What book(s) are you currently reading?

[bobthedrummer]

I just picked up LeCarre's "Our Kind of Traitor".

What are you reading?

[Lil Missy]

1. When Presidents Lie, by Eric Alterman

[jobycom]

2. Rebecca, but I'm getting nowhere with it.

While I appreciate the skill of the opening scene, and the amount of backstory revealed through a description of the grounds of Manderlay, I still can't get any enthusiasm going. Doesn't help that I just read an old Stephen King novel, so I'm bored with self-indulgent description before I pick the book up. I think I'm going to skip it and come back when I'm more ready to read it.

[LisaM]

6. You are comparing "Rebecca" to Stephen King?

If you find a comparison there, I don't know that you will ever like "Rebecca". I find it far more compelling than anything Stephen King ever wrote.

[jobycom]

19. I mentioned them in the same post. If that's a "comparison," then I guess so.

These days if you mention two people in the same day someone will complain that you've "compared" them.

I can't judge "Rebecca" yet because I'm still hung up on the descriptions of flowers and roads and cottages and dogs and little sandwiches and tea and fog and sunshine and all kinds of other fluff to find the story or point yet. If I manage to keep reading, I may like it. Stephen King likes it, actually--he mentions it in "Bag of Bones" many times. I'd say he even "compares" it to the story he is telling, in an allusive sort of way.

But my point was that I'm burned out on pretentious, even if well written, description, after reading King, so De Maurier is just the wrong writer to pick up now.

[LisaM]

24. OK, I see.

I like the descriptions in "Rebecca" (and many are germane to the book). Did you know that Daphne du Maurier also wrote "The Birds"?

[jobycom]

27. I hate long descriptions.

I hate writing them, I hate reading them. I often skim or even skip over several pages of them. i can understand their point in a world before television and photography, and now and then I read some that actually advances a story, but mostly it just seems wordy to me. Most long descriptions could be more effectively worked into the story. Long descriptions to me are the literary equivalent of a show-stopping musical number--they are mostly convention and pretension and rarely do much for the story. You can imagine, reading an 800 page Stephen King novel drives me insane at times.

De Maurier's description isn't really stagnant, so far. She uses it to create a dichotomy between the contemporary setting of the narrator and the past setting of Manderlay, and to create mystery about the back story. I can appreciate that. But it's not what I want now. Maybe I should pick up another of Lee Child's Jack Reacher story and watch the Super Cowboy mow down inferior bad guys for a while. Then I'll be more than ready for something better. :)

And I just read a little about De Maurier. Sounds like she was the Stephen King of her era, complete with contemporary criticism that she was a lightweight writing about overused themes. There were accusations that she plagiarized "Rebecca," even. Funny how opinions change. Harriet Theresa Comstock was one of the most beloved writers of the early 20th Century, for instance, and no one even remembers her now. Will Stephen King be her, or De Maurier? Who knows?

[LisaM]

31. Well, she did win the lawsuit

There was a movie about her, "Daphne", mostly about her relationship with Gertrude Lawrence. It's a great movie - may have been done for BBC? The only place I've ever seen it is on LOGO, but I'd recommend it.

I like some descriptions. It just depends on if they're good or not. In "Rebecca", I think they just add to the overall spookiness. but what makes that novel seem really creepy to me is that it's so very psychological - after some of the overrated crap our bookclubs have been reading (I'm talking to you Cormac McCarthy, I was SO disappointed by "All the Pretty Horses"), I sometimes don't want to pick up much written after about 1935.

[jobycom]

32. I went through a phase like that last year.

Everything I read was Dickens, Austin, and Melville. Then I got burned out and went on a Dan Brown, Stephen King, and Lee Child jag. Sometimes you just want to read about a six foot five man who can crush wrists with his fingers and whose chest muscles can stop a bullet. Not often, but sometimes. :)

[applegrove]

39. "Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller" by Rubin. About peak oil.

[applegrove]

35. I found all of Rebecca's anxieties really annoying right from the start. So I put it down and don't

think I'll pick it up again.

