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May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #15597]

Fri, 01 May 2009 18:31

Maren
Messages: 1332
Registered: October 2008
Location: Louisiana

Senior Member
[Moderator]

Here you can discuss your current and recent reads. If you particularly enjoyed a book and want to recommend it to other readers through our LibraryThing catalog, please say so in your post.

[Updated on: Tue, 02 June 2009 17:14]

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #15646 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 02 May 2009 17:53

Beauty/Anna
Messages: 481
Registered: November 2008
Location: America

Senior Member

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George. I just finished reading it to my sisters today the Dragon and Human characters are fantastic.

Ooops I meant to put this on the recommendation thread:) Oh well it is what I'm reading.

[Updated on: Sat, 02 May 2009 17:58]

"You are your best resource for success"

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #15659 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 02 May 2009 21:28

Mori-neko
Messages: 365
Registered: October 2008
Location: Corvallis, OR

Senior Member

Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series (on the third one now, Ship of Destiny). Very good, really drawing me in emotionally.

Also, giant piles of books on various pieces of musical theatre history.... yay term papers.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #15774 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Wed, 06 May 2009 19:15

Guest

Have just got in my hot little hands, The Turning Tide by Diana Pharaoah Francis - 3rd in the Crosspointe series.

The Cipher, which is the first book was one of the better fantasy books I have read in the last couple of years - completely new worldbuilding, interesting magic, and engaging characters and pretty pacy plotting.

I recommend these highly!

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #15875 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Fri, 08 May 2009 21:37

librarykat
Messages: 566
Registered: October 2008
Location: Redneck Riviera

Senior Member

This week I've read Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce; it's the sequel to Terrier. The main character is Beka Cooper, the story is set in Tortall, which is the kingdom where Tammie Pierce's Song of the Lioness Quartet is set. This particular series is set a couple of hundred years in the past. Pierce combines fantasy adventure with police procedural. Her world-building is outstanding here. I love Tammie's books almost as much as I love Robin's books.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16003 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Tue, 12 May 2009 13:38

Beauty/Anna
Messages: 481
Registered: November 2008
Location: America

Senior Member

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, As You Like It by Shakespeare, The Adventures of Roderick Random by Smollett, Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes, and a great many more.

"You are your best resource for success"

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16006 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Tue, 12 May 2009 14:08

holmes44
Messages: 706
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sutton,Quebec

Senior Member

nora roberts new book "tribute".

Bonnie Holmes the faster ahead I go, the more behind I get

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16018 is a reply to message #16003 ]

Tue, 12 May 2009 17:27

L.R.K.
Messages: 1081
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden

Senior Member

Beauty/Anna wrote on Tue, 12 May 2009 19:38

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, As You Like It by Shakespeare, The Adventures of Roderick Random by Smollett, Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes, and a great many more.

I've never read Smollett - how do you like him? Curious. Smile

Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16023 is a reply to message #16018 ]

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:36

Kathy_S
Messages: 313
Registered: October 2008
Location: Indiana

Senior Member

In recovery mode from students, I have just reread three volumes of Elizabeth Goudge (The Bird in the Tree, The Herb of Grace, The Heart of the Family). I love Goudge's ablity to paint with words, right up there with Patricia McKillip's from my perspective -- though in a very different genre.

Plus, for light humor, I've thrown in Sally Watson's The Wayward Princess. The heroine, as you might guess, is useless at fainting and much prefers adventure. Watson's historical fiction was a staple of my teens, and I'm very pleased that she's now self-publishing all the stuff she's been hoarding since the bottom fell out of her market in the early seventies -- plus new ones! My favorites of the self-published crop so far are The Ivory Cat and The Missing Queen, both set in ancient Egypt, and both deserving a much wider audience than I'm afraid they'll get with the self-publishing route. (Much of her older work has been republished by Image Cascade.)

[Updated on: Tue, 12 May 2009 18:36]

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16134 is a reply to message #16018 ]

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:51

Beauty/Anna
Messages: 481
Registered: November 2008
Location: America

Senior Member

L.R.K. wrote on Tue, 12 May 2009 17:27

Beauty/Anna wrote on Tue, 12 May 2009 19:38

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, As You Like It by Shakespeare, The Adventures of Roderick Random by Smollett, Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes, and a great many more.

I've never read Smollett - how do you like him? Curious. Smile

I really have to focus on what I'm reading and not let my mind wander when I'm reading him, also I'm only on the 3rd chapter as of yet. But I think I like him. The main character, Roderick Random, is great, I like his character.

[Updated on: Thu, 14 May 2009 12:53]

"You are your best resource for success"

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16135 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Thu, 14 May 2009 13:12

shalea
Messages: 781
Registered: October 2008
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina, ...

