What are you reading the week of April 15, 2012?

[DUgosh]

The Curse of Senmut by Loretta Jackson - Ardis Cole book # 1

2012 Book # 63

[Onceuponalife]

1. Berman, Cook, Weis & Hickman

Recently finished Bear Daughter by Judith Berman. Fantasy influenced by Native American myth. Author Berman is an anthropologist, I understand, so this is fitting subject matter.

Now reading the first book of the Black Company series by Glen Cook. Not bad at all considering I really didn't care for Cook's more recent The Tyranny of the Night.

Next up: The Bones of the Dragon, which is the first book in Margaret Weis' and Tracy Hickman's new non-Dragonlance trilogy.

[getting old in mke]

2. _True Blue_ by David Baldacci

Takes place in DC, of course, but not a Camel Club or Sean/Michelle series book. Only a few pages in--started late last night.

[YankeyMCC]

3. Finished "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane and now

reading "Chance" by Joseph Conrad

[pscot]

4. Heretic by Bernard Cornwell

This is the 3rd of a trilogy. The Archer is the 1st. Cornwell tends to rely on some fairly hackneyed tropes, but he's such a marvelous story teller, that it doesn't matter. The protagonist is the bastard offsppring of a landed family persecuted by the Inquisition at the time of the cathar heresy. This book might be offensive to someone who takes their Catholicism seriously.

[Zoigal]

5. Checking out samples of several Ian Rankin's

mysteries to see which one to start first.....z

[dimbear]

6. Jeremiah Stefan Zweig

Last edited Thu Apr 19, 2012, 07:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Everything by Zweig seems to be worth reading, little of it is available on the net.

His tragic life has quite an echo in Jeremiah, it's easy to see fate scheming against them both.

A retelling of the Biblical story but with clear overtones of the German situation in the times just after World War I.

At Gutenberg.

And I'm dipping into Oppenheim, indulging my taste for golden age detective stories. Oppenheim wrote so much and only some is good. Anyone have recs? "The Great Impersonation" was my latest.

ed:sp

[fadedrose]

7. BANGKOK 8 (2002) by John Burdett

First book in the series about Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a police detective in Bangkok, Thailand:

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/B_Authors/Burdett_John.html



Book 34 of 2012

[argyl]

9. Stumbled upon your response to my post. Still a bit shaky with DU3.

Good to see you're starting with the first entry of Burdett's excellent Bangkok series because if this one grabs you you'll have to read them all.

As for "Vulture Peak" as I began reading it my favorite niece came in to town and I gave it to her, as I've done with all Burdett's Bangkok series entries. I've been sidetracked but will purchase it again this weekend.

The books are popular in Thailand and the Thais are impressed that a farang does such a capable job of writing about and imparting some of the essence of their big,beautiful,bustling "City of Life".

My brother has lived in Bangkok for about fifteen years and I've visited him there and just love the place. I'm going to retire there when that time comes.

But as for Burdett he's a Brit whose only South East Asian connection I've seen mentioned was that he was once a lawyer in Hong Kong, not much of a background for writing about Bangkok. The great Asian cities are as uniquely distinct amongst each other as are the great Western cities.

But recently I stumbled upon the fact that for a number of years he has been dividing his time between France and Thailand, Bangkok in particular. So he does have a considerable first hand knowledge about Bangkok.

I just love these books. Sonchai narrates them all, and plays straight man as all the wild, wacked out,dizzying storyline swirls about him.

As with any series it's best to begin with the first then read them in chronological order but these books stand alone fairly well. And if you've been wowed by "Bangkok 8" just keep reading.

Burdett's also done a couple of novels unrelated to Bangkok. I'd recommend them as well.

One is "The Last Six Million Seconds," which is about,on its face anyway,the time leading up to the British handing back Hong Kong to the Chinese. Six million seconds is 69 days and about eleven hours.

The other is "A Personal History of Thirst." It takes place in Britain and is not about liquid refreshment. One of the main characters is named Oliver Thirst.

Hope I've provided some useful info about these books and Burdett. Enjoy the read.

[fadedrose]

12. Thank you so much for your post

If anyone is curious, I wanted to know if Burdett was known in "old" Fiction, but he's not there anywhere except in the long list of series authors. I refer to it there as an excellent series but have no idea of who told me it was excellent...It again came to my attention when the new one came out, Vulture Peak, but I like to start at the beginning of a series. (I'm on page 90)

Anyway, I put it in DU3 search, and found you and Burdett in a serious topic discussion and didn't know if you'd bother to come here. Didn't know if you'd get my post if the host there decided to pitch it out as off-topic...

argyl, I don't think you've been here before, and it's time you did come. I loved your input on Burdett and will read them all...

Never been there, but books like Colin Cotterell's series about Laos (Dr. Siri, coroner) and Timothy Hallinan's Thailand series have made me a fan of Asian mysteries....They are listed in the location index here: http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/

The site has a genre index and I think that both Cotterell's and Burdett's might even qualify as "humorous mysteries."

Thank you for your reply, and I will be reading all of his books.

[fadedrose]

17. Am almost done with the BANGKOK 8

Will finish it tonight. Main character is very likable and makes me want to learn more about Buddhism. Are any of the characters recurring in coming books?

I noticed on the cover of Vulture Peak the comments said that it was a humorous book - was it? This one wasn't but had some light touches....

You really have to read Colin Cotterell's books about Laos. So much of Burdett's writing meshes so well with them....

[MaineDem]

8. THE INNOCENT by David Baldacci

He introduces a new character.

[Little Star]

10. Do you remember which book of Baldacci's...

was about a treasure map and cyphering? I've been racking my brain trying to remember which book it was because I loved the way Baldacci admonished us readers in a note at the end. He basically told us not to count on figuring out the cypher because smarter people than most of us had tried and failed (I'm paraphrasing). I laughed my butt off reading that note. I love it when he writes those notes to his readers at the end of some of his books.

He is one of my favorites.

[MaineDem]

11. SIMPLE GENIUS?

About a German code and a secret training area in Virginia. That may be the one you're thinking of. I do like his books a lot.

[Little Star]

15. Ya know, it could be but...

I think I'm going to have to go through my many big bins of books that I save to re-read and double check.

Just don't have the time to do that right now.

You could very well be right. Make sure when reading Baldacci to always check and see if he happened to leave a note to us readers at the end of the book. Sometimes he does and other times he doesn't. That particular note just cracked me up.

[Kablooie]

13. I'm slogging through Don Quixote.

I'm listening to it on my commute.
It has some entertaining bits but it's repetitive, overly verbose and looooonnnngggg.

I decided To listen to the whole thing though and see if I can figure out why it's considered one of the best novels of all time.

[groovedaddy]

14. "The Forest Laird" by Jack Whyte

The first in a trilogy (yet to be complete?) on the fight for independence in Scotland, beginning with William Wallace. While there are some parallels with the film "Braveheart", this book stands on its own.

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/book-review-the-forest-laird/

[WCIL]

16. I finished 2 books this week

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan - The Empress Alexandra sinks in the North Seas, and Grace is stuck in an overloaded lifeboat. Decisions have to be made about who lives and who dies, and some of the survivors are put on trial. A quick read, I enjoyed it very much.

White Horse by Alex Adams - A plague has wiped out most of the world population. Zoe heads to Europe to (hopefully) find the man she loves. The book switches back and forth between plague and aftermath, and the twist is a little jarring, but a good book for fans of post-apocalyptic fiction.

[fadedrose]

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