OT: good books

[Yubagirl]

Thanks for the info. Ive ridden allsion ranch rd..i think that one is the one that turns gravel for 100 yds or so. do you belong to the cycling club and if so how is it, as you see i started riding when you did. dont want to embarass myself with the club if theyre a bunch of speed demons!. thanks for the map offer, i can grab one there. if i ever plan on a ride your way ill write ya a few days in advance. i hardly ever get a full wknd off though. a ride thats nice in the spring is the ride to donner park, it parallels hwy 80.. goes by the rainbow inn, cant think of the exit you take right now. anyway its a rolling ride and goes along the river. talk to ya later-Yubagirl

[Trekhawk]

Thanks for the info. Ive ridden allsion ranch rd..i think that one is the one that turns gravel for 100 yds or so. do you belong to the cycling club and if so how is it, as you see i started riding when you did. dont want to embarass myself with the club if theyre a bunch of speed demons!. thanks for the map offer, i can grab one there. if i ever plan on a ride your way ill write ya a few days in advance. i hardly ever get a full wknd off though. a ride thats nice in the spring is the ride to donner park, it parallels hwy 80.. goes by the rainbow inn, cant think of the exit you take right now. anyway its a rolling ride and goes along the river. talk to ya later-Yubagirl

Thanks for the tip on the ride to Donner Park I will check it out in spring. No Im not in the bike club. I enquired when I first started riding and it was a little speedy for me. Cant remember exactly what the speed was now so if your interested it would be worth giving them a call. As I said Im pretty slow so Im not the best gauge to go by. Im pretty happy riding solo now. I have three kids and a husband with a job that requires him to go away a lot so I have to get a ride in when I can. I doubt even if I had the speed that I could get to many club rides anyway.

Happy riding
Trekhawk

[bikerz]

Yellow - oh BOOKS! a topic close to my heart!

The Pullman books are great - completely absorbing, and meaty enough to think about even when you're not reading them.

I agree with SK - anything by Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer was great, Poisonwood Bible (recommended by Karen as well) was (I think) the book she was put on earth to write. If you're looking for non-fiction, she has a terrific book of essays called High Tide in Tucson. The first book of hers I ever read was Bean Trees, and is still one of my favorites.

I'm a big fan of several British authors, all of more or less the same generation - different in style, but all with similarly witty, erudite, beautiful prose - these authors are Penelope Lively, Margaret Drabble, Penelope Fitzgerald, Iris Murdoch, A.S. Byatt, Barbara Pym, Fay Weldon, and Anita Brookner - I think you could hardly go wrong with anything any of them have written - but a few stand out in my opinion (and they're all pretty short, so no big investment of time if you don't get into them): Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore, Penelope Lively's Passing On (5 stars for this one!), and really, anything by Barbara Pym. People either seem to love or hate Iris Murdoch (I'm firmly in the "love" camp), and I'd recommend The Green Knightas a good starter. I often find an author I like, then go out and read all their books, then find out who they inspired, or who inspired them, and read all THEIR books, and so on. That's how I found this crowd of writers.

There are also some really wonderful books being written by Indian authors - Rohinton Mistry is great - A Fine Balance and Family Matters - A Fine Balance is long, and sad, but really great. I also loved A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth - I think it is one of the longest books in the English language. Any of these books will really give you a great sense of life in India in the 60s and on. I also really like Salman Rushdie - I think Midnight's Children and Satanic Verses were 2 of the best books I ever read - very inventive and exciting use of English.

Also - Zadie Smith White Teeth was remarkable - I'm dying to read her new book On Beauty.

I agree with Lise on Hundred Years Of Solitude- that is on my all time top 10 list of books, and has been for 20 years. His short stories are wonderful too. (Look for translations by Gregory Rabassa)

Since you're such a "westerner", have you read anything by Wallace Stegner? I loved Angle of Repose and Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Non-fiction - Joan Didon - anything she has written - what a prose genius. Politics, the "west", water use, it almost doesn't matter - she makes the topics so interesting and relevant.

