Whatcha Readin'?

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:33 pm

I just waded through all the posts in this thread... it was sad as so many of those of yore are not with us in Secular cafe anymore

DMB · Post by **DMB** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:29 am

[quote=""Rie""]DMB thanks for the advice... didn't know there was a trilogy... but what irritated me wasn't Salander herself but the too wordy text and too many plots supposedly related.[/quote]

See this (Wikipedia)

Millennium series. I suspect the "too wordy text" may be a result of translation. Obviously, most of us are forced to read translations, since we can't know all the languages in which interesting books are published, but I know I often get irritated by the opacity of many translations. It also seems to me to be most prevalent in serious books by good writers. A lot of thrillers are written very simply and can translate well into very simple language. But literary writing is of a different order.

Wizofoz · Post by **Wizofoz** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 10:58 am

I hadn't read a book in ages, but I just finished "And the Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hossenini, author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Faithful Suns", inside two days.

Now booking intensive phsyco-therapy!!!

Another brilliant read from a guy who knows how to weave a highly emotional and poignant yet very historic and topical story.

Highly recommended.

Shake · Post by **Shake** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 5:06 pm

I finally finished George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God and have now taken a change of pace with Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. It is an interesting piece on the exponential growth of technology and a point when we will see a merger of biological and non-biological intelligences.

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:56 pm

I've just finished a book called "The Poison Diaries".... strange very strange..... but it gives a subtle philosophical view of the meaning of 'things'.
I along with most of the authors in my favourite genre, especially Agatha Christie, became interested in the poisonous properties of stuff in the average person's garden. I remember being told at a young age by my mother of the killer of Aussie BBQ choice the Oleander bush....Oleander coming from the Greek word for Beware

Roo St. Gallus · Post by **Roo St. Gallus** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:09 am

I'm in the midst of The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.

I'm still looking for a copy of Pratchett's The Last Hero so that I can finally finish off all the Discworld novels.

I'm also looking for copies of Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You and his young readers' Hoot. Once I've covered those, I'll be ready for his collections of columns (Paradise Screwed and Kick Ass) and his non-fiction piece on Disney, Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World.

GenesisNemesis · Post by **GenesisNemesis** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 7:44 am

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. First book by him I've started. Well-structured so far, but I'm not very excited by the story much.

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:50 pm

So... I turned out of desperation to a Reader's Digest woefully predictable tale of a feisty female cop in love with an aloof boss... :horse:

.. still it's good and sleep inducing, such a tale. However steotypical heroines and the men they finally convert to 'true lerv' leave me bored.
But... there was a twist. One of the chief female characters gets to die a noble death.

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 10:01 pm

And now i'm reading the second of the Milllenium trilogy and finding it still too wordy but exciting. Lisbeth has two policing type bodies after her (bodies in the sense of Corporate Police bodies but not excluding human bodies).... and i'm with her all the way. GO Lisbeth!!!

rog · Post by **rog** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:33 am

Regarding my bathroom reading, I am am just staring out with The Leviathan, I expect progress to be slow depending on the amount of fiber in my diet on any given day.

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:01 am

I'm reading a book by Anne Perry... a really fascinating person who writes very good books based in the Victorian Era in London and the hidden nature of the most perverse and horrible crimes. This one is called Resurrection Row (all her books are based around a street in London) and concerns the crime of the digging up of a months dead man and then reburying him again and again.
The Detective is Mr Thomas Pitt and he has married above himself into a wealthy titled family.
The really fascinating part of the author is that recently it came to the attention of fans that she Anne Perry, according to the blurb about her having been away for 15 years and then returning to her home in the Scottish highlands, is mythical. She was one of two teenage girls who killed a man and was 'away' in prison for 15 years.
I don't condemn her. I don't actually condemn anyone. During her time in prison she educated herself and is a superb writer.

Pendaric · Post by **Pendaric** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 12:36 pm

'East of Eden', by John Steinbeck. Only a couple of chapters in at the moment, so he's still setting the scene rather than any action going.

My favourite book ever is 'Grapes of Wrath', and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to pick up this, as it's probably 20 years since I read that and 'Of Mice and Men'.

Valheru · Post by **Valheru** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 1:17 pm

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Copernicus · Post by **Copernicus** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 4:43 am

[quote=""Pendaric""]'East of Eden', by John Steinbeck. Only a couple of chapters in at the moment, so he's still setting the scene rather than any action going.

