I thumbed through it in a store for a few minutes. It's really funny. I'm number 40 on the library waiting list. Should be a few weeks before I get to read it.

Readin "The Screwtape Letters".. wow is that a messed up book. \
I love the part where the author says that he refuses to tell you how he came upon these letters..(insert Twilight Zone theme music)

Ah my dear, dear Wormwood. Heheh -- I love that book.

So that's where Calvin's teacher's name came from!
"Clever girl.."

I just finished Tamsin by the same author.

Helping Someone With Mental Illness by Rosalyn Carter.

Yes, the former First Lady.

I have an autographed copy.

OK, I'll admit it, it was unintentional. You know those massive remaindered book sales ... the ones where hardbacks are $3 and paperbacks are $1?

That's how I got mine, several years ago. It just percolated up to the top of the book pile.

I didn't even know that there was an autograph in it, until I started reading it earlier this week.

It's actually a pretty good guide to dealing with a mental illness, whether you're a family member or friend, professional, or the mentally ill person. Goes over diagnoses, medications, treatment, support groups ... pretty much the whole gamut, includes appropriate inspirational stories, but also makes the realities and difficulties faced by the chronically mentally ill quite clear.

So what does he have to say about it?

I've read several of Card's things. I really really liked Ender's Game, but I was profoundly ambivalent about most of the others.

I also loved Ender's Game. I figured that it was so good, Card must be a great writer, and I read a buch of his stuff too. At first I enjoyed everything, but then I read a few books with no substance and realized he was just phoning it in. Then there's the whole political aspect of Card in the real world, but that's already been covered here in the past.

Since HP 6 is now finished, I had to find some new books to tide me over... plus I'm not in school anymore, I have no job and law & order reruns are starting to bore me... so far this summer I have enjoyed:

Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - Fabulous
Lunch at the Picadilly by Clyde Edgerton - NC book
An Innocent, A broad - Anne Leary
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Witches - Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl

Dumb books that I read:

Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks - I thought it was really stupid. I know a lot of people like his books, and I thought I would be one of them, but this book was just dumb...

Right now I'm trying to read A Gallant Company - The Men of The Great Escape by Jonathan Vance.

Mental Patients keep interfering with my reading time.

just finished JANE EYRE and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST. Going to dig into some more classic stuff, if the eyes hold out. Need reading glasses all of a sudden! So freaking hot out--can't do anything but stay indoors and read. Might as well be depths of winter.

Another goodie--THE GOLDEN BOOK OF FAIRY TALES, ed. Jane Werner, illustrated by Garth Williams.

Just finished the second-to-last Dark Tower book; waiting for the last to come out in trade paperback.

Started "Kushiel's Dart" based on a friend's recommendation--I don't normally like high fantasy at all, but my friend said this was palatable and so far she's been right.

I'm cheating : I don't read them currently but I enjoyed them. :biggrin:
Do you forgive me ? :blush:

“A People’s History of the United States. 1492 – Present”
HarperCollins Publishers
written by Howard Zinn, professor in Boston University
the history of US seen by people who usually can’t tell their point of vue : Indians, slaves, trade unionists, soldiers, farmers, GIs in Vietnam…
A 800 pages bible. Very, very interesting.
I’m desperately looking for such a book about France.
How US constitution was written, racism was enacted in law, Texas and California were add to US, wars were decided…

To begin with new age :
“The celestine prophecy” James Redfield
“The Secret of Shambhala : In Search of the Eleventh Insight” James Redfield

Very interesting but not always true :
“Conversations with God, an uncommon dialogue” Neale Donald Walsch

“Mutant message down under” Marlo Morgan.
HarperCollins Publishers
American doctor initiated to Australian aboriginal mysteries. Excellent, easy to read.

“the biggest secret” : 1999 David Icke
(As for me, I know that all that’s esoteric (energy, symbols…) in this book is possible)
for people who enjoyed World history, UFO, Da Vinci Code, Illuminatis…
Even if you think it’s impossible and crazy, everybody should read such a book once.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...08743?v=glance

In the same kind of book “Le livre jaune n°5” and “Le livre jaune n°6”
It’s a little less “crazy” than David Icke. I’ve just found it in French but it’s free on the web :
http://chronos66.free.fr/pdf/jvh.pdf
http://www.leseditionsfelix.com/livrejaune.html

After those books we can read the Genesis in the bible.


