pontalba

Brian, glad you like it. There are a few more that are not on the list that I have and would recommend. Last Days of Last Island by Bill Dixon and The Last Madam: A Life In The New Orleans Underworld by Chris Wiltz. Julie, while it's true Southerners can spin a yarn, for example William Faulkner comes to mind, there are others that are more my favorites, non-Southerners. Vladimir Nabokov and John Banville especially come to mind. I didn't become interested in Southern writers till a few years ago, I was actually kind of prejudiced against them. Dumb, yeah, dumb. I've, thankfully, overcome that and truly enjoy them now. In fact I just finished The Bayou Trilogy, (see review on my thread) and really enjoyed it. Although I don't know that "enjoyed" is actually the correct adjective. lol

After my just finished The Bayou Trilogy I think I need a pick-me-up. Will begin Dick Francis's Bloodline by Felix Francis this afternoon I think.

Well written, The Bayou Trilogy will haunt you with it's lushness, it's depravity and it's total handle on realism. Noir in a sense, but more. The three stories Under the Bright Lights, Muscle For the Wing and The Ones You Do reverberate with the atmosphere of the Louisiana Bayou. They follow the Shade family, first focusing on two of the three sons Rene Shade and his brother Tip, the former a police detective, the latter the owner, continue(er) of paternal family tradition, a barkeep/pool hall owner. The third, youngest, of the brothers Francois (Frankie) is a lawyer, part of the local D.A.'s office. The first two of the Trilogy focus on the sons, the third zeroes in on their wayward, deserting father, John X(avier) Shade. Pool hustler extraordinaire, now eaten up with booze and who knows for sure what else. Their moral struggles, and decisions are what drives these books, although not exactly in the manner you'd think. Recommended, but not for the squeamish.

I found an article that I thought might be of interest to some. I have a couple of the books already, but will be purchasing more. http://www.nola.com/books/index.ssf/2012/12/top_ten_books_of_2012_for_fans.html#cmpid=nwsltrhead New Orleans is such an interesting, different sort of city for so many reasons. I'm enjoying exploring it myself.

As I mentioned before, we have the basic, older kindles with adverts. I don't really know how many books I have on it, probably around 100(ish). But 90% of them are freebies or 2.99USD types. Today though I ran across this article on the L.A. Times, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20121223,0,1032270.column It gives one pause.

Congratulations Julie!! I saw the new Downton book at the B&N and wondered about it. Thanks for the rec.

Poppy, I have never been a fan of circus's either. I hated seeing the animals in cages, penned and baited like that even when I was a kid. Hence we never went to the circus that came to town. But this is something totally different as you note. No animal acts at all. These guys are absolutely fearless. wow

Even better, their heads. It'd at least shut them up.

I'm reading The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell at the moment, just finished the first one (Under the Bright Lights). A quote on the cover compares his writing to Cormac McCarthy, but I'd really have to say......maybe. I found him more comparable to James Lee Burke. I will say that sometimes though I find Woodrell's prose a little overblown. Now I'd never say that about Burke or McCarthy. What is the difference? Beats me. It's just the vibes.

Muggle, I'm sorry to hear about your wife's BIL. You can be sure everyone understands why y'all cannot attend the funeral. No one wants an accident, and driving in a snow storm in the mountains has to rank as one of the most dangerous undertakings around. I read about all the snow coming across the country. We are even getting freezing weather down here, no snow yet though! The family will know they are in your thoughts and prayers, and that certainly counts. We made a quickie trip to a town near here, only 40 minutes to our west today, shopped around. Typical small town stuff. Verra nice, shops. They have a theatre as well, attached to the university there. Last week we attended a performance of Cirque Chinois, a fantastic circus troop that is on the lines of Cirque du Soleil. Gorgeous costumes, colors, and amazing acts.

We were like kids in a candy store! The whole trip was like a dream come true for me, both of us really. My husband has travelled a lot, but always for business. That was before he retired of course, and before we were married. So, it was different for him, and totally new for me. Re The Slap, boy is it ever controversial! Somehow the author shows all sides though, and at different times makes the reader feel sympathy for everyone, on all sides of the event. The aftermath is so........I don't know.....convoluted, and the layers of the characters motivations are well explored. I really had some strong feelings for some of them. Both good and bad feelings! That takes a good author, or at least one that understands human nature, and all it's complexities. Re VW...no, I have not read the play. I can't seem to wrap my head around reading a play, it just gets on my nerves. I suppose it's because of all the interjected stage direction. But I had seen the film many years ago. lol The day after we got home we watched the Taylor/Burton DVD, I'd had it on the shelf for a while. It was of course, a little different, after all.......Taylor! Burton! Segal! heh and the girl that played Honey in the film was fantastic. Can't think of her name.....she nailed it. But the Broadway play was truly fantastic. Just the experience itself. The actors were all excellent. I thought they all were good, the only one I had a bit of a "ennh" with was the girl that played Honey.....I found her to be too shrill and not a credible drunk. But she was ok.

