wrathofkublakhan

Ew, indeed, lol. This reminds me of my Bible which has a great solution. It's a red ribbon sewn into the binding so you can't lose it. I wish all books had the convenience of this handy solution.

Just finished three minutes ago: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini The book was a rough ride from start to finish. Last night I was on page 260 and I wondered if I could finish it. Finish I did, just moments ago. Like I said, rough ride from start to finish. Next Five On The Pile: The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri The 'person of dubious parentage' by John Jakes Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence (July Reading Circle) Dracula by Bram Stoker (Comparative Reading Circle) Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu (Comparative Reading Circle) Recently Finished: Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo Maximum Ride - The Angel Experiment by James Patterson Maximum Ride - School's Out Forever by James Patterson Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich

I totally agree. A hint or clue about what is going on is always helpful. But, I'll stick to my guns and state that "a novel" on the cover only pads the author's ego, it tells us: the buyer, nothing of value. Did Agatha Christie get "a mystery" on her books? How about Asimov, "a science fiction." I just don't understand why "a novel" exists on a cover - I promise I won't confuse with The Dummies Guide to Internet Sweepstakes.

I sometimes read at stop lights, often in a restaurant and occasionally in the park. Mostly I read in my chair with the television on, tuned to a familiar show - a rerun of M*A*S*H, Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption: some type of fare that is easily ignored but still has some good parts. That's how I found I liked Hannah Montana because the Disney Channel is only background noise with nary a bit of value; ideal for reading - until she came along. This show is great. Once upon a time, I'd read with the radio on or a cd playing - but it just accents just how empty this freaking apartment is with just me and an old cat rattling about. Worse is total silence and hearing the clicking of the clock - I swear someday I'll just tear the batteries out of those clocks. My mom gave me a clock within which a different bird chirps on the hour -- it's long gone, let me assure you. *in pajamas *left hand holding book *89% paperbacks *snacks - cookies, candy, chips (right hand) *the chair can recline, but it can settle in between also *I get restless after about an hour and jump online to read the Book Club Forum or check my e-mail, then back into the action. As you can see, I read with ... style!

RIP, indeed ... a true icon.

It's been fun watching everyone chime in on horror, fantasy, mystery and the rest. -------------- My problem with novels is that I'm tired of the "clever novel." I hope to not see any more bears on unicycles, girls with big thumbs, girls shouting "arp, arp, arp", rest stops in America, carrying in a dead duck to a faculty meeting, etc. I think of them as plausible situations to make an unusual circumstance; and this just feels like these authors all attended the same prep school creative writing class. My second problem is why do they have to print "a novel" on the cover? Does anyone else feel that's just pretentious? When I write my Great Novel - The Adventures of Wrath in the Book Club Forum where I describe meeting all these wacky characters, I won't let them print "a novel" on the cover -- because I am not pretentious!

I think I'm going to be ill, it feels like someone just punched me in the stomach and stole seven dollars out of my pocket. He's not writing his own stuff? Eff him, last book I'll buy by him -- Max Ride be damned.

Couldn't resist -- saw Maximum Ride - School's Out today in the bookstore. Bought and read it in one sitting (a mere 400 pages). It's a great series if you like quick action packed reading. The chapters are super short, sometimes only two pages; so it's designed for a fast pace. I dunno if the next one is out, but when it arrives or if it's out already it'll go to the top of my TBR pile! Zoom!

Awesome -- maybe a nice critique when you get home?

Zorro was pretty awesome. I was amazed to find that the author was commissioned to write this book - is this a common thing? The book is a good read, sort of a "how Zorro became Zorro" with plenty of history and political and world description of the time. The cover for my book was beautiful and was one of the reasons I bought it. I see other titles listed in this thread, perhaps I'll have to go a-hunting.

