I thought that it might be fun for us to create a summer reading list from what we're all reading. Maybe we'll all discover some new, fun authors we haven't explored before.
Just finished:
DRAGONWELL DEAD By Laura Childs
This is VERY light reading that can be finished in a day, and is probably only about one to two steps up from Harlequin books! LOL... This author bases her mysteries in Charleston, SC; the "detective" is the owner of a tea shop, and always manages to become entangled in the latest murder. Sort-of a forty-something Nancy Drew! As I said, it's light reading, but fun for the descriptions of the tea shop, the references to blending different teas, and for the requisite recipes for scones, jams, and tea sandwiches in the back of the book.
This series won't EVER be accused of straining anyone's brain, but sometimes I enjoy the quick hit of a new Laura Childs, just for fun...
BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS By Anne Perry
A murder-mystery set in late Victorian England, very nearly the Edwardian period.
This latest in the Thomas/Charlotte Pitt series is a little different from the others in the series, and a little background on the characters would be helpful. Two of the main characters in the earlier books are only briefly references. However, it was fun in that another character, a young maid within the Pitt household, was brought front and center, and I enjoyed that part very much.
I'm about to finish:
A BREACH OF PROMISE By Anne Perry
From her Inspector William Monk series, set in Victorian England. In this book, Prince Albert is still alive... Great characters, and good plot!
Next on my list:
THE APPEAL By John Grisham
-- Edited by Moore ideas at 12:09, 2009-01-27
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I'm hoping to do some more reading this summer...I haven't done much lately, and I so enjoy reading, so I bought some books to indulge in.
I've read one recently, called Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I don't know how to explain it really, but it was a fantastic read. Good characters, amazing writing. It tells of a Greek-American family, and one of the members of that family's issues with gender identity. At first, I thought the plot would not attract me, but how he tells the story kept me sucked in. This is the same fella who wrote the Virgin Suicides.
If you're looking for a light read, I'd suggest Liberating Paris, by Linda Bloodsworth Thomason, the woman who wrote the tv show Designing Women. I couldn't put the book down. It's set in a small town in Arkansas and follows a group of friends through their interesting lives. I laughed while reading it, and actually cried as well. Fantastic, fantastic fantastic.
Next up on my list are the Twilight series, which have become insanely popular recently. I dont know much about the books, and all I know is that people are foaming at the mouth for the 4th to come out in August.
I've also purchased a few Stephen King books, one called Lisey's Story.
I started reading a series by Fern Michaels about a group of women vigilantes who got tired of men or woman who have done them wrong getting away with it. It is a good series but I need more books. Tess Geritsen is awesome too.
Just finished the second book in Nora Roberts' new trilogy it was really good. Though if you read her books and haven't read this yet it would be good to go back and at least skim through the first one because I found myself trying to remember what happened. Good stuff though.
I'm thinking of getting myself a Sony Ebook. It holds around 120 books and is lighter than a paperback. I saw one at the outlet for half the regular price! Should have got it that day!
I think that the Amazon Kindle is supposed to be better... I've been thinking about getting one of those for my husband, and our anniversary is later this week.
Not exactly a romantic gift, though, is it...??!!??
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
LOL, Moore. It may not be romantic but it's really thoughtful. I think that counts more at this stage, non?
I've been BAD and haven't been reading much at all for a couple of years except online, and even at that, nothing worthwhile particularly. I used to read non fiction tomes on astrophysics and mathematical genius works by Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, that sort of thing, and a few historical books, Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking People, most notably. Then my brain went to mush and I started baby sitting all the time. Now the book I pull out most often is our world atlas trying to figure out where on earth a son is.
The Amazon Kindle does have more features, but the Sony Ebook, at the Outlet was $149!
I would love it as a gift, because I love to read. so it depends on the person, if they see it as romantic or not. I would find it romantic if my husband bought it for me, because then it would show me that he really does know me! I don't need spa gift certs, etc
well you all inspired me. I just got back from our used book store. Picked up some things by Tess Geritsen and then more of the Fern Michaels. I am bad with authors, once I find a new one I must read all of them. And both authors have good series.
