Books on the go... Litopian reading of the moment

[David Newrick]

Having never done so before I finished a Freddy Forsyth novel last night, The Negotiator. Interesting work, very much the spy novel genre he re-invigorated when he wrote The Day of the Jackal. Today I am starting A Taste for Death by P.D. James. Phyllis, sadly, passed away recently so this is in memory of her and all those other writers that we would wish were sill writing today.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Haven't read that one, yet, and I don't recall reading anything by P.D. James. I was riveted by Forsyth's 'The Fist of God.'

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I am currently reading 'The Monkeys' Tail, A Study in Evolution and Parapsychology,' by TC Lethbridge.

Lethbridge was an archaeologist among other things and died in 1971. It starts with a gripping narrative about the Outer Hebrides and effects of ice cap melting, on W Scotland and the Hebrides over the last 3,000 years. Later it discusses mutations, cuckoos, the nature of thought, doppelgangers, including a doppelganger cat, and more. It is positioned as conjecture, but is all approached with an almost forensic caution and clarity.

 

[Richard Sutton]

I just completed a well-crafted, absorbing historical romance... yes, I said it: romance (take note, Tara...) set in 1850s New Orleans which deals with the uneasy culture between people of color (enslaved) free people of color, creoles and the bourgeois Americains who are the newcomers nobody likes. It's called Twelfth Night by Michael Llywellyn, so-named because January sixth is the kick off for the Carnaval Season. It did a good job extending my does of Spanish Moss and Filligree ironwork following our recent trip to NOLA. Now, I'm beginning Catherine O'Flynn's Mr. Lynch's Holiday... so far, so good.

 

[Jennifer Stone]

I love the books by Giles Kristian, his 'Raven Bloodeye' trilogy has captured my love of history (vikings in particular).

 

[tabby3]

Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, Jamie Lee Burke . . . I guess you could say I like mysteries.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I recently read Caribou Island by David Vann. A tragedy set in a frightening Alaska. What I struggled with was comprehending the poor wife who, rather than put her foot down about the lunatic cabin project because she fears losing her husband, kills him instead, and herself. Sorry about the spoilers, but you can see it coming fairly early on, and what interests me as a reader and writer is not what happens, but how it happens and how it is presented. Good, grim, worth reading. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/29/caribou-island-david-vann-review

 

[julieanne]

I'm reading "Hygiène de l'Assassin" by Amélie Nothomb. It is written almost entirely in dialogue and is about a particularly obnoxious, dying, Nobel Prize-winning writer with the wonderful name of Prétextat Tach.