What I'm Reading JUNE 2014

[John]

I absolutely could not get into Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore at all, figuring I was too old to be target audience!

[Ruth]

John wrote: "I absolutely could not get into Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore at all, figuring I was too old to be target audience!"

I nominated it for the Reading List, but ended up not liking it as well as I thought I would. I liked all the bookstore stuff, not so much the digital world.

[Cateline]

Mary wrote: "..........Tried the Roman series a couple years ago and quit after about 40 pages. Just didn't appeal to me. Might have been the subject and not the writing. I really didn't read enough to judge that."

The style is very different to, for example, Taylor Caldwell's Pillar of Iron, although covering much of the same territory in some of the McCullough novels. The first time I tried it, when it first came out, I didn't like it much. This time, once I got into the rhythm of the thing, was different. So far I am liking her rather upstart approach to the time period.

In Caldwells PoI, her Foreword begins with a telling paragraph. I'll quote:
Any resemblance between the Republics of Rome and the United States of America is purely historical, as is the similarity of ancient Rome to the modern world.

I feel that somehow the flavor/idiomatic speech patterns of McCullough's Roman series brings that modernity of the ancient world right to the fore, stuffs it in the readers face, forcing us to see that resemblance.

[Cateline]

Book Concierge wrote: " Mr Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan – 5***** and a ❤
Something very strange is going on at Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and ..."

BC, great review! You make it sound wonderful. :)
Unfortunately, I started it, and now can't remember exactly how far I got, maybe 50(ish) pages? Cound not finish. Just couldn't read any more.
It's the type of fantasy I just don't care for.

[Amy]

A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaA Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra. I'm about 1/5 of the way through and am enjoying it so far.

[Carol]

Amy wrote: "A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaA Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra. I'm about 1/5 of the way through and am enjoying it so far."

Amy I thought it was an excellent book.

[Ruth]

Amy wrote: "A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaA Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra. I'm about 1/5 of the way through and am enjoying it so far."

I bailed about 3/4 of the way through when it seemed to be just spinning its wheels.

[Larry]

Cateline wrote: "The style is very different to, for example, Taylor Caldwell's Pillar of Iron, although covering much of the same territory in some of the McCullough novels...."


Cateline, I just gave away a copy of Taylor Caldwell's Pillar of Iron about a month ago to our local library. I'm still going through my mother's books and that was one of them. She had a lot of Book of the Month club books from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. I think that was how she acquired that book.

[Larry]

Cateline wrote: " feel that somehow the flavor/idiomatic speech patterns of McCullough's Roman series brings that modernity of the ancient world right to the fore, stuffs it in the readers face, forcing us to see that resemblance. ..."

One of the good things about the HBO series ROME was that it brought out some of the Asian aspects of Rome and Roman culture. The sex and violence, as one would expect of any HBO series, helped to make it relatively successful as well.

[Carol]

I am reading American Gods for the coming discussion. I guess I am beyond this. It has no appeal for me.

[Cateline]

Cateline, I just gave away a copy of Taylor Caldwell's Pillar of Iron about a month ago to our local library. I'm still going through my mother's books and that was one of them. She had a lot of Book of the Month club books from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. I think that was how she acquired that book.

:). My first copy came from the old Literary Guild Book Club that my Mother belonged to. I haven't seen the HBO series.

One thing that is amusing me is the absolute snobbiness about just who is a Roman......Italians just don't cut it according to the "real" Romans. It is interesting the way McCullough brings out the pettiness. A nd the politics!

[Cateline]

Carol wrote: "I am reading American Gods for the coming discussion. I guess I am beyond this. It has no appeal for me."

I believe I gave it a 4/5 rating. I think it may be rather a Marmite book. :)

[Carol]

The writing is wonderful , Cateline, but I am not really interested in the subject matter. So yes it is a Marmite book. I am curious what others will think, so I am anticipating the discussion.

I finished My Antonia in record time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Mary]

This morning I finished Sara Paretsky's Breakdown. Enjoyable read although the first 240 pages or so left me as confused as V.I,W. was feeling. I think that's part of the pleasure of reading this book actually.

[Ruth]

After a prolonged reading slump, I'm into Off Course: A Novel. It's not a challenging read, which is good right now. Eminently readable, enough to keep me going. Great literature? Nah.

[Geoff]

Carol wrote: "The writing is wonderful , Cateline, but I am not really interested in the subject matter. So yes it is a Marmite book. I am curious what others will think, so I am anticipating the discussion.

I..."

My Antonia is one of the greatest ever. Death Comes for the Archbishop would also work for you, if you liked Antonia.

[Carol]

Thanks Geoff, I will check it out. By the way I am liking 'American Gods 'better

[Mary Anne]

After finally finishing A Place of Greater Safety, I am now reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler and The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries by Henning Mankell. The pace of these two is such a change!
I guess I'd better Google what Marmite means since I'm supposed to be leading the American Gods discussion :)

[Nicole]

I did google it. I assume the reference is to the slogan, either you love it you hate it? Otherwise, I have no idea, though I now know way more than I ever wanted to about Marmite.

