October Reads

[direstraits]

I'm a huge Holmes fan. The gigantic hardcover of complete Sherlock Holmes stories remains one of my most treasured possessions.

After reading a lot of Holmes's short stories, I read Study in Scarlet for the first time when I was still schooling with skyhigh expectations. It was, how do I put it, rubbish.

Even in retrospect, I thought the story was disjointed, and the backstory was so incredibly boring that only my continued hope of somehow seeing Holmes in it made me plod along.

There are four Holmes novels, and I can only admit to finishing and enjoying only one, and you can guess which ghostly, glowing beast of a novel it was.

If it is your first time reading Holmes, trust me when I say you'll do much better reading his collection of short stories, starting with Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The first story there is not what you'd normally expect (as it's a story of how he actually lost out on a case), but it, and everything following it, is great. Now these stories you can join in...

The Speckled Band is probably his best, and I enjoyed the Red Headed League also.

ds

 

[Tamora23]

Hi everybody! I'm new on this site and I'm looking forward to great discussions about books!!

Now here's the list of books I read in October...
- C. Funke "Inkheart" and "Inkspell"
- L. Weisberger "Devil Wears Prada"
- W. Shakespeare "Othello"

I couldn't read more because I had to work so much.

 

[abecedarian]

Hi everybody! I'm new on this site and I'm looking forward to great discussions about books!!

Now here's the list of books I read in October...
- C. Funke "Inkheart" and "Inkspell"
- L. Weisberger "Devil Wears Prada"
- W. Shakespeare "Othello"

I couldn't read more because I had to work so much.

Welcome to B&R! A four-book month is still better than a zero-book month

 

[Baddie]

I only manage to get trough one book this month.
Read it in English, witch is my second language.

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

I've read about the book in the book of the month thread. And there is many different opinions on this book. I want recommend it to others, feel like it was a waist of time to read it. I liked the theme of the book, but I didn't like the story.

 

[Anamnesis]

All horror fiction this month:

The Lazarus Heart (The Crow) by Poppy Z. Brite

Demons by John Shirley

The Ignored by Bentley Little

The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

Live Girls by Ray Garton

The Girl Next Door and Red. Both novels written by Jack Ketchum.

 

[FrodoLIVES]

The Princess Bride by William Goldman A-
Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier A+
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon A+ (reread)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman A+ (reread)
Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson C+
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón A

Not a bad month All of the books were really good except for Maximum Ride which was horrible.

 

[bren]

The Seven States of California-Philip L. Fradkin, nonfiction
The Kindness of Sisters-David Crane, nonfiction
Rabbit Run-John Updike
Fifth Business-Robertson Davies
Bend Sinister-Vladimir Nabokov
100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century-Mark Strand, ed.
The Open Door-Steve Gilbar, nonfiction
Rabbit Redux-John Updike
A Scanner Darkly-Philip K. Dick

 

[eyez0nme]

All horror fiction this month:

The Lazarus Heart (The Crow) by Poppy Z. Brite

Demons by John Shirley

The Ignored by Bentley Little

The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

Live Girls by Ray Garton

The Girl Next Door and Red. Both novels written by Jack Ketchum.

You saved the best for last.

 

[Gem]

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Waiting - Ha Jin
The Virgin's Lover - Philippa Gregory
The Rice Mother - Rani Manicka
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The Gospel according to the Son - Norman Mailer
England; History of a Nation - David Ross
The Women in Cages - Vilas Sarang
Two Lives - Vikram Seth

 

[SFG75]

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

The Gospel according to the Son - Norman Mailer

I'm really glad that I decided to do the October BOTM. I would've really missed out on what a treat A Confederacy of Dunces truly is. I find it amazing that it took the author's mother after his death, to get it published. Just think, if she hadn't been persistent, perhaps the professor would've trashed it.

