What Books Are You Reading?-#3

Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I finished 'Love Aubrey', it was good.

On holiday I read 'The Moon is Down' by John Steinbeck (thanks for the recommendation, lisa!). It's set in a small European country which has been taken over by an army. Steinbeck doesn't say outright that the occupiers are the Germans/Nazis, but it's pretty obvious that that's what they are. It's very short but really gripping and incredibly insightful. What really struck me is that as well making the town's occupants, the occupied, sympathetic characters, Steinbeck very much makes the occupiers, the Germans, sympathetic too. They don't want to be there, they just want to go home, and have the same flaws, longings and weaknesses as the townspeople. So it's a resistance novel, but also one that shows that the occupiers are human too.

I also read 'The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz' by Mordecai Richler. It's about a 17 year old Canadian kid, Duddy Kravitz, who grew up on St Urbain Street, a poor and gritty part of Montreal. Duddy comes from a working class family, and all he wants is to get hold of land, as his grandfather taught him that 'a man without land is nobody'. It's a coming of age story, we see Duddy grow up as he does literally everything he can to make money and buy land. He's a very flawed character, some of the things he does are really awful, but he's also a sympathetic character you can't help but root for. I enjoyed it a lot.

I'm listening to 1984 by George Orwell on my Ipod, have been listening to it for most of yesterday/today on the journey home. I'm enjoying it but I personally don't like it as much as I liked Fahrenheit 451, which deals with some similar themes. It's still really good though. Scary and grim, which I like.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

MacsLady said:
Steinbeck very much makes the occupiers, the Germans, sympathetic too. They don't want to be there, they just want to go home, and have the same flaws, longings and weaknesses as the townspeople. So it's a resistance novel, but also one that shows that the occupiers are human too.
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glad you liked it :) it got a lot of criticism as the americans thought it was too sympathetic towards the occupiers (given that it was published midway through the war, and i believe it was commissioned by some government body in the states). i liked how human he made them, i think books/films that do that are more successful because thinking the occupiers are anything other than just human can be kind of dangerous.

I'm listening to 1984 by George Orwell on my Ipod, have been listening to it for most of yesterday/today on the journey home. I'm enjoying it but I personally don't like it as much as I liked Fahrenheit 451, which deals with some similar themes. It's still really good though. Scary and grim, which I like.
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it has very similar themes to fahrenheit 451, i love both but personally i think 1984 is better, i guess i see it as even more prescient (although both are), there is so much in 1984 that we can see going on around us now (and not just big brother on tv!). it is quite scary but i love that book :)

i like scary and grim too :D
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I'm reading 'The Buffalo Soliders: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West' by William H. Leckie which I picked up at the Alcatraz gift shop. It's about the black soldiers who joined the Army and formed the Ninth and Tenth Cavalary and took part in the conquest of the West in the nineteenth century (after the Civil War). I've only read one chapter so far, but it's really interesting. I read a fiction book a while ago that dealth with the buffalo soldiers and have been really interested ever since, so was really pleased to find the book.

On my Ipod I'm listening to The Gift of Valor by Michael M. Phillips. It's about a Marine corporal, Jason Dunham, who fought in Iraq. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after he saw an insurgent drop a grenade in a firefight and covered the grenade with his own helmet, and saved his platoon in doing so. Again, I'm not very far in, but it's great so far.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

i've either heard a lot about or read the buffalo soldiers book but i'm not sure which - it does sound good tho :)

i finished tobacco road, it was very good - very very funny, in a tragic kind of way. i laughed out loud a lot (in fact i was reading the end in a cafe tonight and the guy at the next table asked what i was reading as he thought it must be pretty funny) and the ending made me groan in a kind of "oh no, don't do that!" kind of way :)
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

Right now, I am reading 'Murder is Binding' by Lorna Barrett. It is a mystery that takes place in a New Hampshire town. So far, it is an interesting story.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

Right now I'm reading 'The House at Riverton' by Kate Morton. I've never read a author like her who has such a brilliant writing style. The book in my opinion so far isn't as good as her other one 'the forgotton garden' but its still got that same style that I love.

Also just finished a csi miami novel 'cult following' by donn cortez. I loved it. It was funnier than the other csi books I've read so far and had more charater moments which I love. There were enough exchanges between the charaters to keep me happy. Calleigh's charater I thought was written particually well, and H wasn't over the top. It also gave a little bit more explanation I think as to why they do what they do on the show, it was a good interpretation. Oh and the little titbits were great, like that thing about Calliegh's cat. Good novel, I want more.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

i'm reading "the sound and the fury" by william faulkner - i'm finding it quite hard to get into as the first section (it doesn't have chapters, just 4 segments) is written in a stream of consciousness kind of way with a lot of time jumps which aren't really signposted so it's quite confusing, but i'm assured it's a wonderful book so i'm persevering!
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I just finished "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. Amazing book and great series. Can't wait for the first movie next year.
Go Teem Peeta! <3
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I finished the buffalo soldiers book, it was really interesting.

I read two novellas by Stephen King from his collection Different Seasons. The first was The Body which is the novella that the film Stand by Me was based on, and I loved it. It's quite different to the film in some ways, Gordie is the star of the film, while Chris is really the star of the novella and Gordie is the narrator, he's still important though.
The second was Apt Pupil about a boy called Todd who blackmails a man who used to run a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. As the story goes on, the man and the boy become increasingly involved, and corrupted.

I've just started reading The Missing by Chris Mooney. I don't read much crime anymore, but I fancied a bit of crime and this one looked good. It's about a CSI from Boston called Darby McCormick who encounters a raving woman at a crime scene, a woman who has obviously been kept prisoner somewhere. DNA results prove the woman was abducted five years earlier, and now a teenage girl is missing. Darby has to track down the killer. The case has echoes of a crime she was caught up in as a teenager, a crime in which one of her friends was murdered and the other abducted. The man believed responsible killed himself, though, so I'm curious as to what on earth this connection could be, and mean.
I'm only a few chapters in, but it's good so far.