It really was Julie, me who'd never gone anywhere.....I was like a kid in a candy store.

Come on over Kylie!! You'd love it. Come in October, that's when the annual State Department Book Fair is held, two weekends in a row. Of course I've seen adverts for Book Fairs in NYC too. Here is a link to one of our Library Thing accounts. http://www.libraryth...atalog/booknest I think you'll get the WDC/State Dept list. You can check out all the WDC and NYC lists. I've never actually counted.......lol AIE: Ok, I counted. We bought 72 books on our trip all together.

I loved D.C! and NYC too. Charles was a little worried because I ordinarily don't like crowds. But they didn't bother me in either city, they were not pushy or drunk like they are in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I suppose that is part of what I'd based my dislike on in the past. Totally different crowd. Totally. We saw a Broadway play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, fantastic. After the play we wandered around Times Square...midnight, mind you. The air was actually electric, the vibes great. You know there were actually workman painting up on scaffolding! At midnight. Man, that's my kind of town! I'm such a night owl, it's perfect for me. We went to the annual book sale at the State Department in W.D.C, and shipped back two cartons of books. lol In NYC we went to The Strand Book store...ohhhhh! Loverly. http://www.strandbooks.com/ They have the basement, and three floors of books. Stuffed with all kinds of bargains! /drooling/ We only shipped one box of books from them. And Grand Central Terminal! It has so much stuff there, shops, eating places and a book store. You know what we did there! lol A girl almost gave me a heart attack though at the Empire State Building......she was holding her iPad out through the grill work so as to get an unobstructed picture of the city......oy. I could almost see it slipping out of her hands. In both cities we walked, walked and then walked some more. The Metro in D.C., and the subway in NYC. Wow, what an experience! Part of what is so fascinating to me is all the underground building up there. Heck, down here if one digs like that, or even 6 feet sometimes, we hit water. This here is swamp, baby!

The other night we went to see the new version of Red Dawn, it was familiar, and I knew I'd seen the original film some years ago. Well, we checked Amazon, and sure enough it was free streaming for us, so we watched the 1984 version with Patrick Swayze. The same night, just for clarity's sake. Wow. The original, made in 1984 was so much more realistic than the new version. IF something like that had happened I mean. Realism is in the eye of the beholder many times, so take that term as you wish. The new one was almost an "air-brushed" version of the old. Oh, yes, it had it's rousing moments, and some good performances, but still, the sequence and timing of the events was just too fast and too pat for me. Last night we watched, at home, Purple Noon. It's based on Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. They changed so much, it wasn't even that close. Alain Delon was so young, I think it was his first major role. He is the one that Highsmith reportedly liked as Ripley, but for me he didn't really catch the "bumblyness" of Tom Ripley. Just me I suppose.

Phew! Running stop...! Hey Julie, Yup, we managed a 10 day trip to Washington, D.C., and New York City in October, no sooner than we'd gotten home I broke a bone on my right foot. Couldn't drive for 6 weeks! grrrrr! I still can't manage very high heels for another few weeks. Darn it. No, I had on sensible shoes when I twisted my foot right off a curb getting out of the hotel shuttle to pick up our car. Yikes. As I mentioned above, we drove over to Fairhope, Al. to the Oliver North book signing, and on the way back stopped in Biloxi, Ms, for a show at the Hard Rock Casino, they had the Irish Tenors for one night. They were good, but I felt they didn't actually live up to the hype. Oh well, it was fun anyhow. We've taken several overnights down in New Orleans to sight see my home town. My husband, Charles is from NYC, so it's all new to him. In all his travelling, he'd never been to N.O. I've gotten some reading done though, and we had one of his (grown) children visiting us for almost a week. He has great kids. How are you getting along? You know, I've been looking at the Kindle Fire.....just can't make up my mind to it yet.

Verra cool lists Julie! Inventive and interesting, love the ideas!

