Any Good Books Read Lately? - Page 3

[daylily]

Redheadmama, I'm so happy to see another Bill Bryson fan. His books are so funny I have to be careful not to be eating or drinking while reading his books or I might choke myself laughing. Did you read "Notes from a Small Island" where he's in a pub in Glasgow and can't understand what anyone is saying to him? I laughed so hard, my kids demanded to know what was so funny, so I tried to read the passage out loud to them, but I was unable to speak from laughing.

I'm reading "The Eustace Diamonds" by Anthony Trollope. An oldie but a goodie. It's actually a teeny bit erotic in parts. Who would have thought?

[redheadmama]

Daylily--Yep, Bill Bryson is great! I saw him in Edinburgh and he's just as eloquent and funny in person. I haven't read Notes From a Small Island (which is strange, since I live here...) but I loved Notes From a Big Country (which I think came out in the States as Neither Here Nor There.) It is a collection of his articles for the Sunday Times written about America when he moved back there after being in the UK for 20 years. A must read! Down Under is also really good and actually made me want to visit Australia, a place that had never particularly interested me for some reason...

[lilypad]

I loved _The Poisonwood Bible_ by Barbara Kingsolver. After i finished it i went out right away and bought her latest book _Prodigal Summer_ (even coughed upt he $$for the hardcover) because I loved poisonwood so much and was VERY disappointed. it was just a fluffy romance novel basically, i was expecting WAY more. I love Bill Bryson too, totally laugh out loud funny. Another good one is _The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing_ by Melissa Banks.
I love travel books too and a good one is _A Woman's World_, which is travel essays. Also I _Tales of a Female Nomad_ but only read the 1st chapter when i was at B&N one day. It seemed good though.

[TripkeHughes]

I just finished reading Operating Instructions by Annie Lamont and IT WAS SO FUNNY! A must read.

[elnachick]

ah, books!

I love to read! Good to see Wally Lamb, Tom Robbins, and Edith Wharton suggested, great writers all! I just finished the most recent Tom Robbins and it was great - Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates. Tom Robbins is definitely "different" if you've never read his work, but in addition to writing incredibly creative and whacky tales, he has these gems of phrases and observations that are utterly brilliant... Makes you want to read with a pen in hand to underline!

A small but lovely little book to try to find (I bought my copy at a Barnes&Noble, so it's out there) is called "The House of Waiting," by Maria Tamor Budhros (close but prob. misspelled, title is right though). It is a really wonderful story about family and expectations and relationships among generations, etc.

Another I am reading right now, great if you have a partner who was/is a skateboarder in his/her youth or kids into skating, is Tony Hawk's autobiography, called "Hawk: Occupation Skateboarder." It's great insight into the whole skate culture, but it is also a fast, fun read. He's really an interesting person!

the original quintet of Anne Rice Vampire novels is my "guilty pleasure" reading... (not so into the newer ones)

[flutemandolin]

I just finished "My Story As Told By Water" by David James Duncan. I am a fish biologist by profession and an environmentalist at heart, so I have read lots of nature/environmental writing, but this was one of the most informed, eloquent, and passionate environmental books I have ever read.

[ladylee]

I've been on a roll lately, and fortunately have been reading some gems. Just finished "Blood Acre" by Peter Landesmann, which was excellent. Also "Force Majeure" and "I'll Let You Go" by Bruce Wagner-both very good. "Lightning Field" by Dana Spiotta was very sharp--anyone interested in LA would like Spiotta's and Wagner's writing. All about that LA underbelly. And I'm a total fan of British humor so I'm crazy about David Lodge--just recently finished "Small World"--hilarious.

On my "To be read" pile are "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat-Moon, "My Happy Life" by Lydia Millet, "A World History of Film" by Robert Sklar, and "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd.

And my list of all time favorites are:

Grapes of Wrath
Siddhartha
Growth of the Soil
Look Homeward Angel
Tender is the Night
O Pioneers
Portrait of a Lady
The Awakening
Mrs. Dalloway
A Room of One's Own

Oh, and I agree--The Hours by Michael Cunningham is fantastic!

~lee

[ladylee]

Oh, and I also have to plug "I Was Amelia Earhart!"

~lee

[ladylee]

LOL-call me manic post-happy woman, but count me in as another Bill Bryson fan!

[daylily]

"Blue Highways" is also on my list of books to be read, Lee. I love, love, love travel lit. Some good reads I've had recently, "In Baghdad Without a Map" by Tony Horwitz and Honeymoon in Purdah by Allison Wearing. I also just finished "Excellent Women" by Barabara Pym. She is one of my all time favorite authors. I've read all of her books many times over. They're good comfort literature.

[flutemandolin]

It's sooo great to see that there are other women who enjoy Tom Robbins, Edward Abbey, William Least Heat Moon, etc...I thought I was the only one!!!
I've been reading a lot of Louise Erdrich lately. Most of her books are interconnected stories about life on a ND Chippewa reservation...wonderful writing style.
Also "Refuge" by Terry Tempest Williams is a classic.

[ladylee]

I *need* to go through this thread and write everything down!
Daylily, thanks for the travel lit recommendations--you mentioned a lot of things I haven't come across yet. Sigh. My library s@x, and DH will kill me if I keep spending money on books...

~lee

[battymomma]

i am reading The HUrried Child now. it is good! actually, it was a book for a COLLEGE class, many yrs ago, that i never read. found it recently while unpacking. about how our society is forcing kids to grow up too quickly, for various reasons.
i am also reading Bury Me Standing, a book about gypsies and their history. so interesting!!
the other book i just finished is called Cunt. SO SO very good. and i think i will buy it for many women i love in the near future. a word study (the word actually used to be a title of respect, until it was taken and negatively used...), a history, the author's story, a must read for women, i think!

[Wildflower]

I loved The Ladder of Years by anne taylor...the last paragraph was this revelation that made the book for me...And Operating Instructions (at first I was so made at the author for the comments she made about circumsizing her son, but then I "got" her personality, and whole situation, and I loved her and the book sooo much, especially because this is my first year with my first child, too). So honest...I adore almost every book on this this, or will adore it as soon as it hits my library, but here's a confession...For total mental relaxation I love a roamance novel! Not Harlequin stuff, but good quality fairy tail for grown ups stories with amazing settings and lyrical writing...Nora Robert's novels that are set in Ireland were all really fun, and "Whitney, My Love" by Judith McKnaught. Those are actually the only two authors of this genre I've read...anyone else know of any! I can't belive i'm disclosing my shocking habit! But you know, I've figured out that its part of the romance novel happy ending formula that at the end a baby is always born or a pregnany is discovered--no wonder I'm hooked!

[mom at home]

What a great list! I'm excited to find some of these. I'm always looking for new authors.

Right now I'm reading a book (non-fiction) about a young Afghani woman who was 16 when the Taliban took power. It is heartwrenching to read, but an amazing tale of endurance by the women there. It's called "My Forbidden Face" by Latifa.

Also like Barbara Kingsolver, Terry Tempest Williams and many others that have already been mentioned.

[mom at home]

I just went through this list and wrote a bunch down. I'm so excited, I've been needing some new ideas.

Some of my other favs:

Imagining Argentina
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The Hours
The River Why by David James Duncan
The Education of Little Tree
West With the Night by Beryl Markham

anything by Isabelle Allende, Willa Cather, Ed Abbey, and biographies of woman who grew up or lived in Africa.