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

[ATDrake]

Finished another batch of paid e-book purchases, which I suppose I'll save up to comment upon later once I've read the last of each series.

In the meantime, some standalone recent reads I can comment upon:

Time Traveller's Handbook: A Guide to the Past by Althea Douglas was a paper offering on the library's New Books shelf. A bit disappointingly, this wasn't one of those faux-Fodor's guides to Ancient Insert-Civilization-Here that I normally love. Instead, this was a quasi-genealogical guide from Dundurn Press, an independent Canadian imprint which specializes in Stuff of Cultural Interest.

It turned out to be a rather nifty book on understanding the cultural context in which one's recent ancestors lived and how their lives differed from ours, and interesting in seeing the sorts of things we both take for granted in our daily lives and when they were introduced/fell out of usage.

You know that footnote in Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's Good Omens where they explain the old UK currency of pence/shillings/farthings/pounds/guineas for the benefit of foreigners and claim that the British resisted changing over to a decimal currency system because they considered the latter too complicated?

It turns out it's funny because it's true: TTH:AGTTP has some photos of hand-scrawled notes by James Douglas, 1st Governor of the old Colony of British Columbia circa the pre-Confederation 1850s, where he's trying to convert the shillings/farthings/etc. to US cents and dollars and some scratched-out parts where he kept getting the math wrong.

In all, a nice light subject intro with lots of pointers towards further in-depth reading and how to get more information on how your ancestors lived and died, along with tips on filtering the usable info out of old family stories to get at what probably Really Happened (i.e. "don't take everything grandpa says about his granddad's reasons for leaving the British Isles at face value; he may prefer to remember great-great-grandpa's daring escape from the mob determined to hang a horse thief as being more thrilling than it actually was; or he may just be succumbing to senile dementia").

Recommended if you're interested in such. Also, apropos of something mentioned far upthread about a Poirot book, it turns out that Canada still had at-least-twice-a-day postal delivery up until the 1950s or so.

Tying into the theme of finding out stuff about your ancestors whether you like it or not, The Black Thread by Margaret Muir was one of those Belgrave House Fictionwise purchases.

It was blurbed over there as a kind of historical mystery involving a past murder, which technically it kind of is, but rather than an unravelling a whodunnit and getting belated justice, it's really just a kind of coming of age story for Amy Dodd, a young girl overshadowed by the presence of her violent father with a nasty past and trying to escape from his influence while finding out what really happened to the rest of her family.

But it's not an amateur sleuth story like I was expecting.

This was decently-enough written, but I found it insufficiently compelling. The prose seemed a bit flat a first, and while Amy was a nice enough and reasonably balanced character, the other characters seemed somewhat more extreme, with relative strangers appearing disproportionately generous and helpful to Amy, seemingly to make up for the sheer malevolence of her father, who is the main source of the tension and conflict in the book.

The most interesting bits were the descriptions of UK living conditions circa the 1890s, with factory-working mill girls and the changeover from horse-to-machinery etc.

Okay if you like low-cost with discount coupon DRM-free historical personal/family drama with uncovering hidden secrets and learning to deal with the ugliness in one's past, even though the final revelation about her family seems rather sentimentally pat.

The author is small-press published in the UK and apparently has some historical ship-going adventure novels which seem well-received. I may possibly try them during another FW sale, but they'll be a low priority until I've bought another few bunches of more compelling stuff first.

[tecweston]

Currently reading:

- A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. I've been making my way through the Game of Thrones series for the past three months. This is book #3.

- 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Just bought this one, I'm about 15% through it.

- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. This is the "Barnes and Noble Classic Edition" that came free with the Nook Touch I bought a couple months ago. Almost done with it.

eBooks I will be reading as soon as I finish these:

- 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I've been looking forward to this one for a while.

- The Night Eternal by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Third book in the "Strain" vampire trilogy. I read the first two from the library so I'm waiting for them to get a copy so I don't have to buy it.

- God, No: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales by Penn Jillette

eBooks I'm on the waiting list for at my library:

- The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

- Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

[Andrew Kaufman]

I'm reading Dennis Lehane's Moonlight Mile. Just started it, but so far, so good.

[endobenthic]

Evening:

The next book I have on my "to read" list is Judas, My Brother by Frank Yerby.

