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

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I'm reading a trashy Harlequin romance I got from the library. Kind of like bar nuts - awfully addicting, not very nutritious, something I would never pay $$ for, a real guilty pleasure.

Anyone else have any guilty pleasures?

The one that stands out in my mind, and I still have the pbook to this day, is the novelisation of 'Escape from New York'. It's a cracking read, pacy, fun, and better written, I think, than a lot of bestsellers.

[pilotbob]

I just finished Ur by Steven King. This is a pretty good story and a quick read. I have to say thought that this ending surprised me in that it didn't surprise me. If I didn't know it was by King and read it, I wouldn't have guessed it was by him. It was nothing like the novels of his I remember like Christine or Tommyknockers.

Started the MRBC March selection, The Professor and the Madmen.

BOb

[lilac_jive]

I'm reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Yes I know it's a children's book really but it's on my 1001 list and I haven't read it previously, so there!

It is cute though

[tompe]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

I'm reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Yes I know it's a children's book really but it's on my 1001 list and I haven't read it previously, so there!

I read the version annotaded by Martin Gardner and it really added to the experience. As the amazon review says:

Readers who share Alice's taste in books will be more than satisfied with The Annotated Alice, a volume that includes not only pictures and conversations, but a thorough gloss on the text as well. There may be some, like G.K. Chesterton, who abhor the notion of putting Lewis Carroll's masterpiece under a microscope and analyzing it within an inch of its whimsical life. But as Martin Gardner points out in his introduction, so much of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is composed of private jokes and details of Victorian manners and mores that modern audiences are not likely to catch. Yes, Alice can be enjoyed on its own merits, but The Annotated Alice appeals to the nosy parker in all of us. Thus we learn, for example, that the source of the mouse's tale may have been Alfred Lord Tennyson who "once told Carroll that he had dreamed a lengthy poem about fairies, which began with very long lines, then the lines got shorter and shorter until the poem ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each." And that, contrary to popular belief, the Mad Hatter character was not a parody of then Prime Minister Gladstone, but rather was based on an Oxford furniture dealer named Theophilus Carter.

Gardner's annotations run the gamut from the factual and historical to the speculative and are, in their own way, quite as fascinating as the text they refer to. Occasionally, he even comments on himself, as when he quotes a fellow annotator of Alice, James Kincaid: "The historical context does not call for a gloss but the passage provides an opportunity to point out the ambivalence that may attend the central figure and her desire to grow up." And then follows with a charming riposte: "I thank Mr. Kincaid for supporting my own rambling." There's a lot of information in the margins (indeed, the page is pretty evenly divided between Carroll's text and Gardner's), but the ramblings turn out to be well worth the time. So hand over your old copy of Lewis Carroll's classic to the kids--this Alice in Wonderland is intended entirely for adults. --Alix Wilber

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by tompe

I read the version annotaded by Martin Gardner and it really added to the experience. As the amazon review says:

I'll have to see if I can find that info online, I'm reading the Sony Classic.

[desertgrandma]

"UR". I"m surprised. Its the first new King in a long time I"ve really enjoyed from the first sentence..........only a few pages in but its gotten my interest.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

"UR". I"m surprise. Its the first new King in a long time I"ve really enjoyed from the first sentence..........only a few pages in but its gotten my interest.

It was a good story, and a quick read. A really interesting idea too.

BOb

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

It was a good story, and a quick read. A really interesting idea too.

BOb

Yeah, well, we'll see how long I get stuck here, on MR, before I can get back to the book........

[lilac_jive]

Well Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was quick I just picked up "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs from the library, so I'll read that first, then on to "Through the Looking Glass."

[Sparrow]

Finished 'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson. Gripping real-life adventure - thoroughly recommended.

About to start a biography - 'William Pitt the Younger' by William Hague.

[mickitaz]

Finished reading Kim Tuesday night. I also read Storm Front from the Dresden Files. Now on to Fool Moon

[bookwormfjl]

I am reading Star Strike: The Inheritance Trilogy Book 1 by Ian Douglas
Excellent so far. Real good military SF. I you like David Weber you'll like this.

[bbusybookworm]

I've been on a bit of a science Fiction Kick lately and just finished

On Basilisk Station By David Weber and its sequel

The Honor of the Queen By David Weber And while I quiet enjoyed the first book, and thw second was nice, I'm in no hurry to read the rest of the series. Perhaps sometime in the future, when I'm in the right mood.

How to Live on Mars By Robert Zubrin - An Interesting take on Mars colonisation, especially if you are a fan of Heinlein.



I'm also reading


On Intelligence by Sandra Blakeslee & Jeff Hawkins

Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Buy and Live as They Do by Clotaire Rapaille

What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable by John Brockman Quiet Interesting

Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert Pape Still Slow Going, as is quiet Dense and can't make myself dinsish it faster.

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku

[Todd A Fonseca]

All,
I just finished P.J. Grondin's second book, a lifetime of deception. Pretty good, a little predictable, but entertaining. Here's my full review:

****************************************8

A Lifetime of Deception – An Intriguing Military Murder Mystery!
Rating: 4 of 5
Author: P.J. Grondin
Available: Paperback, Kindle

Unwanted and given up at birth, Becky Lippert moved from foster family to foster family suffering verbal, physical, and sexual abuse until she decided to take matters into her own hands. Blessed with a keen mind and killer looks, Becky finds she has a talent for quickly putting any man under her seductive spell. With these assets, she leaves “home” in her mid teens and begins life as a grifter, conning young military servicemen out of their life savings. She had the perfect crime and what she thought was the perfect payoff and Becky was sure she could forever lead a life of deception.

Unfortunately, dead bodies begin to pile up in her wake and Becky begins to search for a way out. Meanwhile the government quickly finds a pattern of crime against it’s own and calls up Joe McKinney to active service to help solve the crime. A battle tested marine, Joe works with his brother Pat to piece together the clues to the identity and whereabouts of the mystery woman conning these men and those responsible for their murders. But will they find Becky before the trail gets cold or will they fall victim to her and her accomplices’ plans?

P.J. Grondin’s A Lifetime of Deception is an intriguing military murder mystery thriller. Grondin’s own experience as a former submariner aboard the USS John Adams clearly comes through as he describes the duties, assignments, recreational activities, dress, hygiene, and habits our nations servicemen and women. I especially appreciated getting a glimpse into the emotional balancing act one must manage regarding one’s duty to country and one’s family responsibilities. For someone to target and take advantage of these heroes is a travesty. All Americans should ensure that as our nations’ heroes protect us oversees we should likewise protect them against any individual or group that would stand to gain by exploiting them while deployed.

A Lifetime of Deception is the second novel featuring Joe and Pat McKinney. In these brothers, Grondin has created characters we all can related to. They are flawed human beings with questionable pasts and occasionally struggling relationships but who, none-the-less wake up each morning committed to improving their and their loved ones’ lives. I look forward to reading the first novel in the series A Lifetime of Vengeance.

[MonaLS]

Currently reading Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. Can't wait for Turn Coat coming out next month!!!