What Are You Reading?

[morgan]

Have a little trouble with Secret window.... (yes i'm also reading it for friday) don't know why yet.

I'm only about twenty pages in so far.

 

[Kurben]

I'm only about twenty pages in so far.

Then we are even!!

 

[muskrat]

Delta of Venus, Anais Nin.

Oh my, Ms. Nin! It takes a lot to make this muskrat blush, but hoo...is my face red! Fifty shades of what?

(What's even better, mine is a mint hard-backed first edition I snatched at Goodwill for a buck twenty-five!)

 

[skimom2]

Police procedurals can be tedious sometimes but i liked a lot of Mcbains 87th series. The Mother of the Police procedural. Another good series was Sjöwall/wahlöö Beck-novels about a police-group in Stockholm. Martin Beck is the main character just as Steve Carella is in McBain but they have others circling around them. Sadly the Beck novels lost focus after awhile and became very political in the last two books, The Police murderer (Copkiller?) and The Terrorists, so the message became more important than the story. That is never good for a books quality.

I have enjoyed Jo Nesbo's books, and a few Patricia Cornwells. Oh, and I really enjoyed Rowling's Galbraith books (do those count?). It's just not a genre in which I usually read I'll try most anything, though, if the story is good.

 

[Kurben]

I have enjoyed Jo Nesbo's books, and a few Patricia Cornwells. Oh, and I really enjoyed Rowling's Galbraith books (do those count?). It's just not a genre in which I usually read I'll try most anything, though, if the story is good.

The only Galbraith i read is The Cuckoos calling and that is a crimebook but not a police procedural. Nesbo are closer but the ones i have read are a bit too centered around Harry Hole. He is The Character, not the main Character. Cornwell... The books i have read from here have been very medical, a kind of medical detective thing. When i say police procedural it is the group that is important and the main character is just a part of that group and working with all of them but the others are aboard all the time and their actions and lifes are also described. But both Nesbo and cornwell have wriitten a lot of books i haven't read. They may be closer there.

 

[OldDarth]

Trigger Warnings by Neil Gaiman

Short story collections are like a buffet.

Some items you like, others you skip, and a few choice ones you stack your plate with.

Gaiman's collection here is very much in that vein. It's a varied collection. Chances are the ones I like, you won't and vice-versa. Some experimental stuff here too.

Overall, I'm glad I read it but at the end I felt slightly underfed.

 

[skimom2]

The only Galbraith i read is The Cuckoos calling and that is a crimebook but not a police procedural. Nesbo are closer but the ones i have read are a bit too centered around Harry Hole. He is The Character, not the main Character. Cornwell... The books i have read from here have been very medical, a kind of medical detective thing. When i say police procedural it is the group that is important and the main character is just a part of that group and working with all of them but the others are aboard all the time and their actions and lifes are also described. But both Nesbo and cornwell have wriitten a lot of books i haven't read. They may be closer there.

HAHA! That's how unfamiliar I am: I can't even define the genre I'm not much of a crime book reader. Walter and you have piqued my interest with the MacDonald books, though!

 

[skimom2]

Trigger Warnings by Neil Gaiman

Short story collections are like a buffet.

Some items you like, others you skip, and a few choice ones you stack your plate with.

Gaiman's collection here is very much in that vein. It's a varied collection. Chances are the ones I like, you won't and vice-versa. Some experimental stuff here too.

Overall, I'm glad I read it but at the end I felt slightly underfed.

That's how I felt after I read one of his other short story/poetry book, Smoke and Mirrors. Glad I read it, though I didn't like everything.

 

[kingricefan]

Just finished "The Voice of the Night" by Dean Koontz. What a great story.

Another book written under one of Koontz' non-de-plumes.

 

[kingricefan]

Delta of Venus, Anais Nin.

Oh my, Ms. Nin! It takes a lot to make this muskrat blush, but hoo...is my face red! Fifty shades of what?

(What's even better, mine is a mint hard-backed first edition I snatched at Goodwill for a buck twenty-five!)

Oh, Muskie, what a score on that book!!

 

[Kurben]

Delta of Venus, Anais Nin.

Oh my, Ms. Nin! It takes a lot to make this muskrat blush, but hoo...is my face red! Fifty shades of what?

(What's even better, mine is a mint hard-backed first edition I snatched at Goodwill for a buck twenty-five!)

