Rouan, so sorry you had such a difficult time with your first Larry McMurtry. All his characters are flawed, but even so, have some element we can identify with. I love all his earlier books, but his later novels have disappointed me greatly. Thus, I haven't even tried the Sin Killer series. If you ever are willing to try again, I cannot recommend Lonesome Dove highly enough.

Next up for me is Destiny Disrupted, A History of the World through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary

PAM- I read at red lights-what's the problem? ;-)
Definitely the key to multi-booking is difference in books. Right now I have Nichol's Garden series by the bed-I'm on book 3 of the first trilogy.
I have a mystery set in medieval England, The Holy Innocents by Kate Sedley, in the car-I have been doing a lot of toing and froing between Lancaster and suburban Philadelphia, both settling my mother's estate and trying to determine just what level of care/supervision my dad requires and will require in the future. I don't pull it out on the turnpike-usually listen to a podcast from my ipod while the car is actually moving-but there are a lot of traffic delays, waits at appointments, and sometimes, after a tough visit, I get myself tea or a soda and sit and read a few minutes in a nearby park before I drive the 90 minutes home again.
For downstairs, I am re-reading The Color of Water for bookclub on Monday morning. It is hard to say that I am enjoying it, as the subject matter is not easy -but I do admire the wordcraft and the characters are so well-drawn.

I have just finished The Last Child by John Hart, who also wrote The King of Lies and Downriver.
It was very good, a three cornered story that was well tied together in the end, and a genuine page turner. It was also quite disturbing in many ways.

I am reading The Angel's Game and at Vee's suggestion A Cornish Childhood, liking both so far. I'll have to look up I Coriander at Martin's recommend.
I have read so many books since I last posted here. I have read both The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and his second as well, The Girl Who Played with Fire-or is it the other way around? Anyway I loved them both and can't wait for the third book!
Some may consider many of Marcia Willett's books "old-fashioned" even though she is a contemporary author. I had read only one or two of hers and recently finished all of them. I also have gone through Sarah Challis books-all good for summer light reading.
I'll have to check my "list" to see what stand out over the last couple of months.

chris in the valley,

Thanks for the info on Lonesome Dove. Several RPers have talked about how much they liked this book so I will give it a chance after I've gotten Sin Killers out of my system. :)

Astrokath, I started The Last Child today. I've been really busy and forgot to pick it up from the library when they e-mailed me. They had pulled it and had it on the desk to be returned when I went in today. I did a real poor-pitiful-me job and got the librarian to let me have it with the promise to have it back within two days, so I'm reading and reading.

Finished The Last Child and am ready to return it to the library. It is a very satisfying book.

cece, reading at red lights is not a problem if it's a LONG red light...haha.

Still working on lots of books but I started another one that is starting to sidetrack me. It is Natsuo Kirino's Real World. From the back: "In a crowded Tokyo suburb, 4 teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot smoggy summer. When one of them, Toshi, discovers that her next door neighbor has been brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor's son. But when he flees, taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him, the girls get caught up in a tempest of dnagers that rise from within them as well as from the world around them."

It is hard to put down. The descriptions of Tokyo and the people fascinate me. Only on page 50, but will find time today to settle in and read.

PAM

I am reading Anita Diamant's forthcoming book, Day After Night, set in an internment camp in Israel after WWII. So far it is OK, not really gripping.

Finished Natsuo Kirino's Real World. Whoa. The story seems so simple but truly runs so deep. I'll be thinking about this one for quite some time. The psychological and physical ramifications of the characters' actions will be churning round and round in my brain. dynomutt, I kept thinking that you may enjoy this book. I have no clue WHY I thought this, but you kept popping into my brain.

Spending the day with Musashi's Book of Five Rings, a martial arts book with little breaks taken here and there for America: the Last Best Hope. It is time to clear the decks of the six I am reading and start new books. That is the goal.

PAM

I flew through all the Sookie Stackhouse books and then tried another Charlaine Harris book from her Aurora Teagarden mysteries. Real Murders showed glimmers of what she eventually did with the Southern Vampire mysteries, but it just didn't grab me at all despite a clever premise.

With all that out of my system, I'm now casting about for what to read next. The Angels Game and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are both on the bedside table, but I don't know if I'm ready to settle down with either of them yet :)

I really enjoyed The Last Child-I have read all his books & look forward to future ones by him.

Over the weekend I read The Apostle the newest by Brad Thor while I enjoyed it, IMO it was not quite as good as his earlier books.

Yesterday I read Open & Shut my first read by David Rosenfelt, I enjoyed it & plan to read more in his series about NJ lawyer Andy Carpenter.

I have barely started Epitaph by James Siegel-I am enjoying another new to me author.

Kath-would like to hear about the new Diamant book-when you have finished it.