I'm going to have to explore some of the suggestions in this thread! Shelly, I'm a little bit the same as you when it comes to running through an author's work.
Many years ago, I discovered Emile Zola when I read Germinal. I was immediately addicted, and went on to read almost all of his other novels. Therese Raquin was also quite wonderful; a steamy-hot novel for its time, and actually still rather heat producing! Briefly, it's set in mid-19th century France where an unhappily married young woman falls in love with her husband's friend. They have a hot romance, and then decide to murder the husband so that they can be together. There's a lot of sex, by the way, and certainly for the time when the novel was written. In the meantime, the woman's mother-in-law has had a stroke, and can't speak. However, she manages to figure out what this hapless couple has done, and watches, silently, as their lives begin to fall apart. The woman and her lover are so riddled with guilt over what they've done that the "ghost" of the fallen husband begins to come between the two. Now, when they feel each other's bodies, in what used to be passion, all they see is rotting flesh...
It's really quite good!!!
I finally managed to finish A Breach of Promise, and loved it. I think that I'm going to get myself a couple more of Anne Perry's novels/mysteries in this Monk series.
KaeEll, I went through a dry spell with my reading too, but picked it up again last fall. I'm glad that I made the effort. Anyway, I always associate summer with having a reading list!
Maybe I'll have to give that Kindle some thought after all. Hmmm...
OH -- I just remembered something else about Therese Raquin that turned out to be a little bit TMI, and involved one of my neighbors!!!
As I mentioned earlier, the novel was a bit steamy, and many years ago, it was produced for TV -- PBS, I think, but it's been so long that I don't remember. Anyway, it was quite good, and even had nudity in the love scenes, although it was tastefully done.
My neighbor, whose husband is the (now retired) vascular surgeon who saved my life in 1991, had me over one morning for some coffee and sweets. I have absolutely NO IDEA how the subject of Therese Raquin came up during our conversation, but she proceeded to tell me how the PBS production was so hot that she and her husband ended up having sex on the couch, as their kids (not little ones either) slept upstairs!!!
I swear to God that I've NEVER been able to look at them in the same way since then. Fingers in ears: "La-la-la-la -- I can't hear you!!!"
-- Edited by Moore ideas at 13:28, 2008-06-02
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
Finished the Grisham book, and it was his usual formula of the underdog battling the powerful bad guy or corporation or both. I love Grisham's humor because he makes me laugh at least once in each chapter.
It's an easy read, and there are some fun characters.
I'm debating now whether I'm going to read another Anne Perry, or try a book I bought about a month ago called Lady Macbeth, by Susan Fraser King. This book looks interesting (which is obviously why I bought it); it's written in the first person, as a diary. I was grabbed immediately when I stood in Borders and read the first sentence:
"Anno Domini 1025
Scarce nine the first time I was stolen away, I remember a wild and unthinking fright as I was snatched from my pony's back and dragged into the arms of one of the men who rode toward my father's escort party."
Later, on the first page, the diary continues:
"The memories of that day are vivid but disjointed. His furs smelled rancid and smoky; his whiskered chin was broad from my view beneath, trapped before him in the saddle; his fingers on the reins were grimy and powerful. I can recall the russet brown of his cloak, but I do not recall his name. I know it was never spoken in my hearing for years afterward."
I may have to wait on the Anne Perry...
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
A friend just dropped off for me Ken Follett's World Without End - huge fat book, said it took her forever to read it, but it was worth it. Anyone gotten through that one?
Yes, Jim and I both read it as soon as it was released. Pillars of the Earth is still one of my favorite books of all time, and if you haven't read that one yet, I recommend that you read it before you read World Without End.
WWE was very good, and I enjoyed it, but I must say that I didn't think that it was nearly as good as Pillars of the Earth. It's still a good book, though. I just preferred Pillars which made me literally hold my breath on several occasions!
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I have finally started on the Twilight series...amazing. I can't put them down. There are three books so far, and the fourth is coming out in August. They are by Stephenie Meyer, and I recommend them immensely. They are considered young adult, which gave me pause, but the writing is fantastic, and the story is enveloping. The conversations between the ordinary, yet extraordinary Bella, and vampire Edward just sweep me away. Good, good stuff. The books out now, in order, are Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse.
