Like all you ladies, I have a stack of good books on my bedside table, and like one of you said," sometimes they are on my bed." I've read at least one of the books that each of you has listed. I just finished ( tonight) South of Broad by Pat Conroy, and before that I read John Grisham's Ford County....loved both of them. I still have on my stack to read: Olive Kitteridge, Sara Palin's Going Rogue, Under the Dome by Stephen King, and James Patterson's Witch and Wizard. I loved The Help, because it reminded me of the sweet lady who looked after me and my siblings and lived in our house for many years as we were growing up in the southern part of the state. I read Precious, and I thought it was a very moving story about a very sad and unfortunate young girl.
I've read The Hunger Games by Susan Collins, and I'm looking forward to reading Catching Fire, the second in the series. I read at night and listen to books on tape, CD's, or digital books while I'm working during the day in my home studio.
I was fortunate to have met Mary Gay last December, and I know if I ever get to visit the book store I will love it. I love the web site!
With energetic, often lyrical prose capable of poetic images of great intensity, coupled with an antic imagination unleashed in scenes of high adventure and bizarre and droll events, Helprin's ( Winter's Tale ) dramatic, sweeping narrative focuses on one man's experiences during a turbulent period of history. Septuagenarian Alessandro Giuliani, scion of a cultured Roman family, looks back on a life whose direction was irrevocably altered and thereafter shadowed by WW I. Idealistic Alessandro first sees action in the Tyrol (giving Helprin the opportunity to display his knowledge of mountain climbing), is part of a "phantom" unit sent to Sicily to capture deserters, becomes a deserter himself and later a prisoner sentenced to death--in short, undergoes experiences that encapsulate war's many horrors, ironies and tragedies. As counterpoint to brutal battle scenes, there is dark comedy in the character of the demented dwarf Orfeo Quatta, who pursues his awesome responsibilities at the Ministry of War with capricious mania. Helprin uses Giorgioni's painting La Tempesta to convey the novel's message: that women, with the promise of love and new life, are civilization's salvation in the aftermath of war. The author himself again demonstrates his ability to create vivid settings: magnificent landscapes teeming with activity and colored by extremes of weather, illuminated with the clarity of a classical painting .
Newsweek editor and bestselling author Meacham (Franklin and Winston) offers a lively take on the seventh president's White House years. We get the Indian fighter and hero of New Orleans facing down South Carolina radicals' efforts to nullify federal laws they found unacceptable, speaking the words of democracy even if his banking and other policies strengthened local oligarchies, and doing nothing to protect southern Indians from their land-hungry white neighbors. For the first time, with Jackson, demagoguery became presidential, and his Democratic Party deepened its identification with Southern slavery. Relying on the huge mound of previous Jackson studies, Meacham can add little to this well-known story, save for the few tidbits he's unearthed in private collections rarely consulted before. What he does bring is a writer's flair and the ability to relate his story without the incrustations of ideology and position taking that often disfigure more scholarly studies of Jackson.
"Pynchon flashes the Sixties rock references faster than a Ten Years After guitar solo: His characters walk around wearing T-shirts from Pearls Before Swine, name-drop the Electric Prunes, turn up the Stones' 'Something Happened to Me Yesterday' on the radio. (I had never heard of Bonzo Dog Band's "Bang Bang" before, but it's on my iPod now.) The rock & roll fanboy love on every page is a feast for Pynchon obsessives, since we've always wondered what the man listens to….The songs are fragments in the elegiac tapestry for the Sixties, an era full of hippie slobs who just wanted to be left alone and so accidentally backed into heroic flights of revolutionary imagination. Can you dig it?" --Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
Exploring the great wilderness of Alaska's Brooks Range was Robert Marshall's joy and delight during the decade between 1929 and 1939. Marshall traveled this spectacular country, from the Upper Koyukuk drainage to the Arctic Divide, making maps, recording scientific data, and exalting in the beauty of that incredibly pristine landscape. Although his early death at thirty-eight ended an exceptional life too early, he left journals and letters to describe his favorite place on earth.
"A true story of murder, medicine, and high-stakes science. Over a span of six years, all five children in a single family died suddenly. A prominant doctor called it SIDS. Two decades later, a district attorney called it murder. This widely acclaimed book about medical research gone awry is the remarkable story of how it happened."