[Carol]

Nicole wrote: "I did google it. I assume the reference is to the slogan, either you love it you hate it? Otherwise, I have no idea, though I now know way more than I ever wanted to about Marmite."

Lol! Yea, you either can't get enough of it or bury the dead stuff. I suppose Marmite is a lot like cilantro also.

[Mary Anne]

Oh, the things one learns from fellow CRs...

[Cateline]

Nicole wrote: "I did google it. I assume the reference is to the slogan, either you love it you hate it? Otherwise, I have no idea, though I now know way more than I ever wanted to about Marmite."

LOL. Sorry. That is exactly correct. Love it or hate it. No in-between ground.

[Anne]

I've been traveling, so that means lots of time to read! Besides catching up on back issues of Vanity Fair and The Atlantic, I read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (make sure to avoid the Oprah annotation book if you buy this!) It was a powerful, beautifully written story, Also Someone by McDermott, again lyrical writing for an everyday type of story, and now am into The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry which I am loving!

[Mary]

I, too, had to google Marmite. And then I said to myself, oh yeah! I've heard of that stuff. To me, it sounds ghastly...

[Shelley]

After starting out as #170 on the waiting list, I just picked up Elizabeth Warren's A Fighting Chance.

Shelley
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com

[Mary Ellen]

I just finished Falling Angels by Tracey Chevalier. I read Girl With a Pearl Earring years ago, and loved it. I gave this one four stars - it was absorbing while I read it, but I don't think it matched the achievement of the first one. It follows three families in Edwardian England through the perspectives of about a dozen narrators.

[Nicole]

I finally FINALLY finished The Recognitions, which is going back to the library tomorrow with a full two days to spare!

I don't know what it is about this year that has gotten me involved with these long, long novels, but I can't seem to stop myself. I will say that Infinite Jest was a better investment of the time and effort than the Gaddis was (though the Gaddis was by now means bad or anything). This summer vacation it will be Underworld, but not before I take a little breather.

Still, I'm pretty happy to be reading The Interestings now. No unattributed dialogue, a recognizable storyline, characters who are introduced in a legible fashion, yes, I say yes!

[Geoff]

Nicole wrote: "I finally FINALLY finished The Recognitions, which is going back to the library tomorrow with a full two days to spare!

I don't know what it is about this year that has gotten me inv..."

Jeez, that Gaddis book is difficult. I plowed through it during grad school, when I still had that kind of energy. Underworld is easier than the other two. But I don't think it's DeLillo at his best.

[Ann D]

Mary Anne,
I will be interested in what you think of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Keep us posted.

[Ann D]

Nicole,
I enjoyed The Interestings too. It was a welcome change after the confusing turns in A Place of Greater Safety, where I had to keep looking back to make sure who was speaking and checking on where I had encountered characters before.

[Cateline]

I've just finished The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough, review over here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

In short, I loved it. Yes, there is lots of detail and some may not like/appreciate that. I happen to like that aspect. :)

[Lyn]

Will save comments for the discussion, but I finished up My Antonia today.

[Tonya]

Mary Anne, I enjoyed We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves quite a lot. I had read that it is a good discussion book so I nominated it before I read it, but it did not get in. Now that I have, I agree. Not too long but really packed - my cuppa tea. I recall thinking that Fowler must have done a lot of research to write it, and she put a lot of it in there.

[Larry]

Cateline wrote: "Nicole wrote: "I did google it. I assume the reference is to the slogan, either you love it you hate it? Otherwise, I have no idea, though I now know way more than I ever wanted to about Marmite."
...LOL. Sorry. That is exactly correct. Love it or hate it. No in-between ground.
"

Cateline, I actually have a different take on Marmite ... as a substitute for axle grease, it seems okay to me ... but I'll pass on using it as a food.

[Cateline]

Larry wrote: "Cateline, I actually have a different take on Marmite ... as a substitute for axle grease, it seems okay to me ... but I'll pass on using it as a food..."

ROTFALOLTIC! Great take on it!

Thought I'd add this in edit: http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia...

And, to remain on topic, I've started the second book in the McCullough series. The Grass Crown

[Joan]

Just finished The Death of the Heart . A psychologically penetrating study of a complex family situation. While much of the dialogue is dated, it lends verisimilitude to the period and class.

[John]

I listened to both of the Bowen books available at Audible, and wish they'd add more!

[Joan]

This was the first book I'd read by Bowen, but I intend to seek out more.

[Larry]

Cateline wrote: [in THE FIRST MAN IN ROME] "One thing that is amusing me is the absolute snobbiness about just who is a Roman......Italians just don't cut it according to the "real" Romans. It is interesting the way McCullough brings out the pettiness. A nd the politics! ..."

