What books are you reading right now?

I haven't read much Steinbeck. I have lot of relatives in Oklahoma, and as a young kid I heard many old timer's conversations. A lot of them didn't have much formal education, but they certianly did not speak the way Steinbeck wrote. Beans were a staple when times were tough, buying meat was pretty much unheard of.

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I'm a big fan of Laura Hillenbrand. By now most people have seen, or at least have heard much about the movie Seabiscuit. It's a good movie, and the PBS special is also well worth seeing.

The book is a good reead. I don't squat about horses and horse racing, but the book drew me in like a magnet. Hillenbrand does a great job of getting the reader interested in the humans (much more detail than the movie), the horse, and his unexpected success.

Unbroken is also a fascinating read. It's the story of Louis Zamperini, a man who went through more ups, downs, challenges, failures, & successes in one life than most people would experience in five lives.

Hillenbrand is great writer. What makes her works even more oustanding is the fact that she's able to do such thorough research despite suffering from severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. My mind boggles at what she might be able to accomplish if she was healthy.

 

I am currently reading the fourth book in the series "Game of Thrones" (by George R.R. Martin) with the fifth book staring at me. Almost finished with fourth book and can't wait to see what happens in the next book. Especially to my favorite characters (Arya, Jon, Dany and Brienne; Not a favorite, but Jaime's character is going through a lot of changes with time and experience that I find interesting to observe...... and who can't laugh at Tyrion, or cry for him perhaps......)

The books and HBO series are alike but yet so different. Sometimes I can't decide which of some minor differing plots I like best - the one in the book or one in the series.
If you have just watched the series on HBO, I suggest you read the books to learn much more about each character (and some characters who didn't make the cut from book to TV series)

 

I have to disagree! I loved Grapes of Wrath, and it absolutely is my favorite Steinbeck. In fact, Grapes of Wrath, Moby-Dick, and Huckleberry Finn are probably my perfect trinity of American novels (not including genre fiction).

OK, sure, there might've been one or two embellishments that went a bit overboard, but I thought Grapes of Wrath was sweepingly American yet intimately well-written, intensely moral, and profoundly representative of the human essence of the Dust Bowl and Depression epochs of our history.

 

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism

 

I downloaded it last night and will jump into it this weekend.

A narrative of one the most extraordinary times in US history with bigger than life characters like TR and the muckrakers as told by one of my favorite biographers/historians should be a winner!

 

Well I've certainly enjoyed Stephen Baxters Timelike Infinity and Ring a lot more than Raft…
I'm currently 35% of the way through Ring. (I get percentages, not page numbers from my Kindle)
I always enjoy a story that spans generations.

 

Currently deep in Stephen Baxter's Exultant which is book I DON'T KNOW of the Xeelee sequence. Honestly, I know there is an order to read these in and sometimes it's obvious, but otherwise I think I'm going through them backwards if not haphazardly.

But It's all good, the story line all hooks together and the universe is consistent. I'm glad I happened upon these.

 

I recently bought The Given Day by Dennis Lehanne (I really enjoyed Mystic River and Shutter Island, although the ending is rather confusing) and Paint It Black by Janet Fitch (White Oleander is a good read). For now they're going onto the Will Get To stack.

 

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John LeCarre.

I was in the Library browsing the stacks without much luck and I was thinking about how much I enjoyed the movie versions of The Tailor of Panama and The Quiet American and how I'd like to read something like that and lo, there it was on a special shelf.

 

Finished up We Live in Water, a collection of short stories by Jess Walter. Not bad.

Because it was on sale, I got the Road by Cormac McCarthy. I know bad things are coming, and I'm sort of dreading it, to be honest.

 

i just finished The Road a couple of months ago. It's a bit of a journey...

 

I'm reading a fun book of "war stories" from a couple of political oppo researchers.

We're with Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics

The subtitle doesn't describe the book at all. These guys are idealists, after a fashion, and they see what they do as a search for truth.

 

The Road is a dark, but I found it to be one of McCarthy's more readable novels. I've read Outer Dark (seriously weird & dark), Suttree, Blood Meridian, All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, No Country For Old Men (well worth reading), and The Road.

 

Actually, it wasn't too bad. There was one scene that made me all squidgy, but it was quick and not gory...maybe the movie was worse? Either way, I stayed up until about 3 am finishing it...some of it was kind of a slog, to be honest, but I had a bad case of, "just one more chapter..."