We Kid You Not Childfree Forums

Let's start this again.
I'm reading "Dreaming in Code" which is about software engineering/computer programming. It's good for those of us who are not programmers, to learn what those people are doing all day. It's about Mitch Kapor's open source project Chandler, an improved kind of Outlook program.

I'm still slowly but surely reading the His Dark Materials trilogy. I'm on the Subtle Knife now. I've been so damn busy that I don't get to read at long stretches anymore, not even on the weekends. Our weekends are filled with errands, homework, cleaning, and cooking (at least the cooking part is fun).
Come June though, no more school and back to pleasure reading instead of crappy text book reading!

Daria, I just finished those a couple weeks ago! I loved them! Have fun with them!

Vanessa

I have one of the books of his dark materials. The name escapes me at the moment. I'm currently trying to finish Harry Potter book 7 and Twilight (for the third time). Harry Potter...well...I would like to assume that most of us know about and Twilight...it's about a relationship between a teenager (in her late teens) and an old fashioned nearly 100 year old vampire. I have book two and three and am waiting (along with everyone else) for book 4 which is to be released in August.

I'm reading "Queen of Aquitaine" by Margaret Ball. It's a historical fiction book about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and later England in the 12th century. She was a very strong woman for her times.

I just finished "Whistling in the Dark," a novel that is written from the perspective of a 12 year old in 1959. Good, fun read.

Before that, "The Alchemist" which I am still mulling over.

Next on my list "Toxic Parents" (non-fiction)

I am about halfway through reading Living Like Ed by Ed Bengly Jr. (spelled right?)
Pretty nice set up for "living green" which he has been doing for over 30 years. His wife has sections within the chapters to give almost a voice of a "normal" person compared to Ed. Also he doesn't preach. In fact, he gives different levels of what you can do to be more enviromental. Low hanging fruit is free or fairly cheap like recycling popcans, Mid-fruit is usually a little more of a commitment and $50-$1000 or so like insulation, High-fruit is $$, but are things like hybrid car or solar panels to run your home's electricity. He has stuff that works and probably wouldn't work for most people.
Very easy read and good to take notes through.

Gingerzing - I've heard that book is good. I have to track it down.

I just finished Julia and Julie (?) I think that's the title. About the woman who cooked her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. It was clever.

I've started re-reading Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. I read it in college and loved it, so I re-read it once a year or two. (Short book, quick read.) I do that with Cat's Cradle too. I never seem to get tired of either of them, and I get something different out of them each time I read them.

I tend to re-read books more often than I read new ones. Maybe it's because when I go to the library I get kind of overwhelmed. There are so many great things to choose from that seem interesting that I can't decide what I'm in the mood for or where to start. I've been trying to make an effort to read more lately though.

After college I put kind of a moratorium on reading anything other than magazines (and Harry Potter) for a while. The last few years I've been trying to add some substance back in. And now that I work at a university, I feel kind of "out of the loop" and like I need to up the intellectual factor a little in what I'm reading. But I also have been so disappointed with what's coming out in the movie theaters lately that I also enjoy a good piece of fiction too.

Vanessa

I just finished reading "After This" by Alice McDermott -- in audiobook format.

If you haven't read it, don't bother.

The blurb on the back says it purports to show, in AM's keenly insightful way, the changes that the Keane family must go through, as they maneuver through the tumult of the 1960s. Except there's no maneuvering, no realizing, no coming-to-terms, no nothing. It's just excerpts taken, almost like snapshots, from this moment in time, then this later moment, then this later moment. But there's no family interaction, until the very end, pretty much.

Here's what does happen: John and Mary meet on a windy street (he is a friend of her brother's) and he escorts her to her destination. He asks her out. They get married. The next vignette has them making love, which she doesn't like because he "withdraws into himself" at orgasm. That's one of only three moments, TOTAL, where we understand any portion of their marriage. The other two are where she's pregnant with their fourth child, and he's struck by how plain and old she looks, and later, when he hurts his back and she is angry with him for his constant, manly refusal to see a doctor.

Other scenes are as the kids grow up, but are not all that important to anything, including the plot. For example, Mary and oldest daughter Annie wait all day in line to see "La Pieta" at the World's Fair in Queens. It's hot. They talk with the people around them. That's it. It takes nearly a full CD disk to cover that (more than an hour of listening time).

