I'm just finishing up Daniel Woodrell's GIVE US A KISS. It's one of those times when you know whatever you read next will pale in comparison. I keep shuffling a dozen books on the TBR pile, trying to decide.
What are you reading? Or what did you read recently that you would recommend?
Reading my own story at the moment, but whenever I get back to the sofa, I'll pick up Peter Ackroyd's biography of Poe. It's good.
ReplyDeleteOh, good idea. I could use learning more about him.
ReplyDeleteOn page 104 of a book called 'Die A Little'. So far so good.
ReplyDeleteBooks that I'd recommend?
John Fowles: The Magus - I read this way back but the new edition where all the deleted parts have been restored is so much better.
An English teacher goes to teach in Greece and meets up with a man who has a past. Past, present and future mingle together with mirror images.
I'm in the middle of Fools Rush In by Ed Gorman. You can't go wrong with him.
ReplyDeleteAmerica at War...to be reviewed on Friday.
ReplyDeleteLoved Sleeping Dogs by Gorman.
ReplyDeleteOh, The Magus. I loved that book 30 years ago. All of his work seemed to original then. Glad it holds up. America at War. Interested in your take on it.
Reading THE INNOCENT by Harlan Coben at the moment, and enjoying it so far, about a third of the way in.
ReplyDeleteI also read and loved THE MAGUS many years ago. Don't know how well it would hold up to a reread. That new edition sounds intriguing, though.
I've only read one Coben and saw one as a French movie recently. Compelling, for sure, but I like little more depth to the characters. Like those in Dust Devils, for instance, or Sleeping Dogs or The Magus. But that's just personal taste.
ReplyDeleteThe first version of The Magus was published in 1966 - when I mentioned the updated version this came out in 1977 but I did not pick up this edition until this century.
ReplyDeleteOh, to read it for the first time in 2008. It must seem quite different.
ReplyDeleteJust reread the first 2 Martin Beck mysteries by Per Wahloo & Maj Sjowall. Black Lizard is reissuing them. They were a big influence on Henning Mankell. Also just finished True Grit by Charles Portis and will be beginning the new Michael Connelly(got it a week early).
ReplyDeleteSjowall and Wahloo were two pf my favorite writers. Reading mysteries set in Sweden was so exotic 30 years ago. Now, of course, it's a center of crime writing. The Laughing Policeman and The Locked Room were two of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics, edited by Paul Gravett which is just incredible. Also The City In The Sky by Max Brand, The Song Is You by Megan Abbott, and the November issue of Alfred Hitchcock.
ReplyDeleteFour books at once: I'm impressed. I can do two but only if one is not crime.
ReplyDeleteIt works for me. I read a couple chapters of one book and then begin rotating through the pile.
ReplyDeleteGive Us A Kiss is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteReading Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker, the November issue of Ellery Queen (thanks to David)and Born Standing Up by Steve Martin.
I've got about 5 books I'm juggling right now. Most of them are good or are probably good (haven't gotten that far).
ReplyDeleteThere's that library book I gotta finish NIM CHIMPSKY: THE CHIMP WHO WOULD BE HUMAN. Fascinating, often depressing but sometimes not
There's HERE, THERE BY DRAGONS, a YA title by James Owen that Stu suggested and which is quite good.
SMALL FAVOR by Jim Butcher, the most recent in the Harry Dresden series which I now have to back up and start.(this sentence no syntax).
There's Jeff Marks' ANTHONY BOUCHER: A BIOBIBLIOGRAPHY, which I think I am going to thoroughly enjoy and hope will interest others.
There's the ARC of Louise Penny's upcoming January release A RULE AGAINST MURDER
And SWEET MAN IS GONE by Peggy Ehrhart which i started then put down but will be picking back up as soon as I'm done with the Louise Penny.
Eclectic or easily distracted? You decide.
War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
ReplyDeleteby Chris Hedges and Carleen Brice's Orange Mint and Honey (I won it in a drawing on Lisa's Eudamonia blog :-)
Just finished Marcia Muller's "Listen to the Silence" and Robert Crais' "Indigo Slam". Have just started John Connolly's "The Black Angel" and Grace Metalious' "Peyton Place"
ReplyDeleteThe Magus holds up very well. I read the later edition some seven years ago and liked it a great deal. So far the only Fowles I've read.
ReplyDeleteJuri, THE COLLECTOR is probably the closest to your favorite kind of reading. I need to read THE MAGUS.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally get back to it, the last (and easily the worst) story in the Spring issue of ON SPEC, the Canadian speculative fiction magazine. Also reading THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR, and the new Jones annual BEST NEW HORROR (the hundred or so pages of nonfiction take a while to get through before I get to the fiction).
Hey, did you catch THE DEAD GIRL? One of the few films I've seen all the way through recently (as in last several weeks), and I rather liked it.
Well let's see, it's October so that means that it must be B.A.M.S. time. "The Best American Mystery Stories of 2008."
ReplyDelete"Damn Near Dead" was even better than I expected.
Robert Crais' Chasing Darkness, the new Elvis Cole, and The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi, a true crime story of Italy"s "Jack The Ripper."
ReplyDeleteI can't remember if I saw The Dead Girl or just the promos for it. Have to check it out.
ReplyDeleteI've been eyeing The Monster of Florence. Always fun to read BAMS and see what I'm doing wrong.