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

[Michael McLovin]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

I agree! I really would love to get my Japanese to the level that I could read books in the original language.

Studied Japanese before, made good progress on the spoken part but got nowhere on the written part of it.

Anyway i think i'll google for reviews of some of the titles mentioned here. Might find one i'll like
Right now i'm leaning towards the Subtle Knife.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by Michael McLovin

Studied Japanese before, made good progress on the spoken part but got nowhere on the written part of it.

Anyway i think i'll google for reviews of some of the titles mentioned here. Might find one i'll like
Right now i'm leaning towards the Subtle Knife.

Same here. I took 3 Japanese courses 7 or 8 years ago, and I'm going to sign up for level 4 this spring, so I'm reviewing my old textbook. I'm finding the kanji hard to remember, I'm really not a visual learner.

I hope you like the Subtle Knife, I really did.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by Jcas

Just finished and thoroughly enjoyed my first Nevil Shute novel Round the Bend.

Don't stop now! You've still got On the Beach, Trustee from the Tool Room and A Town Like Alice to go if you haven't already read them. Of all his great books, these were my favs

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

Same here. I took 3 Japanese courses 7 or 8 years ago, and I'm going to sign up for level 4 this spring, so I'm reviewing my old textbook. I'm finding the kanji hard to remember, I'm really not a visual learner.

I hope you like the Subtle Knife, I really did.

I lived in Japan for a year and found Kanji impossible to remember. I memorized certain symbols (like those for the city where I had to get off the train), certain food items and sometimes I could tell if a subject was "water" or "mountain" from the simple ones I remembered. But it's an incredibly difficult system to learn even when immersed in it. I wish I had gotten better with both the spoken and the written, but alas, I could only learn so much in a year! Good luck with it. Let me know when you're ready to translate a short story or two!

[maianhvk]

Originally Posted by Michael McLovin

Right now i'm leaning towards the Subtle Knife.

oh that's the best one in the series, IMO.

about the Amber spyglass...

Spoiler:

I really don't see the point in Lyra's going to the land of the death. Her reason is... nonsense! I mean, Lyra's is stubborn and crazy in a way, sure, but come on! She wants to go a long, terrible way down to the land of the death JUST to say sorry to Roger?? That's it??

She and Will need to get to Lord Asriel's fortress immediately for the biggest war ever, and all she wants to do is to waste a ton of strength and time doing something that can be put off for later. Although this makes some senses for later in the book, but I still feel a little disappointed after the fantastic previous book in the series. Maybe Pullman couldn't find a more reasonable way to make Lyra go to the land of the death.

[bert501]

I've just finished A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.

Pretty good-kept me up to get it finished! I liked it better after I got about 1/2 into it and she wrapped up the 'courtship' and moved back to the storyline...it was a little tiresome but that may be just me lol

Interesting characters and the story has some intriguing twists on what we're used to seeing in this genre. The ending left a huge detail hanging so a sequel will surely be along.

[SeaBookGuy]

Speaking of Things Japanese ...

I've just read At Home in Japan: A Foreign Woman's Journey of Discovery- story of an American-Australian woman's life as a Japanese wife for the past 30 years. Definitely recommended, though her life seems a bit out of the Japanese mainstream to me, and I feel that she romanticizes things a bit.

[ATDrake]

There was stuff I wanted to do downtown today, but I'm currently snowed in (darn unseasonable weather; normally we get 5 cms of the stuff in December which melts in the afternoon sun/rain) because the ongoing snowfall has shut down transit service to outlying neighbourhoods.

So I'm doing some paper reading: currently on The Folklore of the Discworld by Terry Pratchett & Jacqueline Simpson (updated edition which now also covers Unseen Academicals). It's a fun comparison of Discworld creatures and lore to Roundworld creatures and lore (mainly with a British Isles focus), mostly written by Simpson and quoting heavily (and with an introduction by) from Pratchett rather than any major contribution beyond the obvious from him.

