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What are you currently reading?
No, Joy, that image doesn't immediately ring any bells. Sorry!
Werner wrote: "No, Joy, that image doesn't immediately ring any bells. Sorry!"Thanks, Werner. I think I'll ask that question at the GR group called: "What's The Name of That Book???". The link is:https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Good idea, Joy! That group has been very helpful to me in locating books for which I'd forgotten title and author information.
Werner wrote: "Good idea, Joy! That group has been very helpful to me in locating books for which I'd forgotten title and author information."Yes, a member there called "Lobstergirl" has helped me out several times. https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1...
She's one of the moderators of the "What's The Name of That Book???" group. Next to her moderator picture, it says "sniffing sharpies". Something else to research. :)
Joy, Oscar Wilde wrote a story called The Canterville Ghost which features an unremovable stain. It's hardly a suspense story, more of a satire, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
Janelle wrote: "Joy, Oscar Wilde wrote a story called The Canterville Ghost which features an unremovable stain. It's hardly a suspense story, more of a satire, but I thought I'd mention it anyway."Yes, Janelle, that's the story! Thank you. My records show that I watched a film version of the story back in 2009. Here's the IMDb link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221859/?...
"The Canterville Ghost" (1997) (TV Movie)
"An American millionaire moves into an historic and imposing mansion, which comes complete with its very own eccentric ghost."
Adapted from The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde .]
Thanks very much!
Glad Janelle was able to track it down for you, Joy! I've read (and liked) "The Canterville Ghost;" but it was a few years ago, and I'd forgotten about the part with the stain on the carpet. (Still can't recall it, actually!)
Werner wrote: "Glad Janelle was able to track it down for you, Joy! I've read (and liked) "The Canterville Ghost;" but it was a few years ago, and I'd forgotten about the part with the stain on the carpet. (Still..."Hi Werner. It's funny how our memories work. I don't know why I remembered the stain, but I'm glad I did. Perhaps the film version helped set that part in my memory bank.
More than likely, Joy! (I've never seen the film myself.)
Wow! I'm surprised I got it right. Glad I could help.
Following up on my reread of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, I'm now reading
. I'd originally had this on my "read" shelf, but I'm thinking now that I only read part of it the first time around.
Finished up Oliver Twist yesterday and began a collection of short stories titled Descent of Man by T.C. Boyle.
Charly wrote: "Blaine, you can help us out with the lounge wide 250 classic challenge in the thread below, by adding your Oliver Twist."Where is that thread so I can help out? Have read both Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers by Dickens this year, so I could add them both. Does Trollope count as a classic? If so I have read another of his Barsetshire Chronicles series this year.
Blaine, here's the link to the thread that Charly mentioned: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... .Since I'm expecting to receive a review book in the mail anytime now, and want to start on it ASAP once it arrives, I deliberately wanted to choose a book that would be short and quick for my current read. So I selected
by Jules Verne, which I picked up at a flea market a few years ago. It's not one of Verne's better-known works, and my expectations for it aren't high; but it should provide passable entertainment for a few days. :-)
Just began The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry and Little Century by Anna Keesey. The former being heavy on action, while the latter is heavy on prose!
I've got a nonfiction read for a local book group so I'm savoring The Little Paris Bookshop. :-)
While still filling in time as I wait for a book in the mail, I opted for another quick read:
by Brian Selznick. This book was a kind gift a while back from one of my Goodreads friends, Jackie; it's quite thick, so doesn't look like a quick read at all, but the thickness is deceptive. Much of the story is actually told in pictures, although it's not a conventional "graphic novel" either --Selznick's concept is actually something quite unique. I started it this morning, and have already "read" over 100 pages.
Werner wrote: "While still filling in time as I wait for a book in the mail, I opted for another quick read: by Brian Selznick. This book was a kind gift a while back from one o..."Sounds interesting, Werner. I'm going to try it. Something different for me, with the graphics as well as the text. And if Jackie liked it as well, it must be good.
I hope you like it, Joy! (Yes, Jackie has pretty good reading tastes!)
I'm finishing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in preparation for the movie release this month. Short and entertaining...
