Even universities are changing. I could be courting a backlash here, but..."Yes. It says them can rede gud. Especially if the printing is big, the sentences are ungrammatical, and there's plenty of sex.
Maggie wrote: "Georgina wrote: "Well put! The pharmaceutical companies are raking it in! And yes, the argument about the schools, makes a lot of sense too. Anything that falls out of the sphere of 'normal' create..."
Added it to my to-read list. Thanks, Maggie! :):)
Added it to my to-read list. Thanks, Maggie! :):)
I have just finished Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears which I really liked. And for a complete change of direction I am reading some rural fiction ( not my usual genre, but Karly lives in our area): Morgan's Law.
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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..."
Great review Michael:)
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