THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB discussion
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WHAT ARE YOU READING AND WHY!!
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Marialyce
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Dec 24, 2010 05:27AM
....and to you too! Carmel. Have a wonderful Christmas Eve everyone!
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Richard Doetsch is right up there with James Rollins and Steve Berry- an amazing thriller and history lesson on ancient Istanbul- love it!!!
I am reading Shadowfires by Dean Koontz. I am reading it because I like a triumph over the impossible and also because Koontz scares me. I like the way he writes - he puts you as an observer - knowing what everyone is thinking and doing during a wild ride of fear and emotional catastrophe. You wonder how it's all going to end - and Koontz keeps complicating it with each chapter. I've read mostly all of his books. For a first read, I'd recommend Tick Tock.
I just finished an The Bishop by Stephen James. I Found this crime series by accident and have fallen in love with the the main character and his struggling relationship he is trying to build up with his stepdaughter.
Jaleh wrote: "I'm currently reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. It was suggested to me by a friend, and so far I enjoy it. I read 19 Minutes this past summer and so far, I am enjoying..."i liked this book but by far Wally Lambs best book is I Know This Much Is True. What an amazing story, I couldn't put it down. I have read it three times.
I just started Looking for Mr Goodbar. After seeing the movie recently, I've been wanting to read it. The heroine has a curvature of the spine, scoliosis, from which I also suffered as a teenager, and I have recently been thinking about how my "disfigurement" affected me during my coming-of-age....Ex Lit Prof
www.the-reading-list.com
Fred wrote: "Jaleh wrote: "I'm currently reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. It was suggested to me by a friend, and so far I enjoy it. I read 19 Minutes this past summer and so far,..."I'll have to check that one out. I want to read She's Come Undone also. I've heard great things about all of Lamb's books.
His book, I Know This Much to be True, was fascinating. It explored the relationship of twins. I highly recommend it.
Janice wrote: "His book, I Know This Much to be True, was fascinating. It explored the relationship of twins. I highly recommend it."A friend of mine is a twin, but his twin died shortly after birth. He still dreams about his twin and dreams he is holding his hand when he wakes up.
That is a powerful dream. The closeness in the womb must have an effect on him - missing his brother. Thanks for that story.
"Pictures of You" by Caroline Leavitt. She was my teacher for 3 courses at UCLA. I love her new book.
Im reading Mattimeo (Redwall, #3) by Brian Jacques
I just finished the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare and picked up Stork at the library. Usually I am reading more than one at a time, but right now, that's all I'm reading.
I just startedFirst They Killed My Father. It's the memoirs of a survivor of Khmer Rouge Cambodia.I met a Cambodian survivor of this horrifying period of recent history and wanted to learn more.
I am reading A Canterbury Crime by a fellow author - he reads mine and I read his. It's a very elegant slim volume that is bigger inside than out, like a Tardis! What he gets absolutely right is the location - and I am into locations that are authentic in mysteries and thrillers. In the Da Vinci Code, for example, a few inaccuracies about the Louvre museum make the reader who has been there scratch their head.
When I write, I use places I've been to. Brian Kavanagh, in A Canterbury Crime, has definitely been in Canterbury cathedral... the part I am reading now is chilling. A snoopy antiques valuer jumps out of her skin down in the crypt.
Poe's The Raven is not as dark as it is maudlin. It straddles the stool of loneliness and the chair of depair with the personification of obsession in a strange haunting.
Hi Rosanne,I'm surprised you , or anyone managed to find any inaccuracies in the Da Vinci Code. It has to be my least favourite book of all time! Over hyped and over rated! It didn't sell a fraction of the numbers claimed at the time. I tried to read it several times and usually fell asleep after a few pages, if you can stand to read it closely there are also a lot of typos in it! Still each to their own. It would be a dull place if we all liked the same thing.
I too use locations I know, although I will admit to a little licence. The site of the 'incident' in the foreword of 'The Day the Ravens Died' has changed a bit, the row of shops has been replaced with a new slip road for Kingsbury off the north cicular road since I had the original idea. Shows how long the idea had been kicking around in my head before I used it!
As an action thriller I dare put 'The Day the Ravens Died' beside ANYONES! I will happily concede my earlier efforts need some more work, even re-writes. If you like 'locations' then I think you might like this one.
All the best Paul Rix [oldgeezer]
AKA Timothy Pilgrim.
Carmel wrote: "Jenny wrote: "I just finished the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare .."So Wendy what did you think of the series?"