Has anyone read The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova? I bought it, and usually it's not my cup o' tea, but it looks good, so I thought I'd expand my horizons. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm in the middle of a couple of books, as usual. I am reading the Celestine Vision and The Power of Now. I pick up books at the library all the time and then skim thru them to see if I like it or not. Some I do, some I don't. I have a stack by my nightstand all the time.
I got a huge pile of books at Goodwill, less than $2 each.
Oh another I am in the middle of is "Healing the Hurt in your life" something like that. About those little issues that bother you and how you have to accept them, because what you resist persists.
I'm into the self help junk and I rarely read a good story anymore.
JoJo -- I DID read The Historian, and made my husband read it too. I also recommended it to my best friend's mother who devours books, and is probably the most intelligent, interesting, and well-read person I have ever known!
The topic isn't something that's normally of interest to me either, but this book has such a different twist to it that I thought it would be different. Stick with it, JoJo. That's my first comment. It's very subtle writing, and the story is told from a number of different perspectives. The "scariness" of the book is also subtle, which makes it even creepier, frankly, and there are also some payoffs along the way.
It's intelligently written, and is filled with fascinating characters.
Of course, as you can see, the book is massive! I read it last fall when I was stricken with diverticulitis, and spent many days in bed, in pain... The Historian was my distraction, and well worth it!
-- Edited by Moore ideas at 12:19, 2008-06-20
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I have finally started on the Twilight series...amazing. I can't put them down. There are three books so far, and the fourth is coming out in August. They are by Stephenie Meyer, and I recommend them immensely. They are considered young adult, which gave me pause, but the writing is fantastic, and the story is enveloping. The conversations between the ordinary, yet extraordinary Bella, and vampire Edward just sweep me away. Good, good stuff. The books out now, in order, are Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse.
Has anyone read The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova? I bought it, and usually it's not my cup o' tea, but it looks good, so I thought I'd expand my horizons. I'm looking forward to it.
-- Edited by jojolin at 20:37, 2008-06-19
I've heard a lot about that series Jojo. Good choice! I haven't started reading them yet but am going to.
If you're at all into mythos/legend/fantasy type stuff i'd recommend the Dresden Files.
There are already about 10 books in the series and are all great reads. They deal with the supernatural realm such as: Faeries, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, wizards, trolls, fallen angels etc.
Damn good series of books.
Also if you still are interested in and want more of that type of thing try out the Kim Harrison series of books. Haven't started on that series yet either but from all i've heard its good.
If you're at all into mythos/legend/fantasy type stuff i'd recommend the Dresden Files.
There are already about 10 books in the series and are all great reads. They deal with the supernatural realm such as: Faeries, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, wizards, trolls, fallen angels etc.
Damn good series of books.
Also if you still are interested in and want more of that type of thing try out the Kim Harrison series of books. Haven't started on that series yet either but from all i've heard its good.
You think they'd be OK for my 15 year old, I'd like him to do some Summer reading.
It's not exactly summer anymore, but I just finished reading a good book titled The House at Riverton. It's the first novel for an Australian author named Kate Morton, and I'm now looking forward to the release of her second novel.
Very well done!
www.katemorton.com
Synopsis from her website:
Within its four walls lay a secret that would last a lifetime.
Summer 1924: On the night of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.
Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, onetime housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poets suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Graces mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.
Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The House at Riverton is a thrilling mystery and a compelling love story.
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I thought that I would pull out, and dust off our old summer reading list!
Brandon, could we sticky this again for the next couple of months, like we did last summer?
I just finished a fantastic book called "The Help", by Kathryn Stockett. It's her first novel, and boy did she begin with a good one!
This book is told through the narrations of three characters (two black maids, and one aspiring writer, who is white), but you get to know the many other characters through eyes of Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter.
The story is set in Mississippi in the early 1960s. It begins with a narration by Aibileen, and it's just freaking fabulous. The dialect is perfect, and you immediately get an insight into what her life is like. She's in her early fifties, and is the gentle soul of the book. Her specialty is in raising the children, with great affection, of the white familes for whom she works.
