What have you read?

[Claireliontamer]

I don't think the thread got resurrected.....please merge if I missed it

Well, over Christmas I've read a variety of utter trash.  I decided to work my way through the kindle 'bestsellers' list in order to hopefully find something new and interesting.  All it actually did was confirm I don't like popular books.

1.  Follow you Home - Mark Edwards.  Really awful thriller story with an even worse ending.  It was oddly gripping though and I did read it very quickly so the pain was at least short.

2.  All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr.  A novel set in WW2 about a blind girl and a young German.  It was fairly decent and again very easy to read but I just felt it was about 200 pages too long.

3.  Mr Mercedes - Stephen King. Probably one of the better King books and again very quick to read so worth it if you have an evening to kill.

4.  The Last Letter from Your Lover - Jo Jo Moyes.  Now I'd heard of JJ Moyes as she's very popular but why oh why.....utter trash, dull, mindnumbing, easily the worst book I've read in a while.

5.  The Lady in the Van - Alan Bennet.  This was actually an entertaining little read, very short and am unsure how they've got enough material from it to make a film.  It has made me want to see the movie to find out though.

6.  Someone to Save You - Paul Pilkington.  Awful - don't even bother.  Actually I take it back, the JJ Moyes one wasn't the worst.  This was.  Awful story, badly written and very predictable. 

[Waski_the_Squirrel]

Nothing high-brow here. My latest book is James P. Hogan's Mission to Minerva. I didn't like it as well as I did some of his earlier books. He needed an editor.

I'm starting James S. A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes. It's also low brow entertainment,  but I realized that I need to read some contemporary science fiction to help with my own novel.  I won't be stealing, but just getting an idea of mood and action and how they explain (and use) technology is important.

[Sandra Craft]

I got a load of books for Xmas and am slowly working my way thru them, in between fighting a miserable cold that's apparently going around everywhere.

So far I've read:

The Natural History of Selbourne, by Gilbert White.  Not part of the Xmas haul, but finished during this time.  It's a wonderful book, charming and fascinating even tho it took me 2 and a half months to finish. 

If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino.  Possibly the strangest novel I have ever read, but funny and brilliant.  I plan to start reading his other books.

No Man's Nightingale, by Ruth Rendell.  Mystery about a CoE vicar who is found strangled in her home.  I didn't care for this, which surprised me because I used to be very fond of Rendell's novels but this one I found tedious and the various characters unbelievable.

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell.  A collection of short stories, not as interesting as those in her earlier "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" but very readable, esp. the more fantastic ones, like a minotaur's family heading west during the great migration, and the title story about nuns trying to humanize the children of werewolves. 

[Recusant]

Recently finished one of Colin Dexter's "Morse" novels. I've watched the TV series on and off since the early 90s, but had never got one of the books. A rather different feel to the book, since at least some of the time the reader gets a peek into what Morse is thinking. If I had to explain the difference, I suppose I'd say that the Morse character seemed a bit less dignified. I liked Dexter's writing style, though.

[Crow]

Last book I read was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I really enjoy his books and talks as he has a view of the world that is highly analytical and interesting.

[Claireliontamer]

Latest trashy instalment:  'How I Lost You' by Jenny Blackhurst.  Another 99p bargain book from the kindle bestseller list but this one is actually quite good.  It is a genuine page turner and I had to read it in one sitting last night, the story is a little odd and not very believable but she has mastered the art of writing a decent creepy thriller. 

[Davin]

I just read Stealheart and Mistborn, both by Brandon Sanderson, I liked both of them.

[Asmodean]

Just read an interesting thing about tensions between Iran and UAE and the escalation thereof. Granted, it wasn't exactly a book or anything of the sort, but still... Interesting reading in this doomed world of ours.

[Sandra Craft]

Finally read The Invisible Man -- had no idea it was so funny.

[Icarus]

I just finished : Voices In The Ocean.  A journey into the wild and haunting world of the Dolphins.  More than we ever imagined about Cetaceans is in the book.  Their brains are larger than ours, they are emotional animals. They are brilliant, co-operative tacticians, their radar/sonar systems make ours look like kiddy toys. They have some traits that mirror human ones, not the least of which is that the males are constantly horny. Fascinating stuff.

[Sandra Craft]

Finished Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.  Ishiguro is the king of sad -- this is the third book of his I've read and the others both deal with lost chances and wrong turns in life, but this one is about people without even the ability to make their own mistakes, people whose grim life and early death is determined by others with nothing they can do to change or escape it.  Having written that, it is a good book and I found it hard to put down regardless of the sadness.

Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.

is the plot, for those who won't read the book or don't mind spoilers. 

[Sandra Craft]

Here's something interesting, tho I'm not sure I'd buy one: Murakami in 3D

[Davin]

I just finished Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, I've had it for a few years, but I've finally been working through my book queue this year. Read 22 books so far this year.

[Recusant]

Waded through Rutherfurd's London. At over 1,000 pages of small type, like all his books it's rather formidable. I caught a few outright historical inaccuracies, which I hadn't noticed so much in previous books of his that I've read, but overall I'd rate it just below The Forest, which is my favorite of his books that I've read so far.

[Icarus]

Into the middle of Elephant Complex. Travels in Sri Lanka. Fascinating stuff. Not so much about elephants as it is about the Sri Lanka culture, the Tamils and the other groups. A democracy with a lingering caste system.