Continuing my reading of relatively short books while I wait for a coming review copy (I understand that it's now in the mail!), I started today on
, by French historian and sociologist Jacques Ellul. Even though Ellul was one of the more significant Christian thinkers of the 20th century, I've never read any of his writings. This book has been on my to-read shelf for a long time, so I thought this was a good opportunity to finally read it.
Just began Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler. If you like Film Noir or Hitchcock, this book and most of Ambler's works will appeal to you.
Finished "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." Great little book for any adults/tweens who are Harry Potter fans. Entertaining.Started "Pax" and "The Siege Winter."
The former is a tween book recommended by my son: emotional and powerful, and rather thought-provoking. Alternating narration by a tween boy, and a fox who is his friend- but no magic/no talking animals.
The latter is harder to describe: a complicated 10th century historical fiction novel, set in England; but not your average names-and-dates, kings and nobles, damsels in distress, hurray for feudalism story. The main characters are mostly strong-minded women, but vulnerable (a traumatized eleven year old who becomes a talented archer; a clever-but-irritable teenaged chatelaine who's faced with a siege and a horrendous unwanted husband). I'm not minding a few historically-inaccurate details, because the story is very engrossing.
I've been champing at the bit to begin reading my review copy of Christian author Heather Day Gilbert's newly-released historical novel
, the sequel to her outstanding
(which earned five stars from me). Today, I finally got started on it! The two books together make up her Vikings of the New World Saga, a re-telling of the medieval Icelandic Saga of the Greenlanders from the distaff perspective.
You've gotten me curious about the French historian!
Reggia wrote: "You've gotten me curious about the French historian!"Reggia, here's the link to my review of that book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . (I gave it four stars, which is higher than my usual three-star rating for a non-fiction book.)
Having started a new paper book yesterday morning, I also started a new e-book before going to bed last night:
by Leigh Brackett. Despite her stature in the SF genre, Brackett is a writer whose work I've never yet read; so I'm badly overdue. This particular book is the second installment of her Eric John Stark series; I opted to read this one out of order because Kindle gave me the chance to try it for free before I buy a paper copy.
Earlier in this thread the book Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick was mentioned. I just want to alert Werner that just now I added a bit more to my original review of the book. I hope that Werner will see it. For the sake of continuity, I will repeat what I added here:============================================
Nov. 16, 2016 - This book combines graphics and text alternately. An interesting approach. It's holding my interest because of good story-telling, even though the plot seems simple so far.
Nov. 21, 2016 - I finished this book a few days ago. It held my interest but the ending was a bit strange. I guess that's the surprise for the reader to find out. (view spoiler). I suppose if I read the story over again, it might have more meaning for me now that I know the ending. However, there would be less suspense. Suffice it to say that I kept wondering who the little girl in the graphics section was. Even at the end, it took a while for me to digest the information.
=============================================
My complete review is at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Joy, thanks for the update! Actually, the girl whose story was told through the pictures is (view spoiler). But I'm guessing that was actually what you meant. :-)Personally, I liked the way the two storylines weren't brought together until near the end of the book. For me, the element of mystery and guessing was part of the book's appeal.
Werner wrote: "Joy, thanks for the update! Actually, the girl whose story was told through the pictures is [spoilers removed]. But I'm guessing that was actually what you meant. :-) Personally, I liked the way t..."Werner, thanks very much for the correction. I'll fix my review. Now I realize my mistake. It's true that the element of mystery kept the story interesting. I just wish I were more clear on the developments. The explanation at the end was a lot for me to digest. It was in italics and that seemed to make it harder to read.
Joy wrote: "Werner, thanks very much for the correction."No problem, Joy! (I catch typos in my own reviews at times, too, despite my efforts to proofread. :-) )
Werner, it wasn't a typo on my part. I think I just read it wrong or remembered it wrong. I get characters mixed up all the time! LOL Sometimes I think it's the fault of the writer who refers to the same character using different references (first name and/or last name or mother or aunt or grandmother). Or with vague antecedents for "she" and "he" and "him" and "her". The words "he said" and "she said" also mix me up when dialogue is written without making clear which character is talking. My pet peeves! :)
Currently reading Jurassic Park and I'm coming up on the end. The plot is basically verbatim what I remember from watching the movie, but I'm still on the edge of my seat. The movie hasn't made me this excited in years and its quite enjoyable to experience the story in book format.
