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

[poohbear_nc]

<Where is the smiley reading on a sofa with a blanket and a mug???>

Don't forget the purring sleeping cat (or furry beast of your choice).

[pilotbob]

So reading Mysterious Affair at Styles. It is a bit hard to get into at the beginning. I think I recall this about Christie... she introduces a lot of characters right in the first chapter, and refers to them by first and last names at various times. So, you really have to pay attention and remember who is who.

BOb

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

So reading Mysterious Affair at Styles. It is a bit hard to get into at the beginning. I think I recall this about Christie... she introduces a lot of characters right in the first chapter, and refers to them by first and last names at various times. So, you really have to pay attention and remember who is who.

BOb

This is one of the slower ones - with a lot of characters - never saw the ending of this one coming though!

[poohbear_nc]

Reading "Dexter by Design" this weekend - love this series - the 3rd book ("Dexter in the Dark") was slow & mostly uninteresting to me - but this one is back up the greatness of the 1st one "Darkly Dreaming Dexter").

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

When does the movie come out?

Already out - I saw it about a month ago

[BenG]

Just finished Pioneer, Go Home! by Richard Powell. It's a very funny novel that was made into the Elvis Presley movie, Follow That Dream. The book is better.
A 50th anniversary edition was published earlier this year.

I also recently read two unusual fantasy novels, Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. McAvoy and The Wizard of Pigeons by Megan Lindholm(aka Robin Hobb).

TwtBD is a fantasy/mystery hybrid set in San Francisco and all of the wizards in TWoP are homeless people in Seattle. Both are worth reading.

[Sparrow]

Just finished "The Act of Roger Murgatroyd" by Gilbert Adair - a pastiche of Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" - very entertaining, clever and with a lot of wit. The denouement is funny, but not entirely convincing. This is the first of the "Evadne Mount" stories - another is "A Myterious Affair of Style" which I shall look out for after reading the original, which is this month's MR bookclub choice.

Now reading "The Man in the Picture: a ghost story" by Susan Hill. So far it's been cozily spooky, in the tradition of late 19th and early 20th century English ghost stories.

[MelC]

Finished Mil Millington's Love and Other Near Death Experiences. It was good but not phenomenal - similar in style to Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland but I didn't think it was quite as good. Still I enjoyed it and would read other books of his. Am now finally getting around to rereading/finishing the Dean Koontz Frankenstein trilogy. It will be interesting to reread it knowing the history and authorship change that went into the third novel. I will definitely be looking for a shift after 2 since I am rereading all three.

Mel

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by BenG

Just finished Pioneer, Go Home! by Richard Powell. It's a very funny novel that was made into the Elvis Presley movie, Follow That Dream. The book is better.
A 50th anniversary edition was published earlier this year.

I also recently read two unusual fantasy novels, Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. McAvoy and The Wizard of Pigeons by Megan Lindholm(aka Robin Hobb).

TwtBD is a fantasy/mystery hybrid set in San Francisco and all of the wizards in TWoP are homeless people in Seattle. Both are worth reading.

I read that when I was a kid! That was a wonderful and fun book!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

<Where is the smiley reading on a sofa with a blanket and a mug???>

Don't forget the purring sleeping cat (or furry beast of your choice).

ha, florence, he's right ! do you have a cat (or other furry beast) ? i could lend you mine, if you like.

Originally Posted by MelC

Finished Mil Millington's Love and Other Near Death Experiences. It was good but not phenomenal - similar in style to Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland but I didn't think it was quite as good. Still I enjoyed it and would read other books of his.

i just finished "things my girlfriend and i have argued about" by Millington. i love his website and columns so i was pretty excited to (finally) read his books as well. i actually had started it quite a while ago but i got distracted, or was in the mood for something else, or something (i can't actually remember) so i put it aside for several months and only just came back to it ; this time i got into it really quickly and several times it made me laugh uncontrollably. now that i've finished it i'm thinking of getting another (or both, probably) of his books, but i'm having a hard time deciding which one to read next since they both look good. i was thinking of reading "a certain chemistry" next since that's his second book (tmgaihaa is his first). have you read anything else by him ?

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Just finished "The Act of Roger Murgatroyd" by Gilbert Adair - a pastiche of Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" - very entertaining, clever and with a lot of wit. The denouement is funny, but not entirely convincing. This is the first of the "Evadne Mount" stories - another is "A Myterious Affair of Style" which I shall look out for after reading the original, which is this month's MR bookclub choice.

those sound great ! i will have to take a look. i hope they're available as ebooks...

(goes to check fictionwise / booksonboard) arg ! not available, apparently. grmblblmbl...

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

Currently reading documentation about our service desk system.

Well, I am at work right now

that sounds positively fascinating. can i get it at fictionwise ?

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

that sounds positively fascinating. can i get it at fictionwise ?

Not yet, but I'm sure I can make it available here. Do we have a section for "Books for insomniacs"?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

Not yet, but I'm sure I can make it available here. Do we have a section for "Books for insomniacs"?

maybe you should start one.

[columbus]

Originally Posted by MelC

Am now finally getting around to rereading/finishing the Dean Koontz Frankenstein trilogy. It will be interesting to reread it knowing the history and authorship change that went into the third novel. I will definitely be looking for a shift after 2 since I am rereading all three.

Mel

Just read the first, that & the second (pbooks) have been sitting on my bookshelf for some time & I now have the third from CD Wow, (free delivery worldwide), so must read ( to read list goes up faster than I can read )

[Elsi]

I don't stop into this thread very often. My last post said:

Originally Posted by Elsi

Me, I'm reading In the Company of Others by Julie Czerneda. I'm totally engaged and about 150 pages from the end. She's an amazing writer of science fiction and I'm sorry that I promised to mail this book to a friend in The Netherlands. I may have to buy a "keeper" copy as an eBook, as soon as it is available. Here's another case where the most recently published books are available, but the backlist is missing.

I finished In the Company of Others on 2 September, then picked up Dead to the World for the Kindle. This is the 4th in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. My mother-in-law had brought me #5 and #6 in paperback and I had promised to send them to one of my bookswapping friends, so I needed to read #4 quickly so I could read the others before mailing them off.

After Dead to the World, I picked up a really good "contemporary" or "mainstream" novel: Thursdays at Eight by Debbie Macomber. Then I plunged into several vampire novels: Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #5), One Foot in the Grave and At Grave's End, both by Jeanine Frost (#2 and #3 in her Night Huntress series). I'm now about 100 pages into the sixth Sookie Stackhouse book: Definitely Dead.

On Wednesday, I leave for two weeks in Ireland and I'm busy queuing up electronic books for the trip. Top of the list is Septembers Book Club selection -- The Mysterious Affair at Styles -- and then I'm thinking about checking out some of the freebies I got in the past couple of months.

[Dr. Drib]

I just finished a very wonderful first novel, "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett. The novel takes place in Jackson, Mississippi.

It's both a beautiful and painful novel, one that deals with the Black maids who worked for the Whites during the era of the early 1960s.

I grew up in the South and the novel rings true on so many levels. It's compassionate and beautifully written, one that truly comes from the heart, as the author further indicates in her Afterward.

I highly recommend this novel, not only to those individuals here who may be familiar with the term Southern Culture, but for anyone who has no idea what being Southern means.

The expiated guilt must come from me and all Southerners, but even Yankees are encouraged to read it for insight into something they may know nothing about .

Don