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Old 10-21-2016, 05:09 AM   #2461
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Currently reading Bone by Bone by Carol O'Connell, (the first non-Mallory book of hers I've read......and perhaps only the second she's published).

Enjoying it, but I miss the Mallory character.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/books/29masl.html
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Old 10-31-2016, 06:47 PM   #2462
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I just finished The Sex Lives of Cannibals - Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (2004) by Maarten Troost. This is a hilarious account of a young man who accompanied his wife to Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati (pronounced Ki ree bas), and spent two years on this atoll where his wife worked as a director for a non-profit organization.

You have not heard of Kiribati? Me neither, before reading this book. Tarawa is quite close to the equator, about half-way between Hawaii and the northeast corner of Australia and about 3000 miles from either. Few would want to spend 2 years on this atoll, but before booking a flight there for an idyllic vacation, you would do well to read this book.

Maarten used a facetious prose to describe a bleak life on this atoll. Not much food can grow on this atoll, nor is there land for farming. Landlubbers may talk lovingly of fresh seafood, but when one is faced day-in-day-out with three meals of boiled fish, boiled sea slugs, boiled moray eels, one quickly craves for something different. Why always boiled seafood, you ask? That's because there's no spice to do much else with it, nor wood to grill with. The author half-jokingly talked about looking at his adopted stray dog, and imagined it as a spit roast.

The book is 12-year old, and even back then the author wrote of refuse and human waste being thrown out to the sea because there's no land for any garbage dump. There's a perpetual shortage of fresh water, and whatever ground water there gets contaminated with human and animal waste. Yet, Tarawa is getting more crowded due to influx; other atolls of this country are slowly sinking into the ocean.

I went on the Web to look for some info to see if the author was exaggerating what he saw. What little I found shows that life is indeed harsh, and the beach is indeed littered with trash.

What is surprising on the Web are the numerous old B&W photos of the WWII battle waged on this atoll. It is not as well known as Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal, but on a small neighboring island of Betio of about 1 square mile, 6,400 American soldiers, and Japanese soldiers along with their conscripted Korean laborers died in the space of 3 days of fighting.

PS. What about the cannibals and their sex lives? Well, you have to read the book to find out.
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Old 12-04-2016, 04:13 PM   #2463
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I read "E is for Evidence" by Sue Grafton. This is one I must have missed in her series of Kinsey books. It is a light read, and a very short book. One of her best I think: https://smile.amazon.com/Evidence-Ki...s+for+evidence

BTW, looked at the start date of this thread and it was about 2 days after the bottom of the stock market crash. Nice timing.
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Old 12-04-2016, 04:38 PM   #2464
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I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb

At nearly 900 pages this may not be for everyone, but I found it engrossing. A sprawling story of one small family unfolds as one half of a pair of identical twins tries to figure out his life. I don't want to give away more than that. One of the best books I have read that I had never heard of.
(It was an Oprah book club selection, but I never followed her.)


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Old 12-04-2016, 04:56 PM   #2465
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Gutenberg's Apprentice

A wonderful novel about the beginning of printing, in the mid 15th century.

The entire range of the events, both geographical and social, is remarkably well researched and the characters are well drawn.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and I will happily buy her next book.
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Old 12-04-2016, 05:25 PM   #2466
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The Old Man and the Sea. Trying to decide on the next Hemingway piece.
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Old 12-04-2016, 08:01 PM   #2467
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"The Year of Voting Dangerously," by Maureen Dowd. It has a series of her columns, like a diary, from 2015 and 2016 about the 2016 presidential campaign.
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Old 12-18-2016, 06:43 PM   #2468
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Been on another WWII book reading kick lately. Just finished "Wine and War: The French, the Nazis and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure" by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup

