Sheltieguy,

I read On the Road two or three years ago. I, too, had mixed feelings. Not completely understanding why it was a "must read".

I have been reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It is the original mystery detective novel published in 1868. so far, it has been a relative easy read (not like Scarlet Letter, for instance.

Linda

quote:

Originally posted by D in St Pete:
I've read "The Road"...have you read any of McCarthy's other works? It's different (more hopeful), but the same beautiful writing style.

Glad to hear it--I really appreciate great writing and especially descriptive writing, so I'm looking forward to it and just hoping that it isn't going to be TOO dark.

I've read "The Road"...have you read any of McCarthy's other works? It's different (more hopeful), but the same beautiful writing style.

If you haven't read any of his others, definitely give "All the Pretty Horses" a go. If you speak Spanish (or have a basic understanding of it), it's even better, but without, it's still a heartbreakingly beautiful book. So is "The Road".

I finally got around to reading "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac.

"...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everbody goes "Awww!"

It's on numerous Great Books lists, but I had mixed feelings about it.

I just finished Lance Armstrong's first book. It was really interesting to see what happened to him as he battled cancer and came back to win the Tour de France.

I'm finally getting close to finishing The Bookwoman's Last Fling by John Dunning at work. Now comes the hard choice of what to read next...decisions, decisions!!

I picked up what I gather is a rather dark but marvelous book at the bookstore last week based on Entertainment Weekly's top 10 list of books in 2006--The Road by Cormac McCarthy--so I may start with that one. Definitely will need to be an at-work book and not a bedtime book from the sound of it!

Has anyone read that McCarthy book?

quote:

Originally posted by TriGirl:
Just finished Augusten Burroughs' Magical Thinking.

I hadn't heard of that one. Is it very dark like his Running With Scissors? Or is it a memoir of a later stage of his life that wasn't so awful?

I finished The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which I would highly recommend despite the sad subject matter. Now I'm reading my book group selection, On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Very funny so far.

Just finished Augusten Burroughs' Magical Thinking. Our local bookstore is closing so I also bought a huge pile of other memoirs to read.

I finally got my hands on Fast Food Nation. It looks very promising and I've heard a lot of good things about it.

I'm also hoping it'll help keep me away from McD's for as long as possible (preferably for ever).

Just finished reading the Next Stephanie Plum book called "Plum Lovin'" (between the number book)it's only about 164 pages..It was okay..

Heather

Well, I just finished "The Shaman Sings" by James D. Doss. It was very good and kept me guessing till the very end. I "had it figured out" twice during the course of the book and was wrong both times

While I have never actually read a Hillerman book, I have seen all three of the PBS movies made from his books and really enjoyed them so I think if you are a Hillerman fan you will like this series of books.

I am in the middle of re-reading "Improper English" by Katie MacAlister and have about 75 more pages to read in "The Bookman's Promise" by John Dunning.

AND...I just picked up "The Shaman Sings" by James Doss at the library today. Maybe now I can find out why this book is so hard to find in used book stores or on-line .

I'm reading J.A. Jance's "Long Time Gone". For those familiar with J.A. Jance, this one is from her earlier J.P. Beaumont series. She hadn't done one of those for a long time, so it is fun to read with that character again.

Dawn

I'm doing back-to-back Krakauer, moving from finishing "Into the Wild" to starting "Under the Banner of Heaven," his look at the fundamentalist Mormon sect that was responsible for the murder of a woman and her baby a few years back.

Just finished "Isaac's Storm". Loved it. In the wake of Katrina, it's an amazing, enlightening read. I feel so lucky to have the advantages we do in weather prediction (and what we think of now as "common sense").

quote:

Originally posted by Preciousmew:
I decided that I am going to read the Harry Potter Series.

Heather

Dd and I both love the books and the movies

quote:

Originally posted by Preciousmew:
I decided that I am going to read the Harry Potter Series.

Heather

These have been some of my favorite books of all time. While waiting for the next book in the series to come out, I read and re-read the previous ones. I can also sit and watch the movies over and over. The Harry Potter books were so descriptive that when I saw the movies every single character and scene was almost exactly how I pictured it in my mind while reading the books. Some characters and scenes were EXACTLY as I pictured them and for me this made the movies so much more enjoyable. I hate when I read a book and then see the movie and nothing is as I pictured it. I hope you enjoy these books. I will say, with the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, it took me a while to really get into the book. It gets very exciting and interesting once he learns he is a wizard. Before that point the book was a bit boring. And I've heard people say you can read them out of order and still understand them but for me I like to read books in order and I do think that there may be some confusion if you don't read them in order. I hope you enjoy!!!

Jill

I finished "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer last night. It is not just the nonfiction account of one passionate young man who overestimated his ability to survive in the Alaskan wilderness, but a weaving of similar stories going back hundreds of years. Apparently, the residents of many Alaskan towns are well accustomed to strangers coming in and crowing of their wilderness prowess and then going "into the wild" and finding themselves woefully outmatched.

The young man who is at the center of this book grew up, ironically enough, right up the street from me. I think parents, especially of teen boys, may find this a difficult book to read. Chris and his parents were at odds and, when he disappeared into the wild, they didn't even know where he had gone.

This is a really small book, but it still took me some time to get through because it isn't a book you zoom through. It has a lot of lessons, both of foolhardiness and of passion, of human frailty and of human kindness.

Not as gripping as Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" but still a very interesting read.

My mom is visiting and brought me my dad's copy of "Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad" by David Zucchino. My brother was part of the "strike", and knows several of the people in the book, so I've been wanting to read it. So far, it's definitely interesting (we're in a tank with a guy who was kinda wandering through life until he went into an Army recruiting office and thought it'd be cool to "blow things up", and has spent 8 years being really good at it now), and like the rest of the world who only saw what was on TV, I was completely unaware of the level of resistance and kind of fighting faced as they moved in to Baghdad. I also like that the author isn't making moral judgements about the rightness or wrongness, just a "here's what happened" account.