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[Reggia]

Charly wrote: ...if it weren't for goodreads I'd probably be reading things over and over.

LOL, this is one of the things I love about being Goodreads. It has made it so easy to keep track -- not only what I've read but my thoughts about it as well.

[Werner]

Well, Charly, I'm between novels right now, having just finished Scarlet yesterday, and with Tuck, the final volume of the trilogy, not yet arrived. In the meantime, I'm reading some more in Introduction to Fiction, which I have posted on my "being read intermittently" shelf. :-)

[[deleted user]]

Just finished all my Eileen Dreyer books. Very good.
Getting ready for trip to VA to see family. My mother not doing well, but she is 85 and has heart problems and pulmonary fibrosis (can't breathe). I'll be gone 7-17. Looking for a book suitable to take with me (small, one I won't mind losing!, etc.)

[Reggia]

Well, I am still reading Mansfield Park although I have several nonfiction reads that could also be described as "intermittent". LOL, here's what's in my to-be-read pile:

The Walk
The Passion of Mary-Margaret
Love in the Light of Cholera
The Metamorphosis

...and I laugh because I don't think they are going to get read anytime real soon...

...because here's what should be in my current reading pile for the two local book discussions that take place in October:

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Frankenstein

[[deleted user]]

Love Hiaasen. Have read most of his stuff. Found Laurie King on my book shelf. She writes like someone sends her mysterious manuscripts and prints them. Mary Russell is protagonist who ends up married to Sherlock Holmes!

[Werner]

Syra, I loved King's first Mary Russell novel, The Beekeeper's Apprentice. But I've never really wanted to read any of the sequels (I know that the two marry in the second book, The Monstrous Regiment of Women). For me personally, the idea of a married Holmes just does too much violence to Doyle's canonical portrait of the character!

[Reggia]

Charly wrote:

Reggia, isn't a to read shelf kind of like a dream shelf? The dreams are always there unless you put a time limit on them.

Yes, that is true! Who knows when I might get to those. My to-be-read pile, though, is a real stack of books (most from the library). I convince myself that I really can find the time for them, that it's a do-able feat -- but it ain't. ;-)

[[deleted user]]

They really act more like close friends, Werner. I'm on the 3rd one A Letter to Mary.

[Werner]

Glad you're enjoying the series, Syra! Let us know how you like A Letter to Mary.

[Reggia]

Don't usually have to worry about fines -- so long as I remember to renew.

Haven't finished Mansfield Park but must set it aside temporarily for Frankenstein, and also for Twain's fictional biography on Joan of Arc.

[[deleted user]]

My husband is a big Mark Twain fan. He rarely reads fiction (engineer) but likes history and science. He comes in handy when I don't understand something. But he can get irritating when he criticizes the authors for impossible events. Like Donald Westlake in the one where he put ping pong balls in the trunk of his car to rise out of the water. They were going to retrieve stolen stuff from town flooded for reservoir. He is hilarious and really good fun if you are in to that. Met him about 15? years ago at one of our writer's conferences and he was so giving and talking and didn't hide in his room like some do. And at that time he has 95 books out which made him really big time to me. Unfortunately, like too many of my favorite authors, he won't be doing any more writing. Sigh.

[Nicole]

Scientists often do have trouble suspending their disbelief, don't they? :-) But, like you said, they're good to have around when you need a fact check.
Reggia, I'll be interested in seeing your comments about Twain's Joan of Arc book. I confess I tried to read that last year, but it just wasn't grabbing me, so I set it aside indefinitely.

[Werner]

Yay! Tuck (mentioned above) finally came in via interlibrary loan, and I started it this morning. To refresh the memory of anybody who doesn't want to scroll back to August's posts, this is the third book in Stephen Lawhead's King Raven trilogy, an action- historical series that re-envisions the tale of Robin Hood. Here, it's set in the Welsh Marches in the late 1000s, and our Robin Hood figure ("Rhi Bran y Hud") is Welsh.

[Reggia]

Finished Frankenstein but had to miss the discussion. :-( This is getting me discouraged. I join these groups for socialization but something always gets in the way, usually work, this time though it was something worthy: my daughter's 20th birthday.

Now concentrating on Joan of Arc, haven't gotten very far and noticed today I was scheduled to work during this discussion, too. Trying to work up the courage to ask boss if I can leave early that day.

[Nicole]

A 20th birthday definitely trumps book club. Happy Birthday to your daughter!

