|
Post by itsasmallworld1 on Dec 29, 2012 18:10:18 GMT 2
"History of the Jews in Russia" by Simon Dubnov. Excellent book!
|
|
|
Post by Liiisa on Dec 31, 2012 15:34:10 GMT 2
Last night I finished my final book for 2012, Junot Díaz's "This is How You Lose Her" (#88). If you liked his "Oscar Wao" then you'll likely enjoy this as well.In case you didn't read the earlier novel, this is a group of interrelated short stories about a young Dominican guy, and his travails with family and women and work. The characters aren't particularly lovable - it's a macho culture on the whole, and Díaz doesn't soften that for you - but it feels real, and so you sympathize with the protagonist despite that, or at least I did.
I like Díaz's writing style, in which the English is strewn liberally with Spanish; it really makes you feel like you're hearing these stories from their partticipants. Of course since these people aren't nuns, reading it with the Spanish-language version of Urban Dictionary might be helpful, but you can pretty much pick it all up from context.
|
|
|
Post by itsasmallworld1 on Dec 31, 2012 21:08:20 GMT 2
Oh that sounds interesting Liii! I was tempted by it, didn't buy it yet.
I finished my last for 2012 too: History of WWI in one hour ( well.. that is not accurate since took me two days!) It is a very succint and realistic approach to the reasons of how and why it started, different interests and description of important battles. Wanted to learn more about the subject.
Happy New Reads for 2013! everybody.
|
|
|
Post by snkysally on Dec 31, 2012 21:31:33 GMT 2
I read The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker over the weekend. Sweet, honest coming of age tale set against the unlikely backdrop of the apocolypse as the earth's rotations slow and the people and their surroundings come unglued. Quick read, loved it.
|
|
|
Post by Scrubb on Jan 1, 2013 1:37:53 GMT 2
Well, I won't be finishing the 1000 (one thousand!!!) page biography of Julia Child tonight... so the last book I read in 2012 was "After the Quake" by Murikami. It was very good. That made 120 books this year, 112 of them books I hadn't read before. 87 were fiction, 33 non-fiction. Only 2 weren't worth reading.
|
|
|
Post by Kate_R on Jan 1, 2013 1:42:52 GMT 2
Last book of the year was Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn. I finished it a few days ago and have already passed it on to my mum for her to read. The Queen is feeling a bit down and depressed, and thinking of her favourite things ends up on an impromptu trip (without any security or aides) on a normal train to Edinburgh to see The Britannia. Sweet story.
|
|
|
Post by itsasmallworld1 on Jan 1, 2013 2:29:17 GMT 2
Oh! I ve seen the ad for that book@ amazon and wondered whether it would be worth or not Kate! Scrubb, I am impressed with your amount of reading & spreadsheet? is that the word? how you wrote them down! I will try to do it next year. I think I finished # 85 or so.. blame TT.. they were my external memory disk
|
|
|
Post by itsasmallworld1 on Jan 1, 2013 21:23:52 GMT 2
Just bought "Joseph Anton: a Memoire" by Rushdie. Wanted to read it since I found out it existence! Kindles are DANGEROUS..
|
|
|
Post by kuskiwi on Jan 1, 2013 22:09:20 GMT 2
I've just finished Barbara Nadels Ashes to Ashes. Unfortunately I've now read all her books and her new one isn't due for a while. I loved her Turkish series - great behavioural characterisations and good mystery plots.
|
|
|
Post by gnd on Jan 2, 2013 6:26:37 GMT 2
Finally having a tiny bit of time to upload videos to YT. I read/told about 12 bedtime stories...then finished with reading random books from my personal library. Damn it took a long time.
Included
The Christmas Tree, by Charles Dickens, 1907 The Lady With the Dog, by Antov Chekhov, written 1899
Ballet Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild, written 1936 * though I am not sure if I pronounced the name correctly! anyone?
Bunnikin´s Picnic Party, a Ladybird book, 1940
My throat got tired after a few hours, but want to add more of my books reading them online YT list.
I was very heartened to see on YT many young girls, and several young guys, having book clubs and reviewing books (actual literature, mind you) ,and many having contests to see how many books they could find to buy for say 20USD/GBP. Or showing off their personal library collection! Yay to find that reading (and actual books) is not dying out amongst the electronic-ipod set:)
|
|
|
Post by Scrubb on Jan 2, 2013 6:36:50 GMT 2
I have Ballet Shoes. It would take you all day to read the whole book outloud as it's well over 100 pages - do you have a shortened kiddie version?
|
|
|
Post by gnd on Jan 2, 2013 6:37:09 GMT 2
oh forgot to answer the OP: for me, I´m re-reading Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War. And a reproduced diary sketchbook of young Queen Victoria.
