All Things Books And Reading Thread - 2018

[Margret]

I heard an interview with her on NPR yesterday or Tuesday. She broke a lot of molds in Science Fiction. I need to read some of her books again.

Yeah. I need to go to BookBub's site and make sure I've bookmarked the Earthsea books; it's so long since I've read them. BTW, does anyone know how her last name is pronounced?

Margret

 

[catspaw66]

She pronounced it Lay Gwin (think Elmer Fudd saying grin)

 

[Margret]

She pronounced it Lay Gwin (think Elmer Fudd saying grin)

Thank you.

* * * * * *​

Well, the one problem I've been having with LOTR on the Nook is the maps. The edges are cut off, and it's impossible to enlarge them and scroll around. So I went searching online and found this site: Interactive Map of Middle-Earth - LotrProject If you get red dots obscuring things go to the Events tab on the right of the page and remove any check marks you find.

Turn Events back on for LOTR only if you want a better notion of the paths followed after the party leaves the usual roads. It isn't perfect; there could be a lot more detail of The Shire and vicinity, for instance, but it's still extremely useful. They also have a map of Beleriand (First Age, The Silmarillion), family trees, things like that.

I also found this, which is appears to be a picture of one of the fold-out maps drawn by Tolkien for a hard-back version of LOTR: http://donsmaps.com/images29/middleearthlargelargerstill.jpg, and this, which is a partial map of The Shire, also drawn by Tolkien: Map of the Shire - J.R.R. Tolkien. Unfortunately, it doesn't go as far as Bree.

Margret

Margret

 

[Winchester]

I dearly love the LOTR books and have read and re-read them a bazillion times. I remember staying up all night for days on end the first time I read the series because I could not put those books down. They were (and still are) fascinating to me.

And yes, I read and have since re-read and re-read the Outlander series. I laughed and cried my way through Outlander. I had started to read Voyager back in October, so that I could be up-to-date on the new season on Starz. Only to finish that, read Drums of Autumn and The Fiery Cross. Again. And then I took a break and started reading library e-books again.

I have a Barnes and Noble book settlement and want to spend it on the new Pendergast novel from Douglas/Preston, City of Endless Night. I keep saying I'm going to buy it and haven't done it yet. I've also been saying that I'd like to completely start over with Relic and read all the Pendergast books again. The problem is the Pendergast books are not in my public library as e-books, so if I want to do that, I'll have to walk over to the library and read them in hard cover.

You know, I don't know what it is about reading books over again. Do you all do that? I have all the Stephen King books and have read and re-read and re-read many of them. Yet, there are times when I'm in the house, have a library of e-books on my Kindle, and yet will walk over to the bookcase, grab a King book, and flop down and start to read it. Again.

There are a quadzillion books in the world that I've never read. And yet, I find myself re-reading favorites.

And then there are those times when I'm so busy with stuff at home and at work that I don't have time to read. And that's a shame. I'll go for weeks without reading anything for pleasure. Then it gets to me and I need to read. Something. Anything. We take such pleasure in our books, don't we?

So many books. So little time.

 

[jcat]

I finished the Cats and Curios series and enjoyed the antics of Rupert and Issy, but the storylines were too disjointed for my taste.

Next up is a new true crime book about the infamous Black Dahlia murder: Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder by Piu Marie Eatwell

 

[aliceneko]

I've just started reading The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.

 

[catspaw66]

She pronounced it Lay Gwin (think Elmer Fudd saying grin)

The host of the awards she was given pronounced it luh gwin, so I believe I may have been wrong in the way I posted it.

 

[Margret]

Well, I've gotten the hobbits as far as Weathertop, which means that, just for now, LOTR isn't a good bed book. I don't want to dream about ringwraiths and knife wounds that could turn someone else into a wraith, so I've decided that, at least for tonight when I already feel a bit rotten because of the vaccination I got today, I'm going to bed with The Wind in the Willows. After I feed Jasmine, of course.

Good night, all. Margret

 

[raysmyheart]

Margret , feel better! I remember reading The Wind In The Willows when I was young, just don't remember what it was about, I will be looking it up to refresh my memory.

 

[Norachan]

I've almost finished Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Strangely enough, even though it goes into great detail about corpses and cremation, decomposition and embalming, it's great bed time reading. I really look forward to having a bit of time to myself at the end of every day. It's a good way to take my mind off things before I go to sleep.

