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Post by Mirabelle on Feb 22, 2009 21:45:02 GMT -5
I just finished Carolyn Hart's Letter from Home which is a quiet mystery set in a small Oklahoma town in 1944. It has a young girl as a protagonist and it's more about what the murder reveals about the townspeople than the murder itself.
Now I'm reading Sue Townsend's The Queen and I. I'm in the mood for something funny and neither of my libraries had the third Adrian Mole book.
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Post by misshickerson on Feb 24, 2009 13:21:20 GMT -5
I've just started reading Into The Forest by Jean Hegland. I suppose it could be classified as post-apocalyptic speculative fiction. On page 15 there is a passage that discusses the postal service's sporadic deliveries and that government employees were being paid with IOU's. I was just stunned to read that, especially in light of the recent troubles I've heard about the USPS and that California state employees may be getting IOU's instead of paychecks. The amazing thing is that this was published in 1996.
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nundu
Second Year
Posts: 25
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Post by nundu on Feb 24, 2009 18:36:46 GMT -5
I have about five books on my night stand right now. As I'm preparing for 'Read Across America' next Monday, I'm reading a biography of Helen Keller (I'll be reading from 'The Story of my Life'), Deathly Hallows (Brit paperback), Stephen King's 'Just After Midnight' (he pays homage to HP several times), Michael Crichton's 'Next', and 'The Lucky One' (total escapist!) by Nicolas Sparks.
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Post by pigwithhair on Feb 24, 2009 19:35:45 GMT -5
O-oh! My favorite topic!
I finished Denis Lehane's Mystic River not long ago. His Shutter Island has been rec'ed to me. I've requested it through a library transfer, so we'll see. I love the way he writes but had problems with Mystic River.
My last book was Harry: A History by Melissa Anelli. I'm glad I read it, but I classify it as "okay."
Now I'm reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and I am getting very into it.
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Post by Mirabelle on Feb 24, 2009 21:05:40 GMT -5
Everyone I know who has read Shutter Island has raved about it.
I'm going to put this on my Amazon Wishlist. I love stuff like this.
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Post by MWPP on Feb 25, 2009 2:04:16 GMT -5
OotP for the nth time ... and just started The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman ... and about 89-hundred periodicals .....
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Post by magikcat on Feb 25, 2009 2:18:51 GMT -5
I'm actually beginning the British version of Chamber of Secrets, which I haven't read cover-to-cover in about 2-3 years, so I'm excited.
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Post by pigwithhair on Feb 26, 2009 10:52:23 GMT -5
I'm also trying to collect the Bloomsbury editions. I'll never get over the fact that Scholastic Americanized the originals. I want to read them as they were intended.
So far I have CofS, PofA and OoftP, but I don't want to start reading them until I find PS.
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Post by loreleilynn on Feb 27, 2009 10:25:57 GMT -5
My favorite genre is historical fiction, so I recently finished The Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I actually liked it better than the previous one in the series - Time and Chance Of course, now I want to re-watch "The Lion in Winter" with Katharine Hepburn!
One of my undergrad majors was art history, so I also enjoyed the nonfiction Basilica: The Splendor and Scandal of Building St. Peter's.
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Post by Mirabelle on Mar 4, 2009 21:22:51 GMT -5
Random House is offering five free ebooks at their Suvudu Free Book Library. Titles include Her Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik, Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, and Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. The link I gave are for PDF files so you don't need an ebook reader to read them. If you've got a Kindle, I've been told they're also available for free in Kindle format at the Kindle store. I'm currently reading Deanna Raybourn's Silent on the Moor. I sort of feel I'm missing a rather obvious joke because I haven't read Wuthering Heights and I think there's some tongue-in-cheek references to WH.
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Post by MWPP on Mar 10, 2009 20:16:24 GMT -5
I read The Alchemyst by Michael Scott right after it was released in 2007 and kept checking his site, ready for book two that was forever away from being published. Somewhere along the way I stopped going there.... WELLLL .... Last night I discovered (A) the second book, The Magician, came out already, and (B) book three, The Scorceress, comes out May 8th! *Happy Dance!* *Happy Dance* .
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Post by Mirabelle on Mar 10, 2009 23:08:48 GMT -5
I've started reading guidebooks to Italy. My cousins and I are going to be taking a trip there this summer and somehow I've taken on the role of trip planner. It's rather nice not having to fight for every decision (dropping Florence in favor of an extra day in Rome and Venice) but it'd be nice to have some input into things.
I'm still reading Silent on the Moor. Things have started to pick up now that Egyptian mummies have shown up. I've found that Egyptian mummies, or any type of mummy, tend to improve a mystery.
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Post by queenie on Mar 22, 2009 0:29:35 GMT -5
I've started Charlotte Temple in my Origins of American Lit class. Origins of American Lit in general is really interesting - as soon as summer starts, I feel like I'm going to pull open The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby all over again.
Also, for fun, I've been slowly reading Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From a Medieval Village By Laura Schlitz. It's a set of twenty or thirty monologues from the point of view of children in a medieval village, from all walks of life - the lord's daughter, the physician's son, the falconer-in-training, the villein's daughter, the half-wit, the son of the knight. It's very, very good.
