OT: good books

[yellow]

I KNOW that y'all can help me here. I can't seem to get any books worth reading on my library trips...all duds, more or less. And life's too short to read bad books, especially when you're reading on the trainer (oh, so I guess it IS bike related)! So tell me about books you've read lately...including:

• title
• author
• fiction or non-fiction?
• short summary
• why you liked the book
• how you ended up reading it in the first place (e.g., looked interesting, recommended by a friend, read other works by same artist before)

And not just new books, maybe older books that you never read until now.

[latelatebloomer]

As an ex-bookstore manager and a new author, I jest love to talk about books. I adore authors running the gamut from Willa Cather and Thomas Hardy to Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials!!) What have you read that you loved? That will help us out. Wish I could read while I worked out. I can sneak a magaizine a little during warm up, but can't read while doing the kind of cardio I need to do. Either I can't focus on the page - or I'm going too slow.

[massbikebabe]

Yellow...the best books I have read in the last 4 weeks, sorry can't remeber some authors or titles.

1. The Kite Runner, a must read

2. The Mermaids Chair

3. Harry Potter #4

4. Wally Lambs book about the twins, (sorry stroke side reduces memory of title, I think it is I Know This Much is True)

5. Poisonwood Bible...dry in the beginning but stick with it.

karen
who also wants to write a book

[snapdragen]

The Phillip Pullman books are great! I got hooked on them before Harry Potter exisited....

Christopher Moore can be hysterical if you want to laugh. The last book of his I read was Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff Christ's Childhood Pal. Warning - it is explicit, and very irreverent. If you're very religious and very devout, you may be offended by this book.

Biff recounts "the lost years" when Jesus was a teenager. From Amazon: Joshua (a.k.a. Jesus) knows he is unique and quite alone in his calling, but what exactly does his Father want of him? Taking liberties with ancient history, Moore works up an adventure tale as Biff and Joshua seek out the three wise men so that Joshua can better understand what he is supposed to do as Messiah. Biff, a capable sinner, tags along and gives Joshua ample opportunities to know the failings and weaknesses of being truly human. With a wit similar to Douglas Adams, Moore pulls no punches: a young Biff has the hots for Joshua's mom, Mary, which doesn't amuse Josh much: "Don't let anyone ever tell you that the Prince of Peace never struck anyone." And the origin of the Easter Bunny is explained as a drunken Jesus gushes his affection for bunnies, declaring, "Henceforth and from now on, I decree that whenever something bad happens to me, there shall be bunnies around."

I've read a bunch of books by Moore, Coyote Blue, Fluke, Practical Demon Keeping.

[snowtulip]

Ditto on the Phillip Pullman series, The Golden Compass is my favorite. It's a fantasy series that deals with many philosophical issues. I was nervous about reading it at first because I'm not a fantasy novel person, but this is my favorite book.

Also Anchee Min, Becoming Madam Mao. Brilliant fictional biography of Mao's wife. Intrigue, passion, deception, social politics. I love Anchee Min!

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. It's a bizarre book, starts out a little funky slow, but stick with it. Can't really say what it's about, maybe learning about what really matters to you.

For fun and entertainment, Bill Bryson's, A Walk in the Woods is funny.

I could go on and on, my other love is reading!

[crazycanuck]

Hello...a topic i love...Just a few books i can think of now...

1-The kite runner-great book eh!

2-Six days-Jeremy bowen

3-Down & out in paris & london, coming up for air & keep the aspidistra flying-george orwell

4-Anne of green gables-Lucy Maud Montgomery-what a wonderful book to read...too funny as well.

5-A bright shining lie-Neil sheehan

6-Paradise of the blind, memories of a pure spring, beyond illusions-dong thu huong (these books are banned in vietnam and are a wonderful read)

Let me think for a bit & i shall post a few more

c

[SadieKate]

5. Poisonwood Bible...dry in the beginning but stick with it.

Any and all things Barbara Kingsolver. This is the longest of her books and does have a dry start but then just pulls you in.

The Prodigal Summer (is that the right name?) is wonderful start to finish and would make the naturalist in you happy.

I have to go think about what else, but Karen's post caught my eye.

[Lise]

Ooooh, one of my favorite topics!
I loved the Phillip Pullman trilogy. I've read it two or three times. The books are The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. They are labeled as "young adult fiction". I found them very adult in theme, in that they address the nature of reality, time, heaven, hell, death, the soul...and tell a great story while doing so! The heroine is a young girl, Lyra, and she'd fit right in here on the TE board. I picked them up because I'd heard great things about them from a variety of sources.

I'm currently reading Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund. It's fiction. The first line, "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband, nor my last" captured me. It's the story of a young woman who, among other things, runs away to sea on a whaling boat. It's gorgeously written. I found it quite by accident. My mom had picked it up at a book sale, and I borrowed it from her after reading the first line.