I thought we had a topic in here about the last "classic" we read, but I can't find it. Oh, well. I just started reading A Study in Scarlet, my first literary foray into the world of Sherlock Holmes. The recent movie finally made me want to add Doyle to my list.

[Werner]

Callista, we do have that thread, but it doesn't show up very prominently on the group page, mainly because it hasn't had any activity since April. (I really want to read more classics --unfortunately, I also want to read more in about a dozen other categories, too!) Here's that link: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9... .

[Nicole]

Thanks, Werner. I guess I overlooked it. Should I jump-start it or let it languish?
BTW--I am enjoying Sherlock Holmes! It's different from what I expected.

[Werner]

Callista, I'd say you can jump-start that thread any time you finish reading a classic. (And I think that A Study in Scarlet would certainly qualify!) I hope to get back to posting on it myself sometime --when I have something new to post! A thread like that has continuing relevance, because of its subject matter; it could come alive after months or even years of being dormant. :-)

Being a Holmes fan, I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying your foray into that literary territory!

[Reggia]

Oops! I forgot about the classics thread. :o

The Sherlock Holmes movie also sparked my interest in the books, this, despite the fact I fell asleep before the ending. ;)

[Nicole]

! Fell asleep! ...You must've been tired.

Okay, Werner, when I finish reading the book, I'll post to the Classics thread...provided I have something worth sharing to say.

[Werner]

Sounds good, Callista!

[Nicole]

I have now moved on to The Hound of the Baskervilles.

[[deleted user]]

A Letter To Mary was very good and not what I expected. Half way thru The Moor. Picked up more authors to check out while in VA with my family, if I remember them.......

[Werner]

Having finished Eragon yesterday, Barb and I went on to start the second volume of the series, Eldest. (I'm reading it out loud to her.) We're both very impressed by Paolini's literary achievement in the first book --especially considering that he wrote it as a teenager. (Many adult authors don't write as well!)

[[deleted user]]

Still reading Portrait of Dorian Gray on Kindle, but also started Cross by James Patterson (Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider - loved Morgan Freeman in those or any movies.)

[Nicole]

Thanks for the info, Charly.
I didn't think the Langdon movies were very good, despite thinking, as I read the books, that they might be better as movies. The movie of Angels and Demons left out the most exciting part of the book!

[Werner]

Another Goodreads group I belong to, Supernatural Fiction Readers, is doing Norah Lofts' 1977 novel Gad's Hall as a common read this month. So, I started on that one last night.

[[deleted user]]

I used to love Norah Loft and read all her stuff years ago. Think I'll go back. Glad you mentioned her.

[Nicole]

Charly, you could post a review on your books page and put a spoiler warning on it to hide it from those who don't want to be spoiled.... :-)

I wonder why I'd never heard of Nora Lofts until I joined Goodreads...

I'm reading Side Jobs, a book of Harry Dresden (the urban wizard-P.I.) short stories and novellas. Fun stuff.

[Werner]

Callista, Lofts died in 1983. During her lifetime, her work was popular, but she never made it into the literary canon; and after she died, the book trade, being pretty much caught up in the cult of the new and the trendy, sort of forgot about her. So she's read today mostly by people who've happened to discover her books in the library or wherever, or who've learned about her from other readers by word of mouth. (And there's no better place for the latter than Goodreads!)

[Werner]

Last night, I started on a book that was recommended to me by one of my Goodreads friends: Death of a Citizen (1960), the first novel in Donald Hamilton's long-running Matt Helm series. Helm's an assassin for a super-secret U.S. security agency, and the series is noir-style espionage/action adventure. It's not my typical reading fare, but right now I want a relatively quick read, and I believe this book will be one.

[[deleted user]]

Didn't they do movies or tv or something with Dean Martin starring as Matt Helm in the 60s? I don't trust my memory.

[Werner]

Yes, Syra, they did, although I never watched any of them. My impression from what I've read is that they didn't make much attempt to follow the books (when Hollywood is involved, big surprise there --NOT! :-) ), and pretty much treated them as James Bond movies under a different name. (The same was apparently true of the Modesty Blaise movie made in the same era, and probably by the same gaggle of producers/writers.) From what I've already read in the book, I'm inclined to guess that Martin as Helm was about as felicitous a piece of casting as Pee-Wee Herman as Conan the Barbarian would have been. :-)

[Reggia]

I've been curious about Watership Down and the Poisonwood Bible for a long time now...

