What's everybody reading?

Pudding wrote:

I've discovered free podcasts. I've downloaded a bunch of Agatha Christies and am working my way through them.

Where do you get your free podcasts? I had some OTR downloads which were good via itunes.

I just finished A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block. I really like Block- great hard boiled crime. This one was based in Greenwich Village and was all about drugs and beatniks.

I started a biography of Louis Prima this morning which is good so far. I was talking about him last night and thought I read the biography, which by rights should be in LS's reading pile but I queue jumped!

Morning all,

Doing blog research, I stumbled across some good online books at NASA.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/toc.htm

Also found some great stuff on CVE's (light aircraft carriers):

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/cve93.htm

For real books, I've started back into some sixties nonfiction:

We Seven, an astronaut book.

Now, I just need to find some good fiction....

I just finished Duchess by Susan Holloway Scott-an historical novel on the life of Sarah Churchill-pretty juicy! I don't normally read this kind of fiction, but I was very intrigued by the cover. I am currently reading a book of short stories and poems by A.A. Milne-items previously published in Punch Magazine where he was once editor-very funny so far.

Just started A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
I thought that if the author had taken to trouble to commit suicide because of rejection by publishers, then the least I could do would be to read the thing.

Water for Elephants; set in the present and in the 30s. Excellent.

Also, My French Whore, by Gene Wilder (yes, the actor). It's a very good novella, set during WWI.

Too tired to get much reading done these days. I am currently reading " The Portable Dorothy Parker". A collection of most of her work. Great short stories!

Well, just picked up Starbucked. Starting out really well, especially the information on Peet's. Here's the NYTimes review in case you wanted some background:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/books/review/O-Rourke-t.html

Well, I won't be reading the book but the review was a delight!

Personally, I can not stand Starbucks and avoid it at all costs. I buy my beans from a local roaster, all fair-trade and organic, and he grinds them for me fresh every week.

Starbucks coffee does taste like it was thru a fire and the price is just ridiculous. I'm glad someone has tackled it, though, and hopefully people will catch on that they're being had.

I just finished a John Dickson Carr (a Gideon Fell mystery), and I'm a story or two into Out of Africa.

I am also finishing Trent's Last Case. E.C. Bentley.

Oh, I am also reading Rhubarb, by H. Allen Smith. (He wrote Topper.)

Currently reading Cheap Diamonds by Norris Church Mailer.

STILL finishing Trent's....

Oy. The rattling on at the end! It's a good story, but E.C. Bentley was desperately in need of an editor (I think he got hold of a medium and used Dicken's favorite chap).

I gave up on Cheap Diamonds-short chapters, but very boring.
I am onto Royal Harlot-it's the second book to the one I posted before, Duchess.

Decaffeinated Corpse. Modern semi-cosy, set in the Village (Greenwich Village, NYC). It's a decent series. A re-read.

Doctor No, by Ian Fleming. I'm learning more about guano than I ever thought I could in a James Bond novel, what with his refined tatstes and everything.

Asey Mayo mysteries, written by Phoebe Attwood Taylor. These are vintage; she started writing them in 1930.

Always (so far, anyway) a first-person narration...but a different character every time.

They're all about Cape Cod. Good prose. Her style doesn't date.

I'm reading a couple of bios at the mo;

Georgiana, The Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Fortune's Daughters (The Jerome sisters) by Elisabeth Kehoe

I'm reading The Prisoners' Dilemma by William Poundstone.
It's about John von Neumann, game theory and the bomb.

Of most interest so far is the revelation (to me) that supposed peace activist Bertrand Russell was in favour of an American first strike, or preventive war, against the pre-nuclear USSR!

I found a Nero Wolfe (now out of print, I think) that I'd never read. What an unexpected gift.

The Red Box; 1935, approximately. Read it last night, cover-to-cover.

I just started Thunderstruck by Erik Larson the other day. It's non-fiction about Marconi's invention of radio and Hawley Crippen, an infamous murderer. I just had to give this one a try after reading Larson's The Devil in the White City. So far, it seems to be almost as good. I'm impressed with the way Larson presents these true stories like fiction, rather than falling into the stuffy journalistic style that accompanies many non-fiction books that deal with nearly-forgotten events.

Since it's summer, I dug into my stack of pulps and picked a good one. If the first chapter is any indication, this one should be great!

"The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge" by David McCullough (1972).

A great book (I've read it before) that is not only a fascinating read about the bridge itself but also tells a good tale about the blatant corruption (Boss Tweed) in New York City at the time.

After Mina's mention I'm now reading 'Hit List' by Lawrence Block. Good so far!

I just finished The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde. Wonderfully strange and very, very British. Unfortunately, I'm about to start my summer class about teaching writing. I think I'll be reading nothing but journal articles and textbooks for the next month.

Oh dear Jumpin' Jim, it appears The Big Over Easy is on it's way to me now, along with the first Thursday Next novel. Sounds right up my street!

The Big Over Easy was fabulous. It makes Reading sound just as seedy as Philip Marlowe's Los Angeles, but with all manner of talking animals and food items wandering around.

Sarah has read all of the Thursday Next novels and loves them. Jack Spratt, the protagonist of the Nursery Crimes series evidently makes a few appearances in the Thursday Next Series.