Books moral and immoral

[Prancer]

I haven't read that series - I tend to stay away from the food-based series just because I don't cook and I'm not that ineterested in the recipes the authors add ad accents to the stories.

I don't think there are any recipes in this one, although it wouldn't surprise me to find some tucked away somewhere. The gimmick with this one seems to be nutrition labels--every chapter has a (fake) junk food title and a nutrition label to match

To me, almost all of those theme-based mysteries are the adult substitute for the Nancy Drew books we read as kids. So far the only author I've really liked in the cozy genre is Elaine Viets. Donna Andrews was okay and I currently like Kate Carlisle. And even those I rarely pick up new and instead scarf them up at yard and library sales or on the swap site.

Yes, I agree; they're usually so formulaic that there's no point in reading them, but every now and then I turn up one I kind of like. I think this one is going back to the library, though. I can't get interested enough to tap the screen for it, which is about as indifferent as a person can get.

[LilJen]

Hubby gave me All Roads Lead to Austen: A Year-Long Journey with Jane for our anniversary. Story of an English prof who conducts reading groups on Austen in several Central & South American countries, out of her curiosity of how Austen would translate for those cultures. Really interesting!

[Spinner]

Two words: THIS. BOOK. Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists.

[PrincessLeppard]

I'm reading a zombie novel, Rot & Ruin. I like it.

[Spinner]

I'm reading a zombie novel, Rot & Ruin. I like it.

You would enjoy reading a cereal box as long as there was a mention of zombies.

[Michalle]

I read a Maigret novel, "The Hotel Majestic," based on earlier recs in this thread. Really enjoyed it. I thought it had interesting commentary on class in (I think France?) at the time, without being unfair to the wealthier characters or turning them into caricatures (at least not all the way through... they sort of start out that way but then you find out more about them). It definitely made me want to read more & to check out his more supposedly "literary" books as well.

[zaphyre14]

I'm into the final episode in Kasey Michael's Beck saga, "Becket's Last Stand" and not really liking either of the main characters. Cassandra's a flighty twit, Court's stodgy and boring so of course, they're meant foreach other, assuming that both survive the Impending Catastrophe that will either make or reak the Family. A tad too melodramatic, even for a popular historical.

I'll do something contemporary and gory next, I think, to cleanse my mental palate.

[RomyNL]

Two words: THIS. BOOK. Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists.

I thought it was brilliant too

I'm reading now The Song of Achilles

[Impromptu]

I'm into the final episode in Kasey Michael's Beck saga, "Becket's Last Stand" and not really liking either of the main characters. Cassandra's a flighty twit, Court's stodgy and boring so of course, they're meant foreach other, assuming that both survive the Impending Catastrophe that will either make or reak the Family. A tad too melodramatic, even for a popular historical.

I used to really love Kasey Michaels, but I can't remember the last time I enjoyed one of her books (unless I was pulling an older comedy of hers off my shelf). If you like comic historicals, you might want to look into Maya Rodale's "Writing Girls" series. I think the first 3 are only .99 cent downloads (at BN.com, not sure about Amazon).

[star_gazer11]

Hubby gave me All Roads Lead to Austen: A Year-Long Journey with Jane for our anniversary. Story of an English prof who conducts reading groups on Austen in several Central & South American countries, out of her curiosity of how Austen would translate for those cultures. Really interesting!

Ooh, I forgot this was a kindle freebie a while back. I'll have to bump it up on the TBR list.

[Spinner]

I thought it was brilliant too

2 days later and I'm still thinking about it! Chapter 16 (where Tatsuji recounted his past as a kamikaze pilot) had me SOBBING at the end.

[flyingsit]

Has anyone else read The Dog Stars? I finished it last week and I'm still not quite sure if I would recommend it or not.

On the other hand, The Good Father is definitely worth reading.

[Evilynn]

I'm ever so slowly getting the hang of Brandon Sanderson's version of WOT. He seems to do some characters better than others, but some things are still really jarring. Meanwhile I read Jim Hines's Libriomancer, good UF fluff for SFF geeks (sort of like the Dresden Files with libraries and without (most of) the low level sexism that means I can't read too many Dresden Files books in a row without getting a high BP), and I'm reading a Swedish slasher novel on the side, but it's too early to tell if it's kinda good or if it'll get really, really bad.

