Last Read: Catch Me If You Can, Stupid White Men, and Ender's Shadow (for the 3rd time!)

Next up: Les Miserables and Infinite Jest. (couple of 1000 page books to occupy my time for a while! :D)

"The Annotated Thursday" -- "The Man Who Was Thursday" annotated edition -- G.K. Chesterton

"The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante" -- Charles Williams

some other various quick scifi novels as well.

Tuan Jim

Just finished Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters. Just started Trainspotting.

Just finished Laurence Shames' Florida Straits. Since all of Shames' novels take place in Key West, I try to read at least one during the winter - it's a nice departure.

Next up, William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.

Fritz Lang; The Nature of the Beast, a biography

Reading after having seen Metropolis for the first time this weekend. It's pretty cool. He was a decorated officer, Lieutenant, in the Austrian army in WWI. I'm only a few chapters into it, heading into production on Dr. Mabuse, after which it's on to Metropolis. :up:

The Rubber Band by Rex Stout

I've been on a Nero Wolfe run as of late.

Awesome book!

Still readin' Lasher by Anne Rice. :)

Just finished Carter Beats the Devil, now i'm onto Fast Food Nation.

Road to Perdition

That's cool to see that people still read Stout. He's one of the greats. I read just about all of the Wolfe books some years ago and admired them greatly.

Agent 146...about a nazi spy who came into the US..true story!

Just this minute finished "Return of the King" which concludes the entire Fellowship for me, including "The Hobbit" before those. Sheeesh! How do I follow up with something half as worthy after reading that! Not that my eyes couldn't use a break.

Now you're ready for "Dune". Set aside the next coupla months.

Tuan Jim

Finished:
-Ghost Story by Peter Straub -- A pretty nice read. His style is very similar to Stephen King's. In fact, the book definitely seems like an homage to King's 'Salem's Lot (which is in turn an homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula). (And of course, the Chowder Society and the first story we hear from them is a reworking of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.) I wasn't thrilled with the ending of the story; it was sort of anticlimactic and maybe even a bit of a cop-out.
-The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson -- Why I never read this before, I'm not sure, since "The Lottery" is one of my favorite short stories. I couldn't get Lili Taylor and Catherine Zeta Jones out of my head when picturing Eleanor and Theo (why oh why did I ever watch that horrible movie?) but I do think they were well-cast for the parts at least. Anyway, great book. That first paragraph is a killer.
-A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett -- Many times over a reread. A personal favorite since I first read it in first or second grade. I got the urge to revisit it yet again after a conversation with a friend about Cinderella tales.

Working on:
-Catch-22 (still) -- This would be easier to get through if the book weren't literally falling apart in my hands. Still enjoying it though.
-Possession: A Romance (still) -- I just haven't been in the mood for something so dense.
-The English Patient -- Good so far, but it's another of those "right mood" books for me.
-The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum -- Eh. The plot is interesting, but I'm finding the writing only so-so, if that. I've had to resist making editor's marks in my book; namely "show, don't tell." It almost reads like Ludlum should have skipped the novel and gone straight to screenplay, with all the action and the background details laid out flat instead of worked into the narrative more.

Up next:
Not sure yet. Maybe Edith Wharton's House of Mirth. Or Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Finally got my own copy of Ender's Game so maybe I'll reread that. We'll see.

Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

This is my fifth one in the last two weeks. I finished it and I'm starting Some Buried Caesar tonight. I love Stout, but I have to admit that even though I was a classic mystery reader for many years I had always overlooked Stout. If not for the A&E TV version catching my attention I may have missed out on some great books.

This was my exact experience reading Animal Farm. I would read a page and then have it fall out. By the time I finished the book it was all over the place, but I loved every minute of reading it.

Currently reading two books by Kate Wilhelm (mysteries based in Oregon)

Next up is Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch. As I always do, I have to start with the first one chronologically. Is that important in this series?

Yes, definitely. I think (almost) every series should be read in order, but especially a detective series like this one. Following the growth and deterioration of Bosch is part of what makes the series so great.

alyxstarr, funny you should say that, I just purchased Ghost Story which is a part of the Stephen King Collection (Books he recommends). also in the series is Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

I definitely recommend KOKO by Peter Straub.

Those 2 books/stories are on my must read list.

I highly recommend you watch the original version of The Haunting. A much much better movie IMO.

I'm just finishing up Swan Song for the 2nd or 3rd time. Up next may be The Quake by Richard Laymon, or some other horror novel I picked up recently.

I agree, it really deserves The Criterion treatment. It does what a book turned movie rarely does which is to keep you in the charachter's head (so to speak). Also what's interesting is that in the original Haunting you never see a "Ghost" yet the movie really works the nerves continuously. The remake was overloaded with impressive but unnecessary effects.

Almost to the end of Byzantium by Stephen Lawhead. Fanstastic read so far, moves very quickly.

Finished some fantasy stuff recently. Last book in the Children of Amarid series by Coe. Think I mentioned it previously in one of these threads. Great worldbuilding; two continents attached by an Isthmus, one magic oriented, one technological. Liked the last book a bunch. Coe's take on Magic was refreshing, and fairly unique, as far as I know.

Read Pillars of Creation from the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Slow paced, repetitive, predictable, and does not feature any of the actual characters from the other books until the very end. Overall, not so great (I think the rest of the series is fantastic.)

Right now I'm concentrating on a book called, A Sideways Look at Time by Jay (something).

I'm reading two things right at the moment, both of them absolutely fascinating.

1) Reporting World War II - American Journalism 1938 - 1946. This Library of America publication collects in one trade paperback the best articles and essays from their two-volume hardcover set of source materials covering notable journalistic writing from the Second World War. Authors include Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle, E.B. White and Janet Flanner.

2) Form Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman. Recounts the experiences of New York Times reporter Friedman during his assignments in Beirut and later Jerusalem in the early '80s. It's a fascinating read and very hard to put down.