Comments on: Soldiering on … and getting lost in a book

By: Alyce

Alyce — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:36:50 +0000

I love Lillian Jackson Braun’s series of “The Cat Who ….)
I’ve read them all.

By: Lost for Words

Lost for Words — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:25:42 +0000

Just ran across an article from the NY times. they mentioned a website to peruse you library from home.

http://www.worldcat.org/

figured Pet Connection was a great place to note this with such a nice pet sounding name?

By: Gina Spadafori

Gina Spadafori — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:30:30 +0000

Thank you all … I’ll be heading for the branch library Saturday. :)

By: ruth ellen

ruth ellen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:11:14 +0000

Dean Koontz - One Door Away from Heaven. Very different, suspenseful, and funny. Interesting characters, aliens, a murderer, a little boy out on his own who has never had a dog and picks up a little black and white mutt and names him “old yellow.”

By: Nathan Winograd

Nathan Winograd — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:51:34 +0000

My favorite book of all time is “A Gay and Melancholy Sound” by Merve Miller (1961), followed closely by “American Pastoral” by Philip Roth, “Herzog,” by Saul Bellow, and the Civil War trilogy by Michael and Jeff Shaara (“Gods and Generals,” “Killer Angels,” “Last Full Measure.”) A great book to get is called “Book Lust” by superstar Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl. She lists her favorite books of all time by genre. I spent one year going through one in each category.

By: ramin

ramin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:03:06 +0000

Gah. And of course I went and forgot my current read: A review of the flatcoated retriever, by Nancy Laughton.

That is, if you haven’t read it yet…

By: ramin

ramin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:02:16 +0000

I definitely second American Gods (and just about anything else by Gaiman).

We just bumped into Dean Koontz in our local bookstore (in Finland that is ;) - what caught our eye was the silhouette of a golden retriever. And well, it isn’t about flatcoats but it’s got retrievers in it and it was a good read so I’d also recommend his The Darkest Night of the Year.

And I’ve very much been a fan of Neal Stephenson. His Zodiac and Snow Crash are smaller reads, but Cryptonomicon and the System of the World series are great reads in science geekery.

And I’d love to recommend a couple of Finnish authors in the crime genre, but there might be a slight language barrier ;).

But if historical novels are your cup of tea, I really recommend reading Mika Waltari. Sinuhe is his most famous piece (and most likely to be found in the States), but I’ve generally liked his other historical novels more. Alas, I don’t know how many of them have been translated.

By: straybaby

straybaby — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:32:54 +0000

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters ;)

By: 2CatMom

2CatMom — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:31:11 +0000

and I almost forgot….for animals: The James Herriot stories of course.

By: 2CatMom

2CatMom — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:29:26 +0000

Mystery:

Victoria Thompson (Gaslight mystery series - turn of the century NYC)

Alexander McCall Smith (No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency - modern day Botswana)

Lindsay Davis (Didius Falco series, ancient Rome)

Fiction:

Ivan Doig - English Creek series (ranching in the high plains)

Wallace Stegner - Big Rock Candy Mountain & its sequal written many years later -
Recapitulation

Salman Rushdie - Shalamar the Clown

Sherman Alexie - The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fightfght in Heaven

(I have to confess that I am apparently the only person on earth that didn’t like the Yiddish Policemen’s Union).

Non-Fiction:

Daniel Mendolsohn - The Lost, the Search for
Six of the Six Million (the author searches for information on 6 family members lost in the Holocaust).

Norman McClean - Young Men & Fire (His son John McClean has picked up the mantle of writing about forest fires)

Luis Alberto Urrea - Across the Wire and The Devils Highway - (life legal, and illegal at the Mexican/American border)

Laurence Gonzoles - Deep Survival

enjoy