I'm on a Nora Roberts jag. I just bought the most recent Robb book, finished it and have started re-reading the entire series. I'm currently on book 2 and have already pulled book 3 out of the bookcase.
Janet, I don't think there was any date set. I'm not sure how people will feel about spoilers, and that particular book will have them. The plot has layers and levels.
I looked up what Nora Roberts had coming out this year. A total of 6 books including the Robb book and the current paperback trilogy. I know she is a fast writer, but as the plots of the longer books get more layered I don't see how she can keep that up. There used to be two Robb books a year. This year there was only one. An excellent one, by the way.
As Mary's aphasia progressed, we got into the habit of reading to each other. Initially, although she was having trouble with word finding, she could read beautifully. Then, later, she could still read out loud but confessed that she didn't understand what was going on. Now, I read to her every day, but it is just because she likes to hear my voice and have the together time.
Our favorite author is Nicholas Sparks. He writes of true love with a balance of tragedy. I would recommend any of his books including "The Notebook", "The Wedding", or the two newest: " Dear John" and "The Choice."
Nora Roberts, by the way, has made her home in Western Maryland and was rehabbing a hotel in Sharpsburg. The was a fire awhile back and I don't know if she has rebuilt or not. We read a book last year that she set in Maryland. It was about a young woman who was opening an antiques shop and falls in love with her neighbor who, unknown to her, is a wealthy CEO who is incognito. Just the kind of "love conquers all" that we like!
I picked up my High Noon the other day and am on chapter 2. When do we start discussing this book? Probably after everyone who wants to participate has finished it. My book is due back September 10. Anyone want to suggest a date? I'll be able to discuss it in 2 weeks. How does that sound to everyone else?
Two weeks sounds fine to me. I'd love to actually discuss the book, but by then my copy will be back in the library, and there will have been enough other books I'm not sure how well I'll do. On the other hand, I don't want spoilers to hurt the people who are chosing to read the book at this time, and this thread has become the general book thread.
The funny thing is that spoilers never bother me. I'm one of those people who almost always check the back of the book pretty early on in reading a novel. If the ending isn't a cheat, I'm interested in how you get from here to there and that is why I read.
I think we need some rules. Does anyone have any ideas?
I'm with Trisinger. Both DW and I love the "Cat Who" books. We have read them all. In the early stages of AD she would re-read ones she had read previously. Unfortunately, now she doesn't read at all.
My reading seems to be different. I have just finished reading "Eastward" by Roger Duncan - the story of cruising the coast of Maine in a Friendship Sloop. I am now into Carl Sagan's "Contact". Next on the list will be "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder - the story of a doctor who set out to cure malaria and other diseases in third world countries.
chris- So glad to see you read "Water for Elephants." Just finished it! It was great!!!!! A friend mailed it to me. I loved the ending & the perspective from someone 90 or 93, he can't remember, whose memory is not that great. Just simply great reading. NY Times Best Seller & more. I couldn't put it down.
Starling, there was a new JD Robb book in March, and according to her website, another will be out in November. YEA! I mark my Outlook calendar for JD Robb, Julie Garwood, Amanda Quick, Sherrilyn Kennyon, and a few others so I will know when to go to Sam's. Reading has been my escape for a long time. I love it. I can lose myself in a well-written book and escape my reality for a while!
Marsh and Trisinger, 14 years ago I was going to Florida to help out my son and his wife by staying with my grandson while the new baby (due in three weeks) was going to be turned and might come early. I stopped by the book store on the way to the airport to get something to read. I bought the first two "The Cat Who" books and started reading the first one that day. I was hooked. (The baby didn't come early, so I was there over a month!) When I finished the two books I had purchased, we went to the local library and I checked out the next 4, then after reading them, returned them to the library and got the next 4, etc. until I had read them all. I then started getting them in hard back when they were published, because I loved that town, its characters, and those cats! KoKo is one smart Siamese!
I really liked Water for Elephants but it is not good escape reading, (it required too much of my emotions and energy). I went to sams yesterday and saw a new J A Jance book it is one of her J P Beaumont series. It looked good called the library and ordered it.
My last reading was "Thousand Splendid Suns". Thought it was very good. Now I think I'll try the 'Kite Runner'. Loved the Harry Potter books even tho they are written for teen agers. Also I like the John Sanford books Lot of them have Prey in the title. Good detective books, and quick reads.
One of the things that made the Harry Potter books wonderful is that she intended for her audience to grow up with the characters. So the 11 year old that read book one would be 18 when the characters were 18. I wonder how that works out these days with all the books out?