It's older, so many of you may have read it, but if not, it's very interesting if you like wine or European history!
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Old 12-18-2016, 06:47 PM   #2469
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For Whom the Bell Tolls. I'm on a Hemingway kick.
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Old 12-19-2016, 08:14 AM   #2470
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Do Audio Books count? If so, I am listening to 'Under the Dome'. It is far, far, far better than the TV show of the same name.
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Old 12-19-2016, 02:17 PM   #2471
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Another collection of American short stories. I'm kind of surprised at how much I like some stories as opposed to others.
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Old 12-19-2016, 03:16 PM   #2472
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I'm picking my way through John LeCarre: The Biography
On Amazon the Kindle version is only $2 (got my book at the library though): https://smile.amazon.com/John-Carre-...2185281&sr=8-1

I rarely read biographies because they are so loooong. This one is 673 pages. I decided I'd skip a lot of the details and dive occasionally into whole paragraphs. David Cornwell had a real cad of a father: con artist, wife beater, philanderer. An all around bad guy. Interesting and probably served David well in his apparently brief intelligence career plus his writing.

I'm now tempted to re-read his book A Perfect Spy which has some autobiographical features apparently.
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Old 12-19-2016, 03:30 PM   #2473
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Just finished The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo.....good read.

https://www.amazon.ca/Redeemer-Jo-Nesbo/dp/030735573X
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Old 12-19-2016, 04:26 PM   #2474
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemo2 View Post
Just finished The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo.....good read.

https://www.amazon.ca/Redeemer-Jo-Nesbo/dp/030735573X
I looked this up and it looks interesting. Apparently this in #3 in a series of Harry Hole crime novels that might go together.

The recommendation by one reviewer suggested reading them in order. I think this is the order for 3 books considered part of a series:
The Redeemer
The Snowman
The Leopard

But there are other Harry Hole books too. Maybe these are standalones? This link seems to show some promise in uncovering the reading order if the Oslo sequence is the best: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nesb%C3%B8%...R1LA85C2RSMHTD

I'm confused as to the best order to read these and other Harry Hole books.
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Old 12-19-2016, 04:37 PM   #2475
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Quote:
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Do Audio Books count? If so, I am listening to 'Under the Dome'. It is far, far, far better than the TV show of the same name.
DH loved that book so we watched the summer series, three summers in a row. The third and final season became the funniest thing ever, so obviously made up as the writers went along, gaping plot holes, storylines that went nowhere, characters acting out of character. It should have been a one-summer show.
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Old 12-19-2016, 05:00 PM   #2476
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I'm reading Simon Montefiore's Jerusalem. It is a magnificent history of the city and, by extension, much of the Middle East. It has helped me put the whole Middle East mess in some perspective.
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Old 12-19-2016, 05:52 PM   #2477
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lsbcal View Post

I'm confused as to the best order to read these and other Harry Hole books.
Since I pick up books as/when I find them, I'm generally/often out of sequence, but I have read a number of Nesbo books, (plus other Scandinavian/Icelandic novels, translated of course).

Given my druthers I'd prefer to read any author's books in the order they were written, especially ones that feature a recurring protagonist, (since there are often oblique, and not so oblique, references to previous story lines, and one can watch character development as it unfolds)..........so, if you're able to do that, I'd say it's the best method...which doesn't mean the novels can't be read out of order....and thoroughly enjoyed.
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Old 12-19-2016, 07:12 PM   #2478
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Arrival by Ted Chiang. A great collection of thought provoking speculative fiction short stories.
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Old 12-20-2016, 10:03 AM   #2479
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Just about done with Hillbilly Elligies. Must admit I was quite disappointed given the hype. Found the first part hard to read (anytime there are multiple anecdotes of different relatives I have a hard time connecting all the familial dots). At the end I get the conclusions about class and education, etc, but haven't really found it that enlightening or enjoyable a read.
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Old 12-20-2016, 07:39 PM   #2480
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Just started Unwanted by Kristina Ohlsson - her first book, (AFAIK), and the first one of hers I've read.

She has the street creds, so we'll see how the book pans out:

Kristina Ohlsson (Author of Unwanted)
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