Best books you've read in the past couple months?

[maxbookworm]

So what are some of the best books you've read on the past couple of months?

I really enjoyed The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones - a bit predictable, but there were some truly poetic descriptions of food, and I love food!

I also liked The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - this was a good Victorian-esque novel. Old rickety mansions, mysterious twins, that type of thing.

Finally, I've read two coincidentally similar novels, one about a lost diary of Arthur Conan Doyle, and one about a lost Shakespeare play: The Sherlockian by Graham Moore and The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber.

Finally, I've read a couple of light, fun mystery novels: The Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall, set in India (more yummy descriptions of food!) and The Rubber Band by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe is my new hero!)

So what have you enjoyed lately?

[roodap]

blue gold clive cussler
pillars of earth ken follet
the case of the grinning gorrilla ESG

[feenix1363]

I read the Gregg Hurwitz book 'You're next' following its inclusion on the Richard and Judy Bookclub list.

I'd not actually read a Hurwitz book before and really enjoyed the pace and the story line. A good read, and an author I'm sure to come back to.

Another author on the same list was Nigel Farndale and his novel Blasphemer. Having enjoyed the Hurwitz novel so much I thought I'd give The Blasphemer a shot as well. I did enjoy the book, but (you could see that coming couldn't you?) its really not in the same class as the first. There is a really good story-line in blasphemer, the problem is that there is more than one story line, but only one of them is good.

[Zetmolm]

Nigel Farndale's Blasphemer is an excellent book. It's not just about the story lines, but also raises some interesting philosphical issues in a manner that does not affect readability at all. That's a great achievement. BTW, the Dutch translation of it was offered for free by the publisher recently. Now that's the kind of gift I really appreciate!

I just finished - and enjoyed very much - The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl. Another one I can really recommend.

[Penforhire]

I've been on a Charlie Huston jag lately. I'd say the best of my recent reads of his is "The Shotgun Rule." He has an amazing ability to spin a close-to-home yarn whose plot could be written on one page but expands enjoyably. We ride with many characters, their backgrounds, and motivations. I'd say his "Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death" was nearly as good but less gritty and more whimsical.

"Sleepless" expanded Huston's range but doesn't measure up, IMO, against this other work, the Hank Thomson trilogy, or even the Joe Pitt series. But I think it gives the Joe Pitt series a possibility of a next book. If he could handle the worldwide crisis theme of Sleepless then he COULD write the next Pitt novel, with vampires getting publicity.

Before Shotgun Rule, I'd say my next-favorite recent read was Barry Eisler's 'Rain' series, starting with "Rain Fall." I found those better than his 'Treven' books (Fault Line & Inside Out).

[treetotree]

Water for elephants
In the Lap of the Gods
Cutting for Stone
The Art of Racing in the Rain - reading now
Blood of the Wicked - reading now

A Covenant with Death by John Harris. A excellent book about a group of young British men who volunteer for the army at the start of WWI. It follows their experiences, through first person narrative, from there to the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Much like All Quiet on the Western Front, only from the perspective of the English.

I also finally got around to reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire. These novels have their problems, the first was a slow start and in both the Lisbeth Salander is implausibly capable and invincible (almost a super hero), but it is page turner reading. So I am eager to read number three, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, to find out the conclusions of the adventures of super hero zombie Lisbeth.

I also got around to reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking. A nice presentation of some of the latest thinking in quantum mechanics and astrophysics in a way that most will be able to follow.

This has been mixed in with a lot of older Sci-Fi, Larry Niven, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin. The Golden Age

[tm3]

hamlet53 you nailed it with your description of the "tattoo" books. i still enjoyed them, however. i thought #1 and #3 were the best so would encourage you to complete the trifecta.

i recently read Lincoln Lawyer by michael connelly and thought it was great.

last week i finished Second Saladin by stephen hunter and cannot recommend it, although in general i really enjoy his novels.

[hols57]

Reading Bill Bryson's 'At Home' -recommended!
Finished 'Hornet's Nest' but got bored with it.
'Confederates in the Attic' about the US South and its devotion to the Civil War - superb!

[SeaBookGuy]

The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam - enough blame spread around for everyone to share!

Old Filth - folks rave about this novel, and having read it, I agree!

Wild Things - technically a YA novel I suppose, but not really. I understand it took 5 years to write, which shows as the story hangs together beautifully.

A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses - I read it as a travel narrative book, rather than for its literary allusions. Author pulls off scholarly and approachable at the same time; I hadn't read all of the authors, which didn't matter in the end.

[BenBanned]

Just finished Tunnel People

"First published in the Netherlands in 1996, this book chronicles Voeten’s five-month exploration of the society that exists underneath the streets of Manhattan. Voeten, an accomplished war photographer and reporter, didn’t write about the people who lived in the tunnels under New York from the point of view of an observer. He lived in the tunnels, grew to know the people who lived there, and came to understand not just how they got there but also the society they have created. Like Jennifer Toth’s Mole People (1993) and Matthew O’Brien’s Beneath the Neon (2007), Voeten’s book captivates readers with its compassionate portraits of the people and their surroundings, while exploring the surprisingly varied reasons why these men and women wound up living just beneath the surface of the reader’s world."--David Pitt


I recomend this to anyone especially interesting if youv'e ever ridden a NYC subway.

[BoiseShan]

Just finished Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Wow. Very thought provoking. I'm not one for YA books--and, truthfully, I owuldn't have read this if I would have been aware of its intended audience--so, while it's a pretty easy read, it certainly isn't "dumbed down."

Also fell in love with Meets Girl by Will Entrekin. An immediate favorite.

[Ea]

I've thoroughly enjoyed "The Little Black Book of Stories" by A. S. Byatt. Especially the third story, "The Stone Woman", was captivating and powerful.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by BoiseShan

Just finished Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Wow. Very thought provoking.

I don't understand how the man gets his income, but hey. I may still read one of his free books, but it annoys me verily that he always chooses lame titles riding in the fame of well-known books, like this one indeed or "I, Row-Boat" and many others...

he also looks too over-the-top:



:rolf:

[TJager]

I mainly read YA. I read Life As We Knew It recently and enjoyed it.