My favourite book ever is 'Grapes of Wrath', and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to pick up this, as it's probably 20 years since I read that and 'Of Mice and Men'.[/quote]
I did one of my first research papers on Grapes of Wrath in high school. After that, I was hooked. I went and read everything of his I could find.

Shadowfox · Post by **Shadowfox** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:49 pm

Saturnalia by Lindsey Davis, a fun mystery in a series featuring Marcus Didius Falco, an "informer" (PI) in first century Rome. Her research is thorough and I feel as if I actually am in ancient Rome.

Cath B · Post by **Cath B** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:10 pm

I've just reread The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for the umpteenth time.

I first read it in my early teens and have always loved its nuanced take on human character and behaviour.

Rereading it I appreciate the fact that I now know Edinburgh well enough to get a great sense of location.

Roo St. Gallus · Post by **Roo St. Gallus** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:44 pm

I'm in the midst of Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You.

It is an absolute scream....LOL after LOL....practically ROFLMAO.

It has some of the most intriguing religious charlatans I've ever seen portrayed in fiction (sooooo real), including the roadstain Jesus, a crying Madonna who's tears are scented, a whackjob who maintains his stigmata with a power drill, and cooter apostles....and that's just a side story to the main one about multiple Lotto winners.

Oh...You Brits? Try reading some Hiaasen to get a better picture of life in Florida, where so many Brits come to vacation. If you do, you'll think twice before booking the next plane to Orlando. Or, Miami.

Shadowfox · Post by **Shadowfox** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 6:41 pm

Hiaasen cracks me up - and I've not seen this one.

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:37 pm

Just finished another of Anne Perry's novels. All are set in the Victorian era and this one covers the issue of incest. She is a great writer and her time as a teenager in goal was used to turn her life around.

Politesse · Post by **Politesse** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:38 am

[quote=""Rie""]The really fascinating part of the author is that recently it came to the attention of fans that she Anne Perry, according to the blurb about her having been away for 15 years and then returning to her home in the Scottish highlands, is mythical. She was one of two teenage girls who killed a man and was 'away' in prison for 15 years.
I don't condemn her. I don't actually condemn anyone. During her time in prison she educated herself and is a superb writer.[/quote]
Not a man, they killed her best friend's mother, and quite brutally. The murder was the subject of a film called "Heavenly Creatures", which launched Peter Jackson's career as a serious(er) director.

Shadowfox · Post by **Shadowfox** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:12 pm

"Mythical"? No, a writer using a pen name which in her case may be a legal name change. No matter what her past, she is a fine researcher and writer. Nor is she the only writer with a criminal past. Like them, she has her own self explored the dark side so deeply that she can write so convincingly of the evil that lurks in a criminal mind, indeed in any human mind.

Pendaric · Post by **Pendaric** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 8:33 pm

[quote=""Pendaric""]'East of Eden', by John Steinbeck. Only a couple of chapters in at the moment, so he's still setting the scene rather than any action going.

My favourite book ever is 'Grapes of Wrath', and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to pick up this, as it's probably 20 years since I read that and 'Of Mice and Men'.[/quote]

Finished it, and it was absorbing and a great read, although it doesn't immediately have the same impact on me as 'Grapes of Wrath', which I think I will have to seek out again.

Currently nearly finishing '1984'. My daughter is doing it at 'A' Level, so I've borrowed her copy for a couple of days. I read it when I was a teenager, so I'd more or less forgotten the plot and thought it time to have another read.

You can see how prescient it was on some levels, and how wrong on others.

MattShizzle · Post by **MattShizzle** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 9:39 pm

I've read Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Never read East of Eden, but I've seen the movie (the one with James Dean as the main character.)

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:12 pm

More Anne Perry... can't ever be bored by her great verbal painting of the morals and behaviour of the Victorian Era... this one is titled "Bluegate Fields" and deals so well with the subject of paedophilia.

Rie · Post by **Rie** » Sun Nov 24, 2013 9:54 pm

Just finished "Bluegate Fields" by Anne Perry. She is a member of The John Howard Society (cf. Wikipedia ) and dedicates Bluegates Fields to this Society "Who practice their founder's belief in the right to dignity of all people"