OT- Books

[salsabike]

A Bright Shining Lie is a great book.

Also: And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts. From Wiki--"a sweeping and extensively researched journalistic account of the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. It details a variety of overlapping story lines including the tepid response to the epidemic by the scientific research establishment, and the later controversy over competing proprietary claims to discovery of the virus, now known as HIV, that causes AIDS made by a research group at the NIH of the United States led by Robert Gallo, and by a research group at the Pasteur Institute of France led by Luc Montagnier."

And Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir, by Paul Monette.

And Karen Armstrong's The Spiral Staircase, a fascinating story about what it was like to be a nun, what happened to her after she left the convent, and how she became the writer and thinker she is today.

For fiction:

The Dave Robicheaux series, by James Lee Burke

Richard Morgan's sci fi trilogy about a time when your "self" can be stored in a cortical stack and moved from body to body. First book of the trilogy is Altered Carbon.

Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books. Between these and Robicheaux, I seem to be in an iconoclastic, troubled-cop, with sometimes alcohol problems and Vietnam histories, mood. I have no idea why.

Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl has written two wonderful books about HER favorite books. She has a very wide-ranging set of tastes, and I found many of the books I love in there. The first one is called Book Lust, and I think the second may be simply called More Book Lust. You couldn't have a more wonderful compendium of book suggestions. She has them in chapters by type of book, too. Just READING Book Lust itself is fun.

[Veronica]

I loved Lolitia in Tehran! I've loaned it to so many people!

V.

[Lise]

I'm a big Karen Armstrong fan (Lise, were we twins seperated at birth?)

Entirely possible.

[margo49]

:


I'm a big Karen Armstrong fan (Lise, were we twins seperated at birth?)

-

Make that triplets

Anyone read her new one The Great Transformation?

[bikerz]

Anyone read her new one The Great Transformation?

It's on my list - but I think I'll wait for the paperback release! I'm looking forward to reading it - I'm trying to get my book club to read it but I think I will not be successful!

[Bikingmomof3]

I loved Lolitia in Tehran! I've loaned it to so many people!

V.

I thoroughly enjoyed that book and have recommended it to countless people.

[Lise]

Make that triplets

Anyone read her new one The Great Transformation?

Ooooh! Ooooh! A new one! Thanks for the info! What a remarkable writer (and person) she is, that people get so excited when she publishes a new book on the history of religion.

Edit: I just went to Amazon and read reviews. This book looks amazing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/037...e=UTF8&s=books
Amazon's selling the hardcover for $18.90. I like to get her books in hardcover--sort of a sign of respect!

Her two volumes of autobiography were so moving, especially The Spiral Staircase. I first read Jerusalem in '97. My sister had just come back from living in Tel Aviv for 15 years. I'd been to visit her three times. Karen Armstrong makes the historical record read like a novel. It took me 9 months to finish Holy Wars, which is about the Crusades. I usually only have time to read before going to bed, and that book is slow going. It gave me good historical back ground on the relation between the Arab and European/Western worlds.

Holy Wars and The Battle for God, by KA, and Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem helped me have a wider perspective on the Middle East's conflicts.

[RoadRaven]

Like WrensMom I would recommend "Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley

For some easy to read and interesting essays on feminism and comments on the place of women in history (both contemporary and long past), read Kathryn Rountree's "Embracing the Witch and the Goddess". She explores things like stereotypes... women must be the maid (virginal), or cast as the bad person (prostitutes/mother in laws) or as a saint (his mother no one can live up to, Mother Teresa). She explores the social history that progressively took power away from women (for example, not owning land, not being able to work /have own wages, and for a while, midwifes not being able to help birth babies!). And Rountree explores ways we have been reclaiming the power we have.

I like Wilbur Smiths books for an easy escapism - The Seventh Scroll is one of my faves

**** Francis still turns out a good mystery.

Clare Francis writes extremly well, as does Nelson deMille.

Another fun book that debunks the myths surrounding how women should be and I believe should be a must for any teenage daughters... is "Real Gorgeous" by Kaz Cook... it challenges the media nonsense that females are ingrained with from magazines, TV and advertising... things around skinny is fit, and fat is undesirable, and you have to do what your friends say, and real girlfriends go all the way... its matter of fact, and fun and very affirming.

Oh... Ben Elton... some of his books area riot! (and what would you expect from the writer of the Young Ones, Black Adder and Filthy Rich and Catflap!)

[Lise]

...and for a while, midwifes not being able to help birth babies!).

Midwives' practice is still interfered with in myriad ways around the world, not to mention right here at home, and sometimes downright outlawed. Sigh. Que sigue la lucha. (the fight goes on)

[Trek420]

In my backpack now The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. It was reccomended by my sister, fast moving, well written, set in Chicago, great artists, incredible history and horrific violence.

[RoadRaven]

Midwives' practice is still interfered with in myriad ways around the world, not to mention right here at home, and sometimes downright outlawed. Sigh. Que sigue la lucha. (the fight goes on)

I know...
There are still many restrictions around midwifery here... but I remember reading a history of midwifery (when i was contemplating training to be one) and reading how for a while there in the post-middle ages, midwives sometimes tied womens legs together -so great was their fear that the woman would give birth before the (male) doctor got there... awful!

I think you'd find the book I recommended (Rountree's) interesting, Lise

[Deanna]

I'm more of a fiction fan, but there are a few non-fiction that stick out for me:

Rain of Gold, by Victor Villasenor. The biography of his grandparents and a great read about immigrants setting roots in America. This is one I've recommended over and over.

Just about anything by Bill Bryson & Hunter Thompson

The Shirley Letters by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe, a collection of articles written as letters from a woman in the California Gold Mines. If you've spent time in the Feather River/Plumas County area you'll enjoy it even more.

[mimitabby]

I love non-fiction too. Especially natual history or travel writing.

I'm reading Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin (an autistic woman who was featured in one of Oliver Sacks' books.) It attempts to explain how animals think and why they act the way they do. Very interesting.

I love Temple Grandin! isn't she amazing?
I have read 3 other of Eric Newby's books, about his adventures in Italy!