Kevin's Watch

Ouch. If I read instead of gaming, I usually manage about one every day or two.

--A

I'm weak. I promised after the Eternal Champion books that I'd buy no more until I'd read everything I have, but it just looks so good...
Beautiful book (hefty hardcover, illustrated, great cover), the premise was interesting, and I'd heard a couple of people say they'd read it and liked it.

Picked up THE CAT WHO WENT BANANAS as soon as it hit paperback. That gives me the three most recent books of the series to read. -- Oh, except for THE CAT WHO DROPPED A BOMBSHELL, which came out 18 days ago.

I have started reading a little trilogy of historical novels by Amanda Cockrell. You can find her website at:
www.amandacockrell.com/

The series is called Horse Catchers Trilogy. The individual books are called:
When the Horses Came
Children of the Horse
The Rain Child

I picked them up because of the glowing recommendation by Ursula K. LeGuin, and because the cover of the second book is perhaps the most beautiful book cover I have ever seen!

I am reading the first book right now. It tells of how Coyote (an important supernatural spirit to many North American tribes, a sort of trickster god) enabled people of one of the Pueblos in what is now New Mexico find horses that had been lost by some of the Spaniards. It reads like a myth or legend...

I am also nearly finished with The Letters of the Younger Pliny, a collection of letters written nearly 2,000 years ago by a lawyer and public servant of the Roman Empire. They are quite well written, and very interesting in their descriptions of both daily Roman life and also of extraordinary events, such as the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii and killed Pliny's uncle.

Just ordered from Amazon:

www.amazon.com/gp/product/080537146X/10 ... e&n=283155

I stopped off at a big bookstore on my way to work this afternoon. I went there to specifically look for a magazine that has an article this month that Damelon told me I might enjoy (ironically I let my subscription to that same magazine expire a few months ago because I simply don't have enough reading time these days... ).

They did not have the magazine I was looking for in stock (I will now try the library on Friday when I run into town to do a few errands). But I did pick up two beautiful astronomy magazines from the UK, two CD's by guitar jazz master Pat Metheny and two books.

One is a general novel by a science fiction author whom I find to be an astonishingly good writer named Mary Doria Russell. Her work was recommended to me by Taras over at the Hangar. This novel is called A Thread of Grace and set set late in WW2 in Italy, as the Italian Resistance attempts to save the lives of some 43,000 Italian and French Jews. It tells the story of a litttle Jewish girl named Claudette Blum, who travels over the mountains from France to Italywith her father in an attempt to survive and gain freedom once Italy breaks from Germany in the fall of 1943.
literati.net/Russell/

The other book is a short story collection by one of my favorite writers. It is called Life Studies and is written by Susan Vreeland. Susan Vreeland writes quite wonderful novels about art and its impact on both artists, the family and friends of the artists, and upon those who greatly appreciate and value it. Three of her wonderful books are called:

The Girl in Hyacinth Blue which tracks a painting thought to be by Vermeer back in time and tells the stories of its various owners
www.ballandclaw.com/vermeer/

The Passion of Artmesia which tells the story of a great and little known female master of the Italian Baroque period and of the trials she willingly endures for her passion for her art
www.artemisia-gentileschi.com/index.shtml

The Forest Lover which tells of a great Canadian painter named Emily Carr and of the Native Americans who inspired her art at a time when their cultures were in great danger of vanishing...
www.emilycarr.com/main.html

The author's homesite:
www.svreeland.com/index.html

If I read instead of gaming, I usually manage about one every day or two.

Ahhh... the sweet memory of gaming... RPG ... video ....

Old world, new language (sort of): I just got the first three Harry Potter books in Polish. An incentive to reacquaint myself with the mother-tongue.

Cool. I wonder how the translation stacks up? Certainly we've heard enough Chrons translation horror-stories...

--A

Just received in the mail Biology 7th Edition: 1300 pages of biology goodness.

how was Revelation Space? im thinkin about reading it after i finish House Corrino

A friend whom I often exchange books with recently passed a couple of historical novels my way. The last two historical novels I read were both tragic and intensely sad, though very good. (Those would be Russell's Thread of Grace and Dunlap's Emilie's Voice.) I am hoping these will also be very good, but perhaps a bit more upbeat.

Diane Haeger's The Ruby Ring looks like it is set in Rome in the early 1500's. It is about a young woman who was the lover of the great painter Raphael.

Louise Erdrich's The Master Butcher's Singing Club looks as if it is about a German butcher who comes to America after WW1 and his family. They settle in North Dakota, where they work hard, make a home, and involve the town in a singing club...

I thought there was a satisfying tinge of revenge at the end of EMILIE'S VOICE, Duchess. But I agree with you, too sad.

I have A THREAD OF GRACE but haven't read it. Other things came along and interrupted my momentum.

Right now, I'm eager to get to Michael Curtis Ford's GODS AND LEGIONS, but I have 3 review books before it, and who knows what else will happen by then.

...For example, last night I bought the latest of the Gregor Demarkian mysteries and latest paperback of the Kate Shugak mysteries.

Plato's The Symposium.

Hemingway's memoir A MOVEABLE FEAST

Also Sue Henry's MURDER AT FIVE FINGER LIGHT. Henry writes a mystery series set in Alaska.

I just got the two latest installments in two of my favorite mystery series:

Sour Puss by Rita Mae Brown, latest in the Mrs. Murphy Mystery series. These books are set in rural Virginia in a small town called Crozet and some of the main characters are animals. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter are cats and Tee Tucker is a corgie. There are also horses and a possum who lives in the barn, though they are not main characters. The animals talk to each other, but not to humans. The main human is a lady farmer and former post mistress of the small town, and the other people are her friends and neighbors. I always enjoy it when the kitties swear.

Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too by Nancy Martin is the latest in the Blackbird Sisters Mystery series. This series is set in Philadelphia high society. The Blackbird family has been important since colonial days. But there is a curse on the family, and all Blackbird women are attracted to bad boys who die young, leaving them as young and beautiful widows. The current crop are three drop dead gorgeous sisters, who are all young widows. Their parents ripped through the huge family fortune and skipped the country, leaving their daughters huge debts, a falling down historic farm, and odds and ends of what was once a huge fortune such as vintage couture. The girls have to get jobs and try to not only support themselves (and in one case all of the kids), but also pay off the mountain of debts (we're talking millions in back taxes alone) their parents left them. The interactions between the sisters are very well done, and the books are written in a very tongue in cheek style that is very fun.

Just ordered the Oxford History of the British Empire.

I was at one of the big bookstores in Ann Arbor today and found a couple of interesting looking history books in their section of marked down books.

One is called Pompeii, A Guide to the Ancient City by Salvatore Nappo. It is filled with lots of wonderful photos and artwork.

The other is called The Roman Emperors; A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 B.C. - A.D. 476
by Michael Grant. It tells brief biographies of hundreds of the emperors of Rome.

Oh, Duchess, you'll enjoy Michael Grant! I haven't read that one, must keep an eye out for it.

Dragonlily wrote:Oh, Duchess, you'll enjoy Michael Grant! I haven't read that one, must keep an eye out for it.

It was at Barnes & Noble in the discounted history books section. It is a hard cover priced at just under $10. I believe it is also published by Barnes & Noble. I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet - my husband saw it, cackled with glee, and absconded with it. He does seem to be enjoying it. He and my older son usually take off with most of the history books I pick up. My younger son has taken all of my Star Wars books into his custody as well.