What book are you reading right now?

I’m reading through Barbara Michael’s mystery/romances. I love her writing (as Elizabeth Peters too) and am working on collecting her complete works. So I buy a bunch at the used book store (very few that I haven’t already read) and then spend days and days reading.

I got about 15 books for my birthday in July and am still reading those. Fell behind with reading the complete Stephanie Plum series before I got ahold of the new one!

Listening to Music – Allan Schindler

Secrets of Mental Math – Arthur Benjamin / Micheal Shermer

And a book on memory which is not near me at the moment; I remember neither the title nor author.

I’m boring.

I finished The Sportswriter by Richard Ford a little while ago. It was interesting, but not great. Right now I’m not reading a book… I’m perusing my Better Homes and Gardens magazine, and playing sudoku. I’ll pick up another book in a day or two.

And hell, I just realized how ironic it is that I’m reading a book on improving memory and I can’t remember the goddamn book’s name.

A failure is me.

The Family-by Jeff Sharlet, its good so far its all politics and evil ( and non-fiction) I bought it after the author went on the daily show.

To Engineer is Human The Role of Failure in Successful Design By Henry Petroski

I was reading Sweet Ruin by Cathi Hanauer, but I discarded after reading five chapters. I didn’t like the main character. If I don’t like, or can’t relate to main character, I have a hard time finishing the book.

I’ll also begin reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, sometime this week.

I’m reading Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It’s a young adult science fiction novel about an asteroid hitting the moon and knocking it out of orbit. I know it’s young adult, but it’s actually not that bad. I have about 25 pages left to read.

My 15 year old son decided to give it a try. He only read a few pages and thought that he was reading Judy Blume. We joked about calling it “Are you there moon. It’s me, Miranda”. I’ve hardly been able to keep the book down though, and my husband is enjoying it also.

I forgot to answer my own questions. I’m about a third of the way through the book and so far, I’d highly recommend it.

My current and recent reading are always in my profile. Now in progress:

Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, by Stuart A. Vyse
Water for Elephants. by Sara Gruen
Towers of Gold, by Frances Dinkelspiel
The Secret Life of Words, by Henry Hitchings [currently stalled]

Up next: The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, and the next mystery in the series by Linda Barnes.

How to be Popular by Meg Cabot
I don’t want to include my AP Psycholgy book and my AP U.S. History book.

Oh, right. The questions.

What book are you in the progress of reading?

The music book, I’m about a third into it. Very standard fare – think Alan Copland’s What to Listen for in Music. I pick up the math book every now and again, just for kicks – the solutions in there are quite fun to do when you have time on your hands (doing the dishes, driving, etc). The memory book? About half-way – the author has been building up and explaining how memory works, rather than just throwing you straight into learning how to improve it.

Would you recommend it?

Music book? Only if you’re extremely interested in music theory, how you perceive music, etc. I mentioned What to Listen for in Music; if you’re new to the “genre,” pick that up instead.

Mental math is a helluva lot of fun. Seriously. Just so you can get a taste:

“Instant Multiplication:”

Consider the problem:”

32×11”

To solve this problem, simply add the digits 3 + 2 = 5, put the 5 between the 3 and 2 and there’s your answer: 352.”

53×11 ? ”

583”

Before you get too excited, I have shown you only half what you need to know. Suppose the problem is:”

85×11”

Although 8 + 5 = 13, the answer is NOT 8135! As before the 3 goes in between the two numbers, but the 1 needs to be added to the 8 to get the correct answer:”

935”

It’s fun!

Now, as for the memory book, I have to finish it, first. I need to apply the techniques to waking life before I can make judgment – so far, it reads like a psychology textbook. I’ll get back to you on that one.

I’m reading The House of Many Ways, by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s the most recent book in the Howl’s Moving Castle story arc (also includes Castle in the Air). (Since I re-read Castle in a matter of hours, I’m trying to ‘savor’ House and have been avoiding reading it by going on Fluther. Yes, I fail at life.)

I think Diana Wynne Jones is very good, but I enjoy her more recent works (more light-hearted, whimsical, funny) than her older works (more serious, convoluted, harder to follow).

