What was the last book you read, and how good was it?

298 responses total.

The last book I read was The Animal Hour by Andrew K'something. I wasn't real
impressed impressed.

 the last book I read was "Interview with a Vampire" By Anne Rice.  I wasn't
as impressed as I'd hoped ot be, but it was still good- just not worth all
the hype I've heard.  The book I am currently reading is "Cat Scratch Fever"
by Tara K. Harper.

Interview with a Vampire?!!!!!
And you wasn't impressed?
Well... read the next three books in the series.  Maybe you'll get
impressed.
I read the first three books all in one sitting, so maybe that's why I
was so impressed.  (yes, all in one setting)
(took me about 10 hours or something like that)

The last book I read was called "Disclosure".  Somewhat of a mystery about
Computer programmers, big and small business and intrigue.  Quick reading,
quite enjoyable.  And lots of talk about working in the Seattle area.

I just finished _Serendipity - Accidental Discoveries in Science_, by
Royston M. Roberts (Wiley, 1989). Describes numberous examples of
discoveries being made by accident, with a heavy emphasis on those in
chemistry (Roberts being a chemist). The moral, that serendipitous
discoveries require both the "accident" *and a prepared mind*, is made
throughout - to the point of becoming tiresome (even if true). 

I finished _The_Tao_of_Pooh_ a couple of days ago.  Great book!  It
was very easy to read and it described a simpler, more peaceful
approach to life.

It encouraged me to start _The_Te_of_Piglet_ and I'll follow that
will the _Tao_Te_Ching_ (which I've read *many* times).

The last book I read was one of Dick Francis' recent mystery novels.
Can't remember the title even though I read it just last week.  Typical
Francis, perhaps a bit better than average -- various shady shenanigans,
including murder, in a veterinary clinic specializing in racehorses,
somewhere in England.  Standard Francis heroes and villains.  An okay
page-turner, passes the time, but a month from now I'll probably have
forgotten it entirely.

My last was "The Inventions of Mark Twain," a biography of Twain by
John Lauber. A nice, one-volume bio, of interest to anyone who likes
Twain's writings.

 IUll have to check that out.

The last book I read was the "Mordant's need" novels "Mirror of Her Dreams"
and "A Man Rides Through".  As usual, I was enthralled by them, and I loved
every minute of them.  Strange, that a writer could have such a good novel, 
but his other ventures into literature suck...

This isn't exactly "the last book I read", but ... sometime late last year
I happened on to one of Robert Jordan's books in the series _The Wheel of
Time_, & am now firmly hooked.

Don't laugh, I just finished "I'll Be seeing You" By Mary Higgins Clark.
It was o.k., this time I didn't try to find out how killed who.  I just
read with the flow.  It was a quick read and something I certainly didn't
mind putting down. I'm about to start Firefly by Piers Anthony.  I've 
heard it was good.  Anyone tried it?

I've been on a book kick this week (the state of the house shows it...) I 
borrowed "The Indian in the Cupboard", by Lynne Reid Banks from a young 
friend.  Delightful.  Also "Too Long a Sacrifice" by Bronwen Gates: Celtic
Myth meets Northern Ireland. And 
"The Little Country" but Charles De Lint: not my favorite of his, but still
enjoyable.  I do love his writing. In this one I think he indulged more than
usual in direct expression of his personal philosophy/position, as does Spider
Robinson on occasion.

I just finished "XPD" by Len Deighton.  That's the first book by this
author I've read, and I must say, I rather enjoyed it, though it ended
somewhat lazily.  I've been following the James Bond books for a number
of years, and figured it was time to try some other authors in that
genre.  

Gerund, a FW in this conference, hasn't read a book completely in over a
month.  Strange considering the time he has had on his hands lately...
Hmm... I must find a book.  NOW!

FINE!  Ask anne or I.  I read a minimum of 250 books per summer for about 6 
years...so ASK AWAY!

Via meeting Kami at the Grex walk I now have a few titles to read.

Thanks Kami!

cool.

How's it going, Gerund?

Sun, sorry but- "Anne or *me*".  You wouldn't say "Ask I" unless you were
a Rastafarian.

Who's to say she isn't?  Or wasn't in a Rastafarian mood when she wrote it?

I'm still in Williams....
This is getting, um, interesting to say the least

Kami....be nice.  So my grammer is a little off...sue me...

Anne, you know that i am NOT a rastfarian.  so there

I'm trying to be nice.  Sometimes it's just nice to be trying instead.

Well...
I finished the Williams book Kami.
It was 'interesting', but perhaps not quite my cup of tea.
I won't say I disliked it, because I didn't dislike it, but I sensed
that this guy was saying a lot of things and that my mind was not in a 
possition to take it all in.   Perhaps this is a book to come to later.

I just took up _The Riddle of the Wren_ by Charles de Lint.

This one grabbed me quick.  I like Minda.  Don't ask me why.
I'm not sure yet.  Probably something I identify with.
I think this'll be an interesting book, and if it continues the way it
seems to be going I'm sure I'll tell you I love it.

