What Are You Reading

[alexandra]

I'm reading

 

[HadleyH]

"The Crazy Years Paris in the Twenties" by William Wiser.

...tells the story when all the exiles from prohibition America went to that city, from Josephine Baker to Ernest Hemingway and everybody in between.
If you like that time and place, i recommend this book!

 

[miss_elise]

i'm reading "Sex, Drugs and cocoa puffs" by Chuck Klosterman...

i hope it's good... it was a present

 

[ShooShooBaby]

Mary_Deluxe, Geek Love is one of my all-time favorite books!

Pretty_Faythe, i have a vintage version of ATGIB too! i think my copy is from 1947, and it includes Maggie Mae as well.

 

[miss_elise]

alexandra... i love jasper fforde... his book are great!

 

[Polka Dot]

Simultaneously about seven novels by Colette, plus some theory by Derrida, Deleuze, Certeau, and Barthes. (Not bragging; it's for a paper!)

 

[59Lark]

just read world made by hand

just finished and still was in the bathroom, world made by hand by james howard kunstler and it is scary but not the way you might think, image a future without.gasoline or much technology. Being reverted to amish level and how many of us could survive. Being a farm boy i keep getting nervous about having to depend so much on everyone else, and this book is on that line. A good read and the first new hardcover that i had read since re picking up the five people you meet in heaven by mitch albom. lark59

 

[splatt]

Last night I finished re-reading the Eric Ambler classic, "The Mask of Dimitrios", and started another book of his called "The Schirmer Inheritance" which was released in 1953.

From the back cover:
It wasn’t anyone’s idea of a glamorous first assignment at a white show law firm. George Cary, former WWII bomber pilot and newly minted lawyer, was given the ignoble task of going through the tons of files on the Schneider Johnson case, just to make sure nothing had been overlooked. But, as luck would have it, George did discover something among the false claims and dead-end leads that made this into more than just another missing-heir-to-a vast-fortune case. And what he found would connect a deserter from Napoloeon’s defeated army to a guerrilla fighter in post-war Greece, and lead Cary himself into a dangerous situation where his own survival will depend more on what he learned in the army than anything he learned in law school.

 

[MaryDeluxe]

Mary_Deluxe, Geek Love is one of my all-time favorite books!

I read the book many years ago when it first came out and LOVED it. So it's a reread for me.
I wonder how many other people do that too? [huh]

Edit to say...well apparently Splatt re-reads too!

 

[MaryDeluxe]

1943 copy of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

That is one of my favorite books!!!

 

[miss_elise]

i re-read all the time... it's kind of like coming home to a bunch of friends you know really well...

 

[Adele]

I also love to re-read because sometimes you'll be surprised what you missed the first time. At least that happens to me.

I'm almost done with my first book of the summer, though, maybe it's not really my first book of the summer since I am finishing it from another time. I think winter break...

 

[DeaconKC]

My wife has observed my habit with good books. I will finish it and if I really liked it, start it again right there. A book I enjoyed a lot, I will re-read in a couple weeks, one that was okay goes to the shelf.........stinkers go in the trade box!
Just read Clive Cussler's The Chase for the third time. An excellent thriller set in 1906, new characters and his best since Treasure.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

The Revolution: A Manifesto ...... obviously!

By Congressman Dr. Ron Paul

 

[TraditionalFrog]

I just finished a book and am now doing some "in between" light reading.

What is being read? It's the latest issue of America in WWII magazine.

 

[Darhling]

Stephen King - Lisey's Story.

A great book, written about the dept of a love-filled relaitionship between a couple. It has the usual spooky elements and some supernatural elements but I love the way he describes the lovestory here, which is the main thing in this book.

I also just bought Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, but I haven't started reading it yet.

 

[Miss 1929]

Stephen King - Lisey's Story.

A great book, written about the dept of a love-filled relaitionship between a couple. It has the usual spooky elements and some supernatural elements but I love the way he describes the lovestory here, which is the main thin in this book.