I’m also reading Inventing Western Civilization for my Cultural Anthropology course.
It’s okay, but I’m having a hard time telling when the author is being sarcastic or honest.

On my to-read list: re-read Peeps, by Scott Westerfeld and re-read War for the Oaks by Emma Bull.

Peeps is a great take on the traditional ‘vampire’ genre, and the author mixes it up with the addition of true stories about parasites/bacteria/gross things every other chapter. (I also like Westerfeld’s theory as to why some vampires are repelled by Christian iconology. Best explanation I’ve heard so far.)

War for the Oaks is one of (if not the) original ‘normal girl meets the world of Faerie and must adapt’ stories. One of the earliest urban fantasies. (When did Charles deLint start publishing? I’m pretty sure it’s around the same time.) Also good: the story’s main character is a member in a band, so the obvious analogy (to me) is to Robin Mckinley’s Sunshine. (Sunshine = vampires + baking + magic; War for the Oaks = faeries + music + love story.)

Have I rambled? Of course I have.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Then I will watch the Masterpiece Theater portrayal of the book. I love it.

Slaughterhouse 5, love Kurt Vonnegut but never got around to this one until now.

Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish by Morgan Llywelyn. History+romance+adventure+heritage.

@standardtoaster Awesome book. One of those ones that drag you in and won’t let you not read it.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter It’s good, not great. I was let down as the story was told but the storytelling, how the tale was told, was easy reading.

I think it’s about time for my annual-ish re-reading of my favorite book of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird. I’m in the mood.

@peyton_farquhar, I rented the DVD series a few months ago and greatly enjoyed it. It was a soap opera, but it was a Dickens soap opera. After that, hungry for more of the same, I asked this question and subsequently did the entire (original) Forsyte Saga.

GQ, @Sampson. Better than just asking for recommendations—sort of a literary come-as-you-are.

Agreed.

@Jeruba @Grisalle Thanks very much :)

I still have a couple hundred pages to go in The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. For those not in the know, it’s like the Bible for Right-wing nuts. It’s about an architect who is true to his own talent and refuses to follow tradition in is building plans. He is surrounded by inept, vapid and insecure morons who can’t understand why he is so much better than they are. The handful of characters that actually understand and appreciate his work want to crush him. It’s especially disturbing when his lover feels the only way she can deserve his domination over her sexually is to try to take away his clients and make him poor.

As hard as I am on this book, it has its merits, particularly in the theme of not compromising yourself. However, Rand is hard on certain types of people: selfless and caring people are painted as pathetic and characters that believe in the good of the many, teamwork and helping others are portrayed as corrupt, evil maggots.

For the life of me, I just don’t understand the motivations of Dominique Francon, the lover of the architect, Howard Roark. She kept screwing up his commissions so she could have rough sex with him. Then she marries his rival as a punishment to herself for liking Roark. Then she finds a bigger asshole to marry. All because of some half-baked idea about suffering because the world doesn’t understand Roark’s greatness. I thought Rand would be a better writer than this.

I’m also in the middle of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto, Logic Made Easy by Deborah J. Bennett and a Marlon Brando biography. Oh, and Fifty-Minute Hour by Robert Lindler, a fascinating collection of psychiatric cases with strange patients (including the immensely popular “Jet-Propelled Couch” case). Lindner’s prose is phenomenal, especially for a nonfiction-ish book (some details in the cases were changed to protect the privacy of the clients).

I’m reading Julia Child’s My Life in France while on my trip to Paris; also have along Pride and Prejudice to reread (for the umpteenth time!) in preparation for teaching it and To Kill a Mockingbird (jinks, augustlan) to consider for teaching.

@peyton I love Dickens!

At the moment, the only book that I’m actively reading is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. I read it when I was in high school but it was for a class, so I was being forced and therefore didn’t really care for it. A lot of my friends really liked it, though, so I decided, almost a decade later, to give it a second chance. I’m glad I did, because I’m really enjoying it.

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
I started it on the way home from my grandmother’s funeral. The book didn’t really lead on to what it’d be about, and I didn’t know what it was going to be about. I think it was way too soon to read after going to a funeral. I love the style though. I stopped at chapter 4. I’ll pick it back up again when I’m ready.
I’m now going to read a James Patterson book.

