the books we read

[johnnYYac]

My favorite book, far and away, is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.  I used to own many copies so I could give them away.  So much of the story and characters connected to me, the religious parallels to Owen and his VOICE moved me.  I love this book.

I believe I've read it about 5 times.

Then they made Simon Birch.  Fuck me.  My all-time, hands down, favorite book now and forever, and I've only seen the movie based on it once.  I can't bear to watch it ever again.  Such shit.

Sorry, had to vent.

Read this book.



http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+prayer+for+owen+meany&sprefix=a+prayer+fo

[Fully]

My favorite book, far and away, is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.  I used to own many copies so I could give them away.  So much of the story and characters connected to me, the religious parallels to Owen and his VOICE moved me.  I love this book.

I believe I've read it about 5 times.

Then they made Simon Birch.  Fuck me.  My all-time, hands down, favorite book now and forever, and I've only seen the movie based on it once.  I can't bear to watch it ever again.  Such shit.

Sorry, had to vent.

Read this book.



http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+prayer+for+owen+meany&sprefix=a+prayer+fo

It's a great book, John. When I was a kid, I first got into Irving. Everything that he published I had to read. A Widow for One Year is pretty good, but I really love Until I Find You from his later works. A few years ago, Irving came and gave a lecture at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. It was packed and certainly worth getting up to Nashville early on a Saturday morning. He's quite charming. The  Owen Meany movie was good, but I hated how they didn't stay true to the novel. I suppose parts of it were just wouldn't translate well into a movie. I never read the Simon Birch book, but I saw the movie. I'm pretty sure I cried at it. But I cried at Marley and Me and the movie with Richard Gere where the dog won't leave the train station after his owner died. I'm pretty much a sap. My kids love to laugh at me when we watch something that gets my tears flowing.

[Fully]

The Book Thief by Maurice Zusak is one of the best books I've read lately. It is marketed as a young adult novel, but the themes are quite mature. It's set during WWII in Nazi Germany. Death is the narrator. He's weary and jaded. He becomes fascinated with the protagonist, Liesel, a young girl whose brother has just died while they are on their way to live with a foster family as their mother is being sent away by the Germans. The novel follows Liesel's life as she learns to read and becomes the book thief. Her foster father is a dissenter who is punished for refusing to join the Nazi party and her foster mother is a tough woman who curses at everyone and argues with the neighbors.

This is a review from Amazon: "Grade 9 Up–Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA "

[ALady]

High Fidelity- Nick Hornsby

I've read this book a ton but it never gets old. I think I prefer the book over the movie just because of the English dialect and the London setting over the Chicago setting of the movie.

Agreed.  I had high hopes for the movie because I love it here and, well, Cusack, but the book was infinitely better.

Reading a bunch of Bukowski and Miller lately.  I'm like a college dude.   ;D

[jaye]

I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany!  I enjoyed most of Irving's books - I think my favorite being Cider House Rules.  I've never seen either movie.

The Book Thief by Maurice Zusak is one of the best books I've read lately. It is marketed as a young adult novel, but the themes are quite mature.

I was listening to the audiobook and the narrator is fantastic.  I really like this book and I'm surprised that it's marketed as young adult - but hey if that gets young adults to read it than I'm for it.    I had downloaded the cds from the library and the last 3 discs didn't d/l right so I'm on the waitlist and dying to hear the end of the story!

I usually have at least 2 books going since I listen to audiobooks when I walk - right now I'm listening to Cutting for Stone which is really good - another great narrator, and reading Cherry by Mary Karr.

Next on my shelf is The Paris Wife - Hemingway and Paris in the 1920s.

[Fully]

The Book Thief by Maurice Zusak is one of the best books I've read lately. It is marketed as a young adult novel, but the themes are quite mature.

I was listening to the audiobook and the narrator is fantastic.  I really like this book and I'm surprised that it's marketed as young adult - but hey if that gets young adults to read it than I'm for it.    I had downloaded the cds from the library and the last 3 discs didn't d/l right so I'm on the waitlist and dying to hear the end of the story!

I usually have at least 2 books going since I listen to audiobooks when I walk - right now I'm listening to Cutting for Stone which is really good - another great narrator, and reading Cherry by Mary Karr.

Next on my shelf is The Paris Wife - Hemingway and Paris in the 1920s.

I am too, but I have to say that some of the best books I've read lately are ya books. It seems a little like a ghetto to put a great book in. So many people won't go look  at that section because they think they are all Gossip Girl books. Really great sci fi gets overlooked for the same reason sometimes. People don't realize what awesome writing is to be found in those sections. They think it's just strange aliens and robots on far away, make-believe planets.