Getting lots of reading done while we 'enjoy' many days over 100F...

Pat

Sent "The Plantagenet Prelude" by Jean Plaidy back to the library - just not in the mood, maybe some other time. Anya Seton's "Dragonwyck" arrived on inter-library loan, so I did not start her "Katherine" after all. I am reading "Dragonwyck" along with a re-attempt at "Wuthering Heights" (so far so good). It is interesting to read these two books at the same time, both involving brooding, mysterious men, and locations which seem to either evoke or reflect the feelings of the occupants.

I hope to throw a library copy of "Dead Until Dark" into the mix for some light reading...my poor owned copy of "Girl with a..." will have to wait until the library books are through!

I'm another who "reads" audiobooks. I'm currently listening to The Outcry by Henry James.

Pat, I love David Rosenfelt's books. He has a great sense of humor. A new one is coming out shortly.

Right now I'm listening to The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. It is really well done but jumps around a great deal in time so I have to pay close attention. It basically is about a woman who was taken, as a small child, to Australia in 1913 and adopted by the person who found her when she was left on the dock all alone. She searched for her family and now her granddaughter is making the discoveries again.

I'm finally reading The Book Thief after avoiding it despite all the glowing recommendations here because I thought it would be too sad. So far I'm enjoying it very much.

After sitting on The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters for 10 days, I picked it up over the weekend and have hardly put it down since. Well, actually I have as I have been very busy, not even getting dinner breaks at work. It is now overdue and just over halfway finished. The trouble is that I don't want to rush through because I really like the story. I'm rather surprised I like it so much because I was pretty lukewarm about Waters previous novels. This one is pulling me along nicely with just the right amount of creepiness and mystery. I do love a good ghost story.

I am also listening to Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys in my car to and from work and enjoying it immensely, also to my great surprise. I think audio books for the car will be a regular thing for me now.

I've got a couple other things going, Jane Austen mostly, but I have discussed that on other threads. Actually, come to think of it, Austen would wonderful to listen to in my car. I will see what's available at the library.

siobhan -- I enjoyed Ananzi Boys. Did you read Gaiman's American Gods? I think I need to reread it. It's probably not something you could do in the car -- too many characters and names to keep up with, but a fascinating story. It made me wish I knew more about all kinds of mythology.

I finished People of the Book for my book group next week. I liked it better than I expected to, but I much prefered the historial parts of the story to the current day parts and characters.

Next I read These Is My Words, recommended by someone here at RP. It was very good.

I've now moved on to The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. It was a "Publisher's Weekly" Starred Review. I've just started so I can't tell yet if I'm going to like it or not.

At my Univ. library I found "Looking for Anne of Green Gables: the story of L.M. Montgomery & her Literary Classic" by Irene Gammel. Evidently LMM was somewhat of a mystery to those who knew her. I'm eager to find out which actual events and personnages in her life appear thinly desguised in the "Anne" series. This biography also contains interesting B & W photos; it's going to be a treat, I think, after a long hiatus.

Sarah, yes I did read American Gods a few years ago. I really love Gaiman's work, but I can't read lots of it at once. I gives me too much to think about, I guess! I've read all his children's books, some of the Sandman series, many of his short stories, and couple of adult novels. He is really an original.

After having some family visit for the weekend, my reading time was severely curtailed although it was for a good cause. I was secretly thrilled to see that one of my nephews is as obsessed by reading as I am although his interests veer towards mtn biking and current events. The other one will read anything about guitars.

Anyway, once I had had a big old nap to recover from being the hostess with the mostess (joke), I got back to my current craze of reading books from or about India, this called "East of the Sun" by Julia Gregson about the young women who went to India in search of eligible bachelors to marry. Called the "Fishing Fleet" (according to the book), it's an interesting story set in the 20's of three young women who venture to India all with different goals in mind. Very good so far....

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven. like The Bean Trees I initially thought I might not like it...and then got sucked right in. I was smiling broadly, with a happy heart, and wanting to hug the book when I finished. I just finished giving an oral book report to my husband, and at the end he was smiling as well. I want more!

Veronicae, I think those are the best two of Kinsolver's books. I remember laughing out loud when I read the bit about her mother thinking she had died and gone to heaven when she found that her second husband liked to cook. My sentiments exactly, but it never happened to me!

I started The Little Stranger today and am finding it addictive.

I just finished The Little Stranger - it's 1AM! Might find it a little hard to get to sleep after finishing this ghostly tale! Very entertaining.

I am enjoying listening to Anansi Boys in my car so much that I'm having trouble leaving it. I sat outside the library for 10 minutes to finish a chapter. Gaiman is a great storyteller, and I think audio books are a great format for his tales. I've never been much of a Lenny Henry fan, but his reading is wonderful. Maybe I just don't like looking at him?