Which Williams one was it, Gerald?  (And Williams *definitely* has that
effect on first reading - but some are less unaccessible than others.
(We *are* talking about Charles Williams, right?  I seem to have forgotten
the beginning of this thread.)

I just finished reading "The Elvenbane" by (you hear trumpets in the
background) Mercedes Lackey.  And, again, it was wonderful.  I love her
abillity to tell a story. <sigh>

Yes Dave, we are talking about Charles Williams.  The book is
_The Place of The Lion_.

Hmph.  How's your background in the Platonists (early or later)?
My suggestion of a book by Williams that's more straightforward would be
_Many Dimensions_, or possibly _War in Heaven_.  (That one's a mystery of
a sort, & I guess it's still the one I like best.)  With Williams, though,
"straightforward" is relative at best.  His style (by intention, apparently)
is abstract even when he's talking about concretes, and he tends to have
allusions to all kinds of rather obscure background knowledge.  _Place of the
Lion_ is worse than average in that respect (or both of them), I think.

But there's certainly a kind of imaginative & literary power to his writing,
of a most unusual kind.  Keeps a lot of us coming back to him again & again.

Sigh- I thought he might find "Place of the Lion" MORE accessible, or at least
more intriguing, than All Hallows Eve or The Greater Trumps- hm, come to think
of it, I guess I chose it for the rich imagery, just what makes it a bit
confusing.  I read Greater Trumps first, then (would you believe) Taliesin
Through Logres- a bit too much of a mouthful for me.  Could I borrow _Many
Dimensions_ from you?  Also, are you familiar with Robert Nathan (The Train
in the Meadow, etc.)?

Well please don't misunderstand.  It certainly was intriguing, but it was also
something I'm not too used to.  It just didn't seem to have much of a
'traditional' plot feel to it like so much of the stuff I've read.

Some of them definitely have more plot than that one.  In all of them it's
a little bit strange.  There's a chapter or so (more, perhaps) in _The
Greater Trumps_ in which nothing much happens (except, of course, that
the raw elements (air & water in particular) which have been released
manifest themselves in a blizzard that tries to destroy the world - if
that counts).

Kami, sure - if you give it back in a reasonably timely manner.  Never
heard of Nathan.

        "By order of the author: Persons attempting to find a motive
        in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to
        find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find
        a plot in it will be shot."

Well why the hell read it then?

Well, the novel from which *that* was taken is usually cited as the leading
candidate for The Great American Novel, & I would have cited the source if
I hadn't assumed you'd recognize it.  (Twain, _Huckleberry Finn_)

Oh, by none other than mister sarcasm himself, mr. twain...
well that explains it... oh by the way... the leading candidate?  well...
i dunno...

*I* didn't say so - I merely have seen it mentioned as such far more than
anything else.  (OTOH, I think pretty highly of it myself; not sure what
I'd offer instead.  *My* next book, maybe.)

heh

_Max in Verse_, by Max Beerbohm, collected and annotated by J. G.  
Reiwald, with a foreword by S. N. Behrman.  Published by The 
Stephen Greene Press, Brattleboro, Vermont, 1963.  A first 
edition in mint condition which I picked up for a pittance over 
the weekend.  

_Max in Verse_ was the subject of a celebrated New Yorker review 
by John Updike, reprinted in _Assorted Prose_.  I read it in that 
form 30 years ago, and although I can not honestly say I've been 
searching for _Max in Verse_ ever since, I can honestly say that 
I have never forgotten about it, and if I had ever stumbled 
across it I'd've snapped it up in a snap.  

One comment by Updike sums up my feelings about this book and 
about Max Beerbohm in general.  On the imprint of the first 
English edition of _The Works of Max Beerbohm_ there appeared the 
following: 

             London: John Lane, The Bodley Head,
              New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Underneath in, in a presentation copy to Reginald Turner, Max 
wrote:

             This plain announcement, nicely read,
              Iambically runs.

After remarking in awe on the perfect balance of "plain" and 
"nicely," and on the need to pronounce "iambically" nicely in 
order to make the thing (seven words, a throwaway not even meant 
for publication) work, Updike added that if he'd been a high 
priest of literature, he would've had these lines enclosed in an 
amulet, and worn it around his neck for good luck.  Bingo.

If I had to write a list of all the things of Max's I wish I'd 
written, it would include practically everything, from _A 
Christmas Garland_ to _Seven Men_ to _Zuleika Dobson_, and all 
the rest.  I would sell my soul to the devil to go back through 
some gap in time to my freshman year in college, and present 
Max's transcendant essay "A Clergyman" as my own to the professor 
who taught me Boswell's Johnson, or to give this, from _Max in 
Verse_, to the teacher of my Milton class: 

          Milton, my help, my prop, my stay,
          My well of English undefiled,
          It struck me suddenly today
          You must have been an awful child.

I last read the Princess Bride.  It was good, better than the movie...as
hard as that is to believe

I just finished "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon.  If you're not
familiar with it, it's about his trip across the United States travelling
on "back" highways (as opposed to Interstates).  I think it was written
in the late seventies...it's really an interesting book.  Now i've got
to tackle his "Prairierth" (I think I misspelled that).

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