A very creative art in France (and Belgium, like French fries) comics (sorry it’s not those I prefer) :
http://www.read-box.com/
Clic ENTRER, bibliothèque on top, chose a picture, clic “lancer la lecture”, suite, zoom, suite page suivante…
I prefer page 9 : ”La conjuration d’opale”, ”le combat ordinaire” (excellent, need to be french to understand ?), p13 ”Où le regard ne porte pas”, p16 ”Thorgal”, p1 ”Bételgeuse”, p19 ”XIII”…

Maybe you can find a US one which is a masterpiece :
Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History / Here My Troubles Began
by Art Spiegelman about the Shoah
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

Favorite french classic novels :
“Count of Monte Cristo” Alexandre Dumas : really better than all films inspired by it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...865737-2808743
“Michael Strogoff” Jules Vernes restless adventure without any boring description he’s used to.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...865737-2808743
“The Fortune of the Rougons” by Emile Zola
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books


Good reading !

Would that be of any help in dealing with alzheimer's? My 65 year old uncle out in CA lives by himself and has a pretty significant case of it. We, usually my mom who's an RN, try to go out there at least once every month or so to help him out, but we normally have to resort to dealing with issues over the phone.. which can be quite stressful for both parties.

Probably not. There are very significant differences in how you deal with a mentally ill person vs. someone with Alzheimers ... things like sundowning, and constant complaints that "people are breaking in and stealing my things, and then breaking in to give them back" are not common to mental illness ... neither is truly random combativeness, and misidentifying people as folks from their pasts.

It's sad, and I've worked with some folks who are actually senile but come into the mental health system because there sometimes isn't anywhere else to go ...

I expect that there are some books on Alzheimers/Senility/Aging and coping with it, but I haven't run across any ... I probably should, as I've noticed some memory and attention problems in my mom, especially over the last two years or so.

I'd also recommend that your mom start looking into Alzehimer's Units in nursing homes near your uncle's house (there's one near here with the tagline "Specialty Living for the Memory Impaired"). Tell your mom to chat with other nurses, particularly pool or float nurses. They will absolutely know where the good and bad places are.

Just finished DANGEROUS MUSE a life of Lady Caroline Blackwood ( she was married to Lucian Freud, Isreal Citkowitz and Robert Lowell) and GREAT GRANNY WEBSTER, by Lady Caroline Blackwood. Good stuff. I love titled, crazy, alcoholic, bi-polar stories. They are sooooo interesting. :)

Does 'Forum' count?

An excerpt: "I never thought this would happen to me and I dont know if anyone'll believe it, but it really did! My regular pool guy must have been sick because he sent two 6' Amazonian women to clean my pool, instead..."

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.


I blazed through the new one and discovered that I had missed several background details. Turns out I skipped the previous book. So while I enjoyed the Half Blood Prince, it was also full of spoilers for the Order of the Phoenix. I'm reading and enjoying it anyway.

I'm a slow learner. The Order of the Phoenix is spoiler packed for those among us who haven't read The Goblet of Fire. *sigh*

"Forums for Dummies"

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. It's an odd novel of vampire lore.

I'm reading my third book in as many days--not because I read them very fast, but because the first two sucked so hard I didn't get more than 30 pages in. Both were loaned to me by a friend, which is a shame because up until now I had trusted her taste in books.

The first was Kushiel's Dart, and the second was Sunshine. They were both horrible.

I'm having to re-read one of my favorite books now just to remind myself that it's not me, I haven't suddenly lost my ability to enjoy books or something.

Let's all read, um...Hardy's TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES!

Or, if that is too much of a drag, we could all read some Hawthorne--Young Goodman Brown or Rappaccini's Daughter. Get us ready for Halloween!

Just knocked off Snowcrash. um... wow

yeah. that was cool.



edit: linkified for Brianna

mmmm. You guys either know more than I do--or LESS.

What are you yammering about? Snowcrash? Is that, like, some sort of Sidney Sheldon thing????

Obviously, I canna keep up. I'm only on the 1950's...so...much...lit...kulchar...

*cough* *cough*

dramatic death...and

eyeliner.


*gasp*

I read that! It was a great first novel - I can't wait to see what she'll do next.

Just curious - why didn't you like Kushiel's Dart? Was it too much like a romance novel for you? I did like that book as well as the other two in the series.

In an effort to keep myself from checking only nonfiction out of the city library:

Ireland, by Frank Delaney. Bill O'Reilly recommended it, nice Irish boy that he is. Sort of Irish history as myth, and myths as Irish history.