Speaking of looking, I'm off to the eye doctor tomorrow - my eyes have really been bothering me lately. I really should take better care of them.

Lots of books begun, but giving my sole attention to America: The Last Best Hope by William J. Bennett. It is a history of America, volume 1. It is quite good but I am keeping a list of the people, places, authors and events that I want to delve into more deeply later on. If you want a comprehensive history of America that is highly readable and vastly interesting, I do recommend this one.

PAM

Siobhan, I must have started reading earlier in the day than you. I finished TLS at midnight last night. Did the end leave you with the thought that the doctor might have been involved?

Siobhan and Carolyn, I want the lowdown: Do you think The Little Stranger fits the descripton of gothic ghost story, as it's being billed? I've gotten my hopes up with some recent novels described as such -- namely The Mortland Sisters and The Thirteenth Tale -- only to find on reading that the describers must have distorted perceptions of what 'gothic' means, or at least their ideas are different from what I understand it to be.

I finally started The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and while it's not pushing the "amazing! incredible! wow!" buttons yet, it's quite intriguing and a solid story. I'm not far in, so this opinion may change, but given the hype it's had, I'm starting cautiously.

I'm going on vacation next week and need to start thinking about packing reading material -- a labor of love to be sure!

Galloping through the Roger the Chapman series by Kate Sedley. Thanks PAM!

Frieda, I don't know that I would call TLS a true "gothic" story. However, the house is a big 18th c. dwelling that has been added on to over the years as owners throve and is in the process of deteriorating. I found the deterioration pretty unbelievable since it was supposed to have happened over only a 30-year period. Would a sturdy construction really fall apart in that time period? Crumbling plaster, broken reredos, etc?

The setting is a post-WWII village, with rationing still very much alive and the family bemoaning the lack of good servants. The ghost part was well done, I thought.

Last night, I started (and read quite a bit of) Shanghai Girls and am liking it better than the other two Lisa See books that I have read.

Just finished Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon. First book I've ever read by him, and I thought it was pretty good. It starts out with three seemingly unrelated stories, and goes from there. It was interesting to see whether everything would fit together, or not.

Next up is my first ever Agatha Christie novel! Would you believe I hadn't read anything by her yet?! Well, I did skim one book by her for school when I was in 6th grade, but I don't remember it, so I feel like I never have. I requested the first book she wrote in the Peroit series; the title is slipping my mind right now but it's sitting and waiting for me to pick up at the library tomorrow.

So I finished The Kite Runner. It took me a bit to get into, but I loved this book. One of the best books I've read in a while. It sort of switched gears half way through, and I was very engaged for the 2nd half of the book.

I then read through The Joy Luck Club today. I liked it, although I was hoping there was more of a tie between the story lines. The characters are well developed though. I hear there is a movie version of this one. I wonder if it's any good.

Now I'm on to a re-read of To Kill a Mockingbird and looking forward to it.

Finished Laura, which I did not like much, being a collection of cliches and stereotypes strung together with some okay writing. The solution to the mystery was laughably obvious from the start. Not recommended.

I think I will skip what I read next, but I am now reading Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell - a memoir of his time spent in Cyprus around the time of the island's fight for independence. Very interesting reading.

Also reading One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters. I am trying to read the Brother Cadfael books in order of publication, and this is the second book. I am enjoying it so far.

I finished Anita Diamant's forthcoming novel Day After Night today.
It was an unusual book in that it didn't call to me to read it, but once I started, I got immersed in it and wasn't easily distracted.
The story is of four women in an immigrant camp run by the British in Israel after WWII. A workmate asked me today the main drive of the story and I think it is two fold: the fact that Jews, mainly European, were incarcerated by the British and also that survivors of the Holocaust seem to carry so much guilt and many secrets. The latter is a theme I have found in the writing of Lily Brett too.
An interesting book.

Now on to the next Ariana Franklin medieval book.

I have been listening to on the BBC 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett set in the Deep South of the 1960's and also heard an interview with Ms Stockett in which she described her own upbringing in Mississippi and later Atlanta and the black maids who brought her up.
Apparently the US is SO politically correct these days that the cover of the UK edition of her book, showing two uniformed black women with a little white baby had to be altered for the US market. Their cover is yellow and shows three little birds on a wire.
Has anyone read this book and is it is good as it sounds?

Here is a link that might be useful: Book Covers

Sorry, Veer. Haven't heard anything about the book you mentioned. What is your opinion of it so far as you're listening to it?

I somehow found the title "Tryst" by Elswyth Thane, a romantic ghost story (sort of) written in 1936 (about there). Very sweet, gentle book - not scary at all and one that, according to the amazon reviews, a lot of people read when they were teenagers and couldn't forget.

