Bookworms...What are You Reading?

geekbride · Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Ventura, Ca

i'm reading the v.c. andrews "flowers in the attic" series. it's summer! i'm not in grad school. i need to let my mind atrophy a bit.
still (averting her eyes) so ashamed.
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mystril · Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:06 pm Post subject:

I'm reading FLuke by Christopher Moore right now...and it's hilarious. Actually my cats like to hang out near me while I'm reading it. I think they are dreaming about eating the whales...because they're all ambitious like that. (I also recommend all of Moore's other books because he's brilliant and odd.)

I just finished reading The Briar King by Greg Keyes, which was very good, except that it is a trilogy and the other two books aren't out yet and I want more! more! more!

I read Coraline a while back and I liked it, but I like American Gods and Neverwhere more.

jangrl · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 103

i am on a crazy neil gaiman kick lately. i've finished american gods , coraline (neil signed my copy!) and stardust and now i'm reading neverwhere.

edited to add: coraline is a great book and a fast read since it's written for children. it's dark in tone but it was more a fairy-tale than a horror book. i finished it in a few hours (and i'm a slow reader) and enjoyed it immensely.

jangrl

za-za · Joined: 26 Apr 2004 Posts: 17

I am currently reading:

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander

It is awesome and amazing and just mind-blowing. Not to mention pretty deep. I've never been a huge fan of television, but after reading the first couple chapters I didn't watch t.v. for several weeks and he is so dead on with his observations and it was written in the late 70's! It has already changed my life and I haven't finished it.

Here's the link on amazon if anyone is interested:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/06
88082742/002-1659048-8213637?v=glance

Guest · Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:58 pm Post subject:

Just about halfway through "Good Girls Do Swallow" by Rachael Oakes Ash, basically an account of her eating disorders from the age of 17 to 21. Sounds depressing as hell and in a way it is (picking food off plates when a waitress, getting food out of the bins to binge) but it's also very funny, and hopeful as well as critical of the factors that lead women to have such obsessive relationships with food.

After this I'll probably try reading Star of the Sea again, but the print is pretty small, which puts me off, I'd rather it was a size I could read without squinting and a thicker book.

geek_chick · Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 15 Location: New Hampshire

I just finished East of Eden, by Steinbeck, which I thought was completely amazing. My uncle made me read it because it is his fave book. Last night I started The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. So far it is good, but if I hadn't read all of Jane Austen's books it might not make as much sense. Still good though.

sincerelyme · Joined: 06 Jul 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Kansas

I'm reading Devil in the White City, too. I have gotten sidetracked, though. The architecture is secondary for me, I like the historical true crime aspect, myself.

I've been sidetracked by Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. It's a YA environmental adventure set in Florida (of course).

Next on my bedside table is the latest Harry Potter. I can't wait to start that. They are such fun reads and I like the way it's getting a bit darker as he grows older. So true to life. Ha!
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moon_lemming · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 625 Location: virginia

I just finished, over vacation, The True History . . . , Dry, and The Time Traveler's Wife. My fave was The Time Traveler's Wife, a story about a man who time travels involuntarily and his wife, whom he visits throughout her life; I just made it sound really lame, but it was great, and will be even better once I re-read it. Somebody either recommended it here or in the Favorite Book thread (I'm busy doing catch-up stuff at work or I'd figure it out).

Dry was by Augusten Burroughs -- the story of his relationship with alcohol. I like Running with Scissors better, but Dry was interesting enough for me to sneak into the bathroom after the kids were asleep to finish it off.

The True History of the Kelly Gang was worth all the time I've spent trying to finish it, but I probly won't re-read it. I did learn a lot, though.

I picked up a book about a guy who's reincarnated as a typewriting monkey, but I can't remember the name of it . . . something about rain or sky. That's probably the one next on the list if I ever finish the magazines that built up while we were gone.

Martita · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 30

My bookclub book this month is The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks. So after finishing that piece of doodoo I had to cleanse the palatte with Louise Dickinson Rich's We Took to the Woods, which is all about the area where I honeymooned.

Now I am reading I Capture the Castle, thanks to some discussion on the old glitter more than a year ago.

brightcorner · Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 65 Location: SF bay area

While hanging out waiting for a connection in an airport I picked up a copy of Donna Tartt's The Little Friend because I liked the cover art (why am I such a sucker for cover art??) and it is actually really good. But dark, dark, dark. One of those novels set in the South with all these stock Southern characters (previously weathy white ladies fallen on lean times, soulful black caretaker nanny, nasty redneck lads, freaked out snake handler, etc etc) yet the quality of the writing and the dark dank underbelly save it for me.

But hey - I've never been south of Virginia. Is everyone down there really like that? Either black and soulful or white and A) a redneck B) alcoholic C) an Evangelist D) a faded former debutant or E) all of the above... I think pop fiction is giving yall a bad rap.
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soapandwater · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 945

I adored The Little Friend! I think that for that time period, the sort of stereotypes were accurate.

And even now, they're accurate. Then there's people like me, who don't really fit in with anything about the South, other than an obsessive love for sweet tea and saying "mah" isntead of "my". It's a complex subject, but I thought that book was realistic and great and superwonderful.
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felt · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 236 Location: New York City

Just finished Oryx and Crake, just started Brick Lane.

alterego · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 60 Location: New Haven, CT

brightcorner · Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 65 Location: SF bay area

soapandwater · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 945

For the particular time period, the book rings true. And today, I still see the etchings of a South still deeply classist, racist, etc. You know, I still see the rich white drunks, the fanatical evangelism. It's just now some of the cities are more urban and whatnot. But Georgia is way better off than Alabama, you see, starting with its public school systems and all that, and I think Alabama is way better off than Mississippi, but maybe not that much.

I'm really critical of southern portrayals, but I did love The Little Friend. I just thought that the characters, although familiar, definitely had a fresh twist on them. I liked it better than her other book, which I could NOT get through.
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When you got a hundred voices singin',
who can hear a lousy whistle blow?