Hundreds of pages of textbooks…
The semester has begun which means no more fun reading.

@benjaminlevi I have a ton of reading to do for school as well. At least it’s interesting subjects!

@casheroo Well four fifths of what I have to read is interesting. Calculus is yuck.
But at least animal physiology, genetics, ecology and metaphysics are interesting.

Passing Strange: : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line by Martha Sandweiss, about Clarence King, a white geologist and explorer, head of the Geological Survey at one point, who lived secretly as James Todd, a black Pullman porter with a black wife and mixed-race children residing in Brooklyn.

Blindman’s Bluff by Faye Kellerman, the 18th novel to feature L.A. police detective Lt. Peter Decker and his wife, Rina.

Cooking for David: A Culinary Dialysis Cookbook by Sara Colman, so I can learn how to make tasty foods for my husband once he starts dialysis (and actually before, so his kidneys will be less stressed).

Wishcraft by Barbara Sher. It’s a step-by-step guide to help the reader to not be afraid of setting goals and completing them.

Addiction To Unhappiness by Martha and William Pieper. The first half of the book talks about the maladaptive childhood patterns where feeling bad and disappointed feels “normal”, so anything different is alarming and one sabotages oneself to get back to the comfort zone, even if it harms one. The second half of the book discusses how to get out of such a place in one’s life and learn to condition yourself into better feelings and behaviors.

Censoring an Iranian Love Story,

by Shahriar Mandanipour. It is translated from the Farsi and banned in Iran. Mandanipour emigrated to America as a visiting writer at Brown U. He stayed in order to have the freedom to write.

This book is so original and complex and riveting that I am incapable of giving an encapsulated summary. Read the New Yorker review.
Then read the novel.

About half way through The Ascension Factor (Frank Herbert 1988) and want to finish it desperately, however, it is the last book of Herbert’s that I have not read, so am kind of reluctant to rip through it. I would recommend the entire Destination Void series (it’s the final of the four) if you are a sci-fi fan or even a fan of great fiction writing and excellent character development. It’s out of print, but completely engrossing and intricate.

No time for books now. I wish I had time to read. I am too busy studying for my LSATs. I am a bit nervous.

@hex – Nothing wrong with out-of-print books! That’s how I make my living.

EDIT: AARON. Aaron Copland.

* facepalm *

I’m about halfway through “Guns, Germs, and Steel”. The author’s style is a bit dry, but the subject matter is fascinating enough that I don’t find it gets in the way.

Guns, Germs and Steel is an excellent book. I have read it several times. Another good one is The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300–1850.

@Darwin, a blessing on all out-of-print book dealers. Thank you for keeping worthy older works alive and on paper. Sometimes I think we should just stop making new books until we’ve finished reading the ones we have.

MANIAC MAGEE. because i’m in 3rd grade again. and because its a good book.

I just started The Professor and the Madman, about the first editor of the OED and the man from the insane asylum who was one of its biggest contributors. I haven’t gotten very far into it yet, but so far it’s fascinating!

Next up, Sunshine by Robin McKinley (which I just borrowed from @EmpressPixie – thanks EP!)

I’m reading The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley.

Best book I’ve read in a long time. Love the character and the story based on the real life story of Yoshiko Kawashima, Chinese Princess turned Japanese spy. 1906 through to the World Wars.

I am almost finished too. * cries *

@sdeutsch, I thoroughly enjoyed the Simon Winchester book.

@Jeruba I’m really enjoying it so far – I’ve been meaning to read it for ages, so I’m glad it’s so good now that I’m finally getting around to reading it!

The Prodigal Son from the Frankenstein series by Dean Koontz.

@Sampson
I read invisible monsters and it was fantastic. One of his best books.

I’m reading Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. Its a gripping novel.

@justn – I find the Dexter novels much better than the TV show. You experience more of what goes on in his head.

@Darwin I’ve never watched the show (I don’t get Showtime). My friend read it and recommended it to me. Books are usually always better than shows or movies. I’ll probably watch some episodes once I finish the book though.