Cateline, I think more than a year ago we were sharing our thoughts about some recent history books on Rome. I'm not sure that I mentioned T.J. Cornell's The Beginnings of Rome: Italy from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars, Ca 1,000-264 BC, but it came to mind in looking what you wrote about "who is a Roman." I don't know of any book that is so good as the Cornell one in explaining how Rome became Rome and how Rome related to the other city-states in Italy. Note that it cuts off at 264B.C. Used copies of this book are available ... that's how I acquired mine .. much more reasonable than the Kindle price of $39.46.

[Ann D]

Joan,
I read The Death of the Heart a long time ago when I was in college. I remember liking it a lot.

[John]

I loved the name "Waikiki" as such an exotic name for such a very UN-exotic place! The audio narrator would stress the syllables (WAI-KEE-KEE) to emphasize that.

[Cateline]

Cateline, I think more than a year ago we were sharing our thoughts about some recent history books on Rome. I'm not sure that I mentioned T.J. Cornell's The Beginnings of Rome: Italy from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars, Ca 1,000-264 BC, but it came to mind in looking what you wrote about "who is a Roman." I don't know of any book that is so good as the Cornell one in explaining how Rome became Rome and how Rome related to the other city-states in Italy. Note that it cuts off at 264B.C. Used copies of this book are available ... that's how I acquired mine .. much more reasonable than the Kindle price of $39.46.

Much appreciated. Snagged one. :)

[Nicole]

Joan wrote: "This was the first book I'd read by Bowen, but I intend to seek out more."

I've read two this year: The House in Paris and The Heat of the Day, and they have both been fantastic. I think she's sort of a lost treasure.

[Larry]

Cateline, perhaps the most wonderful aspect of the Cornell book is its use throughout the book of new archeological evidence accumulated over the last few decades which yields a lot of new explanations about early Rome. (Cornell stresses that this is the orientation of the book ... and a number of reviewers have mentioned it in a positive way.) I am no expert on Rome but this along with a personal experience opened my eyes to how much more (a lot!!!) is likely to be revealed as archaeological digs continue to progress in Rome and throughout Italy.

The personal experience was when I visited Rome about ten years ago on business. U.S. Embassy personnel picked me up and drove me to the hotel (http://www.hotelcapodafrica.com/eng/h...) ... as we got to within about six blocks of the hotel, my driver pointed out a gladiatorial ludens (school) that had just recently been discovered and was being excavated. After I freshened up at the hotel, I started exploring the area on foot. Two blocks away was the Basilica di San Clementi. In the lowest depths of this church, there is a Mithraic temple .. above it there is an early Christian church ... and then on top is the current church. I was close enough to FAO, where I had business the next day, to walk there. And as I walked through the streets from the hotel to the Colosseum and then up a wide thoroughfare to the FAO building, it just hit me that most of the blocks of buildings had never been excavated because they had been in continuous use for centuries. It's all there under these buildings just waiting for the next few generations of archaeologists! I have a feeling that "our" understanding of Rome will be very, very different in the coming centuries.

In short, Cornell will explain how we know the things we know about early Rome today and what degree of certainty we can ascribe to the different parts of our "knowledge." Cateline, I am so glad you got a copy of the book.

[Larry]

Just finished Harlan Coben's Missing You. A fun read and you'll probably like it if you like all the other Coben stand alone mysteries. There are several loose ends at the end of the book, which don't get in the way of the resolution of the main puzzle in the book. The main character is a female NYC detective, who is a well drawn interesting person.

[Larry]

James S.A. Corey's Cibola Burn landed on my Kindle this morning (I had pre-ordered it months ago and have been anxiously waiting for it since ... really, really anxiously since it is a Hachette book .. and I wondered if Amazon was going to mess with the delivery of it.) It's the fourth in a hard SF series known as the Expanse. The previous three have been some of the best SF novels that I've read it decades.

[Cateline]

Larry wrote: "James S.A. Corey's Cibola Burn landed on my Kindle this morning (I had pre-ordered it months ago and have been anxiously waiting for it since ... really, really anxiously since it i..."

Oddly enough, I have Leviathan Wakes already in the TBR stack. Def moving it up. :)

[Larry]

I finished James Webb's I Heard My Country Calling: A Memoir this morning. The book seems to be quickly written, and leaves out some key parts of Webb's life. That said, it is excellent ... I am not sure that Webb is capable of writing anything that is not excellent. It covers parts of his life: his childhood (especially in England and California) as an Air Force Brat, his years at the Naval Academy, his service as a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, and parts of his life after Vietnam, including his recent time as U.S. Senator from Virginia. Put simply, I found the book to be inspiring.

[Joan]

Have you read Webb's Vietnam novel "Fields of Fire?"

[Lyn]

It's not exactly literature, but I just read Dogtripping: 25 Rescues, 11 Volunteers, And 3 RVs On Our Canine Cross-Country Adventure in honor of a cousin I have who has a "family" of formerly badly abused doggies that she takes into her home and who are all happy and wonderful there.