In nonfiction, Allah's Torch and The Blitzkrieg Myth.

30 pages, eh? I don't think I would have made it past the cover art ...

I'm about to start Brutal Mercies by R.E. Yantorno.

The author is a local cop, and the book is set in the Philadelphia area.

Yeah, the writing style was really nice; I was quite engaged for the first bit where the main character's a child... but then it started in with the political maneuvering--I find courtly political games to be really horrifically boring. And then it got all romance-y, which I just can't take seriously.

Just tore through the Grouphug book. Ridiculous.
Also recently read The Cathedral & the Bazaar.
Geek stuff.

I just finished "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers. Pretty good, I'm not sure how to describe the writing style. Think Kerouac, although more whiney and self-centered with a thick helping of sarcastic detachment.

Also pretty much everything, if not the entire book, in Cathedral & Bazaar is on Raymond's website. It's decent, though better when the stuff was fresh. My opinion of ESR has fallen greatly in the last year or two.

The Art of Unix Programming, available in full on ESR's site, is a decent read.

ESR's site

Based on a conversation at work tonight, I may reread American Psycho, if I can figure out where in my house i put it ... probably the back of the linen closet.

After that, I have an autographed copy of Rick Santorum's "It Takes a Family."

I am sure that RichLevy thinks that the plots of these two books are identical.

Now it's Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms, by Ed Rollins. Seems being a political campaign manager is wearing on a body and soul.

Four to recommend:

'Mad World, My Masters' - non fiction/factual by John Simpson (BBC World Correspondent) - well-structured collection of stories and anecdotes. His style never fails to surprise as the stories move to different conclusions than that expected.

'French Revolutions' - non-fiction/humour by Tim Moore - non-cyclist decides to bike the route of the Tour de France - will amuse even the non-cyclist (thank god for that!) - great story-teller with all the right material and incidents to make the job so much easier.

'To the Baltic with Bob - non-fiction/humour by Griff Rhyss-Jones - non-sailor Griff takes wooden yacht from UK to Tallinn in the Baltic Sea aided by equally incapable crew of two - three obtuse personalities inside cramped quarters make for an inspiring mix of humour and tragedy (the tragedy being the funny sort!)

'The Burning Girl' - fiction/crime by Mark Billingham - #4 in the Inspector Tom Thorne series. Set in and around London - believable characters, good story well told - researches thoroughly - consider the other 3 titles as well 'Sleepyhead', 'Scaredy-Cat' and 'Lazybones'

I just finished Lucky by Alice Sebold... wow - it was so good. She needs to write more books.... I've already read both of her books and both were GREAT!

A couple of days ago a U-Haul truck pulled up in front of the hospital. One of my coworkers saw it, said, "Oh shit, I'm outta here!" and headed for a room in the office with much better blast resistance.

I, on the otherhand, took my place behind the bullet resistant glass and cheerily asked, "How can I help you?" when the driver of the U-Haul and his girlfriend came into the foyer.

"Yeah, can we donate some books? We were patients here, and we know you always need stuff for the library." (our hospital is something of a match.com for lunatics)

"Sure," I said, having no idea what I was getting into ...

Several handtruck loads later there were eight banana boxes crammed full of books in my already cramped office.

Donated book rule is this ... staff goes through them first and removes anything that would be inappropriate for our unit ... (I sure hope someone pulled "Audrey Rose," "For the Love of Audrey Rose," and "The Exorcist" out of the boxes before they got to Activities ... I would have, but I already have all three of them).

The mix in the boxes was a lot better than we usually end up with ... plenty of mysteries, lots of science fiction, some stuff that would be appropriate for adolescents, and the customary ton of romance novels.

There was even a book on MC68000 Assembly Language lurking in the textbook box.

So, right now I am screening some classic Ellery Queen Mysteries for content prior to delivering them to the unit.

Most of the books of the "I really would want these" category were ones that I had already read, and for the most part, still have in my book closet. I already finished the Archie Double Digest and the Betty and Veronica Double Digest and have passed them onto my coworker's 10 year old daughter.

(she's ending up with a couple Hardy Boys mysteries, and at least three of the Black Stallion books, and the obligatory copy of Island of the Blue Dolphins.)

I've been reading a novel called "The Door to December" by Dean Koontz, and it's around 500 pages long

And on to The Neocon Reader, Irwin Stelzer, editor. Not a manifesto, but a collection of essays about, or relating to, what for convenience we'll call neocon ideas.