In order of focus

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World (Haruki Murakami)
____Completely excellent. One (if not the) most beautiful novels I’ve read and the only story that feels like I’m wandering around inside my own mind. I am sad that I cannot read it in Japanese, but I’ve been told that Murakami’s style is simpe in Japanese and that not much is lost in translation.

House of Leaves (Mark Danielewski)
_____Not as complicated as folks have made it out to be. Still working through it. Occasionally the disturbing elements really do bleed over into reality, so every once in a while I have to put it down. Still an interesting read.

Man and His Symbols (Jung)
_____Interesting. Achieves the intended purpose: to extend the teachings of Jung to the general populace.

Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
_____Really comical. Not too far into it as I only recently acquired it, but it’s a swift and enjoyable read.

The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
_____It’s okay in short sections. I prefer to apply bibliomancy rather than read it straight through, which definitely provides a very patchy overall understanding of the story. I really hate that I cannot read it in Italian, so I’m hesitant to read linearly.

Ultimate Sandman (admittedly not exactly a book)
_____Yay diversion! It’s pretty good. Not the best. I’m onto the second ultimate edition.

@deni I loved maniac magee!!! :)

Maniac Magee is an excellent book.

@Beta_Orionis: May I call you Rigel when we get to know each other better? Good list. I will check out the new Murakami.

@gailcalled Of course! You can even do it now as I consider them interchangeable. It’s just slightly more subtle than just using my name as a sn. :)

Have you read any of Murakami’s other works? He came so highly recommended to me from so many trusted friends that I just had to pick up a copy, but this is the first I’ve read. I still can’t get over how incredibly beautiful it is.

@Sampson I’ve read Haunted, Diary, and Rant, but I liked Rant the best by far. Haunted was mostly just disturbing and Diary was too predictable. Couldn’t read Fight Club after the hype and Haven’t finished to Choke. (I tried listening to it on CD to pass the time on my recent 2500 Mile Road Trip, but Palahniuk reads it himself and although it’s his work, THAT MAN CANNOT READ! It was torturous. I’ll read it on my own at some point)

Have you read Rant yet? I’d like your thoughts (sans spoilers of course) on the experience.

@Beta_Orionis I haven’t read Rant. Maybe I’ll get that one next… The two that I’ve read from him were Snuff and Invisible Monsters (finished last night) and I’d highly recommend both.

@Sampson Ahh. I’ve been meaning to pick up Snuff. Rant is really good. I recommend it highly. You clearly already enjoy Palahniuk’s style, but Rant, in my opinion, is several orders of magnitude better than the other works I’ve read.

Also, great question! I have been able to add a couple books to my queue based on the responses here.

Also, in case someone has yet to stumble upon it, Good Reads is a sweet site.

@Beta_Orionis, I admire your list. I have put the Murakami on my Amazon lst on the strength of your recommendation.

A Confederacy of Dunces remains memorable nearly thirty years after reading. It is indeed humorous, but a strain of tragedy runs through it, as through all good humor, and it is hard to read the book without the shadowing awareness of the author’s own tragedy.

@Beta_Orionis I prefer LibraryThing.com myself. I haven’t touched by GR account in ages because of all the stuff to do at LT.

After reading A Confederacy of Dunces years ago, I remember thinking, “Jerry Seinfeld totally ripped off this book for his show.” I guess it was the way all the various plot strands came together to hilarious effect at the end.

@drdoombot, could you give us a comparative review if the two book sites? I haven’t actually got involved with either. I’m not sure I really get the point. What do you get out of it in return for all the effort of cataloguing your books?

@Sampson, I hope you don’t mind my asking this in the context of your question.

@Jeruba No worries.

@Jeruba
__Re: CoD, You’re right. I’m not even very far into it because of the great book shuffle, but it’s extremely hard to divide it from the backstory of the author. I’m sure it’s making me read more into it than he might have intended.
__Re: the book sites, I really like the cataloging both to personality snoop with acquaintances and as a quick and dirty way to snag some new recommendations from an already compatibly filtered booklist (those read by folks I know)

@drdoombot Hmm! I’ll have to check it out. I’ll keep the apparent parallel in mind as I read then get back to you at the end.