If you mean me :) - I really enjoyed the books. Fresh, entertaining characters and plot, and I thought each book improved, which is usually difficult with a series. I am looking forward to reading more of her books.
Timothy: I read it twice. And I found a great number of inaccuracies, some of which were indeed typos, as you point out. Few books published today are perfect, by the way, but some books leave the reader wishing for more attention by the line editor, who often lets the author down.With all this, I found The Da Vinci Code a good enough read, and I do understand - although it is certainly not among my favourites - how it gained its renown. It is a memorable book (not only for its failings, but also for its ability to create debate and argument among readers, scholars and other writers) and I am glad for its existence if only because it started a kind of genre: art history mysteries in which an alternative biblical explanation is made, or where some actual historic point is seen to be debunked or replaced by some other myth.
It is the genre that loosely contains my forthcoming thriller According to Luke.
Rosanne wrote: "Timothy: I read it twice. And I found a great number of inaccuracies, some of which were indeed typos, as you point out. Few books published today are perfect, by the way, but some books leave the ..."My big objection to this book is that the author was so mercenary and "unartistic" about his goals. I remember an interview that he gave and he sounded so smug and arrogant about how easy it was to write a best seller- that there is a formula and he simply followed it. So, I've never read it because I instantly developed this intense loathing of him based on that one interview. I actually have two copies of the book sitting on my bookshelf- people kept pressing this book on me when they discovered I haven't read it. Don't know who gave them to me and they've never asked for them back.
I read it, but it seemed to be tough going. Took me forever to read & I heard that complaint from others. I found Angels & Demons much more interesting.
I just finished Livia J. Washburn's "The Pumpkin Muffin Murder" which is the second cozy mystery I've read by this author. Like the first one I read ("A Peach of a Murder"), this is one of my favorite cozy series because the heroine is a retired school teacher (just like me!) and her take on the world is so much like mine. Of course, I don't find dead bodies with any regularity as does Phyllis, but I hope that if I did, I'd handle it with the same panache as she does.
I am read Daddy's Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark. I used to read Mary Higgins Clark but got off track by expanding to new authors. There are so many how can we stick to just one. It is like eating chocolate, so many choices!!!
Patricia wrote: "I just finished Livia J. Washburn's "The Pumpkin Muffin Murder" which is the second cozy mystery I've read by this author. Like the first one I read ("A Peach of a Murder"), this is one of my favo..."If you read her mystery, Murder by the Slice, you will be very tempted to try the Pumpkin cake. You bake the cake in two mixing bowls and piece them together to make a jack-o-lantern. Do not use her instructions to tint the frosting. They are WRONG!!! You will make yourself nuts, if you try it, just buy the green and orange food coloring that's always on sale during Halloween. Don't try to do it using red/yellow, blue/yellow- instructions are wrong.
Mod
been reading Victorian Ghost Stories, EF Benson, MR James ect- along with lots of tea- brrrrr!!
This southerner is soooo tired of cold & snow!! Tea is good, as is hot chocolate ... sit inside with a cup & a good book and have a view of the beauty of the snow!
I came South to escape the snow. And what do we get? More snow. We just got finished cleaning off the cars and the driveway. Hopefully it will warm up before I have to drive back North.
'Aint it the truth.....it's snowing here in Dixie and it just keeps piling up. It is a good day to snuggle up with a good book and watch it snow.
Should I tell you that we've been having a lovely day here in Northern California? It was sunny this morning and warmer than yesterday. Now the Bay Area fog has rolled in and it's a touch colder, but it's still balmy compared to what people are dealing with back East.OTOH, I'm reading about people starving to death in Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
Mod
forget Horace Greeley "Go South, Young Man, Go South" :>)
We are sweltering in 40 degree heat here in Perth, Western Australia. That's 104 degrees F for you guys who reckon it that way. Unbearable and quite horrible, so I would swap any day with snow.Perth is consistently the hottest Australian city, summer after summer, and it can be quite draining to have a week or two of these temperatures. Try roasting a turkey in that! I did it, and it was delicious, but we desperately needed a dip in the pool afterwards.
Then we all went back to our books and a nice siesta.
Mod
Per..."
wow!!!! a swim, a book and a Siesta! 104 degrees...hmmm- need to turn the heat down in house just reading that!
Well I am on top of Cedar Mountain, NC with about 8 inches of snow, winds kicking about 15 mph, and the temp is about 18. Three boys that have not stay outside long enough to get any peace and quiet. Almost bed time for them and read time for me. :=)
In Australia at the moment, and half the country is flooded, merry christmas.I am reading Watership Down. And I have to say, the Rabbits are kicking arse.