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nundu
Second Year
Posts: 25
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Post by nundu on Mar 22, 2009 11:38:40 GMT -5
Last night I discovered (A) the second book, The Magician, came out already, and (B) book three, The Scorceress, comes out May 8th! SQUEEEEE!!!!! I've been looking for the sequels too! I loved The Alchemyst. * heads for Amazon*
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Post by Chocolatepot on Mar 22, 2009 21:34:08 GMT -5
Right now I'm working on finishing Little Dorrit - the miniseries was much easier. I still have a bookmark in Portrait of an Unknown Woman, a novel about Thomas More's adopted daughter, and in Georgiana, the biography The Duchess is based on.
I was reading Georgette Heyer's Regency World, but I think I'm going to take it back to the library. There's no commentary at all, it just reads like the research comes directly out of Heyer.
I love The Queen and I! Funny, but also poignant.
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Post by Mirabelle on Mar 22, 2009 23:20:55 GMT -5
I'm currently reading Eating Up Italy which is a travel/food memoir about traveling through Italy from south to north on a Vespa and eating Italian food. I'm also reading John Mortimer's Quite Honestly. I'm not too sure how I feel about the Mortimer.
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adele
Hogwarts Letter Recipient
Posts: 3
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Post by adele on Apr 25, 2009 11:32:06 GMT -5
I'm in the middle of about eight different books at the moment, having been sidetracked numerous times by schoolwork (mostly short stories and Shakespeare... : . Before that, I read The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger for about the ninth time. So, the list of books which I intend to finish as soon as I graduate: Tessa Hadley-- The Master BedroomElizabeth Gaskell-- Wives and DaughtersWilliam Makepeace Thackeray-- Vanity FairScott Snyder-- Voodoo HeartKate Atkinson-- Behind the Scenes at the MuseumChuck Palahnuik-- Invisible MonstersBetty Smith-- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (re-reading) I have a busy summer ahead of me.
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Post by Mirabelle on Apr 25, 2009 14:34:42 GMT -5
I'm slowly reading Trollope's He Knew He Was Right. The plot isn't very urgent so it's a slow leisurely read.
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Post by queenie on Jun 12, 2009 16:14:19 GMT -5
I just finished reading Tamora Pierce's Page, from the Protector of the Small Series. However, I haven't read the first book yet, so I'm waiting to come across that. And I'm 70 pages into James Clavell's Tai-Pan, which I understand to be "Shogun, but set in Hong Kong, two hundred years later, and not quite as good." Last night I found this splendid new webcomic called The Phoenix Requiem. It's very good - the setting is Victorian-esque, the mood is brooding and a little spooky, with a small cast, but tight and well written interaction between them, and the overall genre is fantasy. The art is beautiful, if seeming a bit stiff at points. requiem.seraph-inn.com/And, because webcomics are something a person continues reading, I'm also into Girl Genius, which is a very long running series but is also one of the best things I'm reading, full of adventure, humor, imagination, cliches acknowledged and then turned on their heads, and some fantastic writing. The art is always full of energy and detail. In terms of planting Chekov's Guns and hints of foreshadows that grow into immense tress of plotlines, Girl Genius can't be beat. www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104Here, I'll start you off at the beginning. Also, there's The Meek, which has possibly the best storytelling through art, not to mention art, of any web comic I'm reading. It's only just begun, and the author is taking her time in revealing her story (and this is a good thing) but it is a little... frustrating, to see genius so slowly revealing itself. www.meekcomic.com/Second close for best art would be Lackadaisy, a comic that happens to star cats running a speakeasy in the Roaring 20's. Atmosphere runs rampant, as does humor and black comedy. Also relatively new (I say relatively compared to Girl Genius, which has been updating 3 times a week nonstop since late 2002), but if a Trickster type of hero who spouts poetry on the sly, and a rich cast of characters sounds like your thing, I think you'll like Lackadaisy. lackadaisycats.com/index.phpAnd last but not least is Order of the Stick. I don't know how many folks here are into Dungeons and Dragons, but I'll be first to say, I'm not. However, I'm able to understand this comic perfectly, with a few allowances of "that's what the writer says, okay." Despite being a stick figure comic, the action scenes leave you on the edge of your seat and the characters all have multiple layers - not to mention this comic is frequently hilarious. It gets off to a slow start, but it's not long before you forget that you're reading a stick figure comic, and start relishing the story and dialogue for what they are. www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.htmlHmm, looking back, I notice that my favorite webcomics tend to have a few things in common: characters, dialogue, and plots are all first rate. Top-knotch. The Bee's Knees. The Gilbert Blythes. The... well, that's my taste in webcomics anyway. If I get someone hooked on one of these, it'll be a satisfying day.
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Post by queenie on Jun 29, 2009 3:44:31 GMT -5
Ahem. Trying to wrap up Tropic Of Orange for a school assignment next semester (this book is thick and postmodern and difficult), and am now 97 pages into Moby thingy. Phew.
Also, for the L.M. Montgomery fans out there, I have started a reread of Kilmeny of the Orchard, with a more sympathetic eye to Nate Gordon, and realizing for the first time the situation of Eric's wealth placing him above the stratum of the rest of the people in Lindsey. (Sometimes I can be an unobservant reader.)
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