I’m reading a book right now called This Is My Life Now
I have so many books lined up to read, i am a huge book reader

@jeruba We talked about this a while back, and my answer was (basically) that it was interesting to see what others were reading, and get their recommendations.

That’s partly true, but I’ve decided that it’s not the most important reason I like book cataloging sites. I think, essentially, it appeals to the side of me that likes to catalog things. I was making lists of the books I read in a notebook for decades before web sites came along to handle it for me, and there was no thought during those years of using the list for recommendations. I just like making lists, and I like to look back from time to time and see what I was reading 1, 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Plus the lists help me remember. Sometimes I’m trying to think of something I read, and I can’t quite remember the title or author—the list helps me with that.

If you don’t have that in-built urge to make lists, and getting book recommendations from others (or making them for others) isn’t terribly important to you, then these sites probably aren’t for you. Avoid them, and consider yourself lucky that there’s one thing you don’t have to do. You are free to spend your time in other pursuits. Like actual reading, for instance.

@Jeruba Well, @Gundark covered a lot of it. It’s nice to have a place to catalog the books you’ve read, own, want to read, want to buy, etc. They have an automatic recommendation feature, as well as a member recommendation feature (where members who liked a book suggest other books like it). They even have a neat Unsuggester feature, which suggests books you are least likely to have in your library, but might still enjoy. All of these features can recommend books off of a single book that you enter or based off of your entire library.

There are also a ton of social features connected to member libraries. LT can show you other libraries that are most similar to yours, people who have added the same books you have to their libraries, people who have the same favorite authors as yours, etc. You can also compare your library to Legacy Libraries, which are the libraries of famous dead people, like Thomas Jefferson and Tupac Shakur. You can also look at global and local statistics, like the number of readers who have a certain book, or how many books you have that were written by female authors. Or dead authors. Or the number of books you have in different languages. You can see clouds that show you the tags you use most often or the author whose books you have the most of. There’s a feature called Common Knowledge where users fill in tons of info about books, like characters, places, first sentence, etc. In short, you have access to tons of data about books.

One great thing they do is give you access to tons of libraries. Most book cataloging websites only access Amazon. If you have a rare book or a rare edition of a book, you’re out of luck. LT accesses Amazon, but also the LIbrary of Congress and 690 sources from around the world. Plus you can manually enter books. Also, most book cataloging websites severely limit your options for exporting your data or importing from other places. LT gives full access both ways.

Then there are the Groups, which are basically book groups. They come in every flavor, from Science Fiction Fans to Twilight Fans OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!! to I Survive the Great Vowel Shift. If you have a few weeks with nothing to do, there are plenty of discussions to browse through. You can also enter location information and select your favorite libraries and bookstores in your area, with LT letting you know about any events like author readings taking place nearby.

My favorite parts of LT are the book reviews and the Early Reviewers Program, which lets you sign up for a lottery each month to get Advanced Review Copies of books (I’ve won at least 3 books myself).

Basically, LT is for socializing, seeing statistics and finding data about your books. This sets LT aside from other sites, which don’t have 10% of the features LibraryThing does. Another great thing is that the creators and programmers of the site are always on the site, answering questions and joining in on the discussion. They even ask members to actively participate in discussions about what new features to put in and how to go about implementing them. I’ve never been to another site that let me feel like my opinion was actually considered and used.

Phew! Longest commercial for Librarything.com ever!

@drdoombot, thank you! What a wonderfully complete answer. I greatly appreciate your taking the time to spell it all out, and I have to acknowledge that it does sound attractive.

@Gundark, yes, I did sign up and post a few things there, at your prompting. I am a born list-maker with a streak of OCD, so the idea of cataloguing books I own and/or have read has a certain appeal, but the perfectionist in me is vexed by the fact that I would never be able to complete it. There is also the point that I am a very eclectic reader and find so very many books of interest to me just by following my own threads that I am not sure I’d actually have much interest in the recommendations of strangers. I can’t see doing all that work just as a public service for people who are no more interested in my library list than I am in theirs.

I’ll take a look at Librarything.com, though, and see if it looks like there’d be enough of a return on investment to warrant the effort. I must say I like the idea of being able to search in those classifications and exchange notes with groups narrowly focused on certain topics or categories of reading matter.

