What are you reading?

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Originally Posted by Lucy

Good luck on that one, Critical, it's never been my favorite Forster -- that honor is reserved for A Room With a View. I also LOVE the movie. :drool My parents took me to see the movie of A Passage to India when I was very small, so maybe they ruined me on it. :lol

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Yeah, I'm about 60 pages in Lucy. It's okay. The thing is, if you had seen the list we had to chose from, you might have picked the Forster too! Last year I went through this period where I read all kinds of books on India - colonial and post-colonial - including Paul Scott's Raj Quartet series (of which The Jewel in the Crown is a part). A Passage to India was the one really well-known British novel about colonial India that I hadn't read. I saw the movie so long ago that I've completely forgotten it. I may go rent it as a video Cliff Notes! :lol

Love A Room With a View :up - the book and the movie. Julian Sands and Daniel Day Lewis were yummy :lovestruc

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Originally Posted by joeguy

don't stop there.....read them all. I finished the lot and got a guy at work interested in them, so as he finishs one I give him the next in line.

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I appreciate the urging, joeguy, and I intend to do just that. I'd run across Dorsey before (I'm pretty sure), but I think I didn't go for it because of the Florida locale. Something about Florida I find difficult embracing, though once into a book or series that rocks I can find a way past my bias.

I'll probably head to a good used book store or two shortly hoping to collect all he has to offer in one fell swoop. I generally do that when I find a new series that I'd prefer to read in chronological order, or just to fill in the blanks on authors I'd prefer not to chance waiting a few years before stumbling on novels of theirs I want to read.

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Originally Posted by Critical

William, if you've not read any Irving, I wouldn't judge his writing based on that book. His best books, imho, are The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meaney. I also really loved The Cider House Rules. His more recent books haven't been as good :mmm

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Thanks for the input. I appreciate it because I'm about 300 pages in and I am finding it a bit of a chore to keep going. There is a woman at my work who is a big Irving fan and she also told me that I should read A Prayer for Owen Meaney.

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Originally Posted by Harvest

Hi, Shaybo,
Everything is reminding me of New Orleans now :crying
We did a walking tour of the Garden District a couple of years ago and had her house plus her former house pointed out to us.

This story is from the perspective of people trying to track down the "historical Dracula" instead of from the perspective of the supernatural beings, so in that sense it is not like Anne Rice's books. The characters are serious scholars, and I get a real sense of what that would be like, including traveling around Europe. I always found Anne Rice to be more sensationalistic, not to mention impressionistic.

Kostova put a great deal of thought and research into her novel, taking the legend to places that haven't previously been explored. It's an entirely fresh take on an old classic. Brava!



Hi, Critical,
I'm not done, but I like it so far!

I'm on page 205 of 642 (I can usually fit in 100-200 pages a day). That's in Part 2 of the novel. I'm guessing it will be in three parts like a classic Victorian triple-decker.

Trivia: the big Victorian novels were usually published as three volumes. They would be available at the lending libraries, and people would read them in whatever order they were available!

Speaking of libraries, I just place holds at the library and read things when they come in. But if you do want to buy it, please visit my blog and click on the Amazon link. I would get a commission off any purchase made coming off my direct link -- it is for Geisha by Liza Dalby, but you can surf to and buy anything on Amazon from there and they are supposed to be able to track it. I'd like to see how if works!

In reading The Historian, it helps if you have read Bram Stoker's Dracula. Not only does the novel refer to it, but the author takes its very structure as inspiration. Dracula as well as The Historian tell their stories through (fictional) documentary evidence, as well as a lot of purposeful traveling around! I mentioned before that I like the travelogue aspect of The Historian.

I don't know how the story is going to turn out, but I think it would make a good movie, not the least because it has strong, fresh characters :)

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Hi Harvest and Critical. I tried reading Bram Stoker's Dracula when I was in 8th Grade, but I found it to hard to read. I might try reading it now though,and Harvest I'm sorry about sticking my foot in my mouth. After I'm done with my current book I'll go to the book store an get that one, and I have book you might enjoy its a series of books written by Jean M. Auel called Clan of The Cave Bear, and it goes on from there. Its a story about a girl named Ayla who geta adopted by a tribe of cave dwellers, and is shunned because shes different from them.
The author goes into alot of details about prehistoric life, but in the other three in the series are a little graphic when it comes to sex, so I don't know if you want to read it or not.

Just finished "A Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby. I love his books, but kinda like Geek the Girl, I agree that he lost his way a bit in "How to Be Good". "A Long Way Down" is about 4 people who meet by accident on top of a London building on New Year's Eve - each one has gone up there to jump off and kill themselves - the book is about their own reasons and their relationship that develops with one another. I did enjoy it, sometimes laughed out loud. Sounds like it could be a depressing book, but it isn't.

Geek the Girl, I would be interested in what you think of it.

oh, and I'm now reading Jodi Picoult's "Vanishing Acts".

I am reading She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. I read I Know This Much is True and loved it and I hear equally great things about this book so I'm looking forward to it.

Just finished The Time Traveler's Wife and I enjoyed it although I think she could have shaved off about one hundred pages with the same effect.

I'm about to start reading The Journey to the Center of the Earth...

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Originally Posted by Britannia

oh, and I'm now reading Jodi Picoult's "Vanishing Acts".

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I love My Sister's Keeper by her. That is a great book.

I am reading a Christopher Pike book. Every once in a while I pull out one of his books that I read when I was a teen just for fun.

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Originally Posted by Britannia

Just finished "A Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby. I love his books, but kinda like Geek the Girl, I agree that he lost his way a bit in "How to Be Good". "A Long Way Down" is about 4 people who meet by accident on top of a London building on New Year's Eve - each one has gone up there to jump off and kill themselves - the book is about their own reasons and their relationship that develops with one another. I did enjoy it, sometimes laughed out loud. Sounds like it could be a depressing book, but it isn't.

Geek the Girl, I would be interested in what you think of it.

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Glad to hear you enjoyed it; the reviews have been mixed for this one. I LOVED High Fidelity and whenever Nick Hornby releases a new book, I keep hoping for something as good as that. With the exception of About a Boy, though, he's disappointed me ever since. I'll definitely pick up A Long Way Down, but I think I'll wait for the paperback.

I just finished Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, which was an intuiging read. Part gory haunted house story, part postmodern faux-autobiography, it's definitely his best for a long time. I guess I'll have to wait another six years for his next effort :) I'm currently reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse for uni. Still haven't decided what my next "fun" (as in optional) read will be. Perhaps My Sister's Keeper, since everyone here likes it. Or The Historian, or maybe another Connelly... Too many books, too little time!