Now reading...

[ejp626]

Finally gotten to Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. It's a little bulky so I'll actually check out the individual volumes for train reading.

[paul secor]

Kate Atkinson: Started Early, Took My Dog

[jlhoots]

Walter Mosley: Little Green

[Jazzmoose]

For the last thirty years, I've toted two books of a trilogy everywhere I moved knowing that SOME DAY I'd find the third book and be able to read the whole thing. Last year I finally scored a copy of Mark Adlard's Multiface, so I started the first book Interface last night. Should have read it years ago; it's good stuff.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Jazzmoose

[Head Man]

Kate Atkinson: Started Early, Took My Dog

She's a terrific storyteller. Recently several of her books featuring the private detective Jackson Brodie appeared as an excellent series on TV.

http://www.kateatkinson.co.uk/jacksonbrodie/tv.asp

Edited July 11, 2013 by Head Man

[erwbol]

[BillF]

Excellent novel by Richard Ford. Very different from his Sportswriter trilogy.

[B. Goren.]

[Jerry_L]

The Good Earth is a classic worth re-reading. Pearl S. Buck was a famous Sinophile who lived in my part of Pennsylvania for a good part of her later life, at an 1825 built farmhouse in Perkasie that is now an official National Historic Landmark.

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū), was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932 and won thePulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces." ^[1]

After her return to the United States in 1935, she continued her prolific writing career, and became a prominent advocate of the rights of women and minority groups, and wrote widely on Asian cultures, becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed race adoption.

This is what I'm currently reading:

Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine [Paperback]

Bruce J. Bourque (Author)

Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine documents the generations of Native peoples who for twelve millennia have moved through and eventually settled along the rocky coast, rivers, lakes, valleys, and mountains of a region now known as Maine. Arriving first to this area were Paleo-Indian peoples, followed by maritime hunters, more immigrants, then a revival of maritime cultures. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Native peoples in northern New England became tangled in the far-reaching affairs of European explorers and colonists.Twelve Thousand Years reveals how Penobscots, Abenakis, Passamaquoddies, Maliseets, Micmacs, and other Native communities both strategically accommodated and overtly resisted European and American encroachments. Since that time, Native communities in Maine have endured, adapted when necessary, and experienced a political and cultural revitalization in recent decades.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Jerry_L

[ejp626]

Am quickly wrapping up Palace Walk (book 1 of The Cairo Trilogy). I should be able to start Book 2 tomorrow!

[paul secor]

Cristina Garcia: Dreaming in Cuban

[B. Goren.]

[jlhoots]

Cristina Garcia: Dreaming in Cuban

I like that book as well as some of her others.

[Jazzmoose]

I finished the Adlard trilogy, and there's nothing like following depressing English SF with more of the same, so I went with Brian Aldiss for a follow up:

[Swinger]

I finished the Adlard trilogy, and there's nothing like following depressing English SF with more of the same, so I went with Brian Aldiss for a follow up:

Excellent choice! Brian Aldiss is one of my favorite SF writers

Edited July 21, 2013 by Swinger

[jlhoots]

Gillian Flynn: Dark Places

[paul secor]

Rereading my way through Ross Macdonald's novels - an enjoyable journey:

[Blue Train]

Man Booker Prize's Longlist was announced.

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced

[Jazzmoose]

Excellent choice! Brian Aldiss is one of my favorite SF writers

It wasn't what I expected; it was better. That's always nice.

I don't know why I never went on a serious Aldiss bender. I read Hothouse in my early twenties and loved it. When I decided to revisit SF a few years ago, I read Greybeard and was astounded. Maybe it was the memory of trying to read Barefoot in the Head.

Edited July 24, 2013 by Jazzmoose

[Royal Oak]

[ejp626]

Read through (quickly) Constance Urdang's book of poetry Only the World. I enjoyed it, particularly the first section which was mostly about travel and tourism. I'll probably post a poem from the collection in the Poetry Cosmos thread.

I've just started Sugar Street, the final book in Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy. Yea!

After this, I will read The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman [a novel about a struggling newspaper in Rome].

[Larry Kart]

After this, I will read The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman [a novel about a struggling newspaper in Rome].

Speaking as a former journalist, that's the best novel, maybe the best book period, about journalism I know. Sad, touching, hilarious. Every character in that book is damn close to a person I know or knew.

[ejp626]

After this, I will read The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman [a novel about a struggling newspaper in Rome].

Speaking as a former journalist, that's the best novel, maybe the best book period, about journalism I know. Sad, touching, hilarious. Every character in that book is damn close to a person I know or knew.

Great. Looking forward to it.

In a totally different life I was the managing editor of a poetry magazine (an undergrad one). Very different culture than a newspaper, but yeah there were some characters... I actually managed to climb up to editor in about a semester. Didn't seem so odd at the time, but I imagine there were a few people that were a little put out... I did that for two more years, then quit when the integrity of the editorial board was impugned. Probably not the best response (though I thought maybe some fresh blood wouldn't be a bad thing), but I was also a senior and starting to really fret about what I was going to do for a living...

[BillF]

[A Lark Ascending]

Elijah Wald - Escaping the Delta

Nice bit of restoring a 'legend' to a human scale.