I really like Christian historical novels (I really enjoyed Dear and Glorious Physician and Great Lion of God by Taylor Caldwell) and I'm looking forward to what Frank Yerby does with the genre after being quite affected by The Saracen Blade.

Anyone read any of these?

[Traye]

I finished The Drowning Pool. It was meh to me, although my friend loved it. She's not usually a horror/ghost story fan and I am an addict of the genre so maybe that's something to do with it.
I've read so many good books in the hauntings/horror/ghostly going ons genre that this seemed mediocre to me.

I've since downloaded and started The White Devil: A Ghost Story by Justin Evans and am quite liking it so far.

[DiapDealer]

I'm reading Dennis Lehane's Moonlight Mile. Just started it, but so far, so good.

I thought it wrapped up the Kenzie-Gennaro series quite nicely. I was worried about there being such a long gap between books, but I think Lehane did a fine job with it.

[WT Sharpe]

Just finished reading Dignity: The Essential Role It Plays in Resolving Conflict by Donna Hicks, Ph.D. (Forward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu). This is a very readable and well-researched book by an author who has the credentials, as she has frequently participated as an intercessor in everything from personal relationships to international agreements. Highly recommended.

Also finished Daisy's Greyt Escape by Jeff Scott (MobileRead Member Monaco). This is a fast-paced, enjoyable, but not always upbeat tale about a greyhound and her search for a home. After her escape from the race track, she encounters dog street gangs, pit-bull fighting rings, and other various forms of abuse. The main human villain's name (coincidentally, I hope!) is Willie Sharp!

[hohoho]

At the moment I´m reading a cool German book called "Spatzenhirn und Kopfsalat" by Max Moonfoon. It´s about a boy...

It was cheap, so I bought it on amazon kindle

Last week I read Twilight and some erotic literature...

[Latinandgreek]

I'm reading "Helen of Troy: goddess, princess, whore". A fascinating look at Helen of Troy and the life that a spartan woman of the time would have lived. I highly recommend it to both history and mythology buffs. It is a hefty book, but I am speeding through it and hope to finish it by the end of the weekend.

[caleb72]

Finished reading The Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker. A great steampunk-ish book which I've reviewed on my site.

Now I'm reading A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. About a third in and it's awesome. I'm completely drawn in on the promise that I'll find out what happened to a bunch of kids in a clearing 40 years ago.

[Traye]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Finished reading The Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker. A great steampunk-ish book which I've reviewed on my site.

Now I'm reading A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. About a third in and it's awesome. I'm completely drawn in on the promise that I'll find out what happened to a bunch of kids in a clearing 40 years ago.

Oh I'll look into The Emperor's Edge!

I enjoyed A Dark Matter although it's some while since I read it.
Along the same lines, I recently read Dark Matter: A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver and I thought it was very good. Bleak and chilly, and that was just the location the book was set in.

I finished The White Devil. It was based around Harrow and Lord Byron and I thought it was pretty good.

I've moved on to The Final Winter: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel by Iain Rob Wright. I have high hopes for it and I hope it lives up to my expectations.

[Steve_D]

Currently reading The American by Martin Booth (on Kindle for iPhone). It's a little self-indulgent for my tastes, but the authors description of locales and the characters that populate them are vivid and believable.

I haven't yet seen the Clooney adaptation, but I'm willing to bet its faster paced than the novel is.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. Her 29th book.

And her best to date. An absolutely splendid mystery with Hercule Poirot.

Next: Analog SFF, Jan/Feb 2012 by Dell Magazine Authors.

[thinkpad]

Finished Dralin, great book. Enjoyed it a lot. I liked the characters and the story along with the whole setting. Started on the Liveship Trilogy by Robin Hobb but got bored, the story didn't interest me at all so I picked up Sword of Shannara which I've been meaning to read for quite some time. So far it seems like more or less a copy of The Lord of the rings but I'll keep on reading a bit to see where it leads.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by thinkpad

So far it seems like more or less a copy of The Lord of the rings but I'll keep on reading a bit to see where it leads.

Just so you know... the first 1/3 of it is a direct rip-off of LoTR. The author admitted as much long ago. The plot-points and the characters are basically identical. The (then) new author took a break at that point and what he wrote afterwards deviates from Tolkien's work. I'd honestly just skip it and read the second book if I were a new reader.