There are so many extraordinary books and writers out there, and you're right - a bunch of duds too - I'd better calm down - what you have read recently and liked? (I keep jumping up and running into my "book room" to scan the shelves!)

Oh - something fun - I just read Wicked by Gregory Maquire - kind of a re-telling of the "Oz" story - very fun and engaging. Apparently he has refurbished several other fairy tales like this - I have Confessions of a Wicked Stepsister, but I haven't read it yet.

(OK - off to bed - I think this is my longest post yet! My book club hasn't met in months - can you tell I'm suffering from withdrawal?)

[Lise]

Just have to chime in one more time....

ooooh! ooooh! This is so exciting! I may just print out this thread, highlight the books I haven't read, and get cracking! Thank you, wonderful women, for all the great books! Lise

ps, I love Arturo Perez-Reverte, and thought The Fencing Master was the best of his books.

[DirtDiva]

Most excellent thread!

I've just had five weeks of holiday and I think I read about nine books while I was away...

First off, I totally agree about Philip Pullman's work. I've only read the His Dark Materials trilogy, but I've always meant to read some of his other work. My favourite of the three is The Subtle Knife, which is the second one. By the by, why do they change the names of books in the US? The first one is actually called The Northern Lights. I suppose that name change doesn't irk me as much as changing the first Harry Potter from The Philosopher's Stone to The Sourcerer's Stone, but it still seems a silly thing to do... But I digress. (Who? Me? )

I am also a fan of Bill Bryson. My favourites are probably Walk in the Woods and Down Under. He combines a delightful sense of the absurd with a whole lot of very interesting factoids.

Another author I would recomend for a fun read is Ben Elton. Most of his books are pretty humourous and he has a knack for tying the plot in such preposterous knots that you wonder how he will ever extract himself - High Society is a prime example of this.

The most recent book I read was Kathy Reich's latest (I believe), Cross Bones. If any of you enjoy the whole crime genre (and I'm sure plenty do), chances are you might enjoy these. As with any series, it's best to spread out your reading of it as otherwise you have to suspend rather a lot of disbelief that all this stuff can happen to one character, but I do like Tempe Brennan; she is a forensic anthropologist working in North Carolina and Montreal, although most of the action takes place in Canada. I enjoy these books because the characters are well drawn, the action is well paced, the science is interesting and accessible and the human relationship stuff doesn't get in the way of the story.

Prior to that I read Twelve Bar Blues by Patrick Neate. Essentially, I picked this book at random (although the blurb did sound interesting) because whenever I go to the library I try to get out at least one book that doesn't come from the crime/mystery/thriller shelves. It's a tactic that has mixed results, but I've had some great reads out of it and this was one of them - just one of those books where you can really picture the scenes in your mind, even though you've never experienced anything like it personally. It's about several generations of an extended family and set in Africa (largely modern-day), turn of the twentieth century New Orleans, London in the 70's and modern-day New York/Chicago/New Orleans. The various characters aren't aware of each other and the book follows the modern characters search to understand their pasts and pieces together all the characters relationships to one another across time.

I think I'll leave it there for now, else I'l be here all day!

[Selkie]

I'm an avid reader. Here are some of my favorites:

DALVA (Jim Harrison) and the sequel, which I think is called THE LONG ROAD HOME. Beautiful characters, story, etc. These books are ones I dreaded finishing.

THE LAST LIFE (Claire Messud). Another beautiful one. Set in France, this is a coming of age story about a French girl and her family.

Anything by Louise Erdich (or is it Edrich? can never remember).

If you like mysteries suspense, you can go wrong w/anything Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine writes. Also, I enjoy Sue Grafton, Nevada Barr, Elizabeth George, Leslie Glass, and a few others whom I can't readily recall.

[wavedancer]

I have gotten hooked on the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon over the past couple of years. The first book is called Outlander and is an adventure, fantasy, time-travel, romance, historical fiction that takes place in 18th-century Scotland . Some graphic sex and violence, but I love the detail of the characters and description of life in that era.