It sure is a beautifully packaged book, isn't it? I love it when books are designed with layered covers! I was in Instant Message one time and a friend dropped Defying Gravity on me. I heard this show-stopper and knew I had to find out more about the musical ...and finally the book. The books was good and so wonderfully ... odd. It is brilliant in that it takes a familiar premise (story? idea? relationship?) and goes oh-so counter to what one would expect. My expectation was that I'd find the author to be clever and discovered he was much more that just that - fairly remarkable, in my opinion. And ... if you are a fan of this crazy Business we call Show: invest in the soundtrack and then go catch a bit of wonderful theater. We all have the broader context of the Wiz of Oz to draw upon, I believe. Totally different from the tone of the book, trust me - it'll be fun.

That's pretty damn funny, "fresh blood for the taking!" Ah-hahaha! Of course, we all know one doesn't learn the rules until after the deed is done. It's like The Rule. I loved reading Interview with a Vampire. The book was given to me by a friend who said that I must read this book. Several times throughout the week, he'd call me ask where I was in the book and we'd talk about what was going on. That made it extra fun. I think it was my first vampire book where vamps are real characters and not just a scary band of monsters chasing my hero. Since then, of course, I've read many and now look forward to dabbling in our Comparative Reading Circle with two vintage books - Carmilla and Dracula. One of the things that really stood out to me in Interview was Anne Rice's writing style using description. I was enchanted by our new vamp's enhanced vision and how he'd get lost in the detail of a leaf or the fold of some fabric or some light-play on skin - reminded me very much of my (cough) experimental early years, if you get my drift. The series was ... fun. I think Anne may have gotten caught up in the popularity of the series (and now a franchise) and perhaps spread it out a bit much; my favorite sections were when Lestat was calling out the ancient vamps who'd been hiding for decades or centuries and bringing them recklessly into the modern world. The jumps back to hear their stories of living and surviving in different eras was pleasant and fun. The theme of Artist and Theater with the vamps that runs through many of the stories appealed to me on many levels. And, yeah - while I was reading them, I thought to myself, "I'd love to be a vampire!"

Weeeeee. What a ride. I just finished picking up and reading Maximum Ride, the Angel Experiment last weekend and read it zoom-quick. It was so much fun. Looks like I'll need to get School's Out next. I read Ender's Shadow many years ago and it has the idea of genetically messing with children and it's consequences. In it, Bean (like Max) escaped from the lab very young. What I like about Maximum Ride at this moment is that their powers are evolving and they discover new ones, there is fear and peril in that they might simply reach then end of some cycle and die and, finally - they are kids on the run who can make it on their own against all the odds. I was so glad for Max to meet the kind doctor and her daughter and to eat home-made chocolate chip cookies made from scratch. Then to see Max sort of transfer that good experience to cookies later in the book. I think ALL books that have a hero on the run from a Large Organization should (and almost always do) find some brief respite with a neutral kind figure; be it a hermit in a cave, a loner in a cabin, a blind guy or gal in the city - it happens a lot in books and it's my favorite part because our guy gets to rest and realize he's not universally despised or hunted and that there may be some good in the world*. *longest run on sentence ever.

Thanks to this forum, I'll be starting The Kite Runner soon. Some of the motivation is that there is a new book by the author (thousand splendid suns, I believe) and I wanted to read the first before the second. My instinct tells me that this is a novel that popped up unexpected, maybe it's his first work, and then people began talking about it and it got popular. I don't know, lol. But, I'll be on that journey very soon.

Just finished three minutes ago: Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock Next Five On The Pile: The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri The 'person of dubious parentage' by John Jakes Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence (July Reading Circle) Finished Maximum Ride, Lean Mean Thirteen and Dairy Queen in the last four days - not difficult books, all good reads and I'm just tearing through them. It's awesome. I just finished Dairy Queen. It felt so good to finish it I hopped right up to write about it in this forum. I read it almost in one sitting, short break for dinner, y'know. It's what they call a "coming of age" story, which I guess means first kiss or first boyfriend; I'm not sure. This story is about DJ, a sixteen year old girl who's family owns a dairy farm. Her father just hurt his hip, her mom works two jobs and her younger brother is playing little league baseball. This means she....has...to do ...all...of the .... work. Her father's good friend is the coach of the cross town rival high school football team who sends his star quarterback to her for training - football training which includes haying, milking cows and working out. Over the summer she learns her best friend is really a lesbian who loves her, her younger brother wants to be a dentist, her mom would really rather be at work and that her father is learning to love being the cook in the house. She also realizes she is falling in love (in a non-harlequin way, tyvm) with the star quarterback of the cross-town rival AND that she wants to play football as well. It's a mess! And ... it all works out in the end. Sigh ... what a nice little story.

