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Thread: What are you reading in 2012?

  1. #21
    Senior Member crunchycon's Avatar
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    DH and I have just discovered CJ Box (the Joe Pickett series), and are enjoying working through the series. We're picking up uber-cheap paperbacks at the secondhand store, then returning them for credit. Am also currently reading "How to be Perfect: One Church's Experiment in Living the Old Testament Book of Leviticus."

    Next on deck: "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains."

  2. #22
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    My current fun book is "Texas Gothic" by Rosemary Clement. It's about a young woman from a family of witches who runs into Scary and Dangerous Things in the Texas hill country. I don't find that many contemporary books set in Texas, plus it's a good fastpaced read.

  3. #23
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    Giotto by Norbert Wolf.
    My career was in the medical field and I have little knowledge of art or art history. Now that I have retired, I want to explore this area. So my husband and I are reading about an artist and his work each month. We began this month with the 14th century painter Giotto. Norbert Wolf's 90 page book on Giotto was a good choice for a beginner. The variety of his work is impressive --not variety of subject because the vast majority was religious. We took a trip to Italy in 2001. We went to Rome and Florence but if we were to go again, we would make sure to see the Arena Chapel in Padua. The pictures in this small book show a wide variety of his work. The text describes the time, place, and technique of the paintings in a manner understandable to a beginner like me. Next month we stay in Italy but move forward in time to Brunelleschi and his magnificent dome.

  4. #24
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    I'm reading the very entertaining Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. It's fascinating - and he encourages you to follow along as he learns the mnemonic tricks used by people who do incredible feats of...well...remembering things. My husband was aghast when, reading in bed, I was able to remember a long list of VERY random objects in the book easily. I still can, in fact, several days later. Weird wild stuff.

  5. #25
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    Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. If Jane Austen herself did not actually write at least the first chapter of this book, surely P.D. James was channeling her when she wrote it. Did you ever wonder what happened after Jane and Bingley and Elizabeth and Darcy married? P.D. James enlightens us in this delightful sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. There is a murder at Pemberley and the morally challenged brother-in-law and husband of Lydia, Wickham, is the obvious suspect. The murder sets the stage for the delicate interactions among the characters from Pride and Prejudice. A delightful, pleasant read.
    At age 92, P.D. James is still dazzling us with her amazing talent.

  6. #26
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    Lionel Shriver So Much for That

    My goodness, I had no idea how difficult the US medical system is. The hero has a dream of a simple life (love those kind of books!) and is about to launch into it when his wife reveals she has cancer. Scarilty quickly an enormous amount of money goes west.

    It sounded a bit depressing - I only started reading because Lionel Shriver was in Australia recently and she has a wonderful sharpness and acidity about how she speaks and so I wanted to read her writing. I didn't find it depressing though to read because her writing (and her characters) are quite wonderful. And ther hero's best friend does these amazing raves about modern American life - I think I learnt a lot about modern American life. It's a great read and not at all 'heavy' even if the subject matter sounds 'heavy'. Has anyone else read it?

  7. #27
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    In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt named a new ambassador To Germany, William E. Dodd who was a professor of history at the University of Chicago. This book covers his 4 years as ambassador during the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. Ambassador Dodd brought his family with him—his wife and grown son and daughter. The first year was a study in willful blindness to the growing evil of Nazism. It is understandable only by remembering how strong the isolationist sentiment was at that time and how prevalent anti-Semitism was in the United States. After the first year though the Dodd family’s eyes were open to the horrors. Much of the time Dodd was at odds with the State Department which seemed more intent on recovering bonds from the German government than in facing Hitler. The strain of living in Germany during those years caused a decline in Dodd’s health and he retired at the end of 1937. After that, he spent much of his time and energy to alerting the citizens of the U.S. to the mounting danger from Germany. The book included (maybe a bit too much) the various love affairs of his daughter Martha. All in all, it presented a realistic picture of a family from Chicago suddenly plopped into the middle of the rising Third Reich where they had great cognitive dissonance between their expectations of a civilized society and their observation of a descent into barbarism.

  8. #28
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    It looks as if some of my next reading will be books mentioned here. Right now I'm reading Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. It is a challenging read for me because I don't normally put much stock in visions and I find even "modernized" Old English strange. Now that I can carry a number of books with me easily on my e-reader, I'm really ready to spend a lot of time reading.

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iris lily View Post
    Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a teen fantasy novel. It's pretty good. It's novelty is that is uses genuine old photographs to illustrated the odd people in the story.
    That sounds like something my 10 year old granddaughter would enjoy. I'm going to look for it for her.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by AmeliaJane View Post
    I came across a series of children's books, new to me and very charming, by Eric Sanvoisin called "Inkdrinker." It is about a little boy who becomes a vampire, but he sucks ink out of books instead of blood out of people. It's translated from the French, so the voice is a little different. I have one niece in particular in mind to share it with. Gave another pair of nieces the classic Madeleine for Christmas. It still works--their dad is giving me dirty looks when I come over because he's had to read it so many times--but I hadn't thought through how odd a convent school and, for instance, a doctor who visits you at home would seem to modern children.
    The Inkdrinker sounds like a good book for my 7 year old granddaughter. Both girls have read some of the Madeleine books, too.

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