The other maid is Minny, and she's probably somewhere in her thirties. She has a gazillion children because she's figured out that her husband won't hit her when she's pregnant. Her specialty is cooking, and she's known for it throughout Jackson. She's also the skeptical, and rather angry character. She keeps getting fired because she can't prevent herself from mouthing off at her employers, but her reputation for cooking is the one thing that continues to save her.
Eugenia ("Skeeter") is part of the social group of white women who employ the maids. These are all young women, in their twenties, who are Junior Leaguers, and who have no clue how racist they all actually are. Skeeter, though, is somewhat different, and begins to pull away from the bridge club, the Junior League (for who she writes their regular newsletter), and primarily from her long-time friend, and college roommate, Hilly. This character becomes the villainess of the story.
Skeeter, who has no real credentials for writing, submits a resume to Harper and Row in New York City, hoping to get a job. Surprisingly, she gets a reply from a Ms. Stein who won't hire her, but who tells her to submit something of deep interest, and she'll consider it. The only reason she's doing this is because someone once took a chance on her. Skeeter wants to impress this woman, so she sends her a list of ideas for stories (drunk driving, and other similar ideas), but Ms. Stein writes back to say that they're all superficial, and if that's the best she can do, then she may as well forget the whole thing.
Skeeter's had a little time now to make some observations, so she pitches another idea: She wants to interview the maids of Jackson, Mississippi, and get them to tell their stories of what it's like to work as maids for the white families in town. Ms. Stein likes the idea, and gives Skeeter a deadline.
When Skeeter approaches the maids she knows with her idea, they think she's insane!! This is the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, afterall, and black people are literally being beaten to death for no reason, their homes are being burned to the ground because they inadvertently said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and here comes this clueless white woman who wants them to rat out their white employers!! Um...........NO.
Ultimately, something causes the maids to agree to this dangerous project...
There is a multitude of fabulous characters, including a now-rich "poor white trash" Celia, a young woman (think Kelly Pickler or a very young Dolly Parton) who has no clue about the hiring of "help", or where she fits (she doesn't) in Jackson society.
There is also A LOT of unexpected humor in the writing that literally made me laugh out loud on several occasions.
One example is of Minny's description of Celia (the good-hearted white trash woman), who is in the process of getting dressed for a HUGE Junior League formal event:
"Miss Celia, now what is going on in here?" I mean, she's got stockings dangling from chairs, pocketbooks on the floor, enough costume jewelry for a whole family of hookers, forty-five pairs of high-heel shoes, underthings, overcoats, panties, brassieres, and a half-empty bottle of white wine on the chifforobe with no coaster under it.
I start picking up all her stupid silky things and piling them on the chair. The least I can do is run the Hoover.
"What time is it, Minny?" Miss Celia says from the bathroom. "Johnny'll be home at six, you know."
"Ain't even five yet, " I say, "but I got to go soon." I have to pick up Sugar and get us to the party by six-thirty to serve.
"Oh Minny, I'm so excited." I hear Miss Celia's dress swishing behind me. "What do you think?"
I turn around. "Oh my Lord." I might as well be Little Stevie Wonder I am so blinded by that dress. Hot pink and silver sequins glitter from her extra-large boobies all the way to her hot pink toes.
"Miss Celia" I whisper. "Tuck yourself in fore you lose something."
Miss Celia shimmies the dress up. "Isn't it gorgeous? Ain't it just the prettiest thing you've ever seen? I feel like I'm a Hollywood movie star."
She bats her fake-lashed eyes. She is rouged, painted, and plastered with makeup. The Butterbatch hairdo is poufed up around her head like an Easter bonnet. One leg peeks out in a high, thigh-baring slit and I turn away, too embarrassed to look. Everything about her oozes sex, sex, and more sex.
"Where you get them fingernails?"
"At the Beauty Box this morning. Oh Minny, I'm so nervous, I've got butterflies."
She takes a heavy swig from her wineglass, kind of teeters a little in her high heels.
"What you had to eat today?"
"Nothing. I'm too nervous to eat. What about these earrings? Are they dangly enough?"
