I just got back from vacation, so I've finished a lot of books recently. Among them:
Naked, David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
And right now I'm reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott on the suggestion of a mathematically-minded friend of mine. It's actually fairly interesting so far, and rather short, so I should be done rather soon.
Right now I'm reading James Clavell's Shôgun for the first time
and The Dirt (Biography of Mötley Crüe)
both are very interesting, in very different ways.
Piper in Brazil, Scanner Darkly and an anthology of Philip K Dick short stories. The Philip K Dick books were given to me by my son for my birthday... awh...
Piper in Brazil is exactly what it sounds like, a surly piper in Brazil. A Good muscian's read, similar to Last Night's Fun but more in the style of Mayle-light and good hearted.
Not connected with the estate of Philip K dick or employment of James Donal Faulkner
An off comment- just went to COSTCO ( to our over the pond friends- do they have large discount style warehouse stores over there??) and had one of those literary moments- the checker and I got into a "Did you read Steinbeck's Cannery Row?" conversations. Great fun and totaly unexpected.
fel bautista wrote: The Philip K Dick books were given to me by my son for my birthday... awh...
Now that's a good son!
Recently finished The Telling by Ursula K. LeGuin. Slowly working my way through O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series... and at the moment reading Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan (ha) and William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.
The Velocity of Dust (poems) Gary J. Whitehead The Names of Things Are Leaving (poems) by our own Jordan Smith No god but God by Reza Aslan (history of Islam to present day) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction -- by Jon Stewart An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (re-reading it after 12 or 13 years.)
Last edited by Dale on Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
How To do Things Right: The Revelations of a Fussy Man, by L. Rust Hill Questions for Ecclesiastes, by Marc Jarman A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess (rereading) The Melodic Tradition of Ireland, by James Cowdery
(and some boring stuff you don't want to hear about)
I love reading threads too. I've been reading quite a bit of Dickens and just finished Bleak House. Now I'm reading a book called March by Geraldine Brooks, who also wrote Year of Wonders, a book my niece read in high school and which I enjoyed very much. Next on the pile is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (don't know if that's the one Dale specially recommended but I grabbed it when I found it since I haven't read it), The Great Influenza by John M. Barry (about the influenza epidemic in early 20th c. which I have always wanted to understand better), Mainstreet by Sinclair Lewis and interspersed with all these lovely, fascinating books I will also be forcing myself to read and remember the dang Iowa Driver's License Manual because I screwed up very badly. And not for the first time. That's what kills me.
Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium. ~ Diligence is a very great help even to a mediocre intelligence.----Seneca
"No Touch Monkey" by Ayun Halliday (travel, hipness & parenting collide)
"John Clare" by Jonathan Bates, along with "I Am: The Selected Poetry of John Clare" (if you like songs like Planxty's "Blacksmith" this biography and Clare's poetry will make you feel like you've fallen back into that world)
"Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds" poems by Eleanor Lerman. (Very funny, very smart, one of those poets I read to find out what's actually going on out there.)
"Panicking Ralph"by Bill James. (Took me awhile to get the rhythm of this, but fans of "Snatch"or "Layer Cake" will probably take to this crime novel right away.
I recently finished " Eleanor &Franklin" by Joseph Lash. Actually, it was a re-read. I first read it years ago. When I looked this book up to see who the author is(because I'm too lazy to walk upstairs) I found out he won a Pulitzer for this- Hmmm, didn't realized that.
Yesterday I finished Sharon McCrumb's "She Walks These Hills".
I like her books because not only are they good, they often take place in and around Mitchell Co., NC where I've got kin.
"Let low-country intruder approach a cove
And eyes as gray as icicle fangs measure stranger
For size, honesty, and intent." John Foster West