 

[catspaw66]

Well, I've gotten the hobbits as far as Weathertop, which means that, just for now, LOTR isn't a good bed book. I don't want to dream about ringwraiths and knife wounds that could turn someone else into a wraith, so I've decided that, at least for tonight when I already feel a bit rotten because of the vaccination I got today, I'm going to bed with The Wind in the Willows. After I feed Jasmine, of course.

Good night, all. Margret

Wind in the Willows is always a good choice.

 

[Margret]

Wind in the Willows is a marvelous bed book. Very relaxing. I think I got through about two pages before I dropped off last night.

This evening, though (it isn't bed time yet), I went back to LOTR. I finished off Book 1 (the first half of Fellowship of the Ring), which gets the party as far as Rivendell, and have read part of the first chapter of Book 2, through Frodo's conversation with Gandalf upon awakening in a bed in Elrond's house. But I'm keeping The Wind in the Willows on the home page of the Nook, for the next time I need something really relaxing at bed time.

Margret

 

[Winchester]

Went over to the library yesterday during lunch, just to see what's new in the world of 7-day books. Picked up a few 7-days and a couple of others:

Terminal Freeze - Lincoln Child
Death Match - Lincoln Child
Typhoon Fury - Clive Cussler
Deep Freeze - John Sanford
Sleep like a Baby - Charlaine Harris
Haunted - James Patterson

Library e-books on my iPad:
Running Blind - Lee Child
Home - Harlan Coben
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry - Fredrik Backman

Still reading It's Even Worse Than You Think - David Cay Johnston (I can only read this in small doses)

 

[jcat]

Next up is a new true crime book about the infamous Black Dahlia murder: Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder by Piu Marie Eatwell

This book is an excellent, well-researched page turner. The Black Dahlia case wasn't nearly as unsolvable as has been reported over the past seven decades.

I've just finished two more non-fiction books that were okay:
Dangerous Beauty: Stories from the Wilds of Yellowstone and
Edgar Allan Poe by George E. Woodberry.

 

[Margret]

Available for free on Amazon today (presumably today only), Emeralds, Diamonds, and Amethysts, by Mary Matthews, a Cool Cats mystery. https://freebooksy.us4.list-manage....0c50d2fba7a6777bf1&id=4592c81ca1&e=0c38cb6a18 Note: I got this one from the FreeBooksy newsletter.

Margret

 

[Norachan]

I finished Smoke Gets In Your Eyes last night. It was very informative and quite thought provoking too. I've decided I want a green burial, if post mortem predation doesn't take care of things.

I have a choice of books this evening, I'll have to see how I feel at bedtime and decide which one to read then.

 

[catspaw66]

I finished Smoke Gets In Your Eyes last night. It was very informative and quite thought provoking too. I've decided I want a green burial, if post mortem predation doesn't take care of things.

I have a choice of books this evening, I'll have to see how I feel at bedtime and decide which one to read then.

I lived across the street from a crematorium in Gainesville, FL. And did the yearly inventory for Dr. Maples at the C.A. Pound Human ID Lab.

 

[furmonster mom]

A friend of mind told me to look into this series some time ago, and I forgot about it until recently... so I started in on it...

Emberverse by S.M. Stirling

It's a post-apocalyptic Arthurian story with a splash of LOTR and "alien space bats" (book joke). He's really delved into the process of how alternative civilizations could develop after a catastrophic event. And the characters are superbly developed. I'm loving it.

What I didn't realize was that I should have started with his earlier written Island series, which I'm jumping into now.

 

[Winchester]

jcat I'd be interested in reading about the Black Dahlia murder. I've read other books about it. For some reason, it interests me.

I finally got my greedy little hands on the new Pendergast, City of Endless Night (Preston & Child) yesterday afternoon. It was excellent; I finished it last night.

I put it on hold at our local library. Some of the librarians know me quite well and they know that I can read fast. When I went in to put it on hold, I asked what the waiting time was. She knows me and said that, since I can read quickly, she'd give it to me next as soon as it came in as long as I promised to get it back in a couple of days. We were on our way home yesterday from running errands and my cell rang. It was the librarian. The book came in, and if I promised to get it back on Monday, I could have it, so we quickly stopped at the library. I finished it last night and will drop it off on my way into work on Monday morning....or Rick will if he takes me to work.

 

[jcat]

I've finished Alfie the Doorstep Cat by Rachel Wells, which was just a little too contrived for my tastes.

Next up is Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto, which is very long.