"That that dress off, let me fix you some biscuits right quic."
"Oh no, I can't have my stomach poking out. I can't eat anything."
I head for the wine bottle on the gozillion-dollar chifforobe but Miss Celia gets to it before me, dumps the rest into her glass. She hands me the empty and smiles. I pick up her fur coat she's got tossed on the floor. She's getting pretty used to having a maid.
I saw that dress four days ago and I knew it looked hussified - of course she had to pick the one with the low neckline - but I had no idea what would happen when she stuffed herself inside it. She's popping out like a corn cob in Crisco. With twelve Benefits under my belt, I've hardly seen so much as a bare elbow there, much less bosoms and shoulders. --------------------------------------------
Aibileen:
Six days a week, I take the bus across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to where Miss Leefolt and all her white friend live, in a neighborhood call Belhaven. Right next to Belhaven be the downtown and the state capital. Capitol building is real big, pretty on the outside but I never been in it. I wonder what they pay to clean that place.
Down the road from Belhaven is white Woodland Hills, then Sherwood Forest, which is miles a big live oaks with the moss hanging down. Nobody living in it yet, but it's there for when the white folks is ready to move somewhere else new. Then it's the country, out where Miss Skeeter live on the Longleaf cotton plantation. She don't know it, but I picked cotton out there in 1931, during the Depression, when we didn't have nothing to eat but state cheese.
So Jackson's just one white neighborhood after the next and more springing up down the road. But the colored part a town, we one big anthill, surrounded by state land that ain't for sale. As our numbers get bigger, we can't spread out. Our part a town just gets thicker.
I get on the number six bus that afternoon, which goes from Belhaven to Farish Street. The bus today is nothing but maids heading home in our white uniforms. We all chatting and smiling at each other like we own it - not cause we mind if they's white people on here, we sit anywhere we want to now thanks to Miss Parks - just cause it's a friendly feeliing................
................I live on Gessum Avenue, where I been renting since 1942. You could say Gessum got a lot a personality. The houses all be small, but every front yard's different - some scrubby and grassless like a bald-headed old man. Others got azalea bushes and roses and thick green grass. My yard, I reckon it be somewhere in between.
I got a few red camellia bushes out front a the house. My grass be kind a spotty and I still got a big yellow mark where Treelore's pickup sat for three months after the accident. I ain't got no trees. But the backyard, now it looks like the Garden of Eden. That's where my next-door neighbor, Ida Peek, got her vegetable patch.
Ida ain't got no backyard to speak of what with all her husband's junk - car engines and old refrigerators and tires. Stuff he say he gone fix but never do. So I tell Ida she come plant on my side. That way I don't have no mowing to tend to and she let me pick whatever I need, save me two or three dollars ever week. She put up what we don't eat, give me jars for the winter season. Good turnip greens, eggplant, okra by the bushel, all kind a gourds. I don't know how she keep them bugs out a her tomatoes, but she do. And they good.
That evening, it's raining hard outside. I pull out a jar a Ida Peek's cabbage and tomato, eat my last slice a leftover cornbread. Then I set down to look over my finances cause two things done happen: the bus gone up to fifteen cents a ride and my rent gone up to twenty-nine dollars a month. I work for Miss Leefort eight to four, six days a week except Saturdays. I get paid forty-three dollars ever Friday, which come to $172 a month. That means after I pay the light bill, the water bill, the gas bill, and the telephone bill, I got thirteen dollars and fifty cents a week left for my groceries, my clothes, getting my hair done, and tithing to the church. Not to mention the cost to mail these bills done gone up to a nickel. Any my work shoes is so thin, they look like they starving to death. New pair cost seven dollars though, which means I'm on be eating cabbage and tomato till I turn into Br'er Rabbit. Thank the Lord for Ida Peek, else I be eating nothing. ------------------------------------------------
I don't know if anyone read "The Secret Life of Bees", but it was a fabulous book, and I'd put "The Help" right up there with it!
(A couple of edits didn't get in there earlier, for some reason...)
-- Edited by Moore ideas on Monday 6th of July 2009 10:53:38 AM
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)