Mailer's book is a good one. I have't read his other works, but his ruminating Jesus was an enjoyable read. It's kind of like guessing how history would've turned out had certain things occured. A small, but powerful read.

 

[Gem]

Mailer's book is a good one. I have't read his other works, but his ruminating Jesus was an enjoyable read. It's kind of like guessing how history would've turned out had certain things occured. A small, but powerful read.

I'm afraid I didn't actually like The Gospel According to the Son. I picked it up because the subject matter interests me immensely, plus I hadn't read any Mailer beforehand. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I found the book to be dull, it lacked zest and wasn't in the least bit stimulating.

Mailer went the 'less is more' route, which I can understand because perhaps that was the best way to give it an authentic feel - make you really believe that if Jesus had written a gospel - it would be very similar to this. But I just found it underwhelming, and therefore not very powerful.

Although, I must have found something attractive about the writing, because my current read is Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer .

 

[Fantasy Moon]

Warrior Queen: The Story of Boudica, Celtic Queen by Alan Gold
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I know it's disgraceful to have only completed two books in a month. I have no excuse for myself.

 

[SFG75]

A Confederacy of Dunces; John Toole Kennedy
I already mentioned it above, so I'll leave it at that.

Bush At War; Bob Woodward
This is the first of three books by Woodward about the Bush administration adn the carrying out of the war on terror. Woodward is excellent at detailing the points of view of the various participants in meetings and why decisions were made, as well as the logic that went into those decisions. The petty bickering and feuding was sometimes surprising. Cheney and Rumsfeld have had their fair share of disagreements.

The Book of Fate; Brad Meltzer
This was a DaVinci Code wannabe. The plot centers around a presidential aid who was scarred in a failed assassination attempt and he comes to discover that the Masons and a secret Jefferson code were used to create an event that created such havoc in his life. The more I have time to think back and reflect upon it, the less I like the book.

 

[jaynebosco]

Against the Wind: the story of four Mennonite Villages by John Friesen
A Table by the Window by Lawana Blackwell
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks

 

[Prairie_Girl]

Venus Envy by Brown, Rita Mat
Self Coaching: How to Heal Anxiety & Depression by Luciani, Joseph J
The Year of Magical Thinking by Didion. Joan

wasn't much of a reading month for me either actually.

 

[Devilgirl]

Hi I am new to this board but here is what I read in October -

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
The Luckiest Girl in the World by Steven Levenkron - I have read this before and needed some light reading so picked it up again.
Making the Cat Laugh by Lynne Truss

I haven't read as much as I usually do. I have been picking up books and not finishing them but starting to get back on track now. Just started reading We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, which I am enjoying so far.

 

[Ms.]

The Defense - Nabokov
Diary of a young girl - Anne Frank
The Enchanter - Nabokov
Pnin - Nabokov
The Pearl - Steinbeck
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Cats Cradle - Kurt Vonnegurt

 

[lady.cordelia]

between the group sex and the cannibal sex, you were having a sexy month! lol! what's with all the sex? lol

 

[kuroc]

What did you read in October? Enquiring minds want to know!

Here's my list:

Janini-Shaikat Osmun (Bangladesh) 2/5

The Hidden Writer: Diaries of the Creative Life-Alexandra Johnson 4/5

Miramar- Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt) 2/5

The 99 Cent Breakfast-Patricia Glinton Meicholas(Bahamas) 3/5

Definately Dead-Charlaine Harris 3/5

The Book of Puka-Puka- Robert Dean Frisbie(Cook Islands) 3/5

Zlata's Diary-Zlata Filipovic (Bosnia) 4/5

Sex Lives of Cannibals-J. Maarten Troost (Kiribiti) 4/5

The Winter Queen-Boris Akunin 4/5

Floor Sample-Julia Cameron 3/4

The Stone of Laughter- Hoda Barakat 1/5

Is the numbers after the title of the book the score your giving the book. Or is it how far you've made it though the book?

 

[Stewart]

lol. That's scores.