[Aint Doody]

Don't forget about Pat Conroy. I have read Beach Music twice. His language is incredible. Also Prince of Tides is quite good. And he has out a new cookbook that is filled with anecdotes. I haven't cooked anything from it yet, but I've consumed the book!

[Mia]

I've got a great one for you- Bicycle Love (stories of passion, joy and sweat) it's a collection of personal stories about people that love their bicycle! I got it for Christmas, you can buy it on amazon.com.

[DirtDiva]

If you like mysteries suspense, you can go wrong w/anything Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine writes. Also, I enjoy Sue Grafton, Nevada Barr, Elizabeth George, Leslie Glass, and a few others whom I can't readily recall.

Ooo. I'd forgotten about Nevada Barr. Her main character (Anna... Something) is a park ranger, so there's always lots of kewl outdoorsy stuff going on.

Another excellent book (non-fiction) with a bit of a bike theme is Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham. I bought it for my Mum for Christmas one year when she and Dad were planning a trip to Vietnam. All three of us ended up reading and enjoying it. Anyway, when the author was a fairly young child he had come over to California as a Veitnamese refugee. As an adult, I think it was after his father died (and his life was generally a bit in the toilet), he sold up whatever possesions he had and took his bike to Asia to travel around and rediscover his roots. Really interesting stuff about the predjudice he faced both growing up in the States and when he returned to Vietnam.

Must. Resist. Waterstone's. Until. Payday. Or at least join the library here.

[bikerz]

If you like mysteries suspense, you can go wrong w/anything Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine writes.

Mysteries/crime novels - I love 'em.

Hear hear on Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine - very interesting, subtle stuff, and Rendell's Wexford police procedural series are a lot of fun and not as dark as the other books. P.D. James are also very good.

There's a very interesting mystery series (4 so far) set in Tibet by Elliot Pattison - The Skull Mantra, Water Touching Stone, Bone Mountain and Beautiful Ghosts. The protagonist is a Chinese police inspector who, due to political machinations, has been imprisoned in Tibet. He becomes involved with and affected by the situation of the Tibetans and specifically the Buddhist monks he meets while imprisoned. The author is a veteran journalist, with a lot of experience in the area - he writes well, the plot and characters and very engaging, and the impression of life in Tibet under Chinese rule is vivid. Great stuff.

I'm also going to extract a list of "books to read next" from this thread!

[alpinerabbit]

Non-fiction: I've read every book Karen Armstrong's written. She writes about the history of religions, and their interactions today. I especially enjoyed Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths, but you can't go wrong with anything of hers.

Yes - excellent choice - i have read "a history of God", but is that really material you read on a trainer...
For balance - I like How we believe by Michael Shermer as well as Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton.

For some lighter stuff: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy;
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series - try Ment at Arms and Wyrd Sisters, as well as Good Omens he coauthored with Neil Gaiman (try reading that without falling off the trainer laughing, if you like the type of humor......

Political books on the stack: Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions; Philip Roth, the plot against America.

[aka_kim]

So many new books and authors to check out!

A few not mentioned:

The short stories of David Sedaris are hilarious and irreverent.

Another vote for Barbara Kingsolver, and just about anything by Margaret Atwood.

Some memorable books from the last few years - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber,
Life of Pi, Ella Minnow Pea, Cryptonomicon... and I'm blanking on others.

For some "guilty secret" reading, I got hooked on Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone series (A is For Alibi, etc) a long time ago, and fully intend to see them through to Z. Maybe good reading for trainer sessions and airplane trips.

Cycling related - Lance Armstrong's War and The Rider.

[snapdragen]

Good Omens he coauthored with Neil Gaiman (try reading that without falling off the trainer laughing, if you like the type of humor.......

I had tears running down my face while reading Good Omens.

Neil Gaiman is another favorite.

[snapdragen]

The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell. Takes place in the between 2016 and 2060, a story of first contact with extraterrestrials. A very compelling, and I thought tragic story.

Galveston - Sean Stewart. Galveston becomes split by magic, one side is an eternal mardi gras the other "normal". Also by S. Stewart, Mockingbird.