Add to my list “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” to be read but no longer cooked from. (Take 3 sticks of butter and a quart of whippling cream. Use copper bowl and whisk until arms fall off..)

@Jeruba I totally understand. The recommendations of strangers are definitely secondary to the list making. I just had to discover that through using the sites for a while.

I also understand the frustration of never having a fully complete list. It took me forever to load everything from the decades of reading I had recorded in a notebook into the first library site I tried, and I’ve never completed the task for Goodreads, which is frustrating. Not to mention that loading the paper list prompted me to try to remember as many books as possible from the decades before I started the list. I’ve remember several hundred books, and I still know the list isn’t complete. I’m sure it never will be. But actually, remembering books I read that I haven’t thought of for decades has actually been quite a bit of fun.

But now @DrDoombot has very nearly convinced me to try librarything, on which I’d have to start all over loading my list. It’s a daunting task. Maybe I’ll load the most recent 100 like I did on Goodreads, and see how I like it. @DrDoomBot—does LT have Facebook integration? If it did, that might clinch it for me. Not having to re-invite all my friends to yet another book site would make the switch less daunting, and I’d annoy less friends in the process.

Cataloging never ends for the obsessive compulsive among us.

@Gundark I haven’t looked into it extensively, but there was talk on LT a few months back of making a Facebook app. I don’t know how that’s coming along.

To move your lists from GR to LT isn’t difficult at all; I used to use GR to catalog the books I read as a child and had no problems migrating that list over. First, you need to login to your GR account, head to My Books, then click the “import” link on the left. Finally, on the Import page, you’ll see a link on the right side that says, “export to a csv file.”

Once you have that downloaded, download the sample import file from LT (located here). All you have to do is make sure that your GR export matches the columns of the LT file. Once you’ve made the changes, you can import to LT.

To be honest, I’m not sure the second step of making the GR columns look like the LT columns is even necessary. I did it just to make sure that my tags and other info from GR did not get lost in the migration.

I own thousands of books literally – I have more than 4000 listed for sale online, have at least that many to sell that have yet to be listed, and have at least that many as well that I consider “my” books (and yes, I have read them all, at least the ones I consider “mine”). While I would love to make lists on something like LibraryThing, I think I would spend the rest of my life doing that, with no time left to actually read.

@DrDoomBot—excellent, thanks for the info. That will certainly make the transition easier to manage. I didn’t really want to load everything into a new site by hand. Once took long enough.

For what it’s worth, I’m not sure I would have found the “export” function listed under the “import” link.

@Darwin since you already have a bunch online, I wonder if you could use an export / import combination to simplify your list making, as @DrDoomBot suggested?

@Gundark – The problem is that the ones that are online are transitory in my life. Someone buys one and it’s gone. The permanent books aren’t online.

@Beta_Orionis, on the strength of your recommendation and an inferred similarity of tastes, I am now reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Very interesting, although the number of editorial slips and misses is distracting, averaging one every couple of pages.

This is so strikingly reminiscent of the work of Jeffrey Ford, notably The Physiognomy and its sequels, that I can’t help thinking that the two authors must be aware of one another. I can’t follow that tangent right now to see which came first and whether either author makes mention of the other, but it would be easier to believe that they’re the same person than that they have never read each other’s fiction.

@Jeruba I tend to ignore the slips because it is a translation and I feel, because of that, it requires a margin of forgiveness. I should like to clarify that I’m normally pretty hesitant to give my opinions on work in any medium because everything is ultimately such a personal experience. This one just resonates with my really strongly. I can definitely see that it might not have the same effect on others.

I’ve not read any work by Jeffrey Ford, but I’ve also heard good things about The Physiognomy&co. That certainly sounds like an intriguing tangent to investigate and The Physiognomy is certainly a work that I will check out!

@Jeruba Jeffrey Ford teaches at my college (the one I work for.) Unfortunately, I don’t know him or I could ask about the connection.

@janbb You could probably just drop by his office and ask. I find it hard to believe that he would turn you away after such an interesting conversation starter.

@Beta_Orionis True, What is the other author’s name? I will do some sleuthing.