Started The Passion of Mary-Margaret, and a nonfiction book Plato Not Prozac

[[deleted user]]

Yes Werner, Hollywood is fun and entertainment in 2 hours or less and nothing dull or maybe real in them.
"Don't try this at home. Professional stunt person."
etc.
I finished Dorian Gray. Interesting how ppl talk when there is no TV to watch and are not afraid to express opinions without being shouted down or silenced.
Now reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo" on my kindle and a Susan Kay book (not Legacy) but the 2nd one. English history fiction.

[Werner]

Reggia, I've never read The Poisonwood Bible, but I have read Watership Down and really liked it. It's a book that Barb and I read together, and she really got into it, too; she actually had tears in her eyes at one point, and it takes very evocative writing to produce that reaction.

[Nicole]

I read Watership so long ago, I barely remember any of it...
Wet noodle for Charly and his rabbitly bad pun! ;)

[[deleted user]]

LOL I haven't read it. Guess I'll check it out.

[Werner]

I've now started At Chrighton Abbey and Other Horror Stories by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915). It should be another relatively quick read, since it has only five stories, and I've already read two of them in other anthologies.

[[deleted user]]

the name I couldn't remember was Phantom by Susan Kay.

[Nicole]

I've started reading an urban fantasy called Unclean Spirits. It's written by a local male author who's using an ambiguous pen name and writing in the 1st person POV of a female character. Does anyone else get overly analytical when they know the gender of the author is different from what one might expect?

[Werner]

Nah, Callista --my wife says my approach to reading is always overly analytical, so factors relating to the author's gender don't make much difference in that! :-)

[[deleted user]]

"A good story well written" how many times have I heard that over the years. And Rule #1 is There Are No Rules. Editors did not want any more kid wizards until Harry Potter came along. (Sorry I've worked with writers too long!) I also think unless you are doing it for a reason, being overly analytical can spoil the experience. Like my engineer husband who says "that can't work"

[Nicole]

Too much can spoil things, true; but I seem incapable of ignoring some things. ...BTW, I think the author successfully pulled off "sounding like a girl." :-)

[Werner]

Today, I started on Stephenie Meyer's The Host, a book my oldest daughter gave me earlier this year, and has been eager for me to read. Truth to tell, my eagerness hasn't been as great --the premise didn't seem like my usual cup of tea, and though Meyer is one of my favorite writers of supernatural fiction, some authors who do well in that genre or fantasy don't automatically do well in SF. But having read in the book for just an hour, I can say for sure that I'm hooked!

[Reggia]

Callista wrote:

Does anyone else get overly analytical when they know the gender of the author is different from what one might expect?

Perhaps. It depends on how good of a job the author is doing in portraying the character. Of course, I can only relate that in terms of a male author writing from a female perspective. If it's a credible portrayal, I'll be amazed at first and then forget about it. However, if he's not doing a convincing job then I may find myself being critical. In the latter case, I think of DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover or Trinity by Leon Uris.

[[deleted user]]

There are several romance hits that are written by men. And some men get their manuscripts back with a note "work on your female characters" (Norman Zollinger, western awardwinning writer for one).

[Rhonda]

I am extremely critical of female writers, usually for a good reason, especially when writing of men. I have come to believe that however they write their male characters, readers seem to question their portrayal less. I often wonder in my private moments if men can truly be as bizarre as they are portrayed and women be quite as predictable, constant faithful or simply monochromatic but I digress.
Men writing of women is a different story of course and I often find women in depth portrayed badly by male writers. Still it is much easier when things along the story line are changing and so are the characters It is better, of course, for someone to write from observation rather than soul searching and psychological investigation, by and large, simply because it is much less susceptible to error.

[Nicole]

Reggia wrote: ...in terms of a male author writing from a female perspective. If it's a credible portrayal, I'll be amazed at first and then forget about it.

Funny, but if I'm reading a series in which the male writer does an excellent job of portraying a female character, I get impressed over and over again.
He doesn't write in first person, but I find many of Terry Pratchett's female characters so believably female that I think he should be given an award just for that.

Rhonda wrote: I am extremely critical of female writers... especially when writing of men.

Really? I've been told so much that women can't begin to crack what's inside men's brains and my worldview seems so different than men's that I fuss only about female writers who throw in something so unbelievable that it just screams at me. Like Edward Cullen knowing what Freesia is and what it smells like. ;P

[Werner]

Of course, Edward's been around a lot longer than your average human male --and has a lot more acute senses, so probably appreciates smells more than most of us guys. :-) I certainly don't really know what Freesia is, and don't have a clue as to how it smells! (Okay, I know I shouldn't talk about a fictional character as if he were real!)