[pawpaw]

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Just finished it last night. I think a few of his other books are really good, but this one just never took off for me. It had good momentum at times, but it didn't make the leap that some of his others do. Anyone else here read it? 

[dragonboy]

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Just finished it last night. I think a few of his other books are really good, but this one just never took off for me. It had good momentum at times, but it didn't make the leap that some of his others do. Anyone else here read it?

I'm still working my way through his earlier books, reading The Wind Up Bird at the moment - what a long, strange (excellent!) trip.

[pawpaw]

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Just finished it last night. I think a few of his other books are really good, but this one just never took off for me. It had good momentum at times, but it didn't make the leap that some of his others do. Anyone else here read it?

I'm still working my way through his earlier books, reading The Wind Up Bird at the moment - what a long, strange (excellent!) trip.

That's one of his best, imo. That was a traveling book for me, read most of it in Aquitaine and San Sebastian, so it'll always be associated with those beautiful places. Maybe the best (and strangest) beach book I've ever read!

How widely read was Murakami in Japan? I've read that 1Q84 was a huge best seller, though I'm not sure how well his previous books have sold there.

[pawpaw]

Just finished Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Sacramento girl did alright for herself. There's some really great stuff in there.

It's been nice to have some time off from work and be able to read!  :coffee:

[tdb810]

"ROOM" by Emma Donoghue.  I'm about 100 pages in, and sort of obsessed with it.

[YouAre_GivenToFly]

Research for my summer/fall trip  8)

[Penny Lane]

Research for my summer/fall trip  8)

srsly one of the most beautiful places i've ever been! 

[Swedgin]

Just finished Samuel Charter's Country Blues.

[he.who.forgets]

Just started This All Encompassing Trip by Jason Leung.
Any PJ fans read it?

I've read it. Pretty quick and fun read...makes me jealous I've never went on the road to follow a band I love.
I just finished reading "Neither Here nor There: Travels through Europe" by Bill Bryson. Love his books! I've been slowly making my way through "For Whom the Bell Tolls" as well.  Trying to brush up on my classics.

[wolof7]

Just finished this great sci-fi/piracy book. It is a great adventure tale with many colorful characters and steampunk creations. A fun read for sure and the 1st out of 3 in the series so far. This would be especially cool for fans of the show Firefly as it is almost a direct rip-off of the style which I don't mind because that show was too short-lived and left me wanting more.



Sky piracy is a bit out of Darian Frey's league. Fate has not been kind to the captain of the airship Ketty Jay—or his motley crew. They are all running from something. Crake is a daemonist in hiding, traveling with an armored golem and burdened by guilt. Jez is the new navigator, desperate to keep her secret from the rest of the crew. Malvery is a disgraced doctor, drinking himself to death. So when an opportunity arises to steal a chest of gems from a vulnerable airship, Frey can't pass it up. It's an easy take—and the payoff will finally make him a rich man.

But when the attack goes horribly wrong, Frey suddenly finds himself the most wanted man in Vardia, trailed by bounty hunters, the elite Century Knights, and the dread queen of the skies, Trinica Dracken. Frey realizes that they've been set up to take a fall but doesn't know the endgame. And the ultimate answer for captain and crew may lie in the legendary hidden pirate town of Retribution Falls. That's if they can get there without getting blown out of the sky.


Next up:

[br00ke]

i read Lonesome Dove years ago and feel in love SO HARD. such a good book that i almost wanted to cry over finishing the book. i found out that it's part of a tetralogy so i just read Dead Man's Walk and am now on with Comanche Moon. these books are wonderful and apparently i like westerns  if your a fan of Cormac Mccarthy's boarder trilogy, you would probably like these.

[Fully]

I love those books too, Brooke. It's been a long time since I've read them, but you're bringing back some great reading memories.

[wolof7]

I love those books too, Brooke. It's been a long time since I've read them, but you're bringing back some great reading memories.

Nice Br00ke and Fully, read Lonesome Dove 2 yrs ago, been meaning to revisit that series!

[Fully]

Has anyone read What it is Like to go to War by Karl Marlantes?  I just downloaded it onto my e-reader. It looks like it would be a really good nonfiction companion to Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. I'm going to work on it this weekend, but I've got a feeling it's not going to be a book I can read straight through. I'll have to set it aside and come back to it on occasions. Cormac McCarthy's The Road was like that too. Although I forced myself to keep reading it because if I had drug reading that book out too long, I might have gone off the deep end - perhaps the most disturbing, depressing book I've ever read.