What is the last book you read?

Antony and Cleopatra: Shakespeare Handbook

I am directing Antony and Cleopatra for my theatre group’s Shakespeare in the Park next summer, and I’m already hard at work on the production.

I was glad to read a book dedicated to the theatrical aspects of the play and not another criticism of the text. The book had a good background of history of Shakespearean and Jacobean theatre. It went scene-by-scene through the lengthy drama and made valuable points for staging each. There was space given to criticism of the text, and finally an excellent bibliography for further study.

I was gratified to find many of my own ideas for staging the play reinforced by the author. I believe I’m on the right track with the play. For those who might be curious, here is a brief announcement of the prodcution.

The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert (author also of “Eat, Pray, Love”). A big and dense book, written as a Victorian novel and hard to put down.

A perfect read for recuperating. It reminds me of A S Byatt’s “Angels and Insects.”

For the last few days, I’ve been flipping through crafting books. Before that, I think I read a Star Trek novel. I read a bit of The Hobbit with my son every night.

A Tall Storey by Verne Troyer.
Never knew he used to clean the windows of the empire state building, fascinating read.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I read it because I intend to watch the movie when it comes out here, and I like to be familiar with a book first, if there is one. I have read it before but so long ago I’d forgotten most of the details.

Currently reading Life of Pi. Loving it.

The Sisters Brothers A black comedy about hitmen in the Wild West. One of the best books I have read in a while.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.The book is beautifully written and there’s an incredible cast of characters.The author has a true gift for characterization,it’s definitely a must read.

Shooting Star by Peter Temple

Set in Australia, which we visited in August.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.

“The Death of Bees” about two Glaswegian girls who are oprhaned under mysterious circumstances. Very quirky and engaging in a dark way.

My Biology book, sadly

I am reading American Pastoral by Philip Roth, and it is excellent. The plot is interesting, but what is making me want to read even more of his books is the fact that I keep coming across short passages that speak to me personally and what is going on in my life, The author really hits home on some of the basic truths of life.

Neill! Neill! Orange Peel!, by A. S. Neill. Very interesting, I’m trying to order some older books by him now. Unfortunately, most of them are out of print and hard to obtain.

@yankeetooter; For some other views of Philip Roth’s truths, look at this site;

He drove his wife of 17 years, the actress Claire Bloom, mad. She drove him mad. She wrote a memoir. The NYT says, “The book, called ’‘Leaving a Doll’s House,’’ paints the author as a self-centered misogynist and tells a bitter if one-sided story of a love gone sour.”

This is not to denigrate Roth’s extraordinary talent as a writer of fiction. My world changed after I read “Portnoy’s Complaint” in the late 1960’s.

The newest King novel, Doctor Sleep.

A Farewell to Arms
Most people consider The Sun also Rises as Hemingway’s best, but I think A Farewell is far superior.

Red Tails in Love; A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, by Marie Winn.

A memoir of the five years, ending in 1998, when the red-tailed hawks discovered Central Park, the upper east side of Manhattan (including the balcony of Woody Allen’s apartment) and each other. A charming history of the birders and birds of NYC (a lot more than you think), the fellow-travelers, the tourists, the converted, the banders, the experts on butterflies, moss, lizards, snakes, bugs and those who believe in love.

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, by Nicolas Drayson is not a guide to the birds of east Africa but a small, sweet and charming novel. Similar in style and scope to Alexander McCall Smith’s novels* of Botswana and Precious Ramotswe but not quite as engaging. (*The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency)

Both of these books were gifts (one from our former penguin and still librarian) for me to read during rehab. They saw me through many a sleepless night.

I am also reading Doctor Sleep.

Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick. It’s a story of 5 young women who went to college together in a small town in New England. Every year since then, they have gotten together at a cabin on a lake for “girl time.” On the most recent get together, they realize that one of the women has cancer and doesn’t have very long to live, although the sick woman, never lets on to the others that she is even sick. In the next month or so, she passes away. In the meantime, the other 4 women are having early mid-life crises (they’re only in their late 20’s) with their jobs, relationships, child-rearing problems, etc. What they didn’t know about their dying friend, is that she had inherited a lot of money from her family and because she considered these 4 women, as closer and more deserving than her family, she decided before she died, to divide up the million dollars among these 4 friends, to give them a “Second Time Around.”

The women all pack up and abandon their old lives, move back to the small town where they went to college, and buy and move into their old dormitory, where they had lived happy lives during college. In the meantime, they all attempt to find new, fulfilling lives and careers and relationships. One of the women, ends up becoming a baker, one a writer, one an event planner and one a bed and breakfast owner. As you can guess, each of them is able to help out the others with their particular career choices. There’s a couple of mysteries, going back years, that end up getting solved, that help everybody move forward with no regrets.

I ate up this book like I was eating cannoli’s with cream and strawberries. It’s totally a chick flick kind of book, so the fellas probably wouldn’t find it very interesting (mostly because of the subject matter) only it’s much richer and fuller, and not silly or sappy.

I would love to see a movie based on this book.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghostly Gallery. It’s a collection of short horror stories for kids, but what can I say. Haha. In a Dim Room is the shortest story, only like, four pages…but for some reason it totally struck me.

@Symbeline You then might also like the Goosebumps series for kids. My brother was reading one aloud to my nephew on our camping trip and it was rather gripping and scary. We went to bed before he could finish it, so a week after we got home, I went over to their house to borrow it so I could finish it. LOL.

