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One reader's thoughts as she steps from book to book.
Books I've Finished
- "A Christmas Memory"
- by Truman Capote 12/8/12
- "Child's Christmas in Wales"
- by Dylan Thomas 12/7/12
- "One Christmas"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- "The Thanksgiving Visitor"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- Inside Mrs. B's Classroom
- by Leslie Baldacci 11/28/12
- The Bee Eater
- by Richard Whitmire 11/15/12
- There Are No Shortcuts
- by Rafe Esquith 10/28/12
- I'd Like to Apologize to
- Every Teacher I Ever Had
- by Tony Danza 10/21/12
- Corked
- by Kathryn Borel 10/15/12
- Year of Learning Dangerously
- by Quinn Cummings 9/30/12
- A Hologram for the King
- by Dave Eggers 8/23/12
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- by Harper Lee 7/18/12
About Me
- Christine
- I often have a few books with bookmarks in them at once. I enjoy classics more than contemporary works of fiction, often read historical fiction, and love to get glimpses into other people's lives by reading memoirs and biographies.
22 comments:
I finished This is a Book by Demetri Martin a week or so ago, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a quirky sense of humor. It's somewhat hit or miss and ever-so-slightly cloying in some spots, but the many laugh-out-loud moments make it totally worth it.
I'm currently working on The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson (British author of Them and The Men Who Stare at Goats). Having read both The Sociopath Next Door--which Ronson references in this book--and Them (by Ronson, about conspiracy theorists), I thought this would be an interesting combination. Like SND, I'm finding it pretty creepy, but also oddly compelling. Ronson also has a somewhat nervous humor about him that makes this book an engaging and more bearable read. I'm wondering what sort of revelations there might be at the end of this book, regarding the extent to which the madness of a few affects the relative sanity of the masses. There are many examples and vignettes throughout the book, most of them fairly disturbing and also believable.
Finished an advanced copy of Ready Player One which was a pretty well done YA novel. Unfortunately, it's not a YA novel. Kind of simplistic but if you're a geek and remember 80's tech fondly, you'll love it. Am also plodding through These Guys Have All the Fun. A history of ESPN with a bewildering cast list and many many pages. Because of a (disappointing) conversation with Christine's Jim, I just started to reread Daemon by Daniel Suarez. A gripping gripping thriller. If you're curious about what technology could do, read it.
I'm on an Edith Wharton kick, which is probably not a good thing. I read The House of Mirth, which made me angry at the ending, and am now reading Ethan Frome, which I suspect will also make me angry at the ending. She really needs to stop getting characters out of untenable situations by killing them horribly.
Danika, when is the last time you read a book written in THIS century?
Oh, c'mon! That's only 11 years' worth of books to choose from!
I'm 2/3 done with Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. I love reading anything by her because her novels are always engaging. I especially like the social and moral questions she poses. For example, this story involves a school shooting and as quoted from the back of the book: "Nineteen Minutes asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else, and whether anyone is ever really who they seem to be."
Thought-provoking questions like these have caused me to be an avid fan of hers. Especially with my (hopeful) career in law, I enjoy reading about legal issues from at least five different points of view in an interesting (non-textbook) form.
However, her books usually make me cry and seeing as how I haven't shed a tear thus far, I'm thinking waterworks are due within the remaining 150 pages.
I will just leave this here for Martha. - That jodi Picoult relly makes you think.
And Danika - you know what I meant. Don't be a smartass.
@Lisa: I often wonder if people have gotten more violent and scary through the ages or less so. Does Ronson talk about pyschopaths in a historical context?
@Don: Why was it a disappointing conversation?
@Danika: Will you read Age of Innocence? That's the only thing I've read by her.
@Don and Danika: Ha! and Ha! again!
@Heather: Thanks for joining us! Picoult tackles some tough topics. I could see how her books would be pretty quick reads due to the urgency of her subjects. Too grim, recent, and real for me.
@Martha: Your turn.
Christine: Interesting questions; he doesn't really talk about psychopaths in a historical context as his subjects are all fairly recent (1950's and later, with maybe a couple of exceptions). I think it might be tough to do so since our history is limited to the books; there are less eye-witness accounts of how people *really* acted before we had a name for people who seemed to be without conscience. But he does talk about some of the history of the DSM and how arbitrary the naming of mental disorders can be. It's actually pretty bonkers.