[danceronice]

I'm reading "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. THIS time, I got a lot farther, and I am actually going to finish it. It does help to keep Cassell's Latin dictionary to hand. (If you've seen the movie...they edited out about 80% of the book. Most of which you really would probably have to have a PhD in Medieval theology to appreciate fully. I'm enjoying it anyway. Though I'm not sure I'll be up to following it with "Foucoult's Pendulum.") It's kind of brilliant (I'm sure I don't appreciate how much so as my Latin is crap and I do NOT have a PhD in Medieval theology.)

I suspect I may have to give up on "Moby-Dick", though. I wanted to read it just to say I had, but I begin to default to my original suspicion that not even Herman Melville read it.

When I'm done, back to Lord Peter Wimsey. I'm trying to read all the ones I haven't read, meaning pretty much everything that doesn't include Harriet Vane and isn't "The Nine Tailors" or "Clouds of Witness." I bogged down in "Murder Must Advertise" and "The Name of the Rose" is my mental break.

Yeah.

[emason]

I'm half-way through Moby-Dick as my M-D discussion class is at the halfway point. I think M-D is one of the most interesting, amazing, brilliant, flawed books I have ever read. By the time I am finished with the book I think I will agree with those who think it is THE great American novel of the 19th century, if not THE great American novel, period.

[Prancer]

I read The Name of the Rose a long time ago, so my memory is a little hazy on it, but I remember it being far easier to read than Foucault's Pendulum, which often seemed like the longest book I ever tried to read.

I read Moby-Dick several years ago, too, and my memory on it is a little hazy as well, but aside from a few chapters, I liked Moby-Dick and didn't struggle with it at all. I understand why people consider it boring, but I thought most of it was interesting.

I just downloaded The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I don't know why I hadn't heard of this book before, but it sounds right up my word geek alley. If nothing else, I hope to learn lots of words to play in WWF .

[Evilynn]

I read The Name of the Rose a long time ago, so my memory is a little hazy on it, but I remember it being far easier to read than Foucault's Pendulum, which often seemed like the longest book I ever tried to read.

I really enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum, but it was not the quickest read, no. I still need to read The Name of the Rose though.

I'm taking a break from WOT to read Mikael Niemi's new novel Fallvatten (a disaster novel set in the part of the country where I grew up). He won the Swedish equivalent of the Booker prize for his book Popular Music From Vittula, so the writing should hopefully be good.

[danceronice]

I really enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum, but it was not the quickest read, no. I still need to read The Name of the Rose though.

Get a Latin dictionary. It will make some bits more understandable (you don't NEED them necessarily, but it makes it better.) I'm still debating on Foucault's Pendulum, though. Maybe I'll read How to Travel with a Salmon first, or whatever that nonfiction essay book we have of Eco's is called (it does involve how to store a salmon in a hotel room, though...um, a dead salmon. I think...)

I just cannot get into Moby-Dick. I mean, at least I finished Hawthorne (Blithedale Romance), even if I wanted to throw it at the wall because of the utterly lame "big reveal" at the end that would only be surprising if you hadn't actually read the rest of the book while also being over the age of eight. But I am about ready to scream for something to happen, and I can't get past the whole "Melville was gay" thing because when you read it thinking about that, some of it is just funny in ways I'm not sure he intended it to be. I have to take another crack at Emerson, too, who is more readable than I thought while living in Mass (though he could still have learned a lot about condensing ideas. I begin to think my problem is not the books themselves but nineteenth-century florid style tropes...Eco is COMPLEX, but he's not flowery for the sake of it.)

Also picking at "Clarkson on Cars", some of which I'm sure would be even funnier if I were British.

[oleada]

I couldn't make it through THE Name of the Rose in high school... Boooring! I feel like big I'm not grabbed quickly enough not worth my time.

I am reading a book on SNL now, which I found for cheap at a Thrift Store. Considering the amount of drugs done, it's a surprise more of them haven't had tragic endings...

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[gkelly]

I couldn't make it through THE Name of the Rose in high school... Boooring! I feel like big I'm not grabbed quickly enough not worth my time.

Eco wrote in the Postscript:

But there was another reason for including those long didactic
passages. After reading the manuscript, my friends and editors
suggested I abbreviate the first hundred pages, which they found
very difficult and demanding. Without thinking twice, I refused,
because, as I insisted, if somebody wanted to enter the abbey and
live there for seven days, he had to accept the abbey's own pace. If
he could not, he would never manage to read the whole book.
Therefore those first hundred pages are like a penance or an
initiation, and if someone does not like them, so much the for worse
for him. He can stay at the foot of the hill.

Of course, he can't force you to read those pages. You could try skipping them and see if the second hundred pages draw you in.