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I just finished "Child of God," wild book. Going to begin "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy" has anyone read this?
Well, Hitchhiker's Guide is one of my all-time fav's but you have to be into the fairly silly humor that Douglas Adams employs. That said, I think it's hysterically funny and my husband and I still quote it now years after we both read it. "42 is the meaning of life" and stuff like that. (loosely quoted)
Who Am I? And if so, How Many: A Journey Through Your Mind. Richard David Precht..."an exhilerating journey through the history of philosophy and a lucid introduction introduction to neuroscience."
Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead edited by John H. Taylor published by The British Museum. Beautifully illustrated and a text that is intelligent and informative, and manages not to be inpenetrable.
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen. A comedy of manners of the last year in one of the "Great Houses" of Ireland during the Anglo-Irish war of the early twenties. A privileged society totally ignoring its imminent slide into oblivion.
I'm currently reading Lincoln by Gore Vidal. A wonderful book for a history buff like myself .
I've learned so much about Lincoln's humanity in reading Vidal's. Abraham Lincoln was one of the "Iconic" personalities that I truly admire...and it was a delight to know about his human side...fraught with shortcomings and frailties as well, the way Vidal depicted the man.
I recently picked up "Abraham Lincoln: The Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame Smith out of inflamed curiosity (I'm halfway done.)
My first reaction was disgust with the exploitation of one of the most beloved person in history, just to outdo "Twilight" and make a few bucks.
Am I overreacting to a little Lincoln satire??? I'd like to know your thoughts....
I have not heard of it, ans57....is it a goofy fantasy involving Lincoln or what?
Yes...It's in book stores now together with the latest vampire bestsellers...
I guess for "adult readers" it would be just a change of pace (an injection of little horrific fantasy in an otherwise sombre reading.) But my concern is with the teens who don't have a clue about history, much less...Abraham Lincoln, who would read the book for its vampire lure....
Tony Morrison's "A Mercy"
Technically speaking, since my copy is an audiobook, I am listening, but still I think it qualifies. I provide this disclaimer because I don't really get the full experience of actually READING a book when I listen, but this book is still providing quite a "wallop."
I love reading old works, letters of the long dead, and memoirs because it gives me a view into the lives of people in other times. Though this is a fiction, it still provides that same voyeuristic appeal. While viewing life through the eyes of first one character, and then another, the reader (listener) is treated to life in 17th century (I think) America.
The audiobook is a special publication in that it is read by the author. Sometimes this is not the added feature that I once thought, but Ms Morrison has the dual talents of both great writer and reading aloud.
Again, I have not finished the work, so I cannot give it a full recommendation, but from what I have listened to so far I can say it is a qualified recommend.
Whatever you are doing, today, I hope you are taking time to read. Even better, read with a child!
I'm currently alternating between two books - Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer and The Wolf at Twilight by Kent Nerburn. Where Men Win Glory of course is the back story of Pat Tillman, and the paperback version which I am reading, is "substantially revised" due to more information being available to the author. I'm not very far in yet, but so far reading about the wars inflicted on that nation, make me feel a little ill and very anti-war. But it is too early in the book for me to say definitively what impact the book has on me.
I read Kent Nerburn's Neither Wolf Nor Dog and that was what drew me to The Wolf at Twilight. Neither Wolf Nor Dog was supposedly the (white) author's experiences on Dakota Indian reservations, centering on an elder called "Dan." I found it insightful and funny in a sadly ironic sort of way.
The book was so successful, according to the preface in the new book, that Nerburn began getting requests from all over for "Dan" to speak. The problem seems to be that there was and there wasn't a "Dan." The author states, "...Dan was a real person. But I had fictionalized his story and distorted his identity to protect his privacy. I had also used him as a vehicle around which to craft a story that gave voice to truths that had remained unspoken for too long...."
That set me back on my heels a little since a "fictionalized story" can mean the whole thing is made up, as can "crafting a story" around him, the real "Dan" being conveniently dead. Shades of James Frey in both books?
I can understand "distorting" a character's identity, and perhaps changing some of the details that might identify someone who wants to retain his privacy, but "fictionalizing" a story, or "crafting" a story around "Dan" as the author puts it, seems to me to possibly be more fiction than fact.
I am enjoying the book, which is very much along the same lines as Neither Wolf Nor Dog (the title is a rather lovely metaphor for the predicament North American Indian first nations find themselves in), but I am confused as to whether I am reading a novel or a work of non-fiction, and I find not knowing that, however 'true' to the intent the writing might be, mentally distracting.
To Canadian ears, the story rings true in its descriptions of what the first nations experienced, as headlines about abuses perpetrated on the First Nations at religious schools, and native children being taken away from their parents have long been in the news here. I don't know just how similar the abuses suffered by natives in the US was/is though.
I would still highly recommend both Neither Wolf Nor Dog and The Wolf at Twilight to anyone wanting a greater understanding of the first peoples of both our countries, to be read in order - Neither Wolf Nor Dog first, in other words.
Last edited by netwit; 06-19-2011 at 11:18 AM..
Reason: corrected poor English
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