Autumn Reading Lists-- What books are on YOUR nightstand?

Oct 31 01:23 UTC 1995

     Okay, we are halfway through autumn, time to get a check on
our respective reading habits.  Not that reading grex itself on a daily
basis wouldnt keep one quite literate, but there are fine works of
fiction and non-fiction out there that everyone should know about.  

Remember, "A chapter a day keeps your brian cells at play"

response 2 of 69:

Oct 31 02:19 UTC 1995

Current reading:

  Vladimir Nabokov, _Speak Memory_. The autobiography of a great
    20th century novelist, literary critic, and lepidopterist.
    Fascinating snapshots of aristocratic life in Russia in the
    last years before the fall of the Tsar, narrated with Nabokov's
    typical verbal magic.

  Susan Holtzer, _Curly Smoke_. Her latest mystery novel, set in
    Ann Arbor as was her previous one. Susan was a long-time
    Ann Arbor resident before moving to San Francisco, where she
    now resides. She is a figure of some historical importance
    in Ann Arbor computer conferencing, having been the first
    president of Arbornet back in 1985-86, after it became a
    non-profit entity. (This was long before Arbornet's merger
    with M-Net, although Susan was an avid M-Netter as well.)
    The heroine of her novel is, not surprisingly, a computer
    consultant.

  Jan Tschichold, _The Form of the Book_. Essays on typography by
    one of its leading 20th century figures.

  Clifford Burke, _Type from the Desktop_. A book on computer
    typography.

response 4 of 69:

Oct 31 14:30 UTC 1995

Well, at this instant I'm reading a Digital Webster program that I'm not
terribly happy with:

 lep-i-dop-ter-ist: a specialist in lepidopterology.

 lep-i-dop-ter-ol-o-gy: a branch of entomology concerned with lepidoptera.

 lep-i-dop-tera: insects that are lepidopterans.

 lep-i-dop-ter-an [NL Lepidoptera,  fr. lepid- + Gk pteron wing P more at
  FEATHER] (ca. 1902): any of a large order (Lepidoptera) of insects
  comprising the butterflies, mots, and skippers that as adults have four
  broad or lanceolate wings usu. covered with minute overlapping and often
  brightly colored scales and that as larvae are caterpillars.

 mot [F, word, saying, fr. L muttum grunt P more at MOTTO]: a pithy or witty
  saying.

Well, OK, finally.

Just finished:

    _The Black Bird_ by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark.  I didn't
    think this was as good as the other Grofield novels.  On the whole,
    nothing fabulous.

    _Shadow's End_ by Sheri Tepper.  Just started this.

    _The Shapechanger's Wife_ by Sharon Shinn. A rather fine fantasy, a bit
    reminescent in style of Peter Beagle.  A plainly told story of love and
    transformation

response 6 of 69:

Oct 31 15:20 UTC 1995

Hi Freida, and welcome to Grex! It gets easier.

(Oops, almost forgot--you're an olduser. :) Well anyway, welcome back.)

response 8 of 69:

Oct 31 18:05 UTC 1995

Let's see, I'm almost done with both Chalres DeLints _Dreams Underfoot_
and Harry Turtledoves book-whose-title-I-don't-remember-but-it's-about
an-alien-invasion-during-WWII.
I'm also reading a UNIX textbook and about 4 different magazines.

response 10 of 69:

Oct 31 20:04 UTC 1995

Item 88 in Fall Agora has been linked to Books item 44  - those enjoying this
item in Agora might like to come over to browse books.

response 12 of 69:

Oct 31 23:40 UTC 1995

  I read "bright lights big city" a couple of years ago,  It is much better
than the movie, but the movie wasnt bad.
  Its about a yuppie using drugs to deal with the collapse of his 
marriage and haunting memories of the death of his mother.  I thought it
was quite good, but it sone of those gen x books that noone not of 
that certian age and time is going to understand that well.

response 14 of 69:

Nov 1 06:23 UTC 1995

reading Hitchhiker ... for the first time (hard to believe, but true.)

response 16 of 69:

Nov 1 23:32 UTC 1995

'sacajawea'

response 18 of 69:

Nov 2 07:19 UTC 1995

Just this week started reading the Dune series.  Finished re-reading Mission
Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard.  Opps! Dune by Frank Herbert.

response 20 of 69:

Nov 2 20:53 UTC 1995

_A Thousand Acres_ by Jane Smiley for my Literature class

_Darkness at Sethanon_ by Raymond Feist -- the fourth book in my favorite
series (the Riftwar series).  I can't put these books down!  I just finished
_Silverthorn_...it took me two days.  =)

response 22 of 69:

Nov 3 19:05 UTC 1995

Spent yesterday reading _Diminished_Capacity_, by Sherwood Kirally.  Here's
a taste:

        It's always been Uncle Rollie's goal to publish the poetry
        written by fish that live in the Mississippi River....  And
        the main impediment to his doing this is not, as you might
        think, getting the fish to write poetry, but in getting any-
        one else to take their work seriously.

        For many years now, Rollie Zerbs has been going to the end of
        the pier below his blufftop house every day and checking the
        paper in his old Royal typewriter, which he leaves out when-
        ever weather and river allow.  What he's done is attach lines
        of different lengths to each key on that typewriter, and let
        them down into the water, hooked and baited.  Periodically, a
        fish will yank on one of those lines and depress a key on the
        typewriter.  And gradually, over the course of weeks and months
        and years, the fish have wound up writing things.

Poor Uncle Rollie, however is getting a bit senile now, and his sister-in-
law wants him put away.  So the narrator is called home to "help."  That
help takes the form of trying to sell Uncle Rollie's very rare 1909
Wildfire Schulte.  Unfortunately the narrator recently suffered a knock on
the head and his memory isn't functioning any better than Uncle Rollie's.

Obviously, I liked it a lot.  A nice story of memory and love.

response 24 of 69:

Nov 4 06:54 UTC 1995

Sherri Tepper's new novel _Shadow's End_ didn't really satisfy me.  Lots of
good stuff along the way.  You can count on Tepper for that.  But she thumps
the message a little bit too hard, and then ends the story with a deus that
isn't even ex machina, as all good sci fi gods are expected to be.