[charlie and algernon]

3. Picked up "Traitor to His Class: The Priviledged Life and Radical Presidency of FDR" this weekend

By H.W. Brands.

it's a loooong book (800+ pages) but I chewed through the prologue and first couple chapters pretty quickly last night. It's a great read, should take a few months to finish.

[kentauros]

4. "Sacred Space" by Denise Linn

In other words, the kind of topic most people here don't give a shit about ;)

[lizziegrace]

5. The Soloist

Didn't see the movie. The book is pretty good so far.

[LisaM]

7. Many books

Why confine myself to one? I'm re-reading a bunch of L.M. Montgomery books, we are reading a book called "The Help" for one of my book clubs, reading "Oryx and Crake" for the other (I would not have chosen either of these), reading a biography called "The Bolter" by Frances Osborne, waiting for my bookstore to get in a book called "Bright Young People", and thinking of picking up a book I started but didn't finish a few years ago called "The Kingdom of the Hittites".

[suninvited]

8. I just finished "The Help"

what do you think of it?

[LisaM]

10. I haven't started it - just glanced at it - but.....

It just looks like one of those books that takes today's prevailing standards and tries to impose them on a 1960s situation. I normally can't stand books like that and hope for a little better from this one.

[suninvited]

22. well, I wont offer my opinion since you havent read it

but, would be happy to discuss after you finish

[LisaM]

25. Oh, feel free

I am not one of those people who cares about spoilers in this type of book.

[hippywife]

28. Oh, it's a great book.

No prevailing standards of today that I could pick up in it. Enjoy it! :hi:

[riderinthestorm]

33. I read it and loved it. FYI, there actually WAS a publication about the "negro help"

black maids in the south, and their real feelings. Can't remember the actual sociological study that was published but it's easily located through google. I assumed the book was predicated in large part on the stories told there.

I've passed it along to many people and oddly enough, virtually everyone has also really loved it. Hope you do too!

[applegrove]

36. I loved it right from the start.

[jobycom]

23. By those standards, I'm reading a lot, too.

I'm halfway through "Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years" by Diarmaid McCulloch, and a third into "The Adventure of English" by Melvin Bragg, I've whipped out my tattered copy of "Les Miserables" to start rereading (since I can't get anywhere in "Rebecca" and I haven't read it in a while), and I'm planning to get Gene Wolfe's newest, "Pirate Freedom," on Friday. Oh yeah, and I'm reading "Dracula," but only on a reader on my phone, so I'm mostly reading it when I'm in lines and other places where I have a phone but not a book. Love the book, but my phone has a little screen, so it's hard to want to deal with that when I have other books at hand.

I just sort of interpreted "What are you reading?" to mean "What book are you actually reading right now?" more than "What books are you reading, planning to read, slowly plowing your way through, and wanting to read?" :)

[Iggo]

9. Four of 'em.

Children Of Dune -- Frank Herbert (just finishing)
1632 -- Eric Flint (just started)
World War Z -- Max Brooks (about halfway through)
The God Delusion -- Richard Dawkins (just started)

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. Still working my way through Alastair Reynold's newest, "Terminal World".

[Tobin S.]

12. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

I just read Cannery Row by the same author and Sweet Thursday is the sequel to that book. Both were recommended to me by another DUer and they are quite good.

[KurtNYC]

13. Inside of a Dog

which is meta analysis of recent studies on canines -- their abilities, biology, etc. Some really interesting stuff in there but I have to skip all the chapter intros with their cutesy stuff about the author's dog. It goes a long way toward answering 'are they really color blind?' 'how much do they use their hearing (if they have any)?'

The answer on hearing is 'not much' -- I had a deaf dog for years and now use mostly hand signals with my dogs that can hear bc it is so much clearer to the dog. Saddens me to think how many dogs get beaten and abused bc their owners think that the dog 1) can understand language and 2) is just being willful, etc. Ugh. Dogs recognize certain words, although they don't hear certain consonants so many words sound the same. Recognizing a word is very different from understanding language.