Rhonda wrote: "Well I am on top of Cedar Mountain, NC with about 8 inches of snow, winds kicking about 15 mph, and the temp is about 18. Three boys that have not stay outside long enough to get any peace and quie..."I live in Buffalo and it's colder where you are than us. 20 degrees here!
My husband sent me a poem that I think all of you will like:
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard/hair by the time I read them.
I think we book lovers can all agree!
I am in Vic too :), it is insane, usually I am plastering on the sun screen, not wrapped up inside. One minute we have drought the next the east coast is under water. Insane.
Yes, I feel for the guys experiencing floods right now - here in WA we have weird rainfall happening in Carnarvon, where people are being rescued off their roofs.I have lived in Melbourne and long for that climate once more. After retirement perhaps. I'm an Autumn-type, so anything over 28C has me in a dull kind of panic.
I am reading Purge and I love it so far. I am only about 40 pages into it but I have already learned more about Estonia and Finland than I ever thought I would. It is a winner of The Nordic Council Literature Prize and The Finlandia Award. It has just been translated into English and is now in the process of translation in 25 countries. It was recommended by a Goodreads member and I'm glad I payed attention. I love reading about other cultures than mine!
Rick wrote: "close to a foot of snow on ground now,,,,my oh my -how it all comes back to me why I moved Southforget Horace Greeley "Go South, Young Man, Go South" :>)"
I live on the East Coast (NYC) and we are being pummeled with snow right now. Our first real snow storm of the season!
I'm currently reading: The Accidental Billionaires. I saw the "Social Network" movie and was interested in learning a bit more.
Judith wrote: "Rhonda wrote: "Well I am on top of Cedar Mountain, NC with about 8 inches of snow, winds kicking about 15 mph, and the temp is about 18. Three boys that have not stay outside long enough to get any..."I love the poem!!!
Shay wrote: "My big objection to this book is that the author was so mercenary and "unartistic" about his goals. I remember an interview that he gave and he sounded so smug and arrogant about how easy it was to write a best seller- that there is a formula and he simply followed it..."I know the interview of which you speak, and I think his remarks were taken a bit out of context. The DaVinci Code was not Dan Brown's first novel. He had at least two or three books published before it, so it's not like he woke up one morning deciding to get rich, went out and purchased a "How to Write a Novel" book, followed it slavishly, and popped out a best-seller. There is a formula to writing popular fiction, but it still requires a good story and engaging characters.
I've read the book and found it an engaging tale, and certainly better written than a lot of the popular fiction out there - I can't get through a James Patterson novel. I think the book gets a bad rap because people want it to be "true" and it's clearly fiction. And the fact that it was a huge best seller seems to make people hold it to a much higher standard than a lot of fiction out there.
I didn't expect great literature when I read it, just like I don't expect great literature when I read a Laurel K. Hamilton book. Trying to hold it to a literature standard is an unrealistic expectation of a pulp thriller.
I am starting The Great Gatsby today after finishing The Dead Secret. Lots of time to read today as we are deluged with snow. At least 18 inches has fallen. We can hardly get out the front door! Super glad we bought that new snow blower! Be safe everyone!
I agree, Shay - and in any case, only time can decide what's literature and what's not - novels are entertainment, even the ones labeled 'literary fiction'. One cannot write literature, just as one cannot find ripe tomatoes on a seedling plant: it becomes literature with the passing of time and the gaining of weight, cultural significance and approval. Novel writing is not necessarily artistic.
18 inches!! Yikes!! I've been reading so much the last 2 days. Probably won't read as much today as I do want to do some cleaning. And will take my son to league bowling tonight. I hope our snow is done ... we got about 4 inches ... enough to make everything beautiful.
Rosanne wrote: "I agree, Shay - and in any case, only time can decide what's literature and what's not - novels are entertainment, even the ones labeled 'literary fiction'. One cannot write literature, just as one..."I think what really offended me as that it almost seemed as if he decided to insult and mock the religious beliefs of millions of people and then shrugged it off as "good publicity". I seem to recall he said something to that effect in an interview.
Mod
I really enjoyed Angels&Demons- but I also have about 3 copies of Davinci Code- all unread as well as sequel- I got them from 25 cent library sale- not sure if I will read them....I really am not one to read "pop" fad books
Vince Flynn, Brad Thor and David Balducci are excempt- love them!!
Mod
what a terrific poem!!!!!!!!!
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THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB
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