Basenotes › Basenotes Forums › General Discussion › Off topic › What are you reading? Part 2
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

What are you reading? Part 2

post #1 of 840
7/22/10 at 7:51pm
Thread Starter 
Starting a new reading thread ... here's the old one

Don't laugh ... I'm reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella.
Reply
Reply

Features on Basenotes

Basenotes Reader Awards 2013 - Finalists Announced.
Greatest Hits: Annick Menardo
Petals Falling From The Sky - A Report From The Cote d'Azur's Bataille De Fleurs
post #2 of 840
7/22/10 at 8:39pm
'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest' by Steig Larsson the third and last book of the trilogy. I hope its as good as the last two.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 840
7/22/10 at 9:47pm
I just finished 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert Pirsig. Despite it being much different than what I thought it would be, I thought it was excellent.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 840
7/23/10 at 10:56am
"61 Hours" by Lee Child.

Read his first novel a few years ago and now look forward to every one of his new ones. Great action with very clever situations that the lead character figures out.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 840
7/23/10 at 1:13pm
Every summer I try to re-read Cannery Row, and I've been carrying my copy in my briefcase or backpack for a week now, expecting to get started. This summer I also want to read two summer reads I've never taken care of: Lonesome Dove and One-Hundred Years of Solitude.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 840
7/23/10 at 1:54pm
  • kbe
  • offline
  • Gender:
American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center by William Langewiesche. 2nd read for me, the first a couple of years ago. Langewiesche spent nine months with total access to Ground Zero during the search/removal/clearing of the site. He also interviewed survivors.

An insider's well written look at the exhausting work, conflicts, territoriality and emotions of the recovery and demolition teams. An amazing read. The book itself is a product of the three-part Atlantic Magazine series by the same author.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 840
7/23/10 at 4:06pm
Going to (finally!) start Dante's 'The Inferno'
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 840
7/24/10 at 12:20am
"A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, really interesting stuff, and easy to understand.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 840
7/24/10 at 1:28am
Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. Also rereading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, this time in both English and German (I have a bilingual edition) to improve my German, and reading a friend's unpublished novel.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 840
7/31/10 at 12:37pm
The Origin Of Species- Darwin
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 840
7/31/10 at 2:22pm
I just finished a mystery,'The Scent of Rain and Lightning' by Nancy Pickard. I'm starting to read, a suspence novel 'The Cheater' by Nancy T, Rosenberg.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 840
8/20/10 at 9:26am
I am reading Wuthering Heights By Emily Bronte, again.

Read all of Thomas Hardy's books before starting on the Bronte sisters.

Since going back to university I read loads of factual books, fiction takes a bit of a back seat.

Ho-hum
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 840
8/20/10 at 2:36pm
Read CS Lewis Allegory of Love, really should have been called "Love of Allegory". I took medieval French Lit in college and this, despite having been written by an Oxford prof, should have been on the syllabus.

Started Dostoevsky's Demons on the recommendation of my favorite used book store.

Also bought a slew of cookbooks there.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 840
8/21/10 at 6:07am
I just finished Anne Tyler's 'Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant' Great read, talk about disfunctional family, LMAO at times , sad at others. Ms. Tyler is a heck of a good writer, looking forward to reading her other novels.
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 840
8/23/10 at 2:13pm
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

I really love Mitchell's writing, this is incredibly engaging.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 840
8/23/10 at 2:46pm
I'm reading Peter Matthiessen's Killing Mister Watson trilogy, thanks to the suggestion of another fine Basenoter, and really enjoying it. Fortunately for me, I get to read it again in slightly different form when I read Matthiessen's Shadow Country.

Right now I'm at the end of the second book in the trilogy, Lost Man's River. At the bookstore this evening I pick up the third, Bone by Bone.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 840
8/23/10 at 3:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DustB View Post

Every summer I try to re-read Cannery Row, and I've been carrying my copy in my briefcase or backpack for a week now, expecting to get started. This summer I also want to read two summer reads I've never taken care of: Lonesome Dove and One-Hundred Years of Solitude.

OOh I bet you'll love One Hundred Years of Solitude. It's quite magical, really.
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 840
8/23/10 at 4:10pm
  • kbe
  • offline
  • Gender:
John McPhee's In Suspect Terrain. Glacial geology and plate tectonics: how the terrain of the Eastern United States was affected by both.
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 840
8/23/10 at 4:15pm
Ah kbe... I read that as part of "Annals of the Former World"... doesn't McPhee make geology intriguing?

(I am in my cheap "cozy" mystery and old classics a-la Jane Austen mode right now. I think I might opt for the modern pastiche Jane Austen novels with insert-any-number-of-monsters as well, just for grins.)
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 840
8/23/10 at 4:24pm
I'm reading John Grisham's 'Ford County' this novel is a collection of seven short stories.
Reply
Reply
post #21 of 840
8/23/10 at 5:05pm
The Scent Trail by Celia Lyttelton and The Aenid by Virgil.
Reply
Reply
post #22 of 840
8/26/10 at 3:34pm
Malignant Sadness by Lewis Wolpert, grim title - good book.

