What are you reading?

Women Who Run with the Wolves

I'd sure like to discuss it with someone who's read it.

Erinmiller77 said:

Oh NOES!!! I stopped reading the Gunslinger series w/ Wizards and Glass. Can't help you w/ the Lamb novel...figure I'm not touching it w/ a ten foot pole.

I'm reading Son of a Witch (sequel to Wicked) and Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Click to expand...

I stopped reading the Dark Tower series after The Gunslinger. Am I the only one who found watching grass grow more interesting? It was short, and it still took me about three weeks to force my way through it.

Siddow said:

8/24, I reported a Wally Lamb bestseller, I know this much is true.

I'm now on page 192, out of 897 pages. I want to throw it out the window. The writing is good, the characters are good, but my gosh, there's a lot of words. Too many words, methinks. Slam, bang, the first three chapters start with great hooks. And then...meh.

If someone could point me to the page where plot picks up again, I'd appreciate it. I feel like I'm in Wizards and Glass all over again.

Click to expand...

That's my favourite book ever! I read it in less than a week. I'm sorry you feel that way about it. It really hit home with me because the themes in it were similar to experiences I've had either personally or within the family or my circle of friends.

I never felt like starting the Dark Tower series, and I'm a big King fan most of the time.

I've reached Q IS FOR QUARRY in my Sue Grafton reading. Not my usual genre, but she does it well, besides which I bought most of the alphabet in a single weekend last year. I love the used bookstore scene in Chiang Mai! In China, I made Amazon rich.

Azraelsbane said:

I stopped reading the Dark Tower series after The Gunslinger. Am I the only one who found watching grass grow more interesting? It was short, and it still took me about three weeks to force my way through it.

Click to expand...

I also only read the Gunslinger and felt no inclination to read any more. But I'm not a big fan of King anyway. For some reason, I just can't get into his rambling style. And the premises of his stories don't really do anything for me either.

I'm reading D.T. Max's medical mystery The Family That Couldn't Sleep.

It's about an Italian family that, um, can't go to sleep. Engrossing so far.

scarletpeaches said:

That's my favourite book ever! I read it in less than a week. I'm sorry you feel that way about it. It really hit home with me because the themes in it were similar to experiences I've had either personally or within the family or my circle of friends.

Click to expand...

Also one of my favorites. I'm not ashamed to admit that I actually cried at the end. Wish Wally Lamb put out more than one book every seven years.

I actually met one of his relatives once. She worked in the writing center at the small college where I taught. Lamb edits a collection of stories from a women's prison (the second volume came out last week), and this woman was a former drug addict who had turned her life around; Lamb had included her story in the anthology. She pointed me to this book, and it was really extraordinary. Some of the stories those women told...wow.

brokenfingers said:

I also only read the Gunslinger and felt no inclination to read any more. But I'm not a big fan of King anyway. For some reason, I just can't get into his rambling style. And the premises of his stories don't really do anything for me either.

Click to expand...

I usually like King, and I love fantasy, but I didn't like that at all. It was like mixing two of my favorite things and getting death cocktail.

I'm about to begin The Pact by Jodi Picoult.

Just starting Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb. First time reading, though I've owned it for awhile now and read the first two at least a couple years ago.

~DragonHeart~

Just started The Chronicles of Narnia. I have a nice hardback with all seven books in the one volume. I've never read them before, so I'm quite looking forward to a good read.

MacAllister said:

Ohh, Ben, I just ordered Lottery!

Give me a couple of days after it arrives, and we'll soooo start a thread about it.

Click to expand...

Who's ready for a Lottery (by our own Patricia Woods!) thread over on the Book Club forum? I saw another post here where someone else was reading it. I can imagine poor Patricia cringing at all our comments... but I found the novel very enjoyable.

Recent reads (I need to write reviews for my blog):
"Running with Scissors," Augusten Burroughs
"Dry," Augusten Burroughs
"Look Me In The Eye", John Robison (older brother of Augusten Burroughs)

Next to read is "The Elements of Editing." Not as exciting a title, but the first few pages are interesting and readable.

I am revisiting my childhood and reading The Face in the Frost, by John Bellairs. My husband just read it for the first time (I told him he needed some Bellairs under his belt), so I picked it up after he put it down.

Simple Living said:

I finished this book last night. It will have you running the full gamut of emotions!

Today, I start my next read. It's the author's debut novel, Waking Lazarus by T.L. Hines.

Click to expand...

Let us know how it is, if it's worth the time. I've been curious but lazy about this one. Something about it appeals to me... don't know why.

ChunkyC said:

Just started The Chronicles of Narnia. I have a nice hardback with all seven books in the one volume. I've never read them before, so I'm quite looking forward to a good read.

Click to expand...

Me too! And I just started reading it again too. I started reading it a couple of weeks ago but had to take a break after that first part with the uncle. That creeped me out

Finished Assassin's Quest, started and finished Empire of Ivory, now working on Jhereg.

~DragonHeart~

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. A book hasn't hooked and reeled me in like this one for ages. Joe can seriously write.

I just recently finished THE MEPHISTO CLUB by Tess Gerritsen. I highly recommend this one. I love her books but not all of them measure up to this one which is a great mystery with a delicious hint of the supernatural.

VELOCITY by Dean Koontz (my favorite writer) is so good it's one of the very few books I actually wanted to - and did - read again within six months of the first read.

I'm being nerdy and re-reading Ralph G. Martin's two-volume biography of Jennie Churchill. I just got the pair in perfect hardcover condition at a library sale, for a quarter.

On the un-nerdy side I did just finish all the available Kathy Reichs/Temperance Brennan novels. Mixed feelings there. To my mind her first outing was the best of the bunch.

I'm also near the end of Home in the Wilderness, which I love. It's a woman's journal of life in the old days and the Old South as her family experienced it. And we think we have hard days . . . a very illuminating book. Not "professional" i.e. it's her journals and memories as she set them down.

On the un-nerdy side I did just finish all the available Kathy Reichs/Temperance Brennan novels. Mixed feelings there. To my mind her first outing was the best of the bunch.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I read a couple of hers but I'm not real into her style. She can't hold my attention like Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta series). Although Patricia Cornwell has gotten so grim in this series that I don't enjoy them as well as I used to. I swear this character never smiles.

This book...

...made me cry.

I am now reading this book:

I'm about to begin The Pact by Jodi Picoult.

Click to expand...

I just finished it. I loved it. I read Nineteen Minutes first and adored it, then The Pact. I'm now reading Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult and also Safari by Tony Park and The Dark Side of Love Black Lace Paranormal stories.

Finished Jhereg as well as Yendi and Teckla. It somehow escaped my notice, but I have a hardcover of Issola that I've owned for years and never read. I'm debating whether to read that next or wait until after Gardens of the Moon.

~DragonHeart~

I mostly read MGs because I like to write MGs.

The one I just finished is A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements.

I am starting The Sign of the Beaver this week. I read this a while ago for my fifth grade class, but I want to read it again, and have it in our library for my kids to read.

Next in the queue line is Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I havn't read that in a very long time, and wanted to revisit it.

I'm actually reading two herbal books right now: The New Healing Herbs by some guy whose name I can't remember, and Magical Herbalism by Scott Cunningham. I was reading something else a week ago, but I forgot where I put the book and I can't remember the title (my room is literally a mountian of books, so it could be years before I find it again. The book mountain's not hard to sort through, I just tend to pick up a book and read, then end up forgetting that I had to clean).