:thankyou:

[quote=perth]Aldous Huxley.


I've been re-reading Vonnegut some, "Breakfast of Champions", "Slaughterhouse 5". I find I can't put one of his books down after I've started reading.

What did you get out of Slaughterhouse 5? Did you get you can't do anything to change the future so just go with it? I dont' know. What is Breakfast of Champions about? Please let me know.

Books I've Read in Iraq
A Clockwork Orange-brilliant
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest-decent
Haunted-weird read, but good-chuck palahnuik
Fight Club-Great read, very philosophical-CP
Choke-wierd, once again-CP
Siddartha-okay, good message
Catch 22-great read if you are in the military, very funny
To Kill A Mockingbird-Best book I've ever read
It Can't Happen Here-very boring, but profound message
Devils Apocrypha-just another twist on the Bible from Satan's point of view
To Reign In Hell-another Satan's point of view book
Farenhieght 451-Incredible
Naked Pictures of Famous People-Very Funny
American Gods-Neil Gaiman-Sci-Fi Fantasy, very amusing book
Angels and Demons-Dan Brown's book before Divinci Code, it's okay.
Illuminati-odd, but thought provoking
And yes, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince-I'm only about 15% into it, but I'm not impressed thus far...I know, I know

just finished Biggest Brother. bio of dick winters, the co of easy company WWII. (band of brothers). i bought that book right when it came out and was lucky enough to meet a few of the guys in social settings in arizona long before they became famous.

i'm not into celebrity worship/hero worship, but i still stand in absolute awe of some of those guys. i actually cried when the last one that i knew, John Martin, passed away earlier this year.

I've read about 3/4's of your list.

I'm reading Haunted by Chuck Pahaluniuk right now. Incredibly bizarre stuff.

Since you seem to like him, try American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, if you can find it.

"La Rose de Paris" : French book explaining how churches are built in an energetical purpose.
French cathedrals and some west european would also follow a map that would connect them to each other.
The same kind of geographical scheme was used :
- for Mitterrand "Grand Travaux" (Great Opera, Great Louvre Pyramid, Great Arch of La Défense...)
connecting them with french freemason's lodges.
- for French and some west european nuclear stations and nuclear waste deposits.
I haven't got the time to check if this theory is true and draw these maps myself but it explains me strange architectural details I've already noticed before.
Photo Grande Arche :
http://www.digischool.nl/ckv1/archit...che/arche1.htm
Photos "Grands Travaux" in Paris
http://www.architect.org/gt/gt_photos.html

If you're interested in that stuff, let me recommend the graphic novel "From Hell" by Alan Moore.

I've been listening to books on cd. Does that make me a dweeb? I just got 3: 1776, General George Washington, and another one the jinx picked out. I dont know why, but i am, all of the sudden, interested in the revolutionary war.

Thank you HM

That reminds me of a really excellent French "Bande dessinée" melting Jack the Ripper and... Peter Pan. Meanwhile it introduces logically Disney's story. It's sometimes tender and funny, often dark, misery and hard, and explains why PP chose dreamworld rather than reality :

"Peter Pan", 6 books, by Régis Loisel,
http://www.lefantastique.net/bd/doss...l/peterpan.htm (with I> at the bottom)
http://www.bdparadisio.com/intervw/loisel/loisel.htm
http://loiselpan.free.fr/opikanoba/p...cipales/bd.htm

Régis loisel also drawn "La Quête de l'Oiseau du temps", another masterpiece in heroic fantasy.
http://tnimai.ifrance.com/

i am reading "Desert Flower" by Waris (who is apparently a big model)

it is so inteesting to think that she is now a famous millionaire, but grew up in the desert, being genitally mutillated and chased by lions and now Elton John owns the rights to her autobiography!!

It is a bit of a stomach turner though, everytime she gets raped in the desert, or gets her naughty bits chopped off.. i get all woozy and have to put the book down and curl up under a blanket and rock myself to sleep :*

but all aside, it a great book, inspires you to get off the couch and do something useful.. like feed the cats or something.

meh, goodnight.

Just finished The Way Out by Craig Childs. Still ruminating on it but I would recommend. Other titles of his: The Secret Knowledge of Water and The Soul of Nowhere I would both highly recommend -- especially the latter.

Palahniuk is an amazing writer. He says he gets all his ideas from stories he's heard from other people's lives. I just read Haunted and Choke. They were both good, disturbing, but good. He is here to stay. He has a very interesting fan base. He sends people fake poop and rubber chickens as gifts when they write to him. He is gay and addicted to pills. He loves Vicadin (sp). Fight Club was amazing. I loved the philosophy behind it. It was actually very enlightening.