Speaking of spreadsheets. Do all of you keep track of what you read? I try to keep it all in a notebook, plus suggestions for more reading, but usually forget.
|
|
|
Post by OnlyMark on Jan 2, 2013 8:17:34 GMT 2
I have Ballet Shoes. It would take you all day to read the whole book outloud as it's well over 100 pages - do you have a shortened kiddie version? You could halve the size by just reading out every other word.
|
|
|
Post by Kate_R on Jan 2, 2013 8:50:00 GMT 2
I'm currently reading Ten-Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler. I started it about two months ago, and put it down when a few other library books turned up. Now I'm racing to finish it - quirky mystery set in London, part of a series.
|
|
quailia
Pot Head
Must you touch everything?
Posts: 308
|
Post by quailia on Jan 2, 2013 9:18:53 GMT 2
Finally finished my big huge book. 1421 by Gavin Menzies. Promised a colleague I'd read it but it's spent about a year on my bookshelf. Finally got through it. In itself a fascinating and interesting story, of how the Chinese fleet sailed the world in the early 1420s and discovered the America's, Australia/NZ, the route around Cape of Good Hope etc. All way beyond the famous European explorers. I gave that book to my Father of Q some time ago... thinking I was being really clever since he's been a ship's captain. He was not convinced at all and found numerous errors.... He thinks the Chinese ships did go further than just the china sea but was not convinced they made it to Americas, Australia, NZ or around the Cape of Good Hope...
|
|
|
Post by katcalls on Jan 2, 2013 9:32:18 GMT 2
I'm currently reading Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue.
This book is on a lot of "Best of 2012" books and he has been compared as the literary equivalent of Quentin Tarantino. I would agree with that, but I would say that he has all of the negative aspects of Tarantino. The book just tries way too hard to be cool, and drops huge amounts of various references to culture, movies, books and especially music. I guess I'm too stupid to gets most of them.
I just get the feeling that he's trying to show off rather than actually tell a story. It's a shame because of a few of his characters are quite endearing, but the show-off-ed-ness really puts me off the book. I'm not sure if I'll finish it.
Very disappointing.
|
|
|
Post by Baz Faz on Jan 2, 2013 9:49:01 GMT 2
Someone gave us 50 Shades of Grey. It is taking me a long time to read. After about 5 minutes I find my eyelids drooping. It has taken 90 pages for her to lose her virginity. Is it going to get more interesting?
|
|
|
Post by Tilly Star on Jan 2, 2013 9:57:31 GMT 2
I'm reading Moranthology, a collection of Caitlin Moran's newspaper columns. I live her quite a bit, I'm laughing outloud and wondering how I can convince her we are long lost best friends and to run away to the pub with me.
|
|
|
Post by welle on Jan 2, 2013 10:04:23 GMT 2
It has taken 90 pages for her to lose her virginity. Is it going to get more interesting? That is quite a build up.
|
|
|
Post by gnd on Jan 2, 2013 10:18:19 GMT 2
I tried to read fast, stumbled over some of the words....and only read the first chapter (that still took about 20 minutes) and said I´d finish chapters when time. Kinda a shame though, as anyone who doesn´t know the series, only got a chapter of orphaned kids, orphaned babies, and the nan mentioning that Posie (forget her name) had better be clever, as she certainly was plain and unattractive! I piped in with my own comments there how we´re all beautiful and clever and loved.
The Christmas Tree, I read several chapters, but haven´t uploaded them all.
Reading OUT LOUD takes so much more time than reading silently too:(. I was hoping to start adding my vinyl (records) soon...fat chance that
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2013 10:22:01 GMT 2
Just finished The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - since it's about a disfunctional family's Christmas drama, it was very appropriate to read on the flights to and from my own Christmas drama.
|
|
|
Post by gnd on Jan 2, 2013 10:25:49 GMT 2
chuckle@140
Baz imho, having not read that book, but gathered internet reviews and excerpts instead, the most interesting was discussing it in one of my bookclubs. It was what we ended up discussing from the usual book discussion questions that was the most hilarious, interesting, entertaining---esp with a table full of bottles of wine, and about 40 women. We certainly learned a lot about each other that night,)
|
|
|
Post by Scrubb on Jan 2, 2013 19:11:32 GMT 2
I finished my Julia Child biography this morning - hadn't realized that 40% of the book was references and an index so it wasn't 1000 pages long afterall! (It's on kindle so it's not quite as easy to check as a real book would be.)