Some parts of Henry Millers books are the same. (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Sexus, Plexus, Nexus). Not so strange that those two were friends.

 

[Blake]

Last night I read Strange( Dr. Strange), a six-part comic-book series published by Marvel. Artwork by Brandon Peterson. Written by Michael Straczynski and Samm Barnes.
Last night I finished The Neon Jungle. ( I like Inspector Rowell, with the clown face.)
Last night I read about 40 pages of Swan Song.

 

[TanyaS]

I love the above story. Stick with it, good fun. I just rented Pet Semetary on DVD. I am finding all the local DVD shops that have not yet shut down, are selling off their backlists, and it's really hard to find the King canon such as Cujo and Christine etc. It's all the most recent horrors instead, and honestly, many of them are nothing more than dreadful bloodbaths but with no suspense!! Sorry, I was responding to the comment re Secret Window a few comments above.

 

[Blake]

I also forgot. I was up at the second-hand book store in Beaumont Street and I was looking in the 'spooks' section, and there was a book called Haunted Maine by a man named Stansfield( I think?). I read one chapter- I haven't got the book with me at the moment- but it was something like 'Are seagulls the ghosts of dead seaman?' Now, my father was a Merchant Seaman, but I can't remember him saying anything about that. So, I'm thinking this might be a Maine/New England superstition, when seamanship was a very important thing in society.

 

[TanyaS]

I also forgot. I was up at the second-hand book store in Beaumont Street and I was looking in the 'spooks' section, and there was a book called Haunted Maine by a man named Stansfield( I think?). I read one chapter- I haven't got the book with me at the moment- but it was something like 'Are seagulls the ghosts of dead seaman?' Now, my father was a Merchant Seaman, but I can't remember him saying anything about that. So, I'm thinking this might be a Maine/New England superstition, when seamanship was a very important thing in society.

Are you a Mainer? (is that the right term?) just wondered..

 

[Blake]

Are you a Mainer? (is that the right term?) just wondered..

I was born at Paddington Women's Hospital in Sydney, Australia. I'm Australian, but my father was Swedish. My mother is seventh-generation Australian of English/Irish/German/Scottish ancestry. On my father's side, he told me there are quite a few relatives in America-obviously, especially in Minnesota- but other places like North Dakota, Wyoming and on the East Coast. I think my father was up in Aroostook( which is in the north of Maine) in about 1953, visiting some people( cousins, I think). I'm just interested in stuff like that. I was reading a little publication I got from the Salvation Army called Shocking Somerset Stories(Somerset in England), about stuff that went on there from about 200 years ago. The Dally's( my mother's maiden name) migrated from Taunton, Somerset, England, in 1834, and settled in Launceston, Tasmania.

 

[muskrat]

Trigger Warnings by Neil Gaiman

Short story collections are like a buffet.

Some items you like, others you skip, and a few choice ones you stack your plate with.

Gaiman's collection here is very much in that vein. It's a varied collection. Chances are the ones I like, you won't and vice-versa. Some experimental stuff here too.

Overall, I'm glad I read it but at the end I felt slightly underfed.

That's how I felt about American Gods. Kept thinking, Man, I should like this--hell, I loved his Sandman comics--but I just don't. Then it hit me: Gaiman's a comic writer trying to do novels, and just doesn't quite know how. Without the pretty pictures, his stuff falls flat.

 

[skimom2]

I SHOULD have been reading a book for review... but I opened They Thirst anyway Forced myself to quit after the first chapter--I really do have to read the other book--but what I read was cracking good!

 

[skimom2]

That's how I felt about American Gods. Kept thinking, Man, I should like this--hell, I loved his Sandman comics--but I just don't. Then it hit me: Gaiman's a comic writer trying to do novels, and just doesn't quite know how. Without the pretty pictures, his stuff falls flat.

I like his novels fine, but the one that stood out for me was The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Whether you like the story or not (and I did), the construction was a thing of beauty. As an editor, I couldn't see a damn thing that should have been changed--not a scene, a word, or a comma--and as a writer I writhe with envy.

 

[Kurben]

I SHOULD have been reading a book for review... but I opened They Thirst anyway Forced myself to quit after the first chapter--I really do have to read the other book--but what I read was cracking good!

It does make good company. A bunch of vampires in LA.......