Kevin's Watch

Damelon wrote:Royal Flash, by George MacDonald Frasier. The second novel of the Flashman series, which revolves around the memoirs of a Victorian era British soldier. He's a cad, a coward, a toady, yet he gets credit for being enormously brave and forthright. It's a fun read, plus Frasier puts a good deal of historical research into the stories.

I love those books! I made a point of going to meet GMF at a book signing he did here in 2005, just to shake his hand and tell him how much pleasure they'd given me. (I did get his current one then, Flashman on the March, signed too) I think he died a year or so later.

My Mom loved the Flashman series. I think Walter Jon Williams, kind of, borrowed freely from those books to create the crazy top-ranked Allowed Burglar of the Human Constellation, Drake Maijstral character in his very amusing The Crown Jewels trilogy. Good comedy is very hard to pull off in Sci Fi-but his efforts rank him fairly close to Adams and Pratchett.

a bunch of free comics from free comic book day yesterday.

the Green Lantern one is excellent.

Next Kate Shugak mystery in the series, A TAINT IN THE BLOOD.

Finished reading Sylvia and Bruno.

Have started Sylvia and Bruno Concluded. Decided to do the lessons this time (well...researching any referances mentioned). This has opened up a whole richer world than I had encountered while reading the first book.

The illustrations by Harry Furness can be quite "eerie" at times, but always excellent.

FLOATING UNDER A RED BERET, Roger Payne. Actually, I'm proofreading it again. It's a collection of funny stories donated by the author's buddies about their times in a British parachute regiment.

Dragonlily wrote:FLOATING UNDER A RED BERET, Roger Payne. Actually, I'm proofreading it again. It's a collection of funny stories donated by the author's buddies about their times in a British parachute regiment.

I guarantee it won't sell very well in my (home) home town then! In fact, I foresee book stores being boycotted...

Thanks

Dragonlily wrote:Thanks

Not because it's you who's proof reading it , because it's by the paras.

Just Finished reading,
I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell, by Tucker Max.

Uh...not for the faint of heart; I thought I'd hate the pretentious ramblings of an overgrown frat-boy bragging about his life.
But it's damn funny, and he tears himself down as much as he brags himself up.

Right now, I'm reading a non-fiction book called, This is your Brain on Music, by Daniel Levitan.
I've heard several interviews with the author about this book; I can't wait to get into it.

FIRE AND ICE by Dana Stabenow. This is the first of her smaller series of Alaskan mysteries, the Liam Campbell series. I just started it -- by accident, because I meant to read something else -- but by the third paragraph I was captured.

Stonemaybe wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:

Stonemaybe wrote:Started 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell yesterday. Have suspicions that it won't be my thing, but recommended by a couple of good friends, so I'll give it a go.

Just looked it up, and it actually sounds really interesting.

I'll let you know if it is!

I've just started it. It's too early for an opinion yet though.

CHEERFULNESS BREAKS IN by Angela Thirkell. I switched for a while to lighter books.

I bailed (but only briefly) on "The Everlasting Man" to read "The End of Overeating" by David Kessler. (There was a version for my Sony Reader, which made me very happy. )

Ascent & Dissent by Ken Vernon, the story of the ill-starred South African expedition to Everest in '96. For a journalist, the guy's not a fantastic writer, and his editor needs a kick in the head for some of the bad writing he let slip through, but I burned through the whole book in one night...

--A

re-reading the cell by stephen king

Finished "The Everlasting Man" awhile back, thank the gods (see my review in The Close ). Might read "A Room With a View" next. I got it as one of the 100 freebies when I first got the Reader; don't think I've ever read it, so maybe it's time.

aliantha wrote:Finished "The Everlasting Man" awhile back, thank the gods (see my review in The Close ). Might read "A Room With a View" next. I got it as one of the 100 freebies when I first got the Reader; don't think I've ever read it, so maybe it's time.

Ali--please forgive my off topicness, but how do you like the Reader you have? I wanna get into the Amazon Kindle, but am kinda on the fence about it. I don t have a reader yet, but am looking......Thanks---H

No worries, heartthrall -- I'm always happy to pimp the Reader.

I *really* like it. Mine is the Sony 505. I got it because it was about a hundred bucks cheaper than the Kindle, and because the Kindle was sold out (i.e., between versions) at the time I was in the market.

I like that the Reader is small and light -- especially good for traveling. The only real practical difference between the Kindle and the Reader is that the Reader doesn't have wifi, so you can't download a book directly onto it -- you have to download it to your computer and then transfer it to the Reader. But I haven't found that to be burdensome. And the problem with the way the Kindle does it is that they sacrifice page size in order to include a keyboard. The new, larger-size Kindle has a bigger screen, true, but it's also bigger overall (couldn't say how much bigger because I haven't seen one in person yet). I think the regular Kindle is already a little bit bigger than the Reader.

Anyhow, given that Amazon is a gorilla, and given Sony's track record for backing failed electronic formats (Betamax, anyone?), I'm probably toting around a dinosaur in the making. But for now, it suits me fine.

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE by Angela Thirkell. She made up a small English community and took its people through decades of regular living. In this one, a charming war widow moves to town, and quite without wanting to, creates rivalries. I haven't learned yet what the title refers to.

Thirkell gives an amazing picture of life in England after WWII. Their island had been under siege for a long time, and they had shortages and privation for years after. She lived through all this, so it's really a voice from that world.