Just finished it five minutes ago - it somehow got bumped to the top of my TBR pile and I zoomed through it; such an easy read, such a fun read! It IS just out, so I bought a hard bound copy -- my arm is killing me from holding that sucker up: and it was a slim volume. Give me a paperback any day!

Story Time: When I was a little boy (oh, around 1962 I'd guess), I visited my Aunt and Uncle. To my eyes they were very old. To keep me occupied while the adults chatted, I got sat down to a scrapbook. One of them had painstakingly cut out each Lil Abner comic out of the newspaper every day and taped it to a scrapbook! I got to read three years (as I recall) of this comic strip all in one sitting! How cool is that? This is way before collections (we are so spoiled). I believe that I read Little Orphan Annie and Pogo also, though Pogo was kinda hard to follow. They were the episodic strips where stories were told over an arc of time. Way fun.

That's right! I forgot about those kinds o' books! I love all those "world record" books and even the "book of lists" and "ten greatest hoaxes" and all that jazz. Fun stuff to pick up and glance through.

I'm a-guessing your response is more entertaining than the book, it's hilarious! Ha-ha-ha ... drivel indeed, well said Andy!

Well, "beyond the fiction" you might find me reading The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance - I think the title speaks for itself. I read some on Art History as well, specifically the Futurists and Dada because those guys were nuts - it blows me away that Picasso was designing for dance. Stuff like this trips me out:

Are the Reading Circle nominations for August open yet? Rarely do I see an entire thread where e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y is excited about a new book coming out.

Don't you just HATE that? I think any book should be clearly labeled - "book two in the So-and-So trilogy" or some such help. Even looking inside the cover, the order of books published by an author should give a chronology of a series. I started reading a mystery author in which the sleuth was a "Crossword Puzzle Lady" and they had wonderful little crosswords you could solve inside the book (and later pages had the answers) -- it was a great gimmick, but obviously there was a sequence to the books and even references to past adventures. I could never find the right order to read them and it drove me ... banananananas!!! Welcome to the forum, Elbereth - hope you enjoy playing in the sandbox!

Just finished three minutes ago: Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya Next Five On The Pile: The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri The 'person of dubious parentage' by John Jakes Maximum Ride by James Patterson Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence (July Reading Circle) For five months I've been a member of this book club forum and I've noticed my choices in books is changing, evolving. I think I was simply settling with my book choices: easy reads in the mystery genre or simple escapism in the fantasy genre - never wanting to commit too deeply. Just by following some of the threads I've taken some odd (for me) chances that have been rewarding - Sea Swept, The Secret Garden, Bless Me, Ultima and Anne of Green Gables come to mind as easy examples though there have been many others. I think now I look for richer fare rather than simple literary distraction though I enjoy a romp in the fields still and forever will. More of my friends are stepping up with suggestions and giftings knowing that I have the interest in expanding my diet. Kudos and Bravo to the Book Club Forum: for even the games, recipes and movies reveal a core group passionate about the written word and the generosity to share the time and the experience. My golly, I think I'm two IQ points smarter!

Pets? Nature? People? I go through phases, sometimes it's textures, sometimes light and shadow, sometimes it's all about color. I jump all around: people, close-up textures and even doctor some photos.

It can be called the best book in the last 70 years in the context of the Carnegie Medal. I think it's just fine for an organization to be self-referential. They must know that they are simply celebrating themselves when they become so inclusive in their process. We see this all the time in many areas. Someone will post the "10 best" list and it will include some very popular recent items that honestly will not stand the true test of time. An only okay example might be looking at the box office. If you look at the all time box office champs you'll see Spider-Man and Shrek, but if you look at "adjusted for inflation" you'll see the true list -- Gone with the Wind, Sound of Music, The Godfather: movies that have indeed, stood the test of time.