I am enjoying it - it's a quick very gentle read... Hard to find though as I had to ILL it. Worth it as I am enjoying it very much and looking forward to reading it tonight when I get home.

Vee, I found The Help to be readable but so cliched and full of stereotypes and stock characters that I rolled my eyes quite often. But it's the sort of book that will appeal to book groups because it's about an 'important' subject: race relations. If you've read The Secret Life of Bees, I would say it's about on par with that one but perhaps a little more believable, though not much IMO. I only finished it as a gesture to someone who really wanted me to read it and give my opinion. She wasn't pleased with the latter, and I understand that once again I'm not in the mainstream.

Vee, I've never even heard of "The Help" but would like to read it as I grew up in Atlanta during the Civil Rights era and have a lot of strong memories of that time.

I'm relaxing on the York River and doing light reading -- thoroughly enjoying Peter Mayle's "A Dog's Life."

Finished One corpse... and Monk's Hood, the second and third books in the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters.

Am now reading Strong Poison by Dorothy L Sayers. Great dialogue that reminds me of those old fast-talking screwball comedy movies of the 30s and 40s. Not much detection so far. For some reason, Lord Peter annoys me increasingly with every book I read in the series, and I absolutely don't get the fangirls who think he is the ideal man.

I'm reading INFINITE JEST. It's going to take me a few months more to finish it.

I read Karen Maitland's THE OWL KILLERS and Nina Vida's THE TEXICANS last week. I recommend them both to those who enjoy historical fiction.

Finished The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. I liked it; I'll have to read more by Christie.

Just started The Year of the Floods by Margaret Atwood. I'm only a few pages in, but it's great so far. I love dystopian literature though, so this book is right up my alley.

For some reason I ended up buying both hard cover and paperback copies of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night and never read it until now. Loved it. I know little about the main character's special needs, but enjoyed the way the plot surprised me. I guessed the "murderer" early on, but that was such a small element of the story that I didn't care. I also came away thinking that dealing with those special needs was very much like computer programming. Unless one gets it exactly right communication doesn't happen. Which in the context of the story seems to be a major subtext for those of us who've spent a lot of time programming.

Been doing some re-reading of Zelazny. Jack of Shadows I didn't remember at all. Mythic and lyrical, his is a world where one side of the earth always faces the sun and is ruled by science, the other side is always in darkness and magic reigns. Much as I love Gaiman, he just misses, except in Sandman, the charm of Zelazny.

Well, finished up "Tryst" which was a sweet little story, rather a mix of a non-scary ghost-story and a teenager love story at the same time. Sweet, but not too sweet.

Now reading "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien. I remember it being on my sister's book shelves for ages, and never got around to reading it. Now I am doing this monthly book review (including kid books), I am reading it and enjoying it immensely. But then I have always been a fan of rodents.

Lemonhead, have you read Thane's Williamsburg novels? I read Tryst, too, from the library after reading and loving the W. books so much and tried to find others by her at the time (which was before the internet) but failed. The first two of the W. books I found superb.

Lemonhead...have you tried Mouse on the Motorcycle by Cleary. This was a big favorite at our house. We read it aloud several times, and the kids old enough to remember the previous times would enjoy watching the younger ones enjoy it for the first time.

Finished Strong Poison, which was pretty good. Now reading Trent's Last Case by E. Clerihew Bentley.

I was desperate for light summer reading the other night when we were going to babysit for our grandson...and we had a short weekend trip to another son's house lined up as well. So I hit my husband's stack of adventure books, and picked one by Lee Child. I am now on my third one since Last Thursday...and having a lot of fun with them. The pattern is oh too predictable reading them one after another...but who knew you could bleach money to counterfeit it at a higher denomination?

I just finished Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik. Just too much a soap opera for my personal tastes.

I also finished Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave as a result of my new Arthur interest. I liked it very much. My sister Rouan had always loved this series but somehow it didn't appeal to me when it was first published. I'm going to be visiting Rouan quite soon, and I may borrow the next volume in the series from here while I am there. I'm pretty sure she has it on her shelf.

Rosefolly

I got the last Sookie Stackhouse vampire book from the library yesterday and polished it off in about 3 hours -- such fun!

Now I'm back to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm really enjoying the puzzle/mystery aspect of the story, but not so much the violence done to one character (though her revenge was sweet). It's not a huge issue, but there's definitely an ick factor here that I don't enjoy. I'm not sure I want to read the next one, but we'll see.

Carolyn and Veronica -

Thanks for the suggestions for the books. I will definitely look into them for future reading, although I have currently banned myself from buying any more books until I have read more of the ones I own.

Thanks again
liz

I have restricted myself in the same way, lemonhead...but keep rescinding the ban if I buy from half.com. I can't seem to get it through my head that, while the money is important, it is more the issue that I don't have that much lifetime left!