A nice light read*, of which the best line is from the introduction:

Originally Posted by Terry Pratchett

... we have included a short reading list, in theory for those readers who would like to know more, but also because people who love books always want to recommend them to other people at the least excuse.

Quoted for truth, and recommended if you like Discworld or folkloric comparisons.

* Complete with footnotes.

[BenG]

One of my favorite books, A Short History of a Small Place by T.R. Pearson, was recently released as an e-book, so I've been re-reading it on my Sony. (My hardback is in the bottom of a box somewhere.)

It opens up with young Louis Benfield listening to his Daddy telling the latest news in their small town of Neely, North Carolina.

DADDY SAID it was a bedsheet, a fitted bedsheet, and he said she was wearing it up on her shoulders like a cape with two of the corners knotted around her neck. She was standing barefoot on an oak stump, he said, standing on the one nearest the front walk where there was ordinarily a clay pot of geraniums, and he said her hair was mostly braided and bunned up in the back but for some few squirrel-colored strands of it that had worked their way loose and hung kind of wild and scraggly down across her forehead and almost to her nose. She was talking, he said. Then he stopped himself and creased the newspaper twice and put it in his lap, and he changed it to ranting, full-fledged bad-planking-in-the-attic ranting. It was something about Creon, he said, something about Creon and the stink of corpses.

From that beginning we eventually learn how Miss Pettigrew ended up on that tree stump, but first we hear, through many digressions, ramblings, and humorous stories (just the way folks sitting on their front porch would tell stories), a history of Neely. Personally, being from the south, I would give it 5 stars, but I realize it may not be to every one's taste.
It was given an electronic release because Pearson has written a sequel about the grown-up Louis in New York.

http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-...8843117&sr=8-2

[mldavis2]

Just finished "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood (yes, I know it's old) and starting on the five-book Belgariad series of fantasy books by David Eddings (yes, I know they aren't similar genres) on the recommendation of an old friend. Eddings is not in eBook format, sadly.

[Steve Anderson]

About a third into the historical mystery The Empty Mirror by J. Sydney Jones. It's set in 1890s Vienna, where the renowned Austrian artist Gustav Klimt is a prime suspect for grisly murders. Good stuff with various historical figures in cameos including Mark Twain, and it's holding up pretty well in comparison to my last read, True Grit -- definitely a tough act to follow.

[Michael McLovin]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

oh that's the best one in the series, IMO.

about the Amber spyglass...

Spoiler:

I really don't see the point in Lyra's going to the land of the death. Her reason is... nonsense! I mean, Lyra's is stubborn and crazy in a way, sure, but come on! She wants to go a long, terrible way down to the land of the death JUST to say sorry to Roger?? That's it??

She and Will need to get to Lord Asriel's fortress immediately for the biggest war ever, and all she wants to do is to waste a ton of strength and time doing something that can be put off for later. Although this makes some senses for later in the book, but I still feel a little disappointed after the fantastic previous book in the series. Maybe Pullman couldn't find a more reasonable way to make Lyra go to the land of the death.

i never could resist clicking on the spoilers tag.
thankfully it hasn't spoiled anything for me.
liked the reviews for the series so i'm still gonna read it.

[jgaiser]

I started reading The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer last night and am finding it fascinating.

I read a New York Times book review on it last year and it's been sitting on my TBR pile for some time. It's a *big* book, but considering the technical and scientific basis of the book, the author, Siddhartha Mukherjee, has put together a very readable book for the layman. Think I'll stick this one out.

[Jcas]

Originally Posted by cassidym

Don't stop now! You've still got On the Beach, Trustee from the Tool Room and A Town Like Alice to go if you haven't already read them. Of all his great books, these were my favs

They are definately on my TBR list, i thoroughly enjoyed his writing style and at times i felt like i was right there in the aircraft hangar with them, i think it was because of a previous comment from you about the writer that i even looked at them, so thanks for expressing your opinion.

[GeoffC]

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