@janbb Excellent! Should be an interesting adventure! :D His name is Haruki Murakami.

Nancy Drew (girl sleuth) will report back.

I just finished When the Air Hits Your Brain by Frank T. Vertosick. It is a fascinating account about how he evolved to be able cope with the losses neurosurgeons face without becoming either a well-trained sociopath or a basket case himself.

Unfortunately he has had to give up surgery because he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (as he says “No one wants a neurosurgeon with shaky hands.”)

I am reading Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. When I choose a book, I tend to avoid the current bestseller list, unless the subject is of great interest to me.

@Yetanotheruser – So instead you choose from last year’s best seller list?

I just finished Sunshine, which was an amazing book – it’s one of those books that you really don’t want to end, because you know the next book you read is never going to live up to it. So, now I’m reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell – I needed some good non-fiction to get me through the Sunshine withdrawal…

@Darwin Only because I did not have to buy it!

@Yetanotheruser – So you chose it because it was free? That doesn’t sound very selective. I wouldn’t read The Da Vinci Code if someone handed it to me as a gift or if I found it at a bus stop. It is derivative and neither the first nor the best fictional approach to the subject.

Have you considered going to a public library?

@Darwin I’m glad to hear someone else say that. I read “The Da Vinci Code” and didn’t think it was that good. Given its popularity, I thought perhaps I was the only one.

@Gundark – Often (not all the time but frequently) books on the “Bestseller” lists are there because they are easy to read, reconfirm many peoples’ preconceptions, are linked to a Hollywood movie being given a huge amount of publicity, are being given a huge amount of publicity by the publisher so the author’s advance can be recouped, or pander to the bulk of society who typically aren’t terribly good judges of literature. Twilight is to me an example of that sort of book.

It is often better to look for the books that have won decent awards, or are simply written by authors who have written other work you have enjoyed.

I read it too and thought it was simplistic crap. Would not read another by him or see the movies.

I actually really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, but didn’t like another book by him (I can’t even remember which it was). It was a book club read, and before it became wildly popular. We all enjoyed discussing the ‘theories’, and the golden ratio. Maybe I enjoyed it so much because it was the first time I’d ever been exposed to that kind of thing. <shrugs>

A sad fact: Dan Brown stinks.

@MacBean Well when you put it that way… :P

Reading those snippets on a stand-alone basis was hilarious. Bad, indeed. I like two types of novels, those (like To Kill a Mockingbird) which are so well written they make me want to weep and those (like The Da Vinci Code) which have a great story. For instance, one of the worst/best books I’ve read was The Bridges of Madison County. The writing was awful. Pure crap. The story though… ah, the story! I cried, and it stuck with me for days and days. I guess I’ve got multiple personality disorder when it comes to books! I can live with that. :)

@Darwin I totally get that. Publicity often trumps quality. That’s one of the main reasons we’re all using PCs and Macs instead of Amigas. Just saying.

One of the best books I’ve read in recent years was actually a book of short stories; “Paris Stories” by Mavis Gallant. The writing was absolutely beautiful, and the stories were priceless.

Right now, I’m reading “Seeds of Time” by Kay Kenyon. It’s terrible. I won’t read anything else of hers.

@augustlan I often find myself making a distinction between “I liked it” and “It was good” when I’m recommending books/movies/TV shows/music/etc. There is quite a lot of entertainment that I love but I’m still aware that it’s really pretty crappy. And sometimes there is stuff that I know objectively is extremely well-done, but I still just don’t like it. I wish more people would realize the difference and be able to admit that sometimes they like junk and that’s okay. It’s like eating candy. It’s not for your health; it’s just yummy!

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor. A fascinating look at what went on in the head of a person who had a major stroke at the age of 37. It has a wonderfully useful final chapter on how best to help a stroke victim, based on the author’s experiences. The only flaw is that it is too short in that it ended before the author arrived at being what she considers to be fully recovered but not the same as before.