I also loved th harry potter books. Someone just mentioned Jodi Piccoult, but "My Sister's Keeper"'s ending absolutely killed me. It seemed just such a copout. But that's why there are so many books and so many authors. I'm in the middle of "them" by Carol Joyce Oats. She also wrote "we were the Mullvaneys". I'm not crazy about it, but I'm honor bound to finish it now, or at least thumb through to find out what happened to the characters. We were just on a cruise to Alaska, and it was the only book I brought. My daughter is a spoiler. She has to know if everyone is alive at the end before she reads the book. (LOL)
chris, I'm so glad that someone else thinks that ending was a copout. It truly was. Frankly the sick daughter, in the real world, would have died. And I doubt if the brother would have pulled himself out of his personal mess if someone handn't spent quite a lot of time and work on him. The daughter who should of lived, and who should have been allowed to have a life of her own, was killed off. It was a terrible ending. And totally wrong.
I'm also a spoiler. I read the end of books all of the time, and in fact prefer most books the second time around. I don't need to know that everyone is alive. I can accept a death at the end were it is appropriate. What I can't accept is not treating the characters with respect. And that was what was wrong with the Piccoult book.
It didn't help that I read it for a book club meeting. And it was the 3rd or 4th book that we read that had something like this going on with it. There was the historical novel that got the history wrong which just drove me nuts. I was told it was "just a novel" but I'm a SF fan. You don't get the history or the science wrong in a SF novel without getting your head handed to you. As long as she stuck with fantasy it was OK, but once she picked on a real place, I went slightly nuts. And then there were the string of truly awful, very sad and depressing novels, one after another. I finally decided I just plain didn't need to be reading those book. I loved the discussion but just hate book club books. Most of them wouldn't have sold at all but did only because they got on the book club lists.
I don't think I am a book club type of person. The book clubs I am familiar with are not reading books that I am interested in at all. They also discuss them to death. It reminds me of when I was in high school we read "Tale of Two Cities". It took me a day or two to read the book and the teacher was discussing it for weeks - extremely boring. I even liked that book. I also figured out that I am not one of those that interprets books to have some deep meaning - wonder how many authors actually wrote those books with a deep meaning in mind. Reminds me of Peter Yarrow's comment about how "Puff, the Magic Dragon" was determined to be all about drugs - he thought he had written a children's song.
Anyway, I love to read. Love talking about the books and discussing parts of them.
I've already got the next J.D. Robb book on pre-order from Amazon. I noticed that a lot of my favorite authors have books coming out November 4.
I finished Archeron - first round, but had so many questions about the character that I went back and reread the whole series. That really kept me busy for a while in my "spare time". Next on the reading list is Robin Hobb's latest trilogy - have all 3, just need to sit and read them. I really like her but need time I can concentrate to read her books.
I went to one bookclub session at our local library. Too much analyzing. I've always read for enjoyment. If I'm not enjoying the book, I quit reading it. I've wondered how many authors would feel about how they have been analyzed. Peters Yarrows comment is a good case in point. I like discussing books with friends who have read the same book. Just commenting about how we liked or disliked certain parts or characters. Analyzing what authors meant about their works is way too much and besides so what, either you like it or not. When I get a chance, I'm looking at Archeron, but after reading terrja's comments might read the series 1st...
I have one chapter left to read in High Noon. Where do I go from here? I don't see a site where we can actually discuss this book. Shall I go ahead and start one tomorrow? I've got a few things I'd like to say about the characters. I could be wrong....but, someone else may have other opinions. Could be? Later....
I have to laugh reading through this discussion. Discussing one book here would be very similar to hurding chickens and about as messy..I too love reading and find it a great escape. Interestingly, my hubby never actually read a book (only magazines and newspapers) until about the time I started seeing signs of AD, now he is always trying to get through one. I personally love Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson. Both are mystery, read fast and always interesting..
I love James Patterson. Short chapters so I can put the book down. I should know by now that the story's not done unti the last page-but I'm still surprised. I prefer his non Cross stories.
Sandy D, I have thought the same thing so often ...but it is nice to hear others ideas about something other than dread and doom. I read anything that is printed..book a day sort...have your read Richard North Patterson's Race? Very well done ..very TODAY, but not obnoxiously so. When needing a chuckle, I love Susan Elizabeth Philips. She writes beautifully and has a wicked humor..her football series are great..also "First Lady". Just a thought to pass on.
I love Richard North Patterson..I have not read Susan Elizabeth Philips but I will now..I laugh when we travel because I take a book a day with me on vacation. I have always loved to read...