@Kardamom I loved those as a kid. You knew it was an authentic Goosebumps book when the word ’‘goosebumps’’ bulged out of the cover a little. or so I was told as a kid… Do you remember what story it was you read?

The last one I finished was The Ghost Map, an exceptional look at the London’s biggest cholera epidemic.  Really, it was amazing.

And then coming off that I’m reading Creation: Our Worldview a self-published trainwreck and the most recent book a relative has given to get the devil out of me.  I’d laugh if its epic ignorance and dishonesty weren’t so depressing.  Stop giving me shit books, after reading yours I’ll still be an atheist AND you will have reminded me of the all the things I hate most about your religion.

Also, a warm thanks to the religious folks in my life that don’t give me shit books.
Fist bump.

Finished in the past week:
• Touchstone, by Laurie R. King. So-so suspense thriller, more atmospheric than active.
• Dead Man’s Ransom, by Ellis Peters. Very comfortable old-fashioned mystery, ninth in the Brother Cadfael series.
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. Excellent analysis and explication of the one myth.

Currently reading:
• [slow track] Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, by Camille Paglia. Fascinating scholarly perspective but not an easy read.
• [slow track] The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham. Chosen on a whim, it’s turning out to be unexpectedly substantial.
• [fast track] The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Rereading an old favorite starring Lord Peter Wimsey.

Upcoming:
• The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Good luck with the current reading @fundevogel, I feel your pain.

@flutherother thanks, I appreciate it.

‘Double Whammy’ by Carl Hiaasen who delights me with every one of his books that I read, including the children’s ones!

The last book I read was No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty. Then I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

@Jeruba…I love Day of the Triffids! Check out the movie when you’re done…it’s an older one, and actually pretty good…

@Jeruba : I revisit Lord Peter and Brother Cadfael all the time. Have you seen the DVD series of Cadfael, starring the inestimable Derek Jacobi? There are 13 episodes and well worth watching.

And I too am waiting for Lahiri’s new novel…shortlisted, I believe, for the Mann Booker?

@gailcalled, I’ve saved up the Cadfael TV series until I was well along with the books, so I saw the first one only last week. Noting that their broadcast dates didn’t follow the chronology of the books, I’m taking them in book sequence.

A couple of years ago I reread the Harriet Vane quartet, but otherwise these are my first Wimseys since I was a youngster. I remember them all warmly, though. I love all the British mysteries of the Golden Age.

I have the Lahiri in house—a fortuitous find on a rare Costco visit, the only autographed one left in the bin. One of the things I admired about The Namesake was the vividly gestural quality of her prose.

@yankeetooter, I know of the movie—one of the campy B horror pics of the fifties and sixties, I thought—but have never seen it. I expected it to be luridly ridiculous and so was surprised to find something much more thoughtful and literary in the book.

@Jeruba: Margery Allingham, Michael Innes, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh…

@Symbeline It was Attack of the Jack O’ Lanterns

@Jeruba I love Day of the Triffids! No movie worthy of it has been made yet.

Allegiant, the final book in a dystopian trilogy. I do NOT recommend it. It was awful. The first two books were great, but it felt like the author just wanted to wrap it up, so she slammed out a contrived, horrible mess as quickly as possible. And it had a really horrible ending. Just a disappointing finish to what promised to be a great trilogy. :(

Just finished A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the “Game of Thrones” series (actually called A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R. R. Martin. Already got my copy of the 5th book and am currently 100 pages in :)

@DominicX Fantastic series! I’m ready to strangle GRRM for not having finished the sixth book yet! I neeeeeeed my fix.

The last book I read was The Turn of the Screw by Henry James for my ENGL 200 class. It was really interesting, and the discussions we’ve had about the possible undertones even more so!

@Kardamom I was obsessed with Goosebumps when I was a kid! I owned a lot of the books, and I’d always beg my parents to bring me to Blockbuster so I could pick out a few on VHS to watch in the dark. I kinda just loved R.L. Stine in general, I still own a couple of collections of his short stories and a few other books by him. I know he writes for kids, but sometimes you just love a read like that!

@yankeetooter You might like The Kraken Wakes another apocalyptic John Wyndham novel. This time the invasion comes from the ocean depths and the threat is of rising sea levels. It would make a good film.

Thank you, @flutherother! I didn’t even realize he had written anything else (which is crazy, since normally I check for additional books when I like an author’s work). I will look into it.

A Thorn in my Pocket, by Eustacia Cutler, (Temple Grandin’s mother)

I then started a book on physics, given to me by my boyfriend, but I think I need him next to me while I read it so he can explain it… gaaah! so I moved on to the next on my list,
Leonard Mlodinow: The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Here is a brilliant talk by the author: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAt27VwavJ8

…and I’m just starting to read for the first time the book on which a movie I adore and have watched countless times… “Gentleman’s Agreement.”

If you’ve never seen this 1947 ground-breaking movie about antisemitism, do. It looks dated, but its story, direction, writing, casting and acting are almost flawless.

@cazzie, I really enjoyed the Mlodinow book and have referred back to it many times. I can’t seem to remember the specific things he said about odds and probability, but I sure do remember that common wisdom and what we think is logic are typically wrong when it comes to predicting outcomes. Boyfriend, eh? Hmm. Good for you.

“True Confessions,” by John Gregory Dunne, is one of the last I’ve read (for the 5th or 6th time!). Very serious, and very funny—an unusual combination.

Oh… I forgot I read one inbetween. A Michael Cunningham book called ‘Specimen Days’. Really good. Fantastic Walt Whitman references tie the three different stories together. Wonderfully done as only M. C. can.