@augustlan @MacBean I understand what you mean. While The Da Vinci Code is not particularly well written it is a good story and I find that it is a page turner.

zorba the greek, (nikos kazantzakis) the handmaids tale, (margaret atwood) the sign of jonas, (thomas merton) ulysses, (james joyce)

@Beta_Orionis, I readily forgive little lapses of diction and other possible awkwardnesses that may come with a translation. I am speaking of errors for which there is no excuse because it was not properly edited in English. The translator appears to have a few blind spots in English; a competent editor would have caught the many errors and cleaned them up. Even if care with the stages of publication and especially with editorial attention is not what it used to be, this is excessive, and it is all the more regrettable in a book that is eminently worth reading.

I have borrowed books from Jeruba… she edits them herself when an editor has failed! I find little notes here and there throughout her books. She’s an editing goddess. :)

@Jeruba Ah. For those, I have no explanation, but I think my brain probably fills in the gaps as I read. I can definitely understand being excessively bothered by errors though.

Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup

I have not seen the film but my brother sent me the audio book which I began listening to only this morning. It is beautifully read and I can tell I am going to enjoy it. The writing is full of poignant ironic humour, very affecting. I am reminded of A Fine Balance by Vikram Seth.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I’m about a third of the way through it, and am enjoying it very much.

Top Producer. It has a truly astonishing murder by shark at the New England Aquarium in the first chapter, and then offers an intriguing if somewhat nasty look at how “stockbrokers” (who are no longer called that) work day to day. The sharks in the first chapter are much nicer than the sharks in the rest of the book.

@augustlan Oh god! DON’T FINISH IT! Just put it down and walk away while you still can!

@Beta_Orionis I’ve heard there is some controversy over the latter portions of the book, but I’m too far in. I’ll just have to grit my teeth and see it through!

@augustlan – Good luck with that. That was one book I simply could not finish.

@augustlan Then you’ll just have to weigh in again after you finish. :(

I just got to the ‘supernatural’ part. Not happy about it.

@augustlan Yes, let’s discuss when you finish it. I loved it up til the end. The dog parts particularly Almondine were fantastic.

“The People of the Book,” by Geraldine Brooks,

”..in this new novel by the author of March, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006, is intelligent, thoughtful, gracefully written and original. Brooks has built upon her experience as a correspondent in Bosnia for the Wall Street Journal to construct a story around a book—small, rare and very old—and the people into whose hands it had fallen over five centuries, people who “had known unbearable stress: pogrom, Inquisition, exile, genocide, war.”

Source

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know -

“Inside of a Dog is a most welcome authoritative, personal, and witty book about what it is like to be a dog. This engaging volume serves as a corrective to the many myths that circulate about just who our canine companions are. I hope this book enjoys the wide readership it deserves.”—Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals and Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals (with Jessica Pierce).

Appropriately, I returned home today to discover that one of our dogs has chewed the bottom of the spine. And yes, the title is from the quote from Groucho Marx.

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

@Beta_Orionis Ok, I finished Edgar Sawtelle. Boo. :(

@augustlan It’s a terrible ending isn’t it? I had read rerviews saying the plot was a take-off on Hamlet which is the only way the ending makes sense, but it doesn’t work emotionally at all. When you know that there are clues – Trudy, Claude – but I think the Hamlet connections are the weakest part of the book and the dog and mute parts are the best.

@augustlan :(

handle with care by Jodi Piccoult

mysterious island- war of the worlds- a christmas carol- these old classics are fun to come back to from time to time. i recomend buddenbrooks and magic mountain by thomas mann and dubliners and portrait of an artist as a young man by james joyce. pay particular attention to ” the dead” the last story in dubliners,considered by some to be the finest short story ever written in the english language. the movie version is now out on dvd. a fine adaptation. it was the final movie made by john houston. great!!!!

The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson. It’s part of the Gap Cycle series.

Jumpstart Your Awesome Film Production Company

“Lord of the Flies”.

Just finished re-reading my favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird. Still great!

I just finished The Outlaws of Sherwood – another fabulous book by Robin McKinley. About to start Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – I’m looking forward to sitting in the sunshine and reading all afternoon!

@sdeutsch I loved Jonathan Strange but many don’t; I’d be curious to hear what you think.

Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), The Case for God (Karen Armstrong) The Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 1 . All three are superb! I’m already looking forward to volume 2 of Twains book.