So then I started book 2 of the Hunger Games, but only got a few chapters into it before arriving at work. And I'm also in the middle of a book called Annabel (forget the author right now) which is quite good - set in a very small town in Labrador, a few decades ago.
|
|
|
Post by itsasmallworld1 on Jan 2, 2013 19:45:41 GMT 2
Did you like the J. Child book, Scrubb? I loved her 2 first books ( the ones that appeared 1 or 2 yrs ago)
|
|
|
Post by Scrubb on Jan 2, 2013 19:54:33 GMT 2
It was ok, itsa. I really like her, and enjoyed her memoirs "My Life in France" a lot, and also really liked a collection of her letters. This book filled in gaps and was fairly interesting, but in the first few chapters I found the style repetative and annoying. Then at the end he made some comments about her that didn't really have enough supporting material, or he didn't explain them well enough.
But if you're a JC fan it's probably worth reading. It's called "Dearie" and then something about "the amazing life of Julia Child" by Bob Spitz.
|
|
|
Post by Scrubb on Jan 4, 2013 2:48:57 GMT 2
Well, I finished book 2 while being unable to sleep last night and am a few chapters into book 3 (of the Hunger Games). I wasn't interested in reading them after the first one (though I did enjoy the first one, I just thought it told as much of the story as I cared about at the time), but I found the second one pretty ok.
I found out yesterday that my cousin has recently published a young adult book that is, well, startlingly similar in concept to the Hunger Games... I bought it out of a sense of family obligation (only $1.99 on kindle) and I am really impressed that she has gotten published; but I didn't particularly like her style in her previous 2 books (also young adult fiction but they were very gimmicky and more juvenile) and am worried that I'll feel like this book is just a rip off. But hopefully I'll like it!
It has really, really, really positive reviews on Amazon. None of the 3 reviewers have reviewed any other books though, and one of them is her sister and one is her BIL... ;-)
|
|
|
Post by Ria on Jan 4, 2013 3:07:43 GMT 2
Someone gave us 50 Shades of Grey. It is taking me a long time to read. After about 5 minutes I find my eyelids drooping. It has taken 90 pages for her to lose her virginity. Is it going to get more interesting? No it only gets worse and more repetitive and more REPETITIVE -it's written as by a teenager who never had sex. It's now my "anti" book by which I judge taste of others. If they like it - I won't listen to any of their recommendations because they clearly have absolutely no taste.
|
|
|
Post by tinier_dragon on Jan 4, 2013 3:07:50 GMT 2
i absolutely loved "ballet shoes" as a kid.
and i also loved "the hunger games." i kind of want to know what book it is that your cousin wrote...
|
|
|
Post by Ria on Jan 4, 2013 3:16:49 GMT 2
Since the last book thread I've read:
"Alice in deadland" - a different take on a zombie book which plays on Alice in wonderland. I enjoyed it.
"The round house" by Louise Erdrich came up on some "best of 2012" list. It's about a 13 year old native American boy whose mother gets attacked. It's simplistic yet a fascinating insight into their culture. I enjoyed it very much.
I really enjoyed another form the same "best of" list was "The devil in silver" by Victor LaValle. Pepper gets into a fight but instead of being taken to the police station he end up in a mental hospital instead for 72 hours' observation. Deserving of being there or not he's drugged up like everyone else and on the second night the 'devil' comes to visit. The story goes off a bit of tangent a bit which slowed the pace down and distracted from the story but it plays excellently on the fear of a sane person (or a person who thinks they are sane) getting trapped in a mental hospital. You know you should play along but...
|
|
|
Post by Ria on Jan 4, 2013 3:20:28 GMT 2
Hunger Game 1 was good - a kids version of "Battle Royale. The 2nd was a repeat of the 1st and the 3rd was just her whining and putting people in danger and playing on the feelings of the guys who for some unfathomable reason loves her. It made me wish the 1st one had ended differently...
----
How annoying - that was meant to be a quote on Scrubbs post.
|
|