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When You Are Engulfed In Flames, David Sedaris
It's funny how we choose the books we read. The best are recommendations from friends or from a book group like this. I often take books from the New York Times Best Seller List and others without knowing what's it's about. I mean if so many people buy it then it must be good no?
"When you're engulfed in flames", sounds like a self-help book? Get you through the trials and tribulations life throws at us? It's not. It's a collection of essays about nothing in particular. The author is, well imagine Andy Rooney, 20 years younger and gay, with a touch of Woody Allen and Dave Barry thrown in (but mostly Andy Rooney). It's rude and crude at times and will offend many.
But it made me laugh out loud, that's something.
"When you're engulfed in flames", sounds like a self-help book? Get you through the trials and tribulations life throws at us? It's not. It's a collection of essays about nothing in particular. The author is, well imagine Andy Rooney, 20 years younger and gay, with a touch of Woody Allen and Dave Barry thrown in (but mostly Andy Rooney). It's rude and crude at times and will offend many.
But it made me laugh out loud, that's something.
OPENING LINES
A friend gave me a gift card and a little book titled- Opening Lines/The Sentences from Classic Plays, Poems, and Books.
This gave me an idea of a sharing game we might try here.
1.One of us posts the opening lines of a famous/well known book, poem, play, movie,tv show, song,etc.(and state whether it is a book, song, tv show, etc.)
2. The next person (or persons) try to name its source/title.
3. The person with the correct answer will give the next OPENING LINE.
4. If the person who guesses correctly does not check back in to post the next quote then one of us frequent visitors will pick up the rope and keep the game going.
We're pretty quiet around here- understandably - if we spend too much time on line we'll never get our wonderful books read. However, I'm hoping this will build comraderie and good communication.
I'll go first inside. Please join me .
Lynne
This gave me an idea of a sharing game we might try here.
1.One of us posts the opening lines of a famous/well known book, poem, play, movie,tv show, song,etc.(and state whether it is a book, song, tv show, etc.)
2. The next person (or persons) try to name its source/title.
3. The person with the correct answer will give the next OPENING LINE.
4. If the person who guesses correctly does not check back in to post the next quote then one of us frequent visitors will pick up the rope and keep the game going.
We're pretty quiet around here- understandably - if we spend too much time on line we'll never get our wonderful books read. However, I'm hoping this will build comraderie and good communication.
I'll go first inside. Please join me .
Lynne
I need help
Next week, I will be spending 1 hour per week reading to a blind lady, she told me she likes mysteries. Any suggestions.
Thank You,
Barnet
Thank You,
Barnet
REBECCA/ Discussion
I have already run this idea past Siren and some of you- I hope many of you will like the idea and commit to join in.
Idea- I'm inviting all of you to read/reread -
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
Also, if time allows -
Mrs de Winter by Susan Hill
and
Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman
I'd like to give everyone the rest of August and most of September to read or reread these.
Near the end of September I'll post/host a discussion site.
These books should be easily obtainable from libraries, bookstores(new or used),etc.
Meanwhile , please drop a note or an idea inside.
I'll give a specific date that the posting/discussion will begin later.
I hope you'll all join in. I'd like to have male and female perspectives of Max, Rebecca, Mrs. de Winter, and cast.
If you read the book(s) long ago-
I'd also like to discuss your perspective- reading the book in 2008 compared to the first time you read the book.
Lynne
Idea- I'm inviting all of you to read/reread -
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
Also, if time allows -
Mrs de Winter by Susan Hill
and
Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman
I'd like to give everyone the rest of August and most of September to read or reread these.
Near the end of September I'll post/host a discussion site.
These books should be easily obtainable from libraries, bookstores(new or used),etc.
Meanwhile , please drop a note or an idea inside.
I'll give a specific date that the posting/discussion will begin later.
I hope you'll all join in. I'd like to have male and female perspectives of Max, Rebecca, Mrs. de Winter, and cast.
If you read the book(s) long ago-
I'd also like to discuss your perspective- reading the book in 2008 compared to the first time you read the book.
Lynne
"In the Bleak Midwinter"
Just finished reading "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Julia Spencer-Fleming. It is the first book in this series and I really enjoyed it. I have already ordered the next one from paperbackswap. It is a mystery and the main characters are Clare Ferguson, an Episcopal priest and Russ Van Alstyne, the police chief. Not that I need any more books to read LOL but it is nice to find a new author that I enjoy. Phyllis
A Fatal Grace
Written by Louise Penny. I just finished the book and highly recommed it. BUT I would say read the first book, A Still Life, first. There are many references to a previous crime. I am picking up the first book Wednesday.
The book is set in Three Pine, Quebec. A small town we all dream of living in. I wouldn't want the cold but other than that it sounds wonderful.
The characters are wonderful the plot has some twists but it is the people I feel in love with.
I could not put this book down!
The book is set in Three Pine, Quebec. A small town we all dream of living in. I wouldn't want the cold but other than that it sounds wonderful.
The characters are wonderful the plot has some twists but it is the people I feel in love with.