Other favorites: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's the story of a family in South America that spans generations. His style is "fantastic realism". This book amazes me over and over again. I've re-read it every 2 or 3 years for the past two decades. Anything by Isabel Allende, but especially The House of the Spirits. Similar to One Hundred Years.

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.

....just read the other new posts yeah, yeah, Anne of Green Gables! Although it may have helped to have read it first as a 6th grader...

ahhhhh, so many books, so little time! Have fun! Lise

[LBTC]

Ah, books!

Well, I've read all the Anne Rice books. Loved the ones about the Mayfair witches the best...and the last of the vampire series where she combined the 2 stories.

Love Clive Barker. Imajica is amazing!

Love Tom Robbins. Skinny Legs and All, and Jitterbug Perfume are the best!

Just got into Dean Koontz. Much more thought provoking than I would have expected - and great to just discover him with the volume of work he's put out! Odd Thomas was great! So was Twilight Eyes, and Fear Nothing and From the Corner of His Eye. There's only been one that I haven't really gotten into. Too slow....

Mordecai Richler's Solomon Gursky Was Here was a great book. Surprisingly enjoyable!

The Good Time Gospel Boys by Billy Bittinger is very funny and odd.

Pest Control by Bill Fitzhugh is a really really funny one.

All fiction.

Glad you can combine activities that way - I've never been able to manage it....

Have fun and good luck!
Namaste,
~T~

[makbike]

If you are looking for good romance novels try any of Nicholas Sparks's books.

If you like murder mysteries with some animal help I would suggest Rita Mae Brown's Sneak Pie series or her fox hunting series.

I finished one of Virginia Lanier's bloodhound books today - an easy read and yes another murder/mystery series involving animals.

[Rakekay]

Some of my top books of all times:

One Thousand White Women: The Journal of May Dodd -- a fictionalized account of an attempt to "cross breed" Indians and "white women" in the 1800s in an attempt to bring the two cultures together. Fascinating.

Two books by Phillipa Gregory -- The Other Boleyn Girl (a fictionalized account of Anne Boleyn's sister, who was the first one Henry VIII was attracted to), or The Queen's Fool

Pope Joan -- WAS there a female pope back in the 1400s? Rumor has it there was. This is a fictionalized account of how that might have happened and just fascinating.

Second the earlier nomination for The Mermaid's Chair by Sue Monk Kidd, as well as her novel before that, The Secret Life of Bees.

Chloe by Jean Brody -- can be hard to find, but worth your time looking for it.

The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks -- about a small village that chooses to quarantine itself during the Bubonic Plague so it doesn't spread the disease to other village. Told from the point of view of a young, uneducated woman who learns about herb and other natural healing methods and takes care of the sick in the village.

[Trekhawk]

The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

I loved this one too.

I have way too many favourites to list but I have recently read and enjoyed the following:

Straight Man by Richard Russo (In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvacious adjunt is trying to seduce him with peach pits and threaten to execute a goose on local television.)

The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue (A ghost spins vivid portraits of the world she left and the world she isnt allowed to join reminding us that there is the finest of lines between present and past, between life and death, between love and regret.)

Rats by Robert Sullivan (Observations on the History and Habitat of the Citys most unwanted inhabitants).

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. (Boston 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante's Inferno. Only the elite group of Americas first Dante scholars - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J.T. Fields can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante's literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer).

Last but by no way least anything by Arturo Perez-Reverte.

[Trekhawk]

Just wanted to add if you are looking for non fiction try this one.

If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name. News from small-town Alaska. By Heather Lende. (A true tale of ordinary people who do extraordinary thing with (and to) one another in one of the most beautiful backwaters on Earth.)


Happy Riding and Reading.

[Yubagirl]

notice you live near me, are you a road cyclist or just mb?looking for a good road ride thats in your area but not too steep. have any ideas? i ve done the 'greg lemond loop' have any fav. loops you could suggest??

[Trekhawk]

notice you live near me, are you a road cyclist or just mb?looking for a good road ride thats in your area but not too steep. have any ideas? i ve done the 'greg lemond loop' have any fav. loops you could suggest??

Im a newbie to road (started riding Jun 05) and super newbie to Mountain.

The Allison Ranch Ride is a nice one (you can pick up a map for this and others at Tour of Nevada city bike shop).

I normally make up my own routes depending on how much time I have and how much climbing I feel like doing.

If you would like any more info or if you would like me to grab a few of the maps from the LBS and post them down to you just let me know you can PM me with your postal address.

If you are ever looking for someone to ride with up this way let me know. I am a newbie though and pretty slow so if you are a racing demon you might blow me away. Still we could always meet up after for some yummy food.