[LaurenG]

14. Finishing up "A Game of Thrones" and then on the the next one in the series. nt

[canadianbeaver]

54. I just finished the 4th book.....Feast for Crows.....

waiting on the 5th....Loved the series.

[bigwillq]

15. Mister X

by John Lutz.

[Crystal Clarity]

16. I'm re-reading 'Sarum' by Edward Rutherford

One of my favs.

[hippywife]

29. I do have that one on my list.

Got it from the library once, even and had to return it before I could get to it in the pile because someone else had it on request.

Was it you who recommended it to me in the fiction group?

[Crystal Clarity]

53. I have that happen alot w/library books too

I have a tendency to think I'll have more reading time then I actually end up with.

No, it wasn't me who recommended Sarum to you. Although I'm pleased to see that so many other people here liked it. This is one of the things I love about DU... similar interests! :-) Very few people I know IRL like the same genre of books and movies as I, but there are tons here! Sarum was a bestseller years ago but no one I knew ever read it except one of my sisters.

Lists like this in the lounge are great too because they give me new ideas of what to check out. So far DUers reviews of things have not disappointed.

Sarum is great if you enjoy well researched historical fiction. It's set in Salisbury, England and begins w/pre-history spanning a couple thousand years. One of the things that makes it such a great read is how descendants of the main characters pop up from time to time over intervals of a couple hundred years. I imagine this sort of style of writing would be difficult, but Rutherford does a pretty good job of weaving the characters in and out of the plot(s).

His other novels were meh, pretty good... but Sarum was the best imho. I haven't read his most recent... 'New York' though.

[applegrove]

38. I loved Sarum. Read it years ago.

[some guy]

48. I really liked that as well. n/t

[sarge43]

17. Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life

A complex and fascinating man.

[Aristus]

18. "A Soldier's Story" by Omar Bradley.

An autographed copy I inherited from my Dad.

My Dad also was able to get the book signed by General William Simpson, commander of the U.S. Ninth Army in Europe during WWII. This was during an interview my Dad conducted with the 92 year-old general just a few months before Simpson died in 1980.

[Dappleganger]

20. The Strain by Guillermo del Toro.

It's pretty damn scary, too.

[proteus_lives]

63. I enjoyed that one.

[seabeyond]

21. christine dodd series... it is so much fun. love it. nt

[bikebloke]

26. Lucy by Laurence Gonzales

About a human-bonobo hybrid.


Fiction, of course.

[YankeyMCC]

30. Ivanhoe

Revelation Space
Realizing Genjokoan

[triguy46]

34. "Sh*t My Dad Says"

Its a hoot.

[riderinthestorm]

37. I just finished Dog On It (if you love dogs, you will LOVE this!), and The Help

and I just started the Stephen Lawhead series about Robin Hood, called "Hood".

I range all over the place in my reading! Heh.

Anyone like the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series as much as I?

[ceile]

60. Loved it!

Of the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire was my favorite. I was so sad when I read the last page of Hornets Nest. I hope one day we'll get something of the fourth...Which one was your favorite?
Can't wait until The Girl Who Played With Fire arrives via Netflix. Have you seen the Swedish movies yet?

[pokerfan]

40. Working my way through the Fleet of Worlds series

With the release of the fourth book in the series I realized that I'd never gotten around to reading any of them:
1. Fleet of Worlds (2007)
2. Juggler of Worlds (2008)
3. Destroyer of Worlds (2009)
4. Betrayer of Worlds (2010)

[Kali]

41. not much

two new books on the Mata Ortiz/northern Chihuahua area that were just published that I picked up while we were down there

[KC]

42. I just ordered

Blood Safari by Deon Meyer

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Safari-Deon-Meyer/dp/080214506X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288064956&sr=1-1

[mvd]

43. Field of Screams, by Dan Gordon and Mickey Bradley

Good book.. some of the stories are about superstition, baseball oddities, and hoaxes rather than ghosts. But it's consistently entertaining.