I watched the movie adaptation of Jurassic Park (and the two sequels) before I ever read the book, but I enjoyed both. (The novel is one of many pre-Goodreads books that I've never yet gotten around to reviewing here, though!) His Timeline is a good read as well, IMO.
Ordinarily, I don't do holiday-themed reading. But this year, I'm trying to be more proactive about pursuing series I've started; and although I've read a number of the books in Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad series, I've neglected it in recent years. So this time of year seemed like a good one for reading
, especially since it's short. I won't have a lot of time for reading for the next few days, but I actually was able to get a start on this one today.
I've read A Midsummer Night's Dream, and seen it performed twice, once by a college theater group and once professionally (as a part of the massive BBC and Time-Life Television joint production of every play in Shakespeare's entire corpus). For whatever it's worth, my three-star review is here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .
As our current "car book" (that is, a book Barb and I read out loud in the car when we're riding together --not a book about cars!), we started yesterday on the fifth book in Suzanne Arruda's Jade del Cameron series,
. These are historical mysteries set in colonial Africa just after World War I, and featuring one of our favorite fictional characters: former wartime ambulance driver turned photojournalist Jade, who has a Winchester rifle, a pet cheetah, a green-eyed stare that can face down most people, and more than her share of both guts and heart.
Most people, at least in the U.S., have seen or heard of the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th St., starring Edmund Gwenn as a department store Santa Claus who believes he's the real thing (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039628/ ); but the 1947 novelization by Valentine Davies, who also wrote the story the movie script was based on, isn't nearly as well known. (I had to add it to the Goodreads database yesterday!) But the BC library has a copy, so I decided to read it this month. It'll be a quick read; I started reading it yesterday, and expect to finish it tomorrow.
One of the members of another Goodreads group I belong to uses the name "martin eden" as her Internet handle, so it's not a great surprise that she's a big fan of Jack London, and particularly likes his autobiographical novel
. So I've started reading that one on her recommendation. I'm a long-time London fan (I discoverd The Call of the Wild as a kid), but this one and The Iron Heel are the only two of his major novels that I haven't read.
I'd recommend both The Call of the Wild and White Fang. They have a similar setting and subject matter, but they make an interesting contrast in story arc and thematic content. IMO, they really ought to be read together for a full understanding of where the author is coming from.
I promised my Goodreads friend Chandler Brett that his debut novel,
would be the first book I started reading in the new year, so I kept my word and started it this weekend. (Before, I was finishing up a book I'd started last month.) This isn't a review copy, however; it was a kind gift last year from another Goodreads friend, who often passes along books she's liked but doesn't expect to read again to friends. So far, I'm liking it!
"Like" would be an understatement... loved it!
My physical holding shelves for TBR books are absolutely full to capacity, with more intended for immediate attention piled on my desk at home --but I've got another book coming in the mail! (Long story.) So, room had to be made by selecting my current read from the TBR 
by Harry Turtledove. (This is a stand-alone novel, not part of his Timeline-191 series, and a different scenario, though the South wins the Civil War in both of them..)Alternate histories/worlds are a favorite sub-genre of mine, and Turtledove has pretty much been the crowned king of that branch of fiction for decades. So it's surprising --and inexcusable-- that I've never before read any of his work in this field! (I did read one of his short stories once, but in a totally different genre.) So this one has been on my to-read shelf, and regarded as an eventual must-read, for ages. I've read good things about it in friend's reviews, so I have high hopes for it.
I haven't read a Christie in ages! Though occasionally think I should.Currently reading Hidden, book #5 of the Alex Verus mage series.
Barb and I are continuing right along with our reading of Suzanne Arruda's Jade del Cameron historical mystery series, set in Africa in the years just after World War I, and have now started the sixth installment,
. (We actually started it over the past weekend, but things were hectic here at the time, and I got behind in my posting!)
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Hi Werner. I've searched my records but it seems that I haven't read _The Turn of the Screw_. However, I remember a similar suspense story in which there was a stain on a rug which they weren't able to remove. Does this ring a bell with you?