THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB discussion
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WHAT ARE YOU READING AND WHY!!
I'm currently reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. He combines his deep analysis of the animal kingdom with views of various key religions of the world and there are touches of humour throughout the narrative.
Mod
I heard many good reviews of
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Holy smokes Rick! I am still behind in the digital world. Although I sure purchased enough upgrades for my P.C. I was talking to a friend awhile back who mentioned when we were teens (early 80's) many of us thought perhaps vehicles would exist like landcruisers in starwars. None of us could foresee things like sharing pictures over the internet or what cell phones can do these days. I am sure you can relate. How long did it take for "Kindle" to pay for itself. No one I talked to ( I talk to many in public places since I am friendly) ever mentioned this. 1,500 books just blows my mind!
Mod
To Jill: It is great to hear from a few that enjoys history novels. I know more about British history than Canadian. From Sir Francis Drake, to the British titanic struggles with Napolean and King George the 5th to present day. The history of Britian is so interesting and as you know the empire owned most of the known world not so long ago. Definately a long standing empire that still is influential today.
Mod
recently purchased (Hardback)
Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed the World
by Roy Adkins
and
The War Of the Roses by Allison Weir
oh yeah, Trafalgar, may not have read the book by Roy Adkins but I will do a search and see. On my profile there are several involving British history, "The Battle of Jutland", "The Sinking of the Bismark", "The Guns of Navarone" (losely based on a true story) "The Battle for Britian" involving Spitfires and Hurricanes, "Alexander The Great" (the book mentions Britian at that time with details and "Sir Francis Drake" to name a few. My mother Felicity and her mother, Winnifred were born in Redding, Berkshire, England and related many stories of the beauty of England like the White Cliffs of Dover and the Isle of Wright. The beauty of the rolling hills of green, etc, and of course the yearly boat race between Cambridge and can not remember the other one.
I read a post by yours awhile back and I am wondering if it is the same book. I have a copy of "A-Z British Ghosts", a brand new hard cover edition. Sounds creepy so I will like it. One of those grey area books, I do believe in such things. There is a program about a famous ghost hunter that travels to many parts of Britian, many of the places he visits is old British castles. By the people who are with him and their reactions, looks real enough for me!
Mod
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK
The Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories (The Mammoth Book Series)
by Richard Dalby
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Brian wrote: "To Jill: It is great to hear from a few that enjoys history novels. I know more about British history than Canadian. From Sir Francis Drake, to the British titanic struggles with Napolean and King ..." Brian......you must read "Castles of Steel" by Robert Massie which tells the story of British sea power against Germany in WWI. It is one great book. But read "Dreadnought" first as it leads up to the beginning of the war.
Mod
Robert Kinloch Massie (born 1929) is an American historian, writer, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, and a Rhodes Scholar.
[edit:] Biography
Born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1929, Massie spent much of his youth in Nashville, Tennessee and currently resides in Westchester County, New York in the village of Irvington. He studied American history at Yale University and modern European history at Oxford University on his Rhodes Scholarship. Massie went to work as a journalist for Newsweek from 1959 to 1962 and then took a position at the Saturday Evening Post.
Before he and his family left America for France, Massie wrote and published his breakthrough book, Nicholas and Alexandra, a biography of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra of Hesse, and their family and cultural/political milieu. Massie's interest in the Tsar's family was triggered by the birth of his son, the Rev. Robert Kinloch Massie, who suffered from hemophilia, a hereditary disease that also afflicted the last Tsar's son, Alexei. In 1971, the book was the basis of an Academy Award winning film of the same title. In 1995, in his book The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Massie updated Nicholas and Alexandra with much newly-discovered information.
In 1975, Robert Massie and his then-wife Suzanne chronicled their experiences as the parents of a hemophiliac child and the significant differences between the American and French health-care systems in their jointly-written book, Journey.
Massie won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for Peter the Great: His Life and World. This book inspired a 1986 NBC mini-series that won three Emmy Awards, (Peter the Great (TV Series)) and starred Maximilian Schell, Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave.
