What Are You Reading

[MrNewportCustom]

Currently reading Dale Carnegie's Lifetime Plan for Success: How to Win Friends and Influence People ~ How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. (Both in one volume.)

You can guess by whom. lol


Lee

 

[Spitfire]

Just started on: "Bomber Boys" by Patrick Bishop.
Read his "Fighter Boys" with great pleasure during last summer.

 

[Helen Troy]

Currently reading Dale Carnegie's Lifetime Plan for Success: How to Win Friends and Influence People ~ How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. (Both in one volume.)

You can guess by whom. lol


Lee

I've read that one! I thought it was hillarious! But it's very interesting to compare it to modern self-help books. Not much has changed.

 

[Harley Quinn]

i finished off the 'V For Vendetta' graphic comic series not too long ago...not the novel but the actual comic books...great series...intense...

I liked the series when it first came out... but going back, it seems disturbingly misogynist... In some respects the Wachowski's film took the idea and made it a little more palatable...

 

[Lulu-in-Ny]

I've met TP many times over the years... never really warmed to him. Neil Gaiman is a lovely chap though... very easy to sink a pint with...

I am a huge fan-girl when it comes to Neil; if he does a signing or an appearance anywhere within 150 miles of me, off I go. He's one of the best speakers I've ever seen(heard?), and listening to him read his own work is a great experience. Truly a gentleman with his fans, as well. Years ago at a book signing, he drew a small sketch for my son in his copy of Coraline, and it still has a place of honor on his shelf. He also remained at that B&N until almost 2a.m. to make sure that everyone who came to see him got to meet him. Great guy all around...

 

[hepkitten]

OK, between the testimonials from Lulu and Harley--not to mention the belly laughs I'm getting out of "Good Omens"--I gotta keep my eyes peeled for Neil Gaiman, if he ever ventures into the Northwest rain.

 

[Caroline]

Hard Case Crime

I just finished "A Diet of Treacle" by Lawrence Block. Really pretty corny but I can't resist the Hard Case Crime paperbacks, so I finished it. A good study of a writer's early works, a good flu/drunk read also.

Tonight I'm picking up a book I actually purchased several years ago called "The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death." By far one of the top 10 oddballs in my collection. Here's a link to an Apartment Therapy post on it, which makes me feel a lot less weird about really digging the interiors...

 

[Marlowe P.]

You can't go wrong with any of Hammett. Red Harvest is a particular favorite of mine, but they're all good.

Just read Maltese Falcon... Funny, one of the only times a great book might not measure up to the movie

 

[Mojave Jack]

I owned War and Peace for years before I read it. I read the first 100 pages six times and gave up five...by the sixth try, I finally had all the characters and the eighteen variations of their names figured out, and it was smooth sailing from there! It's one of my "desert island" books, it's so damn good.

I took me forever to read Les Miserables, too. Since I don't read French (or speak it, though I do kiss that way), I had some trouble with the pronunciation, even in my head. It drove me nuts for a while. I was also intimidated by the sheer size, but once I started it I could not put it down. It'd be on my "desert island" books, for certain.

Right now I'm reading Hemingway's True at First Light. For some reason, Hemingway really clicked for me while reading it. I had a sudden epiphany of understanding, and now I feel like I really get Hemingway, all the way to his suicide.

I'm also reading The Desert was Home, the autobiography of Elizabeth Campbell, an archeologist that worked in this area during the 1920s and 30s. I'm also reading her reports for the Southwest Museum, which are an interesting look into archeology in that era. Her husband was gassed during WWI, and they virtually had to move to Twentynine Palms for his health. At the time it was them, a few miners, bootleggers, and ranchers, and a whole bunch of coyotes, burros, and cattle.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Tonight I'm picking up a book I actually purchased several years ago called "The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death." By far one of the top 10 oddballs in my collection.

Wowee, I was on the wait list for that at the public library and devoured it last month when for various reasons I wasn't posting on the Lounge. I might buy it! Or put my name on the list to read it again. Everyone should read it!
Now I'm reading Hangover Square since the movie isn't available at the library. I love it.And Somewhere in the City by Marcia Muller, a collection of stories.

 

[drjones]

similar to this is....

