Read any good books lately?

[usquebaugh]

The Chrysalids is actually a text for high school students, so I don't think any young children have been traumatized. I think it's a good thing for older teens to be given an understanding of the horrors of torture, particularly in this day and age, when all sorts of "enhanced interrogation techniques" have been approved (although, thankfully, President Obama has put a stop to that.)

I know what you mean, Jo (except for the "after many years have passed" part, since a few years passing still feels like a long time ). The more I re-read Beowulf, the works of the Pearl-poet, Chaucer, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Austen, Tolkien and basically any text that I dive into at a later date, it just takes on new meaning.

Since V-day is almost upon us, I'm re-reading Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, which always makes me laugh and cry. I also recommend her book The Good Body.

[quietlywatching84]

I read The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham as an adult and am completely puzzled as to why they made fifth graders read it. The torture scene with the feet was stomache churning even for me at 41

hahaha, that one brings back memories. That scene is odd isn't it.

I always thought 1984 was a much better book and should be in the high school reading list, that was my favorite book of all time when I was in highschool (read it on my own), I've been meaning to go back and re-read it again.

[Queen K]

I could have sworn that my fellow fifth graders were reading The Chrysalids when my class got "And Now... Miguel." Maybe they were reading "A Wrinkle in Time."

Anywhooo,

I just finished yet another travel adventure by Colin Angus titled, "Lost in Mongolia: Rafting the World's Last Unchallenged River" The Yenisey River is the fifth largest river by volume and yet so unknown to the West. Colin gives a painterly description what goes wrong when a trip was made not to happen, did anyway and God was looking out for you. Or very fast angels. At any rate, obviously Colin and his pals were meant to live another day because from everything that went wrong between China, Mongolia and Russia in terms of near death experiences, Colin really was meant to cycle from London to Turkey and cross the Oceans under man power with his new wife.

An excellent read for those who can stand hair raising adventure and a tad bit of sociopathic behaviour.

I read his "Amazon Extreme" book after seeing his travelling video tour at the Laural Building a few years ago, he is truly an excellent author. www.colinangus.com for more info on the guy.

[usquebaugh]

Well, keesa... you probably have several years on me, so maybe by that point the people who made the school curriculum (did you attend school in BC?) realized their mistake, and made it a high school text!

I'm re-reading Adria Vasil's Ecoholic: When You're Addicted to the Planet. It's got some great ideas about environmentally friendly home-renovating (among other things). We just put in bamboo hardwood flooring, seeing as how that's a very renewable resource, but the book has all sorts of other information. I like this book, because it's Canada-centric (it provides a city-by-city guide for Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg), and it's Ancient-forest Friendly: Printed on 100% Post-Consumer Recycled Paper.

[quietlywatching84]

could have sworn that my fellow fifth graders were reading The Chrysalids when my class got "And Now... Miguel." Maybe they were reading "A Wrinkle in Time."

I think that sounds a right keesa, I'm pretty sure AWIT is read in elementary, and Chrysalids is middle or high school, but that period gets rather foggy in the memory bank.

[usquebaugh]

Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikiforuk

Thus far, it's an informative read, and it makes me think that only the most ignorant could possibly support the continued expansion of the tar sands, the destruction of the world's third-largest watershed, and the continued poisoning of the groundwater in Fort Chipewyan from the god-damned leaking tailings ponds.

[Captain Awesome]

Has anybody read "Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy"?

[oneh2obabe]

Just finished Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich. Next is Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts - 1st in the Sign of Seven Trilogy.

[Queen K]

Has anybody read "Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy"?

Yes, and keep a fish in your ear, for translating.

[Queen K]

Just finished Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

At times the horror and tension threatened to pull my chest in tight, so as not to breath. It was shortlisted for both The Orange Award and the Man Booker. This list of awards goes on and on Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction not the least of them. It's 548 pages and I finished it in two days and a bit. A love story like none other. Fingersmith, a double entendre.


I was in the middle of Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck when I found Fingersmith. Steinbeck has some interesting and obscure observations about the American Dream and where the country is headed politically and socially in the 1960's that I think can be appreciated even now. Many of those musings seem applicable to today's America. Now I have to get back to it. As soon as I settle my mind after Fingersmith.

Please attend Alan Bradley's public reading of "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" at Chapters, February 25, 7 pm. He too won a CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award, the first non-British author to have done so, I believe. That is what I was told at any rate.

Coraline is a smallish Brit horror book by Neil Gaiman. I found myself transfixed by the suspense, waking up at night and thinking about it. I even warned parents considering buying it about it's potential effects. Haven't seen the movie and don't want to, to ruin the book in my mind that is.

[Glacier]

Just picked up a couple "new" books at the used book store. Starting with reading, "Rick Hanson : Man in Motion."

[Fixer 166]

The Art Of Happiness

by His Holiness The Dalai Lama
and Howard C. Cutler, M.D.

[usquebaugh]

Coraline is a smallish Brit horror book by Neil Gaiman. I found myself transfixed by the suspense, waking up at night and thinking about it. I even warned parents considering buying it about it's potential effects. Haven't seen the movie and don't want to, to ruin the book in my mind that is.

Neil Gaiman! He is quite simply a wonderful story teller, and his interpretation of Beowulf and the subsequent script were rather interesting. Of course, only medievalist dorks (such as myself and a few of my friends) were the ones laughing our butts off in the theatre....

[Queen K]

Just finished "The Virgin's Lover" by Philippa Gregory. Not to be confused with a romantic bodice ripper, it is a novelized, albeit well researched, account of Queen Elizabeth I's first two years of her reign. Now we all know she was one of England's longest reigning Queens but in fact what do we know of her very first few years as England's unmarried Queen? Everyone around her, Privy Council, State Advisors, Court friends, and Foreigners all wanted her married one way or another. Lord Dudley wanted to marry her and complete his families ambition to ascend to the Throne but his marriage to Amy and her subsequent mysterious death in 1566.....

Well now why read it if I give it away?

[usquebaugh]

Some men (not long after her reign) suggested that Queen Elizabeth I must have really been a man, because she ruled so well for so long. She and Queen Victoria (England's longest ruling monarch thus far) unsurprisingly did a much better job of governing than their male counterparts!


In addition to Three Cups of Tea, I'm also reading Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin Barber (author of Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World--published prophetically in 1996).