I could not put this book down!
Dorothy Dunnett
Are there fans of this historical novelist here? I've just finished reading Niccolo Rising, the first book in her House of Niccolo series. The first half of the novel was pretty exasperating, because there are so many characters and so much was going on that I found it hard to keep track of what was happening. But around chapter 18 or 19, I got hooked. From then on, it found it hard to put down. I've reviewed it at www.HistoricalNovels.info. I now know why her fans are so dedicated - and also why this novelist is not for everyone. I'll be reading the rest of this series.
"The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Just finished "The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith. I enjoyed it but I still like the Maisie Dobbs books better. Phyllis
Collision by Jeff Abbott
"No wonder 20th Century Fox scooped up Collision before publication. From its opening scene where a new bride falls victim to a bullet on Maui to the bittersweet ending in a Tyler park, Jeff Abbott's action thriller is camera-ready cinematic.
In keeping with the Austin-based author's signature premise, Collision tracks an ordinary citizen trapped in an extraordinarily nauseating situation as he struggles to stay alive and clear his name. Here he's freelance corporate consultant Ben Forsberg, living on the west side of Austin and working part-time for a global supplier of private security forces.
Still mourning his wife slain two years before, Ben buries himself in contract work. But when his business card is discovered in the pocket of a dead assassin with terrorist ties, Homeland Security agents turn up at his door.
Forced to ally himself with the burnt-out killer-spook known only as Pilgrim, who framed him, he enters the shadowy world of the war on terror, where loyalties shift like sand and dead bodies pile up like driftwood.
Mr. Abbott can create memorable characters, such as the Gulf Coast justice of the peace and the librarian-sleuth in the mass-market paperbacks he wrote before Panic, his first hardcover. This time he tilts toward the spiraling plot.
If the cast is a shade cartoonish, we can sometimes sniff their humanity. Nearly everyone in the spy thriller playbook shows up: an ex-IRA sniper, Arab gunmen, the middle-aged female boss of an off-the-books agency subgroup, a naïf unaccustomed to rough stuff and a former CIA agent declared dead a decade ago.
If this sounds like another odd-couple, fish-out-of-water scenario, it is. But stick with the author. His hard-driving narrative builds, sucking readers into a wild Twister ride of bruising fights, bloody betrayals and burning-secret surprises.
Set mainly around Austin with side trips to Frisco, Dallas, Indonesia and Beirut, Collision is not atmospheric though the author slips in some zingers about the slow traffic and rise of mega-mansions in the capital city.
Born in Dallas and reared partly in McKinney, Mr. Abbott went to Duncanville High School and graduated from Rice University. Before turning writer full-time, he worked as creative director at an ad agency in Austin. With this latest book, Mr. Abbott cements his rep as a suspense master."
Jane Sumner is a freelance writer in Austin.
I enjoyed this thriller.
In keeping with the Austin-based author's signature premise, Collision tracks an ordinary citizen trapped in an extraordinarily nauseating situation as he struggles to stay alive and clear his name. Here he's freelance corporate consultant Ben Forsberg, living on the west side of Austin and working part-time for a global supplier of private security forces.
Still mourning his wife slain two years before, Ben buries himself in contract work. But when his business card is discovered in the pocket of a dead assassin with terrorist ties, Homeland Security agents turn up at his door.
Forced to ally himself with the burnt-out killer-spook known only as Pilgrim, who framed him, he enters the shadowy world of the war on terror, where loyalties shift like sand and dead bodies pile up like driftwood.
Mr. Abbott can create memorable characters, such as the Gulf Coast justice of the peace and the librarian-sleuth in the mass-market paperbacks he wrote before Panic, his first hardcover. This time he tilts toward the spiraling plot.
If the cast is a shade cartoonish, we can sometimes sniff their humanity. Nearly everyone in the spy thriller playbook shows up: an ex-IRA sniper, Arab gunmen, the middle-aged female boss of an off-the-books agency subgroup, a naïf unaccustomed to rough stuff and a former CIA agent declared dead a decade ago.
If this sounds like another odd-couple, fish-out-of-water scenario, it is. But stick with the author. His hard-driving narrative builds, sucking readers into a wild Twister ride of bruising fights, bloody betrayals and burning-secret surprises.
Set mainly around Austin with side trips to Frisco, Dallas, Indonesia and Beirut, Collision is not atmospheric though the author slips in some zingers about the slow traffic and rise of mega-mansions in the capital city.
Born in Dallas and reared partly in McKinney, Mr. Abbott went to Duncanville High School and graduated from Rice University. Before turning writer full-time, he worked as creative director at an ad agency in Austin. With this latest book, Mr. Abbott cements his rep as a suspense master."
Jane Sumner is a freelance writer in Austin.
I enjoyed this thriller.
Parnell Hall
Just finished "A Clue for the Puzzle Lady". Not sure if this is a series for me. I have no problem with a drink or two but to have Aunt Cora falling down drunk thru the whole book was a little much. Phyllis