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May be it sound theatrics, but D.Brown - The Lost Symbol. =)
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What I'm reading
Like all you ladies, I have a stack of good books on my bedside table, and like one of you said," sometimes they are on my bed." I've read at least one of the books that each of you has listed. I just finished ( tonight) South of Broad by Pat Conroy, and before that I read John Grisham's Ford County....loved both of them. I still have on my stack to read: Olive Kitteridge, Sara Palin's Going Rogue, Under the Dome by Stephen King, and James Patterson's Witch and Wizard. I loved The Help, because it reminded me of the sweet lady who looked after me and my siblings and lived in our house for many years as we were growing up in the southern part of the state. I read Precious, and I thought it was a very moving story about a very sad and unfortunate young girl.
I've read The Hunger Games by Susan Collins, and I'm looking forward to reading Catching Fire, the second in the series. I read at night and listen to books on tape, CD's, or digital books while I'm working during the day in my home studio.
I was fortunate to have met Mary Gay last December, and I know if I ever get to visit the book store I will love it. I love the web site!
Next up: A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
With energetic, often lyrical prose capable of poetic images of great intensity, coupled with an antic imagination unleashed in scenes of high adventure and bizarre and droll events, Helprin's ( Winter's Tale ) dramatic, sweeping narrative focuses on one man's experiences during a turbulent period of history. Septuagenarian Alessandro Giuliani, scion of a cultured Roman family, looks back on a life whose direction was irrevocably altered and thereafter shadowed by WW I. Idealistic Alessandro first sees action in the Tyrol (giving Helprin the opportunity to display his knowledge of mountain climbing), is part of a "phantom" unit sent to Sicily to capture deserters, becomes a deserter himself and later a prisoner sentenced to death--in short, undergoes experiences that encapsulate war's many horrors, ironies and tragedies. As counterpoint to brutal battle scenes, there is dark comedy in the character of the demented dwarf Orfeo Quatta, who pursues his awesome responsibilities at the Ministry of War with capricious mania. Helprin uses Giorgioni's painting La Tempesta to convey the novel's message: that women, with the promise of love and new life, are civilization's salvation in the aftermath of war. The author himself again demonstrates his ability to create vivid settings: magnificent landscapes teeming with activity and colored by extremes of weather, illuminated with the clarity of a classical painting .
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by John Meacham
Newsweek editor and bestselling author Meacham (Franklin and Winston) offers a lively take on the seventh president's White House years. We get the Indian fighter and hero of New Orleans facing down South Carolina radicals' efforts to nullify federal laws they found unacceptable, speaking the words of democracy even if his banking and other policies strengthened local oligarchies, and doing nothing to protect southern Indians from their land-hungry white neighbors. For the first time, with Jackson, demagoguery became presidential, and his Democratic Party deepened its identification with Southern slavery. Relying on the huge mound of previous Jackson studies, Meacham can add little to this well-known story, save for the few tidbits he's unearthed in private collections rarely consulted before. What he does bring is a writer's flair and the ability to relate his story without the incrustations of ideology and position taking that often disfigure more scholarly studies of Jackson.
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Inherent Vice: Thomas Pynchon
"Pynchon flashes the Sixties rock references faster than a Ten Years After guitar solo: His characters walk around wearing T-shirts from Pearls Before Swine, name-drop the Electric Prunes, turn up the Stones' 'Something Happened to Me Yesterday' on the radio. (I had never heard of Bonzo Dog Band's "Bang Bang" before, but it's on my iPod now.) The rock & roll fanboy love on every page is a feast for Pynchon obsessives, since we've always wondered what the man listens to….The songs are fragments in the elegiac tapestry for the Sixties, an era full of hippie slobs who just wanted to be left alone and so accidentally backed into heroic flights of revolutionary imagination. Can you dig it?" --Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
Alaska Wilderness: Exploring the Central Brooks Range
Exploring the great wilderness of Alaska's Brooks Range was Robert Marshall's joy and delight during the decade between 1929 and 1939. Marshall traveled this spectacular country, from the Upper Koyukuk drainage to the Arctic Divide, making maps, recording scientific data, and exalting in the beauty of that incredibly pristine landscape. Although his early death at thirty-eight ended an exceptional life too early, he left journals and letters to describe his favorite place on earth.
The Death of Innocents by Richard Firstman and Jamie Talan
"A true story of murder, medicine, and high-stakes science. Over a span of six years, all five children in a single family died suddenly. A prominant doctor called it SIDS. Two decades later, a district attorney called it murder. This widely acclaimed book about medical research gone awry is the remarkable story of how it happened."