P.S. If anyone reading would like to see pics of the Turkey trip, just click on my name and peruse my LJ entries that have Turkey in the title.
@Don-I can always count on you for that ;)
I read Beautiful Boy, which is the memoir of a man whose son becomes an addict. Having gotten his point of view, I decided to read the son's memoir, Tweak. I'm in the middle of the follow-up book We All Fall Down: Living With Addiction. He basically admits in this book that the ending of his first book was pretty much all lies. It makes me wonder if this one will end the same way...
And yes, all three of these were purchased for and read on my nookcolor. Oh nook, you are my sweet, sweet candy...
P.S. Lisa--I read Ethan Frome for a high school English class. Oh sweet dear lord, did I hate that book...Good thing it was short! :D
@Martha: I think you mean Danika. She's the one reading Edith Wharton. Although I agree with you about Ethan Frome. I had to read that in high school too. ;)
I finished Here's Looking at Euclid (Bellos)recently (Lisa G.'s recommendation). It was a keeper! I'd read a chapter & summarize it at dinnertime, then we'd talk all night (go off on tangents, you might say). As you can imagine, every chapter held it's own surprises. Nate loved the section on pi; my favorite was about the slide rules & the slide rule collector in England. Vince loved the whole book.
We also rented the movie Pi, which was referenced in the book. It was a disappointment because we were expecting something more math-y. It was really a film about mental illness (which would have been fine, had we been expecting that). Then Vince wanted to rent Life of Pi, which I told him would be even less about numbers.
@Heather: It seems like Picoult's books always end in dramatic court cases. Do you think she had legal training at some point?
@Danika: Have you read Thirteenth Tale (Setterfield)? It's a modern "old" book. I loved it. The main character loved to lose herself in books, and never read anything from the last two centuries (1900s or 2000s).
@Christine He didn't immediately drop everything and rush to read my recommendation. So I did it myself.
At the risk of posting *after* Don, let me add this:
I also finished Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers (Sapolsky), a recommendation from cbg. I liked the discussions on endocrinology very much--this is an area I'm really weak in understanding, and Sapolsky does a great job of simplifying & clarifying.
Whoa. Blogsplosion.
Oh, hey, I read Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers a couple of months ago, on the same recommendation. I found most of it fascinating. There, Don, that's a more recent book.
Martha, I just finished Ethan Frome. I can definitely see hating it, and I suppose I should hate it, but I don't. I'm not sure why. I certainly got angry about the ending of House of Mirth. Maybe it's just because it was over so quickly.
Christine, I'm currently reading through a B&N bargain edition containing 5 of Edith Wharton's books. I just started the third one, The Custom of the Country. Age of Innocence is the last title in the volume. We'll see if I can hang in there long enough to finish it.
@Don: sometimes when we suggest a favorite book to someone we're really just looking for permission to read it again ourselves. You might enjoy reading Moby Dick. Do you think so? Are you gonna pick up Moby Dick this summer? Maybe I. . .
@Danika: Go Edith!
@everyone: I love you all. For posting.
Wow! Wait until I get to tell you all what book I just started. C'mon Tuesday.
I also read a fiction book, Miss New India (Mukherjee). It was an NPR recommend. A young girl in rural India escapes an arranged marriage by going to a big city to work in a call center. The story gives a lot of detail about Indian caste, culture, self-image, etc. It also shows the call centers from a different perspective. What it fails to do is entertain.
Bugger. Hit the wrong button and have to type all over again. SO MUCH WORK! ;)
Lisa--whoops. :)
Mary and Danika--I LOVED The Thirteenth Tale. It's enhanced by reading the physical book because of the froofle-y pages. (I forgot what the technical term is. I know Don told me once but obviously it didn't sink in.)
Don--Have you considered the possibility that Jim not taking your recommendation is any sort of karma in action? :D
I am reading, "You with the Stars in Your Eyes" a little girl's glimpse at Cosmic Consciousness by Deepak Chopra. I love Chopra anyway for adult reading but this children's book is great! My girls and I love it and it helps link our own existence with being part of something bigger. Anyway, I am really enjoying it.
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