One scene, which goes on for an entire CD disk and a half(!) is when Annie attends a dinner party hosted by her professor, the girl she came with gets drunk and has to sleep on their couch, so she gets on the bus, meets a guy, sleeps with him, and later drops out of college to move in with him. That's her last story in the book. There's nothing to indicate attraction to the boy, desire for him, desire to drop out of college, nothing. It's like she is just a leaf floating along a creek, sent this way and that way.

Another super long scene concerns the youngest son Michael, who spends college in a bar, and smoking dope, and ogling women. College age cliches. Boring as hell.

The oldest son, Jacob, dies in 'Nam, which gives the family some cachet in the world. Poor Mary Keane, whose son died in the war. Another boring cliche.

Inadequate set-ups, inadequate connections, inadequate character development. None of these people are very interesting. There's no evidence that they are a family, that they have love for one another like a family. There's no hatred, either. They're just a nice Catholic family. Boring and predictable, until the youngest daughter Claire is pregnant at 17, and Mary slaps her. That may be the single most interesting part of the book. That, and the scene where Annie accompanies her friend into the city so friend can get an abortion (circa 1969, when it's legal in NY to get one).

The abortion thing is interesting, because it shows up twice. In the second instance, a nun gives a convoluted, but heartfelt, lecture on the evils of abortion. Claire listens to that lecture, but there's no indication that she is moved by it, or disgusted by it, or guilt-ridden by it. When she turns up pregnant the next year, there's no evidence that the lecture or even her Catholic school upbringing plays any part in her decision to go through with the pregnancy.

The book is just so oddly disconnected. It's not even artistic. I'm horribly disappointed, because I had heard good things about Alice McDermott. I should toss the CDs out the car window.

I'm reading "Revenge of the Rose" by Nicole Galland. It took me a while to get into it, but now I am thoroughly enthralled. There have been 2 plot twists already that I totally wasn't expecting. It takes place in the 12th centory Holy Roman Empire (Germany/Burgundy) and has knights and ladies, court intrigue, romance, etc.

Just finished the book "Beware of Cat" it was written by a postman about some of the stories from his route.
Very enjoyable read. Some make you laugh out loud and some just make you shake your head. He has a nice tone in his writing.

I just finished reading "Malice" by D Steel
And I thought I would give James Patterson a try again.
I splurged and bought a new paperback by him at the Atlanta Airport
called. "The 5th Horseman"
It is very good so far. I can't wait to see how it turns out.
If your into Law & Order Or CSI or any of that kind of stuff.
You may enjoy this book.

For some reason, I thought that I had replied to this thread but I guess not...

I must be a glutton for punishment because I decided to read the next V.C. Andrews series, the Casteel "saga" consisting of 5 books, Heaven, Dark Angel, Broken Hearts, Gates of Paradise, and Web of Dreams. I thought the Flowers in the Attic series was fair so I decided to read these. What a mistake. I am having such a hard time trudging through these books. They are just not holding my interest. This series must have been when V.C. Andrew's ghostwriter took over. The books are redundant and have zero spice (at least FITA series had spice if you know what I mean).

But I promised to just finish the series so there is one more book to go. I can't wait because then I can actually read some interesting material for a change.

WaterLily -- yep, that's the series that made me stop reading, and I do believe it was indeed when the ghost writer took over. They are just awful, especially when compared to the crisp writing of "Flowers in the Attic" and "Petals on the Wind".

Any readers out there familiar with a genre called "Paranormal Romance?" If anyone is into this a friend of mine wrote a book in this genre and just got it published. I'm the worst friend in the world - just cannot deal with trying to read a Harlequin romance on the moon...But if anyone's into it, it's called "Forget About Tomorrow."

Paranormal romance seems to be the new in-thing, but I can't get into it, either. I'm so outdone with one of my favorite authors (Brenda Joyce) -- she has latched on to the genre, abandoning a really interesting mystery/romance series she was developing (the Deadly series), and just leaving it hanging! With questions and mysteries! ARGH!

I seem to only read non-fic. I can't get into fiction. My favourite genre is biographies or autobiographies.

The last one I read was sTori Telling by Tori Spelling, and it was a great Sunday afternoon fluffy read. I think it took me three hours cover to cover. Just trashy enough to be entertaining and she's just endearing enough for me to say I'm a fan. LOL In fact I got So NoTORIous off ebay and I'm into episode six. LOL

Still reading His Dark Materials trilogy... *le sigh*
I miss having the time to read.
On the plus side, I'm on the last book. And my reading (as well as everything else!) time will increase in June.