Loved Lisey's Story! I cried buckets. And the Long Boy will forever haunt my water glass...Obviously influenced by his recent brush with death, and it sure feels like a big fat thank-you/mash note to Mrs. King (Tabitha). One of his best, right up there with my all-time favorite, Bag of Bones.

I also just bought Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, but I haven't started reading it yet.

I read it years ago during the controversy, it was great.

Right now, I just finished "Individuality and Clothes" (1930) and am about to start "Angels on Toast" by Dawn Powell (1938).

 

[Darhling]

Loved Lisey's Story! I cried buckets. And the Long Boy will forever haunt my water glass...Obviously influenced by his recent brush with death, and it sure feels like a big fat thank-you/mash note to Mrs. King (Tabitha). One of his best, right up there with my all-time favorite, Bag of Bones.



I read it years ago during the controversy, it was great.

Right now, I just finished "Individuality and Clothes" (1930) and am about to start "Angels on Toast" by Dawn Powell (1938).

Agreed!! And I have cried so much so far, so I instantly grab the tissue box when I reach for the book.. but I am a big ol' sap!

 

[splatt]

OK...I've been on a roll the last couple of weeks knocking over books quicker than hard liquor

This morning (after three reading sessions) i finished another brilliant Eric Ambler book called "The Schirmer Inheritance". This one definatley rates up as one his best i believe.

I needed some new reading material, so i popped down into the well stocked "Kill City Crime Books" in the basement at 199 Swanston Street Melbourne this afternoon, and picked up a few books to add to the library including...

Two Phryne Fisher (wikipedia link) mystery novels by Australian author Kerry Greenwood called "Cocaine Blues" (1st novel in the series) and "Death at Victoria Dock" (4th novel in the series).

I also grabbed two Eric Ambler novels with the great Fontana covers that i didn't have in the collection..."The Light of Day" (published in 1962) and "The Levanter" (published in 1972).

I also grabbed a 1st edition hardcover in pretty good condition of "Dumb as they Come" by Mark Corrigan. This apparently was the pseudonym of Norman (Harold) Lee, 1898-1964. Under this pen name, he wrote “30 mystery/detective novels with series character Mark Corrigan of US Intelligence who, with sidekick Tucker Maclean, has first-person romantic adventure thriller experiences in exotic locations”. He also wrote quite a few other books under other pen names. It looks really interesting and is based in Australia.

I feel i should knock over "Cocaine Blues" first, because as i have never read it before, i stepped into the Phryne Fisher novels without having her complete background

The first of Phryne's adventures from Australia's most elegant and irrepressible sleuth.

The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the green-grey eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions - is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia.

Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communism - not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse - until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Lets see how long this one takes...

 

[Mojito]

I rarely read fiction, Splatt, and almost never read detective fiction (unless it's the Peter Wimsey novels), but I'm a Phryne fan! Greenway spends a long time lovingly describing clothing, interiors and food - sometimes the crime seems a bit superflous to all the 1920s fun. I'd quibble with some details, but find the books lovely, lighthearted reading. Probably just because I adore Phryne - she's a female fantasy figure in the sense that, say, Bond is a male fantasy figure. Impossibly cool, clever and sophisticated, but such fun.

I had wonderful fun with Death Before Wicket, in which she visits Sydney and my old stomping grounds at Sydney University. I was absolutely amazed at a scene in which Phryne is sitting in a cafe...and in walked one of my father's great friends, Bert Birtles, his mentor in journalism in the 50s! He went on to mention his wife, Dora, who had also been friendly with both my parents. I remember this couple from my early childhood - their house was a fantasyland to me, full of exotic souveneirs from their worldwide travels and antiques. In the period of the novel, 1929, they'd just been involved in a huge scandal at Sydney Uni.

I showed the passage to my parents without telling them who it was going to describe - they were beside themselves with delight, and said Greenway captured Bert's personality perfectly.