On my Ipod I'm listening to Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay. It's about a reporter, David Harwood, whose wife Jan disappears on a trip to an amusement park. But the park cameras show only David and his son, Ethan, entering the park, there's no sign of Jan. The police soon begin to suspect David, who begins to do a little investigating of his own, and finds some pretty shocking things out about his wife's past. It's really gripping!
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

^ i've read a couple of linwood barclay ones and downloaded another, they're pretty good usually. i mean, kinda airport thriller-ish but sometimes that's just what you want!

apt pupil was a good film too :)
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I'm reading Moby Dick right now for school. It's err... hmm... well, I'm assured it's the "American Epic" and a classic book so I guess it'll be good, but so far it's hard to get into.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I finished reading that third Meg book "Hell's Aquarium" (haven't read the second one). It was okay, but parts were kind of boring. I skimmed/skipped over some of it. :lol: They basically like Jurassic Park'd the megs... only they found an actual Meg or two and then there were more. It might actually make a decent movie if they had a huge budget for the special effects.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

*lisasimpson* said:
^ i've read a couple of linwood barclay ones and downloaded another, they're pretty good usually. i mean, kinda airport thriller-ish but sometimes that's just what you want!

apt pupil was a good film too :)
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Oh, they're definitely airport-thrillerish but as you say, that's just what you want sometimes!

Now I'm reading Miracle at Sant'anna by James McBride. It's set in Italy in WWII. Four soldiers from the 92nd African American Buffalo soldiers Division become separated from the rest of the division after rescuing a young Italian boy from German shelling. The boy is ill, and the soldiers lost, far from American lines. They stumble into a small Italian village where they meet up with some villagers - a witch, a grumpy old man and his daughter whose husband is missing in action. In the nearby mountains, Italian partisans are keeping watch. The story of all these characters is intertwined with the story of a mysterious statue head which one of the soldiers found and carries with him, and with a terrible event which happened in the nearby village of Sant'anna. It's good so far.

On audio, I'm listening to Deeper than the Dead by Tami Hoag. It's set in 1985. Some school kids and their teacher find a dead woman in the woods behind their school in a small town. FBI profiler Vince Leoni, a man who recently returned to work after surviving a bullet to the head and is suffering emotionally and physically from that event, comes to investigate when it becomes clear the murder is the work of a serial killer - one who may be part of the community. Leone finds himself drawn to the young teacher, Anne, as he tries to find the killer, and she tries to deal with the after effect of the murder on the three kids who found the body. We get the stories of the kids too, all who have some pretty bad stuff going on in their lives that the discovery stirs up. It's great so far.
 
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3

I just read 'Traveller' by Ron McLarty. It's about a man called Jono Riley who is a bartender and small-time actor in New York City. He's about fifty. One day he gets a letter from one of his closest childhood friends, Cubby, telling him that his sister, Marie, is dead. Marie was the first girl Jono ever really loved. When she was 12, and Jono 11, they were walking home one winter day when Marie was shot in the back by an unknown person. She survived, but the doctors chose not to remove the bullet because it was too close to an artery. Years later, the bullet moved or 'travelled' (hence the title) pierced the artery, and killed Marie. Jono returns to East Providence, Rhode Island, and the story becomes a bit of a 'murder' mystery because whoever shot Marie all those years ago was never found but is responsible for her death. It turns out that there were a series of similar, seemingly random shootings - along with other strange events - during the years Jono, Marie and their friends were growing up. The story switches between flashbacks to Jono's teenage years, and Jono in the present trying to work out what happened. It's also a coming of age story - not only do we see teenage Jono come of age in the flashbacks, we also see middle-aged Jono 'come of age' in some ways as he finds new truths about his friends, and tries to figure out what he wants from life, particularly in his relationship with girlfriend Renee.
It was a great read, really gripping and quite dark in places (murder, child abuse, bullying, violence, and drugs are pretty strong factors) but also touching and moving in places, too. McLarty also wrote 'The Memory of Running' which I adored too.

On audio, I just finished listening to Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen. It's the latest in the Maura Isles/Jane Rizzoli series. Maura attends a conference where she meets up with an old friend and joins him and some of his friends on a spur-of-the-moment trip to a ski lodge. But on the way their car breaks down, and they find themselves stranded in a creepily deserted small town in the middle of nowhere, a town where the doors are unlocked and food is still on the tables. Days later, Jane Rizzoli, homicide detective, gets a message that a burnt out SUV has been discovered in rural Wyoming and that one of the charred bodies may belong to her friend and colleague Maura Isles...
It was great. I have read all the Isles/Rizzoli books and they are two great female characters, strong women who don't cross over the boundary into 'bitch mode' (which I find too many female protagonists do in crime fiction) - they are strong but have flaws and are vulnerable in ways too, which makes them very appealing. Gabriel, Jane's FBI agent, (former) Marine husband is great too. The plot is great too, several twists and some pretty dark stuff going on involving a dodgy cult.

I've just started 'The 19th Wife' by David Ebershoff, it's about a young man called Jordan who at age 14 was excommunicated from his polygamus Mormon sect. He returns to Utah when his mother is accused of murdering her husband. She was his father's 19th wife. Alongside the current day story is the story of another 19th wife - Anne Eliza Young, 19th wife of Brigham Young the second Prophet of the Mormon church - who a century before battled for freedom from her husband and led a crusade to end polygamy in the US. I've only read a little of it, not sure what I think yet. It seems ok/interesting right now.
 
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