Massie was the president of the Authors Guild from 1987 to 1991, and he still serves as an ex officio council member. [1:] While president of the Guild, he famously called on authors to boycott any store refusing to carry Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. [2:]
Robert Massie currently lives with his wife, Deborah Karl, and three children.
[edit:] Books by Massie
Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (Balantine Books, c2004) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-345-40878-0(also J. Cape, 2004, ISBN 0-224-04092-8)
Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War (Random House, c1991) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-52833-6 (also Ballantine Books, 1992, ISBN 0-345-37556-4)
Journey (Knopf, 1975) by Robert and Suzanne Massie, ISBN 0-394-49018-5
Last Courts of Europe: Royal Family Album, 1860-1914 (Vendome Press, 1981) introductory text by Robert K. Massie ; picture research and description by Jeffrey Finestone, ISBN 0-86565-015-2 (also Greenwich House/Crown Publishers, c1983, ISBN 0-517-41472-4)
Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia (Athenum, 1967) by Robert K. Massie, ASIN B000CGP8M2 (also, Ballantine Books, 2000, ISBN 0-345-43831-0 and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1-57912-433-X)
Peter the Great: His Life and World (Knopf, 1980) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-50032-6 (also Ballantine Books, 1981, ISBN 0-345-29806-3 and Wings Books, 1991, ISBN 0-517-06483-9)
The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (Random House, 1995) by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-394-58048-6 and ISBN 0-679-43572-7
There's an Old Southern Saying: The Wit and Wisdom of Dan May (Crabby Keys Press, 1993) compiled by William May Stern, foreword by Robert K. Massie, ISBN 0-9638911-0-3
Mod
The Collected Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson
That sounds like a really good book, Rick. I may just have to put that on my TBR list.
Mod
Turn-of-the-century gothic master Benson's ghost stories come together in one volume for the first time.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Available again, this collection brings together all of E. F. Benson’s masterfully frightening literary ghost stories. Ranking with the best chillers of M. R. James and Henry James are over fifty classics of the macabre. Benson’s graceful style unites these tales to create a thoroughly eerie atmosphere. E. F. Benson’s most popular works include Secret Lives and Mrs. Ames, in addition to his Mapp and Lucia novels. “The apparitions Benson creates never fail to chill and mesmerize — late-night reading fare, to be sure!” —Booklist
See all Editorial Reviews
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details
Paperback: 672 pages
It is!!! here is one review I found that sums it up
A reader serious about his/her love of the ghost story may have already encountered such greats as M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, or the wonderful Oliver Onions. You should immediately add E. F. Benson to your list of "absolute musts" to read and collect. His ghost stories, collected in a handsome volume published by Carroll & Graf, are wonderfully readable. In fact, there are more frights per page then in most modern horror stories. I will not single any story out, because one and all is worth your time and energy. I am confident that you will find many, many hours of entertainment and chills here. This is book that I was proud to buy and proud to share with my friends. You will not go wrong here! Happy reading!
Great Rick; I will make a note of both books. A subject I have been interested in reading for decades. I read many books on the Bermuda Triangle for that reason in the later part of the 70's. Most of them by Charles Berlitz, since then though, many of the disappearances can be explained like the five Hellcats that departed in 1948 and never to return. When the space shuttle exploded and they searched for wreckage, they found one of the aircraft. The navigator's plane. After the correct story was pieced together. Ghosts and hauntings have been reported for centuries. I have not read specifically only about Dreadnoughts but know much about them. They had success and failure in WW2. The "Hood" was a Dreadnought. One reason that few point out of the many blunders made by Germany (mainly Hitler) is committing so much steel in making of both the Bismark and it's twin the Tirpitz..think of how many aircraft or tanks could have been built. Then again, maybe not too much thought. The Battle of Jutland was not an English victory, more ships were lost and tonage than the German navy due to the captains brilliant tactic of spewing out a heavy smoke screen to turn his ships around so their forward turrets would be in a position to attack. Without that brilliant move it could have been a slaughter. Again the two books you suggested would be much better.
