Books you're currently reading???

[richlevy]

Just finished the newest Dresden novel, Turn Coat. Wow. Butcher tied up a lot of loose threads, and then set them on fire.

The public library is your friend.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Prospects For Conservatives, Russell Kirk. While he has an unabashed reverence for an ancien régime of aristocracy that I do not share, there's a lot that's seminal here.

[Trilby]

hee hee - UG said Seminal.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

...And there was the poor Indian the Florida State Police arrested and grilled all night until towards dawn the policemen got what they wanted...

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...a nocturnal Seminole admission.

[wolf]

Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith

Weird dialog style, pulls you out of the story, otherwise interesting mystery set in Stalinist Russia.

SPQR I: The King's Gambit - John Maddox Roberts

Who knew there was a police procedural mystery story set in Ancient Rome, and a series of them at that?!

Dogs & Goddesses - Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich

Chicklit at it's zaniest. Talking Dogs, Ancient Mesopotamian Goddesses, Math Professors with limited social skills.

Household Gods - Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove

Quickly became annoying. Too much feminist whining.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Hey, police procedurals set in old times worked for Ellis Peters, Wolf... his Brother Cadfael stuff. Try reading the more recent ones, though; they have a better sense of time and place than the earlier ones, which have from none at all to hardly any.

Feminoxiousness is a killer, isn't it? That's why I'll probably never take up Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon again.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Feminoxiousness is a killer, isn't it? That's why I'll probably never take up Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon again.

I used to love MZB as a teenager. For a young woman growing up, that kind of consciously feminist (or at least feminism aware) sci-fi really helped balance out a lack of positive female characters and heroes in what was a very male dominated genre.

That said... *smiles*... a bit like any backlash or movement forwards, the pendulum overswings. There's less need for the overtly feminist sci-fi, because 'women's issues' are no longer a separate strand and female lead characters no longer speciality fiction.

I find MZB a little difficult to read now. It's a little like being battered over the head with a feminist manifesto. But it was important work at the time. It broke through some boundaries and helped school a lot of young women in a way of thinking that didn't simply accept that 'hero' was a male concept in fantasy and sci-fi.

It doesn't have to be so obvious now. I went looking for books for my niece who is into fantasy and wild rides. The choices open to her are much greater than were open to me in terms of available character templates and stories. There are lots of strong, interesting, complex and still very girly heroes for her to get her teeth into. And the gender question isn't the biggest thing to answer in these books. MZB was writing against a much more overtly gendered setting, when sci-fi was very, very male and when the position of women in society at large was a very immediate issue.

It was only in the 1990s that British law recognised the possibility of rape in marriage. There are still gender questions to look at and find answers to. But when MZB was writing, it was the big issue for a lot of women. Like all movements, the first few waves tend to be a little strident in how it expresses itself. Eventually it settles down and stops being a 'movement' and starts being just another facet of a wider society (much like the 'civil rights' movement, or Gay Pride) and the issues it raised find their way into the broad sweep of fiction along with everything else. But ya need those first few strident voices to push it along and make changes; otherwise it never does make into the mainstream and remains an excluding factor in cultural production.

[Crimson Ghost]

Originally Posted by Brianna

SPOOK by Mary Roach. I liked her STIFF. Was hilarious - about what they do with 'donated to medical science/medical schools' bodies. Some of us will end up at the Body Farm, some of us will be in vehicle safety testing...some of us will be getting posthumous facelifts...

I need to read these threads more often....

STIFF was GREAT!
The Wife got to the facelift part, came to me and said -
"You are fuckin' kiddin', right? That's what happens?"
"Sometimes. Thinking about leaving your body to science?"
"Fuck you."
It's a wonderful thing to be at a restaurant, and just look at her, and say those magic words -
"Just below the jaw."
A couple of hours of silence.

Michael Slade.
Go ahead.
You'll love it.

[Trilby]

Ok, Michael Slade - but which book do you recommend?

[Crimson Ghost]

Start with Headhunter.

First line - "The body hung upside down from the ceiling by nails driven through both feet."
How can you not love that?

The books do follow each other, but you can pick up one and start reading, and not really lose much, as the history of the characters is touched on in each book.

Just remember, Zinc Chandler is a badass.

And if the author names chapters "Iron Maiden", "Twisted Sister", "Grim Reaper", ect. [in the book Ghoul], it just has to be good.

[Sheldonrs]

"Bergdorf Blonds" by Plum Sykes

It's actually pretty funny.

[Chocolatl]

Still finishing up The Graveyard Book. It was delayed because I picked up Hanging Out with the Dream King this weekend, a book of interviews with Neil Gaiman and his collaborators through out his career.

One of my graduation gifts was a big ol' gift card to the bookstore, so this is the haul I brought home with me today. Some of it is for me, personally, and some of it will be for my future classroom.
Reading Lolita in Tehran -- Azar Nafisi
The Wiccan Year -- Judy Ann Nock
The Freedom Writers Diary -- The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell
My Sister's Keeper -- Jodi Picoult
Love, Stargirl -- Jerry Spinelli
A Mango-Shaped Space -- Wendy Moss
Howl's Moving Castle -- Diana Wynne Jones
Speak -- Laurie Halse Anderson

That oughta keep me busy.

[richlevy]

Finished Men of the Otherworld by Kelly Armstrong. A really nice book on werewolves.

Finished Maelstrom, the third book of the Destroyermen series. Two WWII destroyers go through a rift into an alternate earth. The equipment and procedures seem very authentic.

Looking forward to reading Conspirator, the 10th book in the Foreigner series. I had to request it from my library. They did not order it even though they have the other nine.

[monster]

I'm reading everything by Chris Crutcher. it's Teen stuff and boy-friendly. it's awesome, but tough going. his characters do not live happy fluffy lives. I loved it so much i went to his website to send a fan email (my second ever) and was gobsmacked to find that schools are banning his stuff! And..... they don't even seem to get to the content (which i guess could be controversial) -they're all hung up on the occasional swear words that crop up.....

http://www.chriscrutcher.com/

[wolf]

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto - Mark R. Levin

UG will like it, may think it doesn't go far enough.

The rest of you will think it's wacky or wrong, despite it being well researched and documented.