I enjoy Elizabeth Peters' books very much - both the Amelia Peabody and now the Vicki Bliss ones. I'm into Last Train to Memphis at the moment and enjoying it!
I also love Elizabeth Peter's books. I think I've been reading her for 20 years or more. I haven't seen her new edition of the general Ancient Egyption History that came out, but did read the older edition years and years ago. That was where she started, of course. She was an Egyptologist first and a romance/suspense/mystery writer second. It is one of the reasons she was writing under several names that weren't her own.
Right. I gave my daughter the newer Compendium. When I went to Egypt I thought of her a lot; she certainly has everything right. And there was a real Victorian Amelia who was the obvious inspiration.
Did you know that Agatha Christie was married to an archaeologist who worked in the Near East? And has written a great memoir about it, which I'm certain Elizabeth Peters has read as well: "Come Tell me How You Live." I lucked onto an exhibit about her and her real-life adventures in of all places the British Museum, I think 8-10 years ago.
Yes, I knew that Agatha's second, significantly younger, husband was an archaeologist. It was why her books started taking place in Egypt in the second half of her life. She wrote about the kinds of places she knew. Small English villages. Egypt in the 1930s when she spent every winter there. Different kinds of tourist places in England and also in Europe because she went to places like that.
At the point that she was going to Egypt the wives of the archaeologists generally were put to work on the digs also. So she cataloged things and probably photographed things as well as cleaning things. Truly a different world.
There was also some kind of breakdown during or just after her first marriage where she literally disappeared for a week or two. I'm not sure if she ever really understood exactly what had happened to her or what had happened during the breakdown. She was really a very traditional English girl before WW I and married in a very traditional way the first time. She was already pretty famous when the breakdown happened and when her first marriage fell apart. And it was possible that it was the fact that she was famous that caused both the breakdown and the break up.
I am also kind of a SciFi person, and I just loved the "clan of the cave bear" series. When is Jean Auel going to write the next one? Briegull what is your website, must have missed that. I've been reading some Mary Higgens Clark lately, Real page turners that you can't put down. Do all her books have to do with children?
chris-I also enjoy the clan series. It was interesting to see it evolve. I love to follow an author. I still think Ken Follet's Eye of the Needle was the best.
If anyone is interested, I'm reading NR new book "Tribute"..faily typical NR style..super strong female character and great guy (can't imagine her "guys" ever really could exist). Formula type, but I like it for easy no thought reading.
I finished Tribute a couple of weeks ago or so. I liked it a lot. When you read NR's earlier books and compare it to her newer ones you can see how much she has grown as an author.
I read a lot of Science Fantasy and paranormal romance. I like authors that have a sense of humor in their work and fun even when it is more serious. This weekend Robin Hobb is on the list to read. I have her Solider of the Son trilogy that I have been trying to read. Its a long weekend so this is it.
I read High Noon a long time ago and don't remember much of it. I thought I'd read it again, but it has been checked out of our library since we started talking about it here. I didn't want to buy it, since I'd already read it. So I can't really discuss it.
I really enjoy reading all about what y'all enjoy reading about...I went to a website today for Nora Roberts book HIGH NOON - http://www.noraroberts.com/highnoonmore.html - and read the excerpt...sooooooo good!! I am going to try to get the book @ our library...i am not a big reader -- i like reading, but sadly, i don't make it a priority and therefore, i start books and never seem to finish them. I also read the info online about the CAT WHO books...they too sound interesting & it's neat to "meet" the characters before starting to read the books.
i just finished Barbara Delinskey's The Summer I Dared. I thought I had read all of her books, but missed this excellent one. She does write beautifully...THIS would be the book club discussion type..lots of thought involved, but not a negative thing to be depressing. Just thought I would pass it on.
What are the caregivers reading? Apparently our LO's are doing too well in the area. I tried one of Kenyon's books, but I'm not into that type of subject matter and didn't finish. Just downloaded "Devil Bones" (Kathy Reichs) & "Heat Lightning" (John Sanford). Hopefully I can get into them after I finish catching with our local newspaper crosswords. I like John Sanford's "Prey" books, so I should enjoy Heat Lightning. Can' believe its been 3 weeks since this topic has been at the top. How we do go on and on from one topic to another. And so many new poster's. I like the input, but not the reason. I know I've missed welcoming many of you, and for that I'm sorry. Sooooo Helllooooo Everyone! Welcome!! Lee
Lee, I just finished "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyers (movie is coming out in November) and have five books to start! I don't have enough hours in the day, and given a choice between coming here and reading, I come here. <grin>