Okay, now I will add two ghost genre books (actually three, another via recommendation from a goodreads member) and two history books. Sounds great!
My small contribution to the British fleet was remember by a book report I did in Grade 9. Of course, one encounter is not a good reflection on the mighty British fleet. It is my belief that both navies never meet again since the smoke screen prevented disaster. The German navy had no desire for another confrontation. The Britsh navy made significant contributions from the 1600's to present. Either through discovering unknown lands, trading or wartime (when they held their own). No doubt a rich tradition. I really liked your post on Robert Massie. I find that good historians are very excellent writers and researchers and many of them learned their profession in universities in world renown places like Oxford, Harvard, etc. Enjoyed the info., another addition for my file. My file is sure beginning to get heavy. Learning about such authors is fun for me!
Mod
Brian,
both Massie and Allison Weir have written excellant books on English Histoy- they are geared to the general public- so they are very interesting- and many are available in Most libraries. For American Hostory I recommend Stephen Ambrose and HW Brands.
Thanks again Rick. It seems you have take a personal interest in me judging by all the help and websites you so kindly provided! Yes, of all countries I know the most of Great Britian. It is fascinating to me, their culture, traditions, etc. I will add those names Massie, Allison Weir and Stephen Ambrose ( I have heard of him. probably read some of his books.) A distinctive name! If you have viewed my profile and the books I have listed so far, you would see there is no distinct pattern. I like diversity. I have my hands full with "The Game of Thrones", excellent! Usually a book like "Poor Miss Finch" containing about 400 pages would be read in three days. I certainly appreciated all the websites you provided and I wrote down. Unless one knows exactly what they are looking for, the internet can be a jungle as I found out trying so many sites for a good one on pentatonic scales. Next I will ask you opinion of a very good historian, last name Stanely.
That would be George F.G. Stanley. He was asked to write a book on the Canadian/U.S. war of 1812-14. He tirelessly researched many archives to write an excellent factual account. He too, was (I think) a professor at Oxford with many distinguished acculades to his credit!
Right now I'm reading John Lennon's "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works."Why? Umm...Beatles fan from waaaay back, never got around to reading his stuff the first time around, and interested in "nonsense" writing.
Rick wrote: "Brian wrote: "Okay, now I will add two ghost genre books (actually three, another via recommendation from a goodreads member) and two history books. Sounds great!"Brian,
both Massie and Alliso..." Hey guys.....I would also add Halberstam to the list of American historians. "The Coldest Winter" his last book before his untimely death, offers fantastic insight into the Korean War. All his works are worth reading.
Mod
Brian,
both Mass..."
very much agree Jill
I met David Halberstam in a NYC Bookstore years ago-browsing books- went over to him- he was very nice
so tragic-his death
Great suggestion Jill, have to add that one too. I would most certainly enjoy the book. There is a wealth of very good history authors as much as any other genre.
everyone must read THE THIRTEENTH TALE BY DIANE SETTERFIELD. It's a great page turner!!Rick, it mentions in the book several times THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins!!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...the novel also has a chapter on this painting, which i love. huge dickens fan. another reason to read DROOD BY DAN SIMMONS.
i just finished the 13th TALE tonight. GAVE IT 5 STARS. folks,seriously, you must read it!
I just finished Blink (finally) and am now reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, because I have always wanted to read it. I snuck it into a couple of my challenges to make sure I read it this year.
Mod
Rick, it mentions in the book several times THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins!!"
will for sure put iton my TBR listGary
Will put iton our Group Bookshelf for other members to check out
thanks!
Love Lewis Carroll -Cat- hiswriting- tho many feel is for children- hides a very cynical and devious nature in it- at least thats what I found!
Alice is definately written on two levels. children's,and adults. it's a very interesting look at political morales of england when carroll wrote it. I would love to see the little shop where the real Alice bought candy. It's now a coffee shop/ gift shop. I bought a copy of the book for both myself,and my son from this shop, because Carroll walked those streets,and into that shop. His place where he actually had an apartment, & he taught mathematics is in the Oxford building used for the model for the dininghall at hogwarts for the potter movies.