Wowee, I was on the wait list for that at the public library and devoured it last month when for various reasons I wasn't posting on the Lounge. I might buy it! Or put my name on the list to read it again. Everyone should read it!
Now I'm reading Hangover Square since the movie isn't available at the library. I love it.And Somewhere in the City by Marcia Muller, a collection of stories.

Ever read Stiff?
Its another interesting read.

DRJONES

 

[Harp]

The Peasant of The Garonne by Jacques Maritain.

A favorite tome from undergrad days.

 

[carebear]

Backyard Ballistics by Gurstelle.

Great book of fun things to build.

 

[Twilight]

I'm finally reading Bram Stoker's Dracula.

 

[Sunny]

The Saint in Miami. Simon Templar takes on Nazis in the Everglades! I've read it once before some years ago, but it's been enough time that I'm thoroughly enjoying the re-read. Like most of the Saint novels, The Saint in Miami is more serious in tone than the short stories or novellas. This is only a question of degree, however, since the lighter tone is truly riotous; anything less is still pretty darned fun. Aside from that, there are some pretty hilarious (or shocking) descriptions of the seamier side of Miami night life in 1942. The favorite, so far, is the Saint's hanger-on Hoppy Uniatz, former New York gunsel who's finally found the cure for his bottomless "toist": Florida moonshine, pure liquid fire. lol

 

[hepkitten]

I took me forever to read Les Miserables, too. Since I don't read French (or speak it, though I do kiss that way), I had some trouble with the pronunciation, even in my head. It drove me nuts for a while. I was also intimidated by the sheer size, but once I started it I could not put it down. It'd be on my "desert island" books, for certain.

Les Miserables is currently decorating my shelf. I try it once a year or so...haven't managed to dig all the way in, yet! I figure it's like War and Peace...one of these days, I won't be able to put it down.

I just finished a book I picked up in a WWII store in L.A. back in Feb: Angel of the Navy, by Joan Angel. It's a first-person account of serving as a WAVE. It's a little unusual from other war memoirs in that it was published in 1943, while she was still in the service. She's got a direct, funny style that I really enjoyed.

Which reminds me of another WWII memoir, for anyone who likes this sort of thing: Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory, by Constance Reid and Clara Allen. Two high school teachers spend summer vacation building B29s. Laugh out loud funny and a great slice-of-life portrait of the homefront. Still in print and available on Amazon.

 

[Folly]

Flash For Freedom - George MacDonald Fraser
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

 

[Vintage Betty]

I sold children's books for a number of years, so I still read children's books on a regular basis.

If your son or daughter has exhausted Harry Potter and the following books and their respective series:

Eager, Edward. Half Magic.
Jacques, Brian. Redwall
LeGuin, Ursula K. The Wizard of Earthsea
Eragon by Christopher Paolini

than this new book I just read is very fun, if a bit dark:

The Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins

A boy arrives at a remote village in the dead of night. His name is Ludlow Fitch—and he is running from a most terrible past. What he is about to learn is that in this village is the life he has dreamed of—a safe place to live, and a job, as the assistant to a mysterious pawnbroker who trades people’s deepest, darkest secrets for cash. Ludlow’s job is to neatly transcribe the confessions in an ancient leather-bound tome: The Black Book of Secrets.

Ludlow yearns to trust his mentor, who refuses to disclose any information on his past experiences or future intentions. What the pawnbroker does not know is, in a town brimming with secrets, the most troubling may be held by his new apprentice.

Website is here.

I'm pretty surprised, it just came out in October, but Amazon already has it used for $5, maybe they overpublished? For $5, it's definately a fun read for kids and adults. Highly recommended.

I also got this in the mail today from Bookins

For less than $5 with shipping (Amazon has it for $5 + shipping), and it is quite wonderful:

Photographing the 2nd Gold Rush: Dorothea Lange and the East Bay at War 1941-1945 (Paperback)
by Dorothea Lange (Author), Charles Wollenberg (Author)

It's a small 86 page photographic study of the East Bay in California during War time. I especially like her candid portraits of every day people. Note to women: Many pictures of hair and fashion!
A second book highly recommended to everyone on the Lounge!

Wow-two recommended books in one day. Lucky me.

Thanks for reading -

Vintage Betty

 

[Feraud]

I have so many new books to read I cannot choose... :eusa_doh:

 

[Lancealot]

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.I have seen the movie many times and love it. I finaly got the chance to start the book.