"The more shit you own, the more your shit owns you."

Set This House in Order, by Matt Ruff.
A novel about two people with multiple-personality disorder, attempting to bring order to their minds. Highly recommended.

The Big U by Neal Stephenson.
It starts as a hilarious exageration of campus life, and ends in lunacy (frat boys worshipping a neon sign, D&D nerds dying in dungeon adventures, armed student rebellion, and a Crotobaltislavonian conspiracy).

Megatokyo
Hehe.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman.
"A bad time for humanity", but a very cool book. It gave me a feel for the time period, and a sense of how history repeats itself (three Napoleon-invasion-of-Russia type disasters, five peasant revolts, four French military disasters...). Only a handful of the people in the book ever learned. I liked being able to come home from work and read about the epic battles of times past.

hmm in the last 6 months(I dont have a lot of time to read have a lot of parental responsibilities)
the one that stands out most would be 11th hour,11th day,11th month...a very good read about WW1 a subject Ive taken
an interest in the past couple years.

Ive read two books of Terry Brooks latest Shanarra series, I saw several posts with regard to Wheel of Time, I feel that Brooks is a much more accomplished writer in this genre than Moddisett, there is a lot more action and a lot more characters coming and going in Brooks books, at least the Shanarra series, I never took a shine to the Landover novels.

I saw King and Straub wrote another novel together at the book store or the library I know, it was in hardcover.

Ive read alot of L Ron Hubbard though ive never read the Dianetics? that I guess he has become most famous for. He wrote I think it was a 12 book series called mission earth that was really fun reading, I highly recommend it, Hubbard writes on many different levels and there is really something in it for everyone. At least read battlefield Earth, if you saw the movie(with John Travolta, a Dianetics guy) it really doesnt hold a candle to the book but do movies ever?

I was sad to hear about Hunter Thompson, if you havent read Fear and Loathing do its a riot. If you have? read it again its still funny as hell.

Of course natl Geographic comes to the house every month, last month it was stem ceels yesterday a special issue about Africa showed up, talk about a horror story, though they always manage to find some sort of hope.

if you cant find a thing to read I highly advise going to pbs.org probably the best site on the web, they have a webpage for every episode of every show they have aired over the last 5 or 6 years I would say, my favorite area is Frontline(one of the better shows on tv), go there and watch 'the man who knew', but only if you really want to understand why 9/11 happened.

Reassessing the Presidency : The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom- John V. Denson (editor)

It's nice to read something that reinforces your belief system once in a while as long as you read other stuff as well. That said, this book is right in my wheel house. There is a particularly good section on Andrew Jackson that I just finished but I have a lot more book to go. It is interesting reading this during the most grasping and least competent administration of my lifetime.

Rrrrff. Terry Brooks is slowly learning to write, but he's really somebody to write better than. Admittedly, that's not setting the bar as high as, say, writing better than Alan Dean Foster (always competent, always publishable -- and never great). Brooks' writing is amateurish: too many modifiers and a longstanding apparent fear of the word said. Hardly anyone in the Shannara books ever simply says anything; it's always an excess of synonyms. This kind of material niggles at me until I put the book firmly down (rather like in this post). It took me two tries to plough through Sword Of Shannara, and I've only leafed through the rest to see if Brooks had improved his prose. For years, he had not.

As for that sociopath Hubbard, who founded a "religion" for the money in it, the less said the better. Three paragraphs into the first chapter of the first book of BFE was enough for me to know the writing wouldn't get any better. That man desperately needed an editor, and never had one. I'm never picking up Dianetics or taking up Scientology; I read two biographies of the man back to back. Run, do not walk, from that stuff; no good could come out of the man in those bios.

For literary grace and style in the fantastic, give me a Zelazny or an Anderson any day. For philosophy and an admirable transparency of prose (a subtler gift than you might think), give me Heinlein.

Currently reading "Le Morte D'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Malory. It's primarily the Winchester manuscript with some of the missing pieces filled by the Caxton manuscript. The version I'm reading also maintains Malory's Middle-English spelling.

Excellent book, takes a bit of work to read but is more than worth it.

I've got a copy of that (probably not the same edition, though) that I bought in a books by the pound sale. I haven't read it yet.

Instead, I'm currently finishing up the latest Harry Potter book.