Gary wrote: "i just finished the 13th TALE tonight. GAVE IT 5 STARS. folks,seriously, you must read it!"I agree with you Gary, I loved it!
I'm just starting Persuasion by Jane Austen. I haven't read this one yet but I'm told that since I love Pride and Prejudice so much and I will love this one as well. Also, I finished Odd Thomas and liked it. I will try the next one in the series. It did get darker than I was expecting.
I finished The Black Ice by Michael Connelly and like this one better than the first because I didn't see the end coming. All my guesses were wrong on this one and I like that in a mystery.
Mod
Also, I finished Odd Thom..."
love the Harry B books by connelly- Trunk Music was great too and The Ice Blonde
Mod
here is the shop, folks. check it out!"
LOVE THE WEBSITE GARY!!! THANKS
Castles of Steel and Dreadnought are exactly my favorite type of book to read. How do you manage to have the time to read so much?
Edgar Allan Poe's birthday , 201th is tomorrow, January, 19th!
Hi Rick; this is tough one. It is a science fiction book, an excellent one, that I can only identify by the cover. I searched through many rows of books to find it with no luck. It has a damaged spacecraft on the cover. In the book they sent out this spacecraft beyond the alliance. One hundred years later it returned heavily damanged, it's pilot somehow integrated himself in the spacecraft itself.The original pilot went mad and can only relate gibberish, apparently French-Canadian. To find out where it went and the universes it travelled, they picked two pilots. The command of the fleet conducted several conversion experiments so the two pilots can leave their bodies and become one with a repaired version of the spacecraft. What a journey they went on, incredible book! any ideas?
Mod
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Under My Roof by Nick Mamatas
Hm - just your typical coming-of-age story. Assuming "typical" means a telepathic 12-year-old, with a father who built a homebrew nuke and seceded his house from the USA. Funny, with lots of quirky stuff - the ending kind of crashes for me, and I'm not on board with the breezy dispensing with little things like God and free-will. But it has lots of interesting satire of our current world with this near-future tale of an America at war in 40 different countries (Canada: "the White Menace") and the micronation trend that Weinbergia starts.
posted by Joel at 3:59 PM
Has anyone read "Earth Abides" by George Stewart? What an absorbing tale in the "end of the world" genre. I think it was written in the 1930s or 40s and was presented on the radio around that time causing quite a stir. I would recommend it to all of you who enjoy that theme..........it kept me fascinated and is a page-turner.
I've just started
. This is the third book in a historical mystery series set in the reign of Henry VIII. It is a true historical novel; not romantic novel. I'm reading it because the author writes a good historical novel and a good mystery novel. He gets the history right. The puzzle is fun.
Brand new release, Her Majesty The King by Patricia L O'Neill, is set in ancient Egypt during the reign of the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut. If you like well researched historical fiction look out for this one.Cheers
Carole
Remembering this one I just had to chuckle. In Grade 8, the teacher asked every student to pick a poem and memorize it with a minimum of 20 lines (four or five stanzas). Every student picked an easy one except me. I choose a 30 stanza poem by Edgar Allen Poe for the challenge. When it was my turn to recite the teacher gave me an odd look. Well, I recited the first 28 and missed a few lines of the last two. He asked after "Why in the world did you pick something so hard". I answered " I wanted to try something hard". He said "You sure did and even though you struggled with the last two verses, I will give you an A". He said,"It is standard for me to do this every year but it has been years since any student chose a poem so difficult to memorize".
Carole wrote: "Brand new release, Her Majesty The King by Patricia L O'Neill, is set in ancient Egypt during the reign of the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut. If you like well researched historical fiction look out for..."Interesting, but Amazon.com hasn't heard of a book by that title or the author. Is it possible that it was only published in Great Britain and isn't even on the list for an American publication?
It has, literally, been half a century since I've seen readable historical fiction about Ancient Egypt. I'd have liked to have found that book.
