Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Um... yes...

Actually, a Corn, Potato, Bacon and Mayo pizza sounds interesting. Do they put the mayo on it before they bake it?

BOb

Yes. And while the taste of these various combinations is odd to the Western mindset when thinking 'pizza,' the tastes aren't bad. They just aren't what an American thinks of when thinking 'pizza.'

Originally Posted by CRussel

I'll be interested on your take when you're done. And I'd be especially interested in Stitchawl's take since he has lived for so long in Japan as a gaijin.

I'll add it to my TBR list, and let you know. It sounds interesting.

Originally Posted by Fbone

The new Domino's pizza has a more garlicy taste. I think it's an improvement from the previous recipe.

The only food NOT improved by increasing the garlic content is vanilla ice cream...


Stitchawl

[NickyWithNook]

I finished a really good nonfiction book called Behind the Beautiful Forever by Katherine Boo about a group of people who live in a slum in India. Now I'm reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and so far it's really good too.

[WT Sharpe]

I'm currently reading Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's Time's Eye (Time Odyssey). Fascinating. Didn't expect Rudyard Kipling to be one of the main characters.

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

The only food NOT improved by increasing the garlic content is vanilla ice cream...


Stitchawl

Helpful culinary hint: mustard doesn't add anything constructive to the flavor of vanilla ice cream either. I learned this at an early age.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I'm currently reading Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's Time's Eye (Time Odyssey). Fascinating. Didn't expect Rudyard Kipling to be one of the main characters.



Helpful culinary hint: mustard doesn't add anything constructive to the flavor of vanilla ice cream either. I learned this at an early age.

Vanilla ice cream is so plain vanilla. Now french vanilla, that's where it's at... if you can have black raspberry of course.

BOb

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I have the next Hugo winner and the next Poirot both sitting beside me on the coffee table (both pbooks), and I'll probably start one or both of them very shortly.

And it didn't take very long at all to run through The Big Four. It wasn't a great story, and was pretty out-of-character for a Poirot. Not so much a whodunit as a thriller.

It was also a fix up of short stories written before Roger Ackroyd, so really should be read first. I am not tremendously impressed with the canonical reading order of the Poirot stories - particularly when it comes to the short stories - and have yet to find a good guide online. Luckily it doesn't usually matter very much, and I'm lagging behind on the short stories anyway, but still it does bug me.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

It was also a fix up of short stories written before Roger Ackroyd, so really should be read first. I am not tremendously impressed with the canonical reading order of the Poirot stories - particularly when it comes to the short stories - and have yet to find a good guide online. Luckily it doesn't usually matter very much, and I'm lagging behind on the short stories anyway, but still it does bug me.

I follow this one: http://newbern.cpclib.org/nbccpl/pdf/Christie.pdf

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by Gazella

I follow this one: http://newbern.cpclib.org/nbccpl/pdf/Christie.pdf

That seems to be the US canon, and it has a couple of problems. I mentioned that The Big Four should be before The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and the short story "The Affair at the Victory Ball" takes place immediately after the first novel, explaining how Hastings and Poirot came to be set up in London ready for the next several stories. At least the US canon has that fairly early on. In the UK it wasn't collected until Poirot's Early Cases in 1974.

The problem with the canonical order is that it relies on the book publications, and hardly any of the early stories first appeared in book form. Even the novels were serialised first. I suspect Big Four/Ackroyd is the only case where novels are out of order, but the story collections are more patchy.

I have Poirot: The Complete Short Stories, which collects them in order of first publication. The tricky part is figuring out where to stop before each novel.

And then there are the crossovers...

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Now I'm going to read another indie. This one is Cansville by Alan Flurry. This one seems to have a more literary style I think with less action, but hopefully no less enjoyment.

Well, I finished this one. Hmmmm.

I can't tell if this was not a very good novel, or it really was good and I'm hopelessly unqualified to make a judgment. I have no idea how I'm going to write a review of it.

It sometimes felt like each paragraph could have been one sentence and it felt like multiple paragraphs were sometimes the same sentence repeated, but wrapped in different obscure literary stylings. I felt myself having to reread paragraphs to try and "get" what the author was saying and even then it felt like a lot of guesswork.

Maybe a reread would give me a greater appreciation, but I don't really have time for a reread. When I catch up to this book for review, I'll just have to muddle through it. Maybe with some time my thoughts will be a little clearer.

Now for something I know will get the blood pumping. It's the second book in the Bangkok series by Simon Royle. This one is called Bangkok Wet. I really enjoyed the first one (Bangkok Burn) and I'm sure I'll enjoy this one as well.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Now for something I know will get the blood pumping. It's the second book in the Bangkok series by Simon Royle. This one is called Bangkok Wet. I really enjoyed the first one (Bangkok Burn) and I'm sure I'll enjoy this one as well.

Thanks for the tip. Just d/l it from Amazon at £0.49, a bargain!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished it. OK, it's a bit far fetched, but this IS fantasy after all.

I'd have to say the ending is perhaps the weakest link, but I still definitely enjoyed it. Makes me think it's almost time to take a pass through the Tinker series again. Especially since there's a new one due out later this year. (And a new Pittsburgh story is the Baen Free Story this month.)

Well, sometimes my fingers decide for me. They decided that Tinker was the next to read. I read this when it originally released, and liked it a lot, and it still grabs me. So I'm rereading the entire series. On to Wolf Who Rules.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Now for something I know will get the blood pumping. It's the second book in the Bangkok series by Simon Royle. This one is called Bangkok Wet. I really enjoyed the first one (Bangkok Burn) and I'm sure I'll enjoy this one as well.

Having lived in Bangkok for some time, I'm looking forward to reading these. I wonder if they really capture the down-and-dirty Bangkok life of the average Thai, and the daily corruption they face. There was some book I read a couple of years ago, about a Thai policeman that was really, really accurate, but I can't remember the name of it... I wonder if it may have been one of these.

EDIT: Well, I couldn't wait... So I just downloaded both of them to my iPhone. Being that I'll be back in Bangkok in just 11 more days, I figure these will get me back into the right frame of mind.

Stitchawl

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Eight Million Gods by Wen Spencer, bought this month.

I liked it. I liked it a lot. I do see what you mean about the ending, but I thnk it works OK.

Next up: Monster Hunter Legion by Larry Correira. Another recent purchase.

[Stitchawl]

John Sandford has done it again. "Silken Prey," the 23rd book in the 'Prey' series, the new Lucas Davenport thriller has grabbed me from the second page and won't let me put the book down for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm only 40-50 pages into it, but he's already brought in most of the old characters from the Kidd series, the Virgil Flowers series, and of course the Prey series. This is gonna be fun!

Stitchawl

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

John Sandford has done it again. "Silken Prey," the 23rd book in the 'Prey' series, the new Lucas Davenport thriller has grabbed me from the second page and won't let me put the book down

Stitchawl

Damn, Stitchawl, I wish you hadn't mentioned there's a new Prey out. I'm already about three behind so have to get busy.

I just finished The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D MacDonald, one of his great Travis McGee books, and started The Giver by Lois Lowery

[PurpleStar]

I have finished Soulless, which turned out to be a great book! I'm glad I stuck with it. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series at some point. For now, however, I will be reading The Great Gatsby. I wonder what is so great about this Gatsby person.