Senior Member

Just started Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Interesting start, to be sure! Smile

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16142 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:34

Beauty/Anna
Messages: 481
Registered: November 2008
Location: America

Senior Member

Ooo I love Neil Gaiman's work. He is a Fantastic Writer and narrator. Have you read Coroline?

"You are your best resource for success"

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16170 is a reply to message #16142 ]

Fri, 15 May 2009 08:39

shalea
Messages: 781
Registered: October 2008
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina, ...

Senior Member

No, I haven't! It's on the (extensive) to-read list. Very Happy

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16214 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 16 May 2009 11:36

Cosmia
Messages: 4
Registered: April 2009
Location: Ohio

Junior Member

I'm currently reading A Prayer for Owen Meany at the request of my high school librarian before I graduate. It's rather long, and a tad on the slow side, but it has some of the best characterization I've ever read.

It started out as a feeling, which then grew into a hope.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16217 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 16 May 2009 12:34

Mori-neko
Messages: 365
Registered: October 2008
Location: Corvallis, OR

Senior Member

A friend at work turned me on to Brian Sanderson - I read Elantris a while back, and now I'm working on his Mistborn trilogy. They're quite good.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16218 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 16 May 2009 13:06

Antiquarian
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2009
Location: West, USA

Junior Member

Just read the new Sookie Stakhouse book Dead and Gone (don't judge the books by HBO *makes a face*.

Currently reading Dark Moon Defender by Sharon Shin, City of Glass by C. Claire

Picked up People of the Book and poetry by Czeslaw Milosz (nobel prize winner in 1980).

B Sanderson is a great guy. We live in the same town so he speaks at a lot of the writers workshops. I love the fact that in college he took a job a Mariott Hotel as the night clerk so he could write.

we've come full circle Lord.
I'd like to think there is some higher meaning in all of this.
Certainly would reflect well on you.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16349 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:05

GBKDalton
Messages: 51
Registered: December 2008
Location: New England

Member

Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn-fast read, light fantasy/romance. Not as good as the Shape-Changer's Wife by the same author. I think I'd like to start reading her Mystic and Rider Series.

I also finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and it was really great! I can't believe I'd never read that book before.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16365 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Wed, 20 May 2009 20:35

librarykat
Messages: 566
Registered: October 2008
Location: Redneck Riviera

Senior Member

Pluto: Tezuka x Urasawa is a manga series by Naoki Urasawa that is retelling a classic Astro Boy story written decades ago by Osamu Tezuka. It's basically a murder mystery: someone is killing the greatest robots in the world, and some of the humans who have been involved in the robots' rights movement. The head investigator, Gesicht, is himself a robot and one of the targets. Astro Boy looks just like a little boy. The art is amazing, the story is fascinating. The third volume just came out. You don't have to know the original story to enjoy this one. And I think it's the type of manga one can give to someone who hasn't really tried manga before. Urasawa doesn't employ the usual, stereotypical, artistic features of manga. His people look real (no big eyes small mouth). I've been recommending this to lots of people.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16464 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 23 May 2009 21:30

anne_d
Messages: 208
Registered: October 2008
Location: Orange County, California

Senior Member

Well, it's like this - Two weeks ago, my elderly dad had to go into the hospital suddenly, so there I was camping out at my parents' to take care of my mom.

So I grabbed a pile of Robin's books off my headboard bookshelf, because they're comfort books, and when life sucks dead bears, I need comfort books.

One of them was Sunshine. I talked my mom into reading it. She says that it didn't grab her in the first few pages, but she stuck with it because I'd recommended it. She's now throughly hooked and reading every spare moment. Her only complaint is that it makes her hungry. Heh heh heh.

Also when I came home today on 24-hour turnaround, I left my copy of Spindle's End at the Aged Ps. My husband, who is kindly holding down the fort until I can get back up there, is reading it. My parents have at least six thousand books, and he picked that one up. Probably because I've recommended it to him several times.

I also bought Nation by Terry Pratchett to read at the Aged Ps. It's fascinating, and I want to reread it slowly and think about it. But not until Younger Daughter has read it too, so I have someone with whom to discuss it.

[Updated on: Sat, 23 May 2009 22:52]

"The creative urge can come out in any form: in embroidery, in... cooking, in painting, drawing and sculpture, in composing music, as well as in writing books and stories... the artist's inner satisfaction was probably much the same." ~ Agatha Christie

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16473 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sun, 24 May 2009 17:41

CaptainNancyBlackett is currently offline

CaptainNancyBlackett
Messages: 4
Registered: April 2009
Location: Lexington, Massachusetts

Junior Member

I'm in the middle of The Name of the Wind, which is so far very good. The other book I'm reading is calledMythago Wood. I found it recommended in a collection of short stories, which said it was some really classic magical forest type book. I had never heard of it before then. It's...interesting so far.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. -Oscar Wilde

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16510 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Mon, 25 May 2009 21:04

Laura
Messages: 196
Registered: October 2008
Location: Midwestern USA

Senior Member

I'm re-reading Spindle's End (by Robin), and starting Outlander, by Diana Gabaldan.