Ho-hum
Reply
Reply
post #23 of 840
8/26/10 at 5:22pm
Some of you are reading some heavy stuff for summer. :-) I just started The Anthologist: A Novel by Nicholson Baker. It's about poetry, sort of, and so far I'm finding it clever and funny.
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 840
8/26/10 at 5:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klaire View Post

'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest' by Steig Larsson the third and last book of the trilogy. I hope its as good as the last two.

I am reading this trilogy too... and I have not seen the films yet! These really are as engrossing as all that.
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 840
8/26/10 at 10:20pm
Dubliners by James Joyce.
Reply
Reply
post #26 of 840
8/28/10 at 6:45am
'Imperial Woman' by Pearl S Buck about the last empress of China.

reine
Reply
Reply
post #27 of 840
8/28/10 at 9:45am
I am reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
Reply
Reply
post #28 of 840
8/28/10 at 10:06am
Fever dream By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child =)
Reply
Reply
post #29 of 840
9/6/10 at 11:26am
The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman by Karen Karbo and Chesley McLaren
Reply
Reply
post #30 of 840
9/6/10 at 11:20pm
For a recent trip: Breezed through an Elizabeth Berg I bought after I read Pull of the Moon (which was timely for me)... can't even remember the title of this one but it was one of those novels where nothing really happens. Sigh. BUT on the trip back I stopped at Bookman's in Tucson and got T.C. Boyle's East is East and THAT's a good one. (stuff DOES happen.)
Reply
Reply
post #31 of 840
9/6/10 at 11:41pm
The Idiot (1868) by Dostoyevsky
Reply
Reply
post #32 of 840
9/13/10 at 12:01pm
Candide by Voltaire.
Reply
Reply
post #33 of 840
9/13/10 at 12:54pm
Umberto Eco On Ugliness
Reply
Reply
post #34 of 840
9/13/10 at 1:13pm
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

I'm going through a few of the Booker Prize nominees and this one really intrigued me. It's very emotionally engaging...the sort of book you have to be in the mood for...that's for sure.
Reply
Reply
post #35 of 840
9/13/10 at 10:25pm
A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Back in high school the school's library erroneously accused me of checking out and not returning this book, thus stealing it. Charged me some money too, although I'd never ever picked it up much less checked it out. Skip forward to a thrift store visit last spring--there's a copy. Figured I'd better read it since the high school injustice has always sat with me.

Next failure to correct: take calculus a third time and pass it this time. After that there'll be no more dreams of having to walk across the city and go to an art gallery opening naked anymore.
Reply
Reply
post #36 of 840
9/14/10 at 1:58am
I always have several books started at the same time. Right now I'm mainly reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (surprisingly funny), Margery Allingham's Police At The Funeral and Dorothy L. Sayers' Have His Carcase, with Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Leoparden, Jan Potocki's The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, Nibelungenlied and Tove Jansson's Det Osynliga Barnet on the side. Should really start on Alfred Hutton's The Sword and the Centuries, too.
Reply
Reply
post #37 of 840
9/15/10 at 10:38am
'The Last Time I Saw You' by Elizabeth Berg. Multiple characters going to a 40 yr. high school reunion, written with wit and humor.
Reply
Reply
post #38 of 840
9/16/10 at 5:18am
Finished Police at the Funeral, started on Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Vol de Nuit! The language is absolutely beautiful. I'm thinking that if I read it in a language I'm fluent in first, I may be able to get through it in French later, especially if I can get hold of a Swedish translation, too.
Reply
Reply
post #39 of 840
9/16/10 at 12:50pm
  • kbe
  • offline
  • Gender:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DustB View Post

A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Back in high school the school's library erroneously accused me of checking out and not returning this book, thus stealing it. Charged me some money too, although I'd never ever picked it up much less checked it out. Skip forward to a thrift store visit last spring--there's a copy. Figured I'd better read it since the high school injustice has always sat with me.

Walter M. Miller Jr's masterpiece! I read this when I was just out of high school and loved it. Re-read it several years ago and loved it all over again. One of the best SF books of all time in my opinion.

************************************************** ********



Right now I am well into another of John McPhee's well crafted and thoroughly readable books, Rising From The Plains is the third in a 'series' following his Basin and Range and In Suspect Terrain. Most of the book centers in Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains near and around US Interstate 80. Ancient seas, plate tectonics and mountains that form and erode away are the central themes but they well integrated with a personal trip of discovery that co-features geologist David Love as guide and tripmate.
Reply
Reply
post #40 of 840
9/17/10 at 4:10pm
Just finished "Cat and Mouse" by Günter Grass minutes ago
Reply
Reply
post #41 of 840
9/17/10 at 4:45pm
About to start Dante's Inferno, finally.
Reply
Reply
post #42 of 840
10/7/10 at 1:33pm
Going through a JG Ballard phase. I've just read Crash, High-Rise, The Atrocity Exhibition and Concrete Island one after the other. Just about to start Super-Cannes. I'd strongly recommend his books to anyone interested in fiction - I find they actually make me think about the nature of being human in the modern world. I don't read a lot of contemporary literature, but I can't think of anything else in the field that I could genuinely say that about.
Reply
Reply
post #43 of 840
10/7/10 at 10:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Klaire View Post

'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest' by Steig Larsson the third and last book of the trilogy. I hope its as good as the last two.

