The thing I like best is the dialog and the attitude. It's like a good sherbet after a solid meal. It's a completely different, and in some ways shocking, flavor. And the attitude about how to deal with the bad guys would be pretty foreign to a lot of people today as well.

There's 9 so far. It starts going downhill in book 6, unfortunately.

Loved the first - read it when it was brand new - second and third were pretty good. Read the next three, but it was a chore. Reread the firt one last year, enjoyed it, and stopped there.

Stoned, Naked, and Looking Through My Neighbor's Windo (grouphug.us posts)

I can't look away from the thing.

A Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle. I have never bought a book by this guy but for some reason I have 5 or 6 titles floating around the house. He's OK.

People of Darkness - Tony Hillerman

Just finished Devil in the White City. Excellent!

I just finished My Peoples Waltz by Dale Ray Phillips. It's a thin paperback I took with me on my trip. Very nice writing. The story plays out like a bad country western song - child of divorce grows up and gets divorced, but the characters, events, and surroundings are described very well.

It's somewhere between depressing and uplifting depending on how you look at life.

Freakonomics

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed (Alan Alda's autobio)

I have Alda's book on hold at the library. Looking forward to reading it! Right now I'm reading "If Dog's Prayers Were Answered, Bones Would Fall From The Sky".

http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.c...45228&Method=3

I have a black lab/border collie cross who I luv very much.

Just finished Lance Armstrong's autobiography 'It's not about the bike' that deals with his early career and fight aginst testicular cancer that had raged throughout his body. A very emotional read and telling of the man's unbeliveable ability to fight adversity. Hard to say how long it has been since I have read something that impacts so much. Amazing stuff - if you see it on the bookshelf it's worth the expenditure. It of course helps if you like cycling and have an interest in 'Le Tour' but there so much more besides that I reckon anyone would find this book compulsive reading.

Finished Seventh Son and started Red Prophet both books by Orson Scott Card in the Alvin Maker series. They are fantasy novels about an alternate universe set in the early 1800s America.

I gave a couple of books in that series to my sister-in-law for Christmas this year. I personally couldn't get past the romance-novel look of the cover art.

They're well worth reading if you like fantasy and/or early American history.