Kevin's Watch

Started 'Ghostwritten' today by the guy (David Mitchell?) who wrote Cloud Atlas. I am hooked.

Edit - and a fantastic book it is!

I started rereading The Celestine Prophesy for two reasons, a.) for some reason I just can't hang with Memories of Ice b.) a friend of mine is reading it and was talking to me about the insights. OK 100 pages in-the insights were stolen from about 6 different "new-age" writers including Neale, McClaine & Gwain...everything is way too convenient and the adventure is even less exciting than The DaVinci Code.

Maybe I should have put this in the "worst book ever" thread, it gets more pitiful each time I read it---but, I'll tell you one thing--I think it re-stoked my appreciation for Erickson--however--I'll have to, now, mix in AATE as the dissection has, suddenly begun, apparently...

Just finished, actually refinished Night by Elie Weisel. Everyone should read that once in a lifetime. Not particularly well written but an important reminder of our humanity and how easily it is lost.

danlo wrote: Maybe I should have put this in the "worst book ever" thread, it gets more pitiful each time I read it---but, I'll tell you one thing--I think it re-stoked my appreciation for Erickson--however--I'll have to, now, mix in AATE as the dissection has, suddenly begun, apparently...

Yeah, that snuck up on me as well

Are We There Yet? by David Smiedt.

Non-fiction about (and by) a guy whose family did the chicken-run from SA to Aus in the late 80's, and who returned 25 years later to retrace the steps of the family journeys of his youth.

Not bad. Too much Aussie slang, but often humorous, and very well researched, historically speaking.

--A

patton oswalt : Zombie Spaceship Wasteland.


finished it today. great book. must find the audio as michael stipe reads part of it.

looking forward to his next book.

Re-reading John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire.

--A

Catch-22

--A

av - i read Hotel NH in high school. growing up in NH had to find the connect. enjoyed it and Garp very much.

just finished the Bill Walsh (head coach/gm SF 49's) biograph. enjoyed the parts about building superbowl winning teams. wished it had more of that.

reading Now I Can Die In Peace - Bill Simmons. Bill is a sports writer and hilarious. a Boston native, this book is about the 2004 WS champs Boston Red Sox. very funny book. love his writing.

Reading "The Help." First book I've read for my moms group Book Club that looks good in... AWHILE!

Thoroughly enjoying the narration by an African-American woman who "tells it like it is." She is the "hired help" basically raising this one lady's child and doing all the cooking & cleaning. (apparently just 1 out of 3 of the "narrative voices.")

"She's already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to squint through my glasses to iron. I don't hate much in life, but me and that dress is not on good terms."

sarge- I can SO see you thoroughly enjoying a book titled "Zombie Spaceship Wasteland."

Av- my sis reads voraciously and would probably like me to read Catch-22.

Catch-22 was great. The sequel wasn't.

John Irving was one of my favorite authors for awhile. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is also good, in addition to "Garp" and "The Hotel New Hampshire". (You can always tell it's a John Irving novel -- he always sticks in a trained bear. ) He did another that was set in a home for unwed mothers, which was turned into a movie a few years back. That one was good, too. Can't remember the name offhand....

aliantha wrote:(You can always tell it's a John Irving novel -- he always sticks in a trained bear. )

Wowww... okay, I'm sure that's just one more reason why this author would appeal to my sis.

aliantha wrote:He did another that was set in a home for unwed mothers, which was turned into a movie a few years back. That one was good, too. Can't remember the name offhand....

Sounds like something I'd be interested in reading. If I didn't have such a backlog... or better, yet, if I could convince my book club... hmmm!

Ciderhouse Rules?

Yeah, Garp is my favourite of them. I think I'll read that again soon.

And I agree Ali...Closing Time was not great. But I do love Catch-22. (It was banned in SA during apartheid, because it was anti-authoratarian. )

--A

Bloodguard Bob is making me read the Dune series. I read them when I was a teenager, at least Dune anyway. I already finished "Dune" on my two days off and am almost done with "Dune Messiah" by only reading during my train rides. It's ok but I am not totally worked up about it. As to the ending of "The Crippled God." WOW....

I hated Closing Time, but Catch 22 is one of my favourite novels ever, and the one I have re-read most, next to TC.

It's one of the few books that regularly made me laugh out loud hopelessly.

"You scratch my back, I'll scratch your, know what I mean?"
Yossarian knew what he meant.
"That isn't what I meant."

danlo wrote:I started rereading The Celestine Prophesy

a truly horrifying book...you should enter it under the worst thread...the funniest thing in it was when mr. enlightenment is looking at the moon, connecting with the world, realizing people on the other side of the world are seeing it in a different phase. really? I mean really?

Anyway, I'm in "Even Cowgirls get the Blues." Laughing more than I did last time i read it.

Fist and Faith wrote:Ciderhouse Rules?

Yes, that was it! (It was too hard to look it up on Amazon while on the netbook. )

I'm trying Mark Z Danielewski's Only Revolutions again. It's an interesting concept, but hard to follow.

Better late than never (I finished the book weeks ago), I've posted some brief thoughts on Only Revolutions on my blog.

anotherplace.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/only-revolutions/