[Updated on: Mon, 25 May 2009 21:04]

Known on both Ravelry and LibraryThing as thelorelei.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16523 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:38

Beauty/Anna
Messages: 481
Registered: November 2008
Location: America

Senior Member

Has any one here read The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman?

"You are your best resource for success"

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16528 is a reply to message #16473 ]

Tue, 26 May 2009 17:38

Black Bear
Messages: 3216
Registered: September 2008
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA

Senior Member
[Moderator]

CaptainNancyBlackett wrote on Sun, 24 May 2009 17:41

Oh yes, Mythago Wood! It was indeed.... interesting. At the end I couldn't decide if I had liked it, or not. Smile

I've come back from Wiscon with a collected volume of Joan Aiken's stories (joy) and my own copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which makes me laugh every time I think of it. And a collection of steampunk genre stories that I'm greatly looking forward to...

_{"The time is always right to do what's right."--MLK Jr.}

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16537 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:41

L.R.K.
Messages: 1081
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden

Senior Member

Which Joan Aiken's stories? Is it a particularly good collection?

Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16538 is a reply to message #16537 ]

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:50

Black Bear
Messages: 3216
Registered: September 2008
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA

Senior Member
[Moderator]

L.R.K. wrote on Tue, 26 May 2009 18:41

Which Joan Aiken's stories? Is it a particularly good collection?

All the Armitage family stories. Yes, to my mind--I'm thrilled, there's one story in it that I read the first half of in a Cricket magazine when I was 7, and NEVER found the other half (I'd forgotten it was Joan Aiken for the longest time.) Now at last I will find out what happened to their cat Walrus when he climbed up the next-door witch's tree once too often....

Here 'tis. It's called The Serial Garden.

_{"The time is always right to do what's right."--MLK Jr.}

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16541 is a reply to message #16349 ]

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:11

kfoster2047
Messages: 138
Registered: January 2009
Location: Charlotte, NC

Senior Member

Thanks for the recommendation - I loved Summers at Castle Auburn!

Karen

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16542 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:19

L.R.K.
Messages: 1081
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden

Senior Member

Thanks Black Bear! This does seem lovely! (Of course I want it!)

[Updated on: Tue, 26 May 2009 21:21]

Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16592 is a reply to message #16538 ]

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:26

AntheaN
Messages: 6
Registered: October 2008
Location: Scotland

Junior Member

I love Pollyanna's booklist when it reminds me of very old friends.

I had forgotten the Joan Aiken's Armitage family stories - I used to love them as a child with their quirky sequences of ideas. I can still remember the story about the hairloom. I have just ordered a copy of The Serial Garden to share with my 9-year old - he, too, likes dead-pan weirdness.

I also recommend Sharon Shin's Mythic and Rider series - in fact I have enjoyed most of her books.

AntheaN

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16593 is a reply to message #16592 ]

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:27

AntheaN
Messages: 6
Registered: October 2008
Location: Scotland

Junior Member

Sorry - Mystic, not Mythic!

AntheaN

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16649 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sat, 30 May 2009 14:29

L.R.K.
Messages: 1081
Registered: October 2008
Location: Sweden

Senior Member

Re-reading "The Town Cats and Other Tales" by Lloyd Alexander.

Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16719 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Sun, 31 May 2009 22:43

Kathy_S
Messages: 313
Registered: October 2008
Location: Indiana

Senior Member

I suppose before the month is up, I should confess that I went and read the on-line edition (1907/8) of The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore. Whose fault was that? For my required Pollyanna statement, I will allow that this volume did not once describe the younger Bobbseys with the dread phrases, "Fat Little Fairy" and "Fat Little Fireman." (Actually I remember borrowing a friend's purple cover Bobbseys as a child with some pleasure, even though I wasn't particularly inclined to reread. I was much more a Nancy Drew and Beverly Gray fan.)

In the past couple weeks I have also reread Paksenarrion and 8 volumes of Tamora Pierce. New (to me)fiction that will stay on my shelves included Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and Eva Ibbotson's The Reluctant Heiress, and at the moment I'm being amused by Regency Buck (Georgette Heyer)....

(edited to fix italics)

[Updated on: Sun, 31 May 2009 22:45]

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Re: May 2009 What Are You Reading [message #16770 is a reply to message #15597 ]

Tue, 02 June 2009 17:14

Maren
Messages: 1332
Registered: October 2008
Location: Louisiana

Senior Member
[Moderator]

This thread has now been locked for archiving. Look for the current What Are You Reading near the top of this subforum's main page.

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