Currently Reading (Take 2)- Page 22

[thetinymagic2]

Posted: 12/19/11 at 2:57pm

--reading "11/22/63" (Stephen)King), almost 1,000 pgs. Will take months to finish probably, but so far, EXCELLENT!

[AMH]

Posted: 12/19/11 at 6:06pm

Currently reading Ginger Rogers' autobiography. Very, very interesting.

[Plum]

Posted: 12/19/11 at 8:55pm

God's War, by Kameron Hurley.

[MotorTink]

Posted: 12/20/11 at 8:38am

On Sunday I tried to read "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan but abandoned it 1/4 of the way through. So I read another book instead (name I'm totally blanking on right now).

I finished "A Game of Thrones" and have started "Clash of the Kings"

Oh and of course I read my yearly tradition - the new John Grisham "The Litigators".

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/20/11 at 8:56am

ROME Robert Hughes
and THE FORSYTE SAGA John Galsworthy on ibooks

Just finished SEX AT DAWN Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha

[madbrian]

Posted: 12/20/11 at 9:31am

I'm in the middle of Zero Day by David Baldacci, and I'm finding his lead character to be a total ripoff of Jack Reacher, the lead in the series of books by Lee Child.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/20/11 at 11:07am

Reading James Hilton's LOST HORIZON, after revisiting the 70s musical horror movie version. Pretty good, but there's a bit too much British white colonial condescension going on. It's heart is definitely in the right place, but it gets kind of annoying in places.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/20/11 at 2:02pm

Roscoe, I recently purchased the movie.

Put the Augusten Burroughs book down after I bougt my nook Tablet. Just finished one of the free books it offered called "Street of Angels". Not bad. Just bought Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and starting to read it today.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/21/11 at 10:25am

Uncage, that movie's really something. Just really awful in every way. Not even in the category of So Bad It's Good. Lots of silly banalities being passed off as serious profundities. The acting's pretty mediocre, with Liv Ullmann looking absolutely lost, she comes off like the winner of some amateur contest getting her Big Break rather than Ingmar Berman's leading lady -- you can't believe she's ever been in a movie before.

And then, of all people, Charles Boyer somehow manages to make his couple of scenes actually work. He's just magical.

[geaj]

Posted: 12/21/11 at 6:45pm

I just finished The Help. I would recommend it. Before that, I read Cane River that I loved but can't recall the author's name, and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, excellent! I know WV takes many potshots, but The Glass Castle is a true story that could be about any of the students I teach.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 12/21/11 at 7:36pm

Finished Rick Perlstein's BEFORE THE STORM: BARRY GOLDWATER AND THE UNMAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSENSUS about a week ago.

Just started his follow-up: NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA.

I highly recommended this author. Both books are high-octane and compulsively readable journeys through a pivotal era in our nation's political history. He gives a lot of good insight into the dismantling and rebuilding of political coalitions which eventually gave rise to the Reagan Revolution and the political environment we still find ourselves trapped in today. A very novelistic historian.

[wexy]

Posted: 12/21/11 at 9:33pm

I just finished "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Wasn't 'Middlesex" and a took a bit of time to complete.

Next up "The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht.

[noahrp3]

Posted: 12/23/11 at 11:25am

Yeah, the Marriage Plot was really hard for me to get through.

Just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Laughed and cried through the whole book. Beautiful book.
Moving on to Franzen's "The Corrections".

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/23/11 at 11:47am

I guess difference of opinion roscoe. While not the best movie, I enjoy it. Saw it 3 times when it was originally released in theaters.

I am possibly reading another book about Joe Papp next. Am loving my new nook. I can shop an pop samples on my bookshelf to read and decide if I may want to buy a book.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 9:53am

I recently read ISRAEL RANK, the novel that the great Ealing Studios comedy KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS is based on. The novel is okay, for the most part, a fairly serious picture of the serial killer, with some good snarky wit along the way. The film is surprisingly faithful to the novel, even taking some dialogue and narration word for word from the book in places.

The film, though, is able to elevate the story into something far more interesting. The final scenes of the novel, while interesting in their own right (especially considering they were written in the early 1900s) fall rather flat, resorting to an irony that feels rather tame and contrived now, especially in comparison with the climactic trial scenes in the film.

Glad I read it, though.

Updated On: 1/4/12 at 09:53 AM

[AC126748]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 10:34am

Just finished reading Brian Kellow's excellent biography of Pauline Kael, A Life in the Dark. Next I'll be starting As Always, Julia, an edited anthology of the letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto.

Lately I've found I can't get into current literary fiction. I've tried, but in order for me to get past the first few chapters, both the writing and the story have to be superb, and I haven't seen much that fits that bill. I'm open to any suggestions you all might have for a good current (within the last 5 years, I'd say) novel or collection.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 10:41am

Have you tried Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS or FREEDOM? THE CORRECTIONS is a bit older, from 2001, I think -- but they might be of interest.

[AC126748]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 10:47am

Yes, I've read and loved both. In fact, I believe FREEDOM was the last current novel I finished (earlier this year).

[StockardFan]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 12:20pm

I could not get through the Corrections. I just finished The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. He also wrote the book Election - which is the book the movie of the same name with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon was based on.

[AC126748]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 12:24pm

What were your thoughts on The Leftovers? The premise sounded promising, but I've been disappointed in Perrotta's last few books.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 1:44pm

I thought it was really interesting. It's the only one of his books I've read. Parts of it were depressing, but it ended on a sort of hopeful note.

[singtopher]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 2:20pm

I've never posted in here, and haven't read most of what's being talked about. At any rate, I just finished THE HUNGER GAMES which I really enjoyed and soon I'll start CATCHING FIRE.

I'm almost finished with EATING ANIMALS by Jonathan Saffran Foer. It's a look at the factory farming industry and cultural influences on our diet. While I thoroughly enjoy the book and his writing, I kept having to put it down given the horrific details of factory farming in this country. I highly recommend it, although towards the end it is getting rather preachy, which he alluded he would not do at the beginning.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 7:39pm

Right now I'm reading a totally cheesy romantic comedy type book called Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. I needed something light after the Leftovers.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/4/12 at 8:08pm

Just finished The Hunger Games trilogy, soon to hop back into and finish the Tales of the City series. I have the last two left.

Updated On: 1/5/12 at 08:08 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/5/12 at 9:19am

Reading Edmund White's CITY BOY, his account of his life in NYC in the 60s and 70s. Some fun descriptions of gay life at that time, and some good name-dropping. His account of the creation of THE JOY OF GAY SEX is most interesting.