[Odin2005]

44. "Why The West Rules - For Now" by archeologist Ian Morris,

Absolutely AMAZING book of incredible scope. It is mostly a comparative history of Western Eurasia and East Asia from the point of view of societal development from 14,000BC to the future.

He has a really frightening prediction at the end, that the modern world now locked in a race between 2 alternate futures of a technological singularity and collapse, it will be one or the other.

He argues that historical collapses are from what he calls the "5 Horsemen of the Apocalypse" riding together: Climate Change, State Failure, Famine, Disease, and Mass Migration. The West (which he defines as Western Eurasia, including the Middle East) suffered collapses in 2000-1700BC, 1200-900BC, and 200-700AD. East Asia had collapses in 200-400AD and 1100-1300AD.

According to Morris, the Western Core was always ahead in social development except between 535AD and 1773AD, when the Eastern Core was on top.

[some guy]

47. Thanks

of the titles mentioned in this thread, this one appeals to me most.

I shall look for it.

[bermudat]

45. Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher

[ghostsofgiants]

46. "The Fragile Absolute" by Slavoj Žižek.

http://www.versobooks.com/books/350-the-fragile-absolute

And the Preacher comic books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)

Both are pretty great.

[some guy]

49. Patricia Highsmith

The Black House, which is a collection of short stories.

I'm finishing The Iron Heel by Jack London, on my e-reader.
This is a re-read, I had sort of forgot I'd read until I started it.

[BurtWorm]

65. I'm reading The Talented Miss Highsmith

(among five other books). A very unusual biography. About a very unusual person.

[jonnyblitz]

50. I am reading Christopher Hitchens' memoirs, "Hitch-22" on my

Sony E-reader and the hardcopy non electronic version of "Shadow Elite, How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government and the Free Market" by Janine R. Wedel.

[bobthedrummer]

59. I returned "Our Kind of Traitor" today and checked out "Hitch 22" before going online at my library.

:tinfoilhat:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

51. The Almanac of American Politics 1974

Believe it or not, I'm finding it fascinating. I always enjoy reading about historical personalities -so many members of congress long since forgotten

[Broken_Hero]

52. Nothing currently,

I'm on a break, I finished Misery/The Shining last week. Not sure what to read now...I finished book 4 of the Sword of Truth series, but my wife has read 7, and she says the books are falling apart aka starting to be very tedious/stupid, so I'm not sure I'll finish that series.

[siligut]

55. Neuromancer, William Gibson's ground breaker.

I became re-interested in the concepts after seeing Inception. Neuromancer, is supposed to be a first in scifi writing. I also watched Paprika, in case anyone was going to suggest it. I am appreciating Karen Salmansohn's How to be Happy, dammit too, touted to be the cynic's guide to spiritual happiness. I like it, very simple, few, but very effective, words.

[retread]

56. "An Ordinary Man" the autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina. n/t

[guitar man]

57. "How To Build A Small Block Chevy For The Street"

It's not as dry as it sounds :P

[ceile]

58. Just finished "A Darker Domain" Val McDermid

Great read.
Just checked out "Deeper" by Jeff Long- sequel to "The Descent" and another McDermid novel "The Distant Echo". Which one shall I read first....?

[WinkyDink]

61. I just finished one about the JFK assassination (by the Parkland MD), so now I'm on "Dilbert"!

[proteus_lives]

62. White's "In Search of History"

[meeshrox]

64. Just beginning 'The Greatest Show on Earth - Evidence for Evolution'

:9

[BurtWorm]

66. Al jaffee's Mad Life

Has a firm grip on my attentlon now.

Also reading The Talented Miss Highsmith, the latest bio of Patricia.
The Life and Death of Democracy, which I'll probably never finish, it's so long (but forcefully written)
Black Swan Green, a brilliant coming of age novel of Thatcher-era England by David Mitchell
and Virtual You, a warning against too much rime on the computer by a Stanford psychiatrist.

[JTG of the PRB]

67. "Stranger in a Strange Land" at the moment.

Up next: "The Hobbit," followed by the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy for my annual re-read.