Currently Reading (Take 2)- Page 12

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:59pm

Just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last week. It was difficult to find the second in the Millennium series in English here, so I tried the local library. The English section was pretty limited so I ended up getting Middlesex. We passed a little bookstore on our way to pick up our wedding cake and what do you know, they had The Girl Who Played with Fire in English! Now I have two books I have started. I also started Love, Ellen by Betty Degeneres, but it's just one I pick up when I am not reading anything else.

Before Dragon, I read Like Me by Cheley Wright and that was just plain awful. Parts were heartwarming but during most of the book I wanted to shake her and remind her that she was a 1.5 hit wonder in Nashville and didn't change the face of country music.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 5:15pm

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - And the Journey of a Generation


From Publisher's Weekly:
The epic story of three generational icons, this triple biography from author and Glamour senior editor Weller (Dancing at Ciro’s) examines the careers of singer-songwriters Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon, whose success reflected, enervated and shaped the feminist movement that grew up with them. After short sketches of their early years, Weller begins in earnest with the 1960s, switching off among the women as their public lives begin. A time of extremes, the 60s found folk music and feminist cultures just beginning to define themselves, while the buttoned-down mainstream was still treating unwed pregnant women, in Mitchell’s terms, like you murdered somebody (thus the big, traditional wedding thrown for King, pregnant by songwriting partner Gerry Goffin, in 1959). Pioneering success in the music business led inevitably to similar roles in women’s movement, but Weller doesn’t overlook the content of their songs and the effect they have on a generation of women facing a lot more choice, but with no one to guide them. Taking readers in-depth through the late 80s, Weller brings the story up to date with a short but satisfying roundup. A must-read for any fan of these artists, this bio will prove an absorbing, eye-opening tour of rock (and American) history for anyone who’s appreciated a female musician in the past thirty years.


I'm finding it fascinating and thought-provoking.
Not to mention, it's influenced the music I've been listening to recently. Ah, those singer-songwriters!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 5:19pm

"Insignificant Others" by Stephen McCauley.

I am reading it VERY slowly, because I like to savor his writing and there's usually four years between books from him. True to form, he has been making me laugh out loud at least once per page.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 5:37pm

Addy, I wanted to read that assoon as I heard about it.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 6:37pm

Sunday, I finished The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen and now I'm reading The Silence of the Lambs. So far, it's better than the movie

[StockardFan]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 6:38pm

I just finished a book called The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand. It was good. Just an easy summer by-the-pool read, but good.

[Plum]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 9:57pm

The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif Batuman


And oooh, Girls Like Us has been on my "to read" list for a while, but now that school is starting I'm going to have to stop my pleasure reading again.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 10:42pm

I've never heard of the first one, Plum, but just the title made me think of Julianne Moore in "The Kids Are All Right."

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 11:15pm

Such a great movie, Namo.

[BroadwayGuy12]

Posted: 9/8/10 at 2:59pm

I'm very eager to begin This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper but I'm buried with other readings right now. I just need a free moment...

[Plum]

Posted: 9/9/10 at 8:42pm

Argh, time constraints. I'm writing a Really Big Paper right now, so once I finished The Possessed my leisure reading had to end. But one of the books I'm rereading for the paper is a huge favorite of mine, and I recommend it for pretty much anyone who's an artist or who enjoys art in any form (which is everyone on this board).

The Gift, by Lewis Hyde

It's seriously, seriously wonderful.

[wendilin622]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 5:36am

Love love love Jonathan Tropper. I've read 4/5 of his books and I can't wait to pick up "How to Talk to a Widower"


Almost done with Girl who Played with Fire. It's good but I'm eager to finish....It's a huge book to get through. Am I the only one who has trouble with all the names? I know the major ones but all those "B" names... I'm never really sure which one is the police chief, private investigator etc.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 7:30am

Yeah, the names had me tripped up a lot in all 3 of those books.

I'm still on a "beach book" kick. I'm reading a book called "A Tale of Two Sisters" by Anna Maxted.

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 8:00am

The Buccolic Plaque by Josh Kilmer-Purcell of the Fabulous Beekman Boys. The boy is funny! I've now read all three of his books. He's had quite a life!

[wonkit]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 9:44am

I have just started "Are You There, Crocodile?" by Michael Pennington. He is an amazing actor, and also clearly an amazingly talented writer. The book is about his delving into the life of Anton Chekhov in order to write a one man show for himself in which he portrays Chekhov. This is going to be one of those books that I hate to finish! And, if you really want to understand Twelfth Night, Hamlet or Midsummer Night's Dream, look at Pennington's guides to those plays. No - I'm not a shill, just a life long fan of his work.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 1:14pm

I am going to be picking this up in a few days and can't wait to read it!

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 1:23pm

Definitely going through a celebrity autobiography phase...just finished Shirley Temple Black's "Child Star," which I'd given my mom as a gift when it came out in 1988.

Had a Katharine Hepburn biography lined up but it looks like a slog so may hit the library and hunt down Maureen McCormick and Kathleen Turner. Both of their books are hitting the remainder bins big time and I can't even justify spending $3 on them. But the library, sure.

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 1:29pm

I recently read Farley Granger's autobiography "Include Me Out".
I found it at the Dollar Tree.

[sally1112]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 1:42pm

I am 200 pages into Mockingjay, the final book in The Hunger Games triology.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 2:24pm

Just started "The Help" yesterday. It is the One Book One Denver book selection.

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 2:54pm

Tab Hunter's was at Dollar Tree too. Tempted....

[StockardFan]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 3:01pm

Just started "The Help" yesterday. It is the One Book One Denver book selection.


Is that the one about the maids in the south back in the 60's? I read that, and it's REALLY good!

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 3:05pm

Stockard, yes it is. read the first chapter last night. Getting ready to continue reading. I didn't know the 3 women were maids in the 60's. I just knew it was about 3 women making a change in their community. My mom cleaned houses, was a semi-maid, in the 60's and 70's. That first chapter and the conversation over the card game got to me a bit. Needless to say "Caroline or Change" ran through my mind.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 3:30pm

It is a really good book. There will probably be some parts that bother you with the way some of the women treat the maids - I know there were some parts that bothered me. But over all it is a message of hope and overcoming.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/10/10 at 4:52pm

I am 3 chapters in and already feel like an angry black woman! I just want to reach into the book and strangle that one woman with the baby who wants the seperate bathroom built for the maid.