Hey Julie, will respond separately, don't want to lose this page again...! lol Since October I've read some, my list at the beginning of the thread is updated now. Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino is part of a series by this famous Japanese author. The first one was The Devotion of Suspect X, I have a very favorable review of that one up the thread. This entry was not quite as twisty, but was extremely well done, and perhaps a bit more conventional. The method and reasoning for the murder is certainly different, to say the least. And, I think, most Japanese. Recommended. The Twelve is another sequel, this time to Justin Cronin's The Passage. Vampires with a man-made twist. With many of the ends tied up from the first book, many more are left hanging. Some stories were carried a bit far, and others truncated, at least to my taste. But it is a worthy sequel, all in all. Recommended. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan was a Man-Booker finalist a couple of years ago, and it had been sitting on my shelf that long. I finally pulled it out of guilt. The story of several black jazz musicians, circa 1939 in Berlin. Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time! Especially as one of the fellows is actually German, he is second in line to be carted off to the camps. The story covers what happens to him as the story moves to Paris, the United States, and Poland at different times. The story is told by one of the group, so we know at least two of the guys made it out, and wonder at the rest. Were they betrayed? Who survives? The first half of the book kinda dragged, but the last half really picked up to a resounding and interesting ending. Recommended. The two Lawrence Block stories, A Walk Among the Tombstones and The Devil Knows You're Dead are vintage Matt Scudder. Block is noir with humanity. 'nuff said. Good stuff. Recommended. Vengeance by Benjamin Black aka John Banville is, as usual, IMO anyhow, wonderful. We get to know more and more about the circa 1950 Irish coroner, Quirke. The mystery is not the hottest, sexiest, or even very twisty......but the writing, oh, the writing! Highly Recommended. The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny is the latest of her French/Canadian mysteries. The mystery is, to me, somewhat lukewarm, but well written, and again we get to know more and more about the regular characters, although what Penny does with one of the main characters, is to me, a great disappointment. Unrealistic in the extreme, and actually out of character. But that's me. My 4 stars is more for the prose itself. Luke warm recommendation. Cat Bearing Gifts by Shirley Rousseau Murphey is the latest installment in the wonderful Joe Grey, feline, oh, yes, and talking detective. I love Joe Grey. Just love him. Smart aleck alley cat. I know and have cats like him, and I do wish they could talk. What conversations we'd have! lol The mystery is a good one, and the character development is excellent. Cozy? Yup! Recommended. Cold in the Light by Charles Gramlich is an excellent military/science fiction/alien story. Interesting premise in that the aliens are here, and have been for centuries, in fact......they might precede us on this lil ole blue marble we call home. Fast paced and accurate as far as the terminology of guns and explosives. Recommended. In the interest of full disclosure, Gramlich leads the writing group we used to attend, and man can he write! Heroes Proved by Oliver North. Yes, that's the famous Lt. Col. Oliver North. He paints a picture of our future that is rather scary, and all the more so because of it's plausibility. His prose could use a little work, but the message is valid. We actually went to a book signing of his in Fairhope, Alabama. That's about a 3 hour drive for us, we stayed over a few days and played tourist. He is every inch the gentleman, gracious and sweet. We were told ahead of time that he wouldn't be able to personalize the autographs, but he changed that, and personalized everyone's book. It was a verra long line! Recommended. The Man Who Never Retuned by Peter Quinn is a fictionalized account of a Federal Judge, Joseph Crater that disappeared, never to be seen again in August of 1930. The book takes place in 1955, and "solves" the case. Well, it could have happened that way. We will never know, more than likely. Quinn presents a credible solution though, a bit twisty and solid. The first half is slow, setup, but when it takes off, phew! It goes like lightening. Recommended. And, last but not least.....Wild Thing by Josh Bazell, another sequel. This time our ex-mafia, recent medical school grad, that happens to be in the Witness Protection Program is on the run again. People are trying to kill him! Imagine that. Of course he runs into a scam.....or is it?, of the Loch Ness-like monster in a frozen(ish) lake. Exciting. Not, I repeat, NOT for the faint of heart, or squeemish, or those that do not wish to read vulgar words. However, the verra twisted, and highly cynical sense of humor rescues it for me. Recommended, with caveat above. Thass all for now folks. Happy to be here, happy to be back. /waving/

It was difficult to actually like any of them I thought. I suppose I liked the Greek parents best of all. The thing I enjoyed the most about The Slap was the explanations of the ins and outs of their families and heritages. The prejudices of all of them were fascinating to follow for me. It was rather up and down though, I agree. I'd love to see the series, but so far I haven't been able to find it in a U.S. dvd version.

Thanks emelee. Everyone is still in shock. I must add that we didn't really know the daughter, except from what her mother and another friend told us. (she lived across the lake, down in N.O.) Our mutual friend found the note, and called emergency services (911 here) and called us. We stayed with her throughout the evening and night. Fortunately the note she found said what happened, and she didn't have to actually see what happened. /shiver/

I'm still pretty much in a holding pattern. I've been very spotty in exercising lately. One thing after the other interferes. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! lol

LOL Now, if only I had some sort of orgainzation! Trouble is that since we've combined our books, I don't know where much of anything is anymore!