What are you reading?

[Julien]

Some trashy vampire romance novel, yeah it's light reading, but that's what I need right now.

[justkim]

I just finished reading *Wild* by Cheryl Strayed. Fantastic book! This is also a Oprah book club book if you are doing her book club for the summer.


Overview
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

[Martina]

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly.

I loved the Harry Bosch books. These -- the other is The Lincoln Lawyer -- not as much, but they are well done.

[StillettoDoll]

This book was written by Diego Rivera's daughter Lupe
if your a frida fan , this book is a very interesting insight from her step children, beautiful photos, alot I have not seen before.

[Tawse]

Reading "The Passage" right now (I think that's the name?? lol)... don't know who the author is - and I didn't read the summary so it's been a very interesting experience.

I am 90% certain the military is developing "vampires" for lack of a better word.. and I'm also fairly certain it's going to go horribly... There are bits that remind me a lot of "It" (by King of course)... and I think the vampires may be telepathic... lol

I'm liking this whole not reading the summary. Makes the book much more interesting. lol


(Book was recommended by a few celebrity geeks. The wife listens to pod casts - so she bought it, and I downloaded it onto my kindle and just started reading it telling her not to tell me what it's about)

about 15% in now... the author is spinning a very intriguing web... that's for sure.

[SoulShineFemme]

I'm just starting Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds by Frank Joseph.

Seems like it's gonna be quite interesting.

[Fancy]

Haunted

Chuck Palahniuk

[Breezy]

This article:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...net_on_monday/

[Hollylane]

I just ordered: My Side of the Mountain Trilogy (My Side of the Mountain / On the Far Side of the Mountain / Frightful's Mountain)
by Jean Craighead George


My nieces and I were discussing this book series last weekend. Their recent enjoyment of the series means that I have to read it again, and remember why My Side of the Mountain was my favorite book as a child.

[aishah]

parable of the talents by octavia butler

[Bleu]

A Mercy - Toni Morrison

[DanzAmazon]

Originally Posted by aishah

parable of the talents by octavia butler

I love Octavia Butler, she's one of my inspirations to write. This is one of her best!

[Julien]

Throttle a short story by Joe Hill and Stephen King

[StillettoDoll]

[lillith]

Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo

[RockOn]

Articles, walkthroughs, blogs at www.msdn.com which provide hashing algorithms pertaining to security in oracle connection strings ... am coding in Visual C# 2010.

Wish I had brought another book home with me when I left work Tuesday. Just as well, I am supposed to be on vacation leave until upcoming Tuesday.

[The JD]

About to start reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I've been on the library wait list for over two months... figured that's recommendation enough and finally downloaded it to my Kindle.

[Kenna]

A billing guide and manual

[nycfem]

Oh, wow, sounds really good. Hope you will give us a review when you finish!

One book about introverts that I loved is The Highly Sensitive Person: http://www.hsperson.com/ . It was like a revelation to me, as it seems to have been for many others, because it's become a bit of a movement over the years. I even went to one of the author's workshops.

Originally Posted by The JD

About to start reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I've been on the library wait list for over two months... figured that's recommendation enough and finally downloaded it to my Kindle.

[The JD]

Originally Posted by justkim

I saw the trailers too. I will look into the book after you give your review. No pressure! lol...

Thanks, Kim! There was so little pressure that I forgot to post! Okay, my considered opinion of the book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: it sucked. Bad pun aside, it really was dreadful. Form, content, style, I loathed it all.

I'll try to write this with as few spoilers as possible, but it's going to be tough. There are some glaring inconsistencies that I'm just aching to sink my teeth into. (oops, sorry.)

Let's start with the obvious: Does Abraham Lincoln make a believable vampire hunter? Well, maybe. He's got all the qualifications for a Dark Knight kind of super hero: tragedy and loss at an early age, a super-human strength or talent (axes, of course!), an obsession with revenge/justice, and oh, let's not forget the constant brooding. He's a tortured soul, our Abe.

His motivations as a vampire hunter are clear enough once you realize just how much the pesky vampires screwed up his childhood (and continue to screw up his adulthood). What's less clear is the motivation of Henry, the "good" vampire who teaches Abe how to hunt vampires and which ones to kill. For someone otherwise known as a brave and forward thinker, Abe comes off as a tool for a good part of the book as he races off to do Henry's bidding.

The author comes off as a tool as well, since the book's premise is that the author was commanded by Henry himself to write it. But why would Henry want to share the Great American Vampire Secret with the world? And why now? And with this author? I know it must sound like a trifling point... I mean, if I'm going to buy off on vampires and the presidents who kill them, why can't I look past Good Vampire Henry inserting himself into the present-day narrative via the author's life? It seemed to promise a shocking plot twist, but no, it was just a vehicle to get us to the book's true purpose: To make history cool for high schoolers who hate history.

Passages from Lincoln's secret vampire diaries are liberally dispersed throughout the text, along with quotes and passages from his more famous speeches and writings. The author tries to match Lincoln's cadence with the vocabulary of that time period, but at times it comes off clunky and hokey. I tend to feel a few steps removed when reading present-day diary-based narratives. Add another few steps back for the 150-year-old language, and another step back for constantly thinking "what makes the author think he can write a pretend-diary of one of the greatest orators in American history??"

I'm really not a history purist- if you can have fun with history, I'm all for it. But the author failed to make it come alive for me, and it had very little to do with all the Undead.