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

[Gazella]

Just finished another one by Oscar Wilde, this time a novella called The Canterville Ghost. It was a recommendation and one that I really enjoyed and in which I found the tale enthralling and engaging. Much appreciated, pdurrant!

[WashWest]

Like many others (I expect), I'm re-reading GRR Martin's A Storm of Swords, while watching season 3 of Game of Thrones on HBO. When finished, I'll finally get to the books in the StoryBundle indie and fantasy bundle I picked up months ago.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

...My next read is going to be The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler for the book club. I just hope it's good....

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

If it's even half as good as the 1946 Bogart/Bacall movie, it will be a great read! That was as much a classic as 'The African Queen!'


Stitchawl

I have to admit it was far better than it seemed the first time I tried to read it. For some reason I just couldn't get into it then.

I'm now concentrating my attentions on The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham and really enjoying it. It's far better than I remember the early 1960s movie being. I understand the BBC did a mini series as well for television, but I haven't seen that.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I have to admit it was far better than it seemed the first time I tried to read it. For some reason I just couldn't get into it then.

I'm now concentrating my attentions on The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham and really enjoying it. It's far better than I remember the early 1960s movie being. I understand the BBC did a mini series as well for television, but I haven't seen that.

I really enjoyed the (original 1980's) TV series when it first aired, though I'm not sure it would stand the test of time as the effects would look pretty amateurish now, I think.

I read the Day of the Triffids not that long ago too, for about the 5th or 6th time, and then followed it up with The Night of the Triffids by Simon Clark, in which Bill's son takes up the story. Quite fun, and written in the style of Wyndham, though not as good, inevitably.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood. Also, my first with this author.

This was a cozy and witty mystery. Well, cozy with one sex scene and some nudity along with drug use. Plot was simple and the "King" was very apparent. Convenience was used as the device. I didn't understand some of the Australian terms but word usage was very good. Sentences flowed. Googling tells me Melbourne was a bustling metropolis in the 1920s yet the author portrays it as primitive and wild. Rated C [3 stars].

Next is Angelmaker, a spy thriller by Nick Harkaway.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Joy736

I just finished Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell and it as amazing! It was sooooo beautiful, it made me cry, realy cry. Need I say more...
Next up: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.

Originally Posted by Joy736

I looooved this book. It's full of non-stop action. The situation sometimes changes every page. Highly recommended to Harry Potter and Dresden Files fans.
Next up: Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gillman

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

I got this for my daughter but after reading the description I'm definitely going to read it as well. Sounds like it's my kind of series .

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has been made into a movie to be released this summer (August 23rd).

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
Action | Adventure | Drama - 23 August 2013 (USA)
Not yet released

When her mom is attacked and taken from their home in New York City by a demon, a seemingly ordinary teenage girl, Clary Fray, finds out truths about her past and bloodline on her quest to get her back, that changes her entire life.

Director:
Harald Zwart
Writers:
Cassandra Clare (novel), Jessica Postigo (screenplay)
Stars:
Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I have to admit it was far better than it seemed the first time I tried to read it. For some reason I just couldn't get into it then.

I'm now concentrating my attentions on The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham and really enjoying it. It's far better than I remember the early 1960s movie being. I understand the BBC did a mini series as well for television, but I haven't seen that.

The movie was campy enough to be fun, the mini-series tried for dramatic and missed, I recommend giving it a pass.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by alansplace

The Name of the Wind was a totally unexpected and quite pleasant surprise! Because of my recent negative reaction to George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones when I'd tried reading it and a preconceived notion I had (totally unwarranted), for whatever reason, about Patrick Rothfuss (I kinda' thought of him as a younger version of GRRM) I was expecting to not care for it. I was dead wrong!! Anyway, it was a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the other two books in The Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy.

Possibly my favourite book of 2010. I still haven't read the second one though even with an ebook on my Kindle and a paperback in my bookshelf.

I always find it harder to fit in the really enormous books these days.

[Gazella]

Just started A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra.

In his brilliant, haunting novel, Stegner Fellow and Whiting Award winner Anthony Marra transports us to a snow-covered village in Chechnya, where eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night, accusing him of aiding Chechen rebels. Across the road their lifelong neighbor and family friend Akhmed has also been watching, fearing the worst when the soldiers set fire to Havaa’s house. But when he finds her hiding in the forest with a strange blue suitcase, he makes a decision that will forever change their lives.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

An OK issue. Nothing that stood out.

Next up: Analog Science Fiction Science Fact, July/August 2013. I'm also reading the serial from the last three issues (conclusion in this issue).

An OK issue. One or two stories I like, most were just OK.

Next up: The Judas Pair by Jonathan Gash, a recent purchase.

I'd forgotten how casually violent Lovejoy is depicted as being in the first scene. It doesn't really match his later actions.

[Crusader]

Still busy with reading the Wheel of Time series. Finished book 10 and 1/3 into book 11. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm guessing book 10 was the point where I gave up in my original read of the series. Nothing much happens and it seemed vaguely familiar.

[Joy736]

Originally Posted by Joy736

Next up: Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gillman

This was a fun quick read, but I might have outgrown childrens books
Next up: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Because I want to see the movie sooooo bad, but not before I've finaly read the book first.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Joy736

This was a fun quick read, but I might have outgrown childrens books

Some children's books you outgrow. Some you come to appreciate even more.

[covingtoncat73]

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.

[fantasyfan]

I bought the Aug 2012 issue Of Lightspeed Magazine for my Kindle only to get a copy of "Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick, {which I've commented upon earlier} but in fact there are some other excellent stories in this issue which make it an interesting anthology.

I still think that "Slow Life" is the best story there. However a fantasy novelette, "Cotillion" by Delis Sherman runs it very close indeed. There is an interesting Haldeman story. "A Separate War", set in the Forever War universe and a fine short fantasy, "Breaking the Flame" {Kat Howard} using an unusual and very effective narrative structure. "Love Might Be Too Strong a Word" {Charlie Jane Anders} is very much a scifi fun romance with a difference while "Flash Bang Remember" {Tina Connolly & Caroline M. Yoachim} could be described as a very interesting variation on the pocket universe theme. I found "A Moment Before It Struck" {Linda Nagata} a fairly competent fantasy, but otherwise unexceptional. The only stories I found completely uninteresting were "The Necromancer In Love" {Wil McCarthy} and "The `Bookmaking Habits of Select Species" by Ken Lin. But others may well differ. There was also an excerpt from a Carrie Vaughn novel, Kitty Steals The Show--something that one often gets in magazines of this type.

The issue also provided some interesting interviews with authors and a section providing an "Author Spotlight" for each contributor.

If the issue had a dominating theme it would be an examination of gender issues. Most of the stories dealt with gender conflicts, expectations, and stereotypes, either directly or through subversion. This made it even more interesting as an anthology.

In the final analysis, I enjoyed the issue and am glad to have it despite my non-interest in the Carrie Vaughn excerpt and the two stories I found rather boring.