I am just finishing the first of the trilogy The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. It took a while to get into it at first. But then it became very compelling and interesting as well as realistic and believable, with lots of Swedish local color. I will definitely move on to the other two.
Reply
Reply
post #44 of 840
10/8/10 at 5:24am
I am reading The Cave by Jose Saramago and The Fiest of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, which I actually started it before yesterday when I heard about Vargas Llosa winning the 2010 Nobel Prize for literature.
Reply
Reply
post #45 of 840
10/9/10 at 3:06am
Reply
Reply
post #46 of 840
10/9/10 at 3:33am
The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

A book about string theory for the layman.
Reply
Reply
post #47 of 840
10/9/10 at 5:20am
Just finished Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim. He treats the disturbing subject of abuse with extraordinary poetry. I also am fascinated by the subliminal imagery that happens through descriptions of dreams and memories throughout the novel.
Highly recommended read. Although some of the main protagonists are homosexual, I think that the experiences transcend any kind of gender orientation or identification. Bravo.
Reply
Reply
post #48 of 840
10/9/10 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shoegal68 View Post

About to start Dante's Inferno, finally.

didn't bother,re-reading The Great Gatsby
Reply
Reply
post #49 of 840
10/9/10 at 1:20pm
North River by Pete Hamill

its one of the more interesting novels I've read this fall, I'm only on chapter six, but I can't wait to get further
Reply
Reply
post #50 of 840
10/9/10 at 5:11pm
I'm reading Nina Garcia's new book "What to wear for every occasion" 'THE LOOK BOOK' a entertaining book, with a common sense guide for appropriate attire. A 'must read' for women, who have asked themselves, "What should I wear?"
Reply
Reply
post #51 of 840
10/9/10 at 6:11pm
  • kbe
  • offline
  • Gender:
Quote:
Originally Posted by SculptureOfSoul View Post

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

A book about string theory for the layman.

An amazing book SOS! Has a WOW factor of +10

###################################

Now reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis. An expose of how Wall Street in general and, more specifically Goldman Sachs and the credit rating agencies, screwed the public out of damn near a trillion dollars in the sub-prime mortgage scam/bubble. Fascinating and frightening at the same time as the effects are still falling domino-like and continuing..
Reply
Reply
post #52 of 840
10/9/10 at 6:14pm
Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. It's brilliant.
Reply
Reply
post #53 of 840
10/9/10 at 6:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shoegal68 View Post

didn't bother,re-reading The Great Gatsby

Hubby just read this one. He quite liked it. I never have.
Reply
Reply
post #54 of 840
10/9/10 at 6:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadesofbleu View Post

Starting a new reading thread ... here's the old one

Don't laugh ... I'm reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella.

How are you finding it? any good? I shamelessly enjoyed the Twilight books. My inner 13 year old is alive and well
Reply
Reply
post #55 of 840
10/14/10 at 4:03am
Can anyone recommend a good book for me to read. I recently finished American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and I'm one of the few that like it. I tend to favor obscure, modern, artsy, weird, controversial, dark novels. My favorite movie is Mulholland Drive by David Lynch to give you an idea.

I scanned through goodreads.com but I thought I'd post here since I knew there was a book thread.

Thanks
Reply
Reply
post #56 of 840
10/14/10 at 4:07am
Have you read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, nsamadi? It's an entertaining, if bleak, take on a post-apocalyptic world.

Alongside "The Elegant Universe" I am reading, and almost finished with "All Quiet on the Western Front"
Reply
Reply
post #57 of 840
10/14/10 at 4:23am
Thanks SoS. I haven't read those or really know about them. I'm just scanning through goodreads.com checking some stuff out. I'll take a look. Cheers.
Reply
Reply
post #58 of 840
10/14/10 at 12:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nsamadi View Post

Can anyone recommend a good book for me to read. I recently finished American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and I'm one of the few that like it. I tend to favor obscure, modern, artsy, weird, controversial, dark novels. My favorite movie is Mulholland Drive by David Lynch to give you an idea.

I scanned through goodreads.com but I thought I'd post here since I knew there was a book thread.

Thanks

Crash by JG Ballard (in the mid-Nineties David Cronenberg did a controversial film adaptation of this book, which was controversial itself when published in the Seventies).
Reply
Reply
post #59 of 840
10/14/10 at 1:24pm
Just finished the audio version of Pillars of the Earth. Also finished and am up to date on the lengthy First North American Series by W. Michael Gear. I usually have 2 or 3 books going on at the same time. Since I do a 40 minute commute to work, audiobooks have been a sanity saver.
Reply
Reply
post #60 of 840
10/14/10 at 2:28pm
Henry James, The Golden Bowl
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Off topic

Features on Basenotes

Basenotes Reader Awards 2013 - Finalists Announced.
Greatest Hits: Annick Menardo
Petals Falling From The Sky - A Report From The Cote d'Azur's Bataille De Fleurs
Basenotes › Basenotes Forums › General Discussion › Off topic › What are you reading? Part 2