Hi Jill: I am interested! How would you compare it to 1984? If I am not mistaken are you not a history buff? There are not many on goodreads. I would like to invite you to be a goodreads friend. Many of your posts captured my attention. My love of history began young. Events that impacted our world the most is through significant historical changes. I am like W5 whereas those are the questions I want answers to. Curiousity is the the biggest of all factors.
I'm reading "The Children of Henry VIII" by Alison Weir, and I'm on-and-off reading "Foundations of Astronomy" (a textbook w/program CD). Recently finished a Harry Potter fan fic piece, "James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing."
Mod
never read it Jill- soundslike a great read
here is some info I found
Earth Abides, a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart, tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood (Ish) Williams, Emma, and the community they founded. The survivors live off the remains of the old world, while learning to adapt to the new. Along the way they are forced to make tough decisions and choose what kind of civilization they will rebuild.
Earth Abides won the inaugural International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was included in Locus Magazine's list of best All Time Science Fiction in 1987 and 1998[2:] and was a nominee to be entered into the Prometheus Hall Of Fame.[3:] In November 1950, it was adapted for the CBS radio program Escape as a two-part drama starring John Dehner.
The book earned much praise from James Sallis, writing in the Boston Globe:
This is a book, mind you, that I'd place not only among the greatest science fiction but among our very best novels. Each time I read it, I'm profoundly affected, affected in a way only the greatest art — Ulysses, Matisse or Beethoven symphonies, say — affects me. Epic in sweep, centering on the person of Isherwood Williams, Earth Abides proves a kind of antihistory, relating the story of humankind backwards, from ever-more-abstract civilization to stone-age primitivism. Everything passes — everything. Writers' reputations. The ripe experience of a book in which we find ourselves immersed. Star systems, worlds, states, individual lives. Humankind. Few of us get to read our own eulogies, but here is mankind's. Making Earth Abides a novel for which words like elegiac and transcendent come easily to mind, a novel bearing, in critic Adam-Troy Castro's words, "a great dark beauty."[4:]
Mod
havent read that one by Weir- but read her book THE WAR OF THE ROSES- she really is a great historian of Olde England!
Mod
hard to find book!
Her majesty the king / Patricia L. O'Neill.
by O'Neill, Patricia L.
Chatswood, N.S.W. : New Holland, 2010.
Subjects Hatshepsut, Queen of Egypt.
Egypt -- Kings and rulers -- Fiction.
ISBN: 9781921517082 (pbk.)
Summary: The story of Hatshepsut's turbulent path to the throne. The gifted and beautiful daughter of the Pharaoh battles bigotry, heartbreak and betrayal in the glittering but treacherous world of New Kingdom Egypt.
Description: 302 p. : map ; 24 cm.
HER MAJESTY THE KING
by
Patricia L. O’Neill
Summary
A tale of kings and queens, a bloodstained struggle for the throne and
forbidden love…
When power was absolute and life was short…
A young woman was destined to rule the world’s first empire.
Hatshepsut, the gifted and beautiful daughter of the Pharaoh, vows to accept whatever
fate the gods have decreed for her. When just fourteen, she kills a marauder, is
betrothed to her loathsome brother and becomes the most powerful priestess in Egypt.
She falls in love with Senenmut, the brilliant commoner who is torn between his
yearning for Hatshepsut and his duty to protect her. When her father dies, Hatshepsut
must make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of Egypt.
Her Majesty the King is the story of Hatshepsut’s turbulent path to the throne. She
battles bigotry, heartbreak and betrayal in the glittering but treacherous world of
Egypt’s royal court. Hatshepsut and Senenmut’s forbidden passion is one of history’s
greatest untold love stories. In a novel based on real people and events, author Patricia
L. O’Neill cracks the mystery of the female Pharaoh’s rise to power with painstaking
research using the original ancient sources. Her Majesty the King is a triumphant
blend of historical fact and heart-stopping emotion—historical fiction that will draw
you in and hold you spellbound.
Her Majesty the King won the 2008 NSW Writers’ Centre & New Holland
Publishers Award for Genre Fiction.
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THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB
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