What are you reading?

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Originally Posted by charlottej

I agree, but I HAD to buy it. I got it at BJ's for $14.69 or something like that. No way I was paying $30 for it.

I think it really started going downhill for me when they killed off Benton. I sat in the bathtub and cried for 2 hours after I finished that book. I think that's when she "jumped the shark."

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Yeah, that's how I felt, too. Then the polt twisted and turned so much I couldn't keep up with it... I have to read it, but I'll probably wait until I can find it at the library.

I just zipped through In the Cut, by Susanna Moore, on which the Meg Ryan movie is based . Did not watch the flick, but the book is very concise, disturbing, and graphic. Loved that the ending in it is more realistic.

I am reading a fascinating book Thief of Souls by Ann Benson. Its about two women, centuries apart, hunting down a serial killer. One woman lives in France in1440, the other Los Angeles 2002. There are similaries between the murderer each is hunting, and the story goes back and forth between the two women. Worth reading.

"Ask the Dust" by John Fante.

CJ that sounds really interesting I think I'll have to pick that up. I don't usually like period pieces.

Let me know how you liked it, I'm interested in another perspective.

The last books I consumed are two thrillers vastly different in tone and scope.

Kyle Mills's Sphere of Influence is the fourth offering I've run across featuring FBI agent (and black sheep) Mark Beamon. Underappreciated and underestimated, he travels the world, getting a taste of how sucessfull he might be if he worked the other side of the line, while tracking down some radical elements that have smuggled a missle launcher and rockets into the US, wreaking havok on the economy. Its rather personal to him (it always is), as someone he cares about is murdered and he ultimately becomes a target of both the bad abd "good" guys. One nice thing about series is you get an opportunity to see how life is treating someone. Beamon is a pretty good example of the "Peter Principle" in action, getting elevated through competent action to an ultimate position of incompetence. As Special Agent In Charge of the Phoenix office, Beamon is outside his element, and removed from the action that drives him. This coincides with, and to a certain degree forments the strained relationship he has at the moment with the woman in his life.

Good fun, fast read, excellent ride.
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Boston Teran's GOD IS A BULLET is a 'buddy' roadtrip to the darkside. Populated by Charles Manson inspired amoral desert rats with less than little regard for people and no concept of morals, other than something to be used in judo fashion as a weapon against those that have them. With the background setting of California and Mexican desert locales of the like that most of us will never experience, Bob Hightower the least likely "hero" you could imagine buddies up with Case, a heroic antihero junkie in searching for Bob's young daughter, snatched from her home in the aftermath of the massacree that occurred there. Very dark book, populated by those that would eviserate you just to watch you bleed or for no reason at all. Oh, and of course, a grand theme of multilayered betrayal.

The Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner

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Originally Posted by John

My wife finished her book, and is now reading my 3-book series from Kyle Mills. I wondered if anyone else has read this group of books about renegade FBI agent Mark Beamon?

Rising Phoenix is the first, followed by Storming Heaven, and then Free Fall. He was apparently "discovered" by Tom Clancy, but even with that dubious distinction, I really enjoyed his books. (I hate Tom Clancy)

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I already posted about Mill's hero Mark Beamon (glad someone else enjoys the series), but I wanted to validate the "I hate Tom Clancy" 'tude. I was in a thrift store a couple of weeks ago culling through a couple of dozen books to make a more realistic purchase and one of the books that didn't make the cut was a Clancy novel I hadn't read with his protagonist Jack Ryan after he became president. The last Clancy novel I read was the one that took out the just elected President which made Ryan next in line. While Clancy's books were good enough to make it through back when, I've moved on and don't miss his hawkish stance and his less than scintillating writing skills (in comparison to others).

Kyle Mill's novels, for example seem to fly, where I recall plodding through Clancy's. Clancy seems to have a touch of the same disease I believe Stephen King is afflicted with.

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Originally Posted by Duxxy

What is the main source of your reading materials?
Do you buy brand new?
Do you buy used?
Do you wait forever on the library's To Lend list?
I'm finding my reading habit to be almost as bad as a smoking habit must be!! At $12 a book and I can read 2 a week, it adds up!
I have started buying used (I hate the smell) and trading with friends - although no one seems to share my taste in novels

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I almost exclusively buy used books, whether from thrift shops, flea markets, garage sales, or used bookstores. Part of it derives from a belief in recycling books, a large part involves increased bang for the buck, and an equally large part envolves to treasure hunt aspect of never knowing what I'll come up with.

The last book I bought new that I WANTED rather than needed was a hardcover copy of one of the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan. (Wasted my cash, I shoulda waited for it to fall into my hands of its own accord)

There are some used bookstores that I would happily carry a cot along with me when I visit, were I allowed to camp.