I'm always in the middle of half a dozen books.
I love inexpensive used books (garage sales and library sales are big events for me), and I have a lot of them.
The blog has occasional entries about books I'm reading.
I've been reading Lost Japan and really enjoying learning about the places the author (Alex Kerr) has lived and all the ways he's experienced his life in Japan.
I especially enjoyed reading about his home on the grounds of Tenmangu Shrine ... and it occurred to me that I could easily look up the town and the shrine, to see if there were any photos of the place, and the grounds, which sound enchanting.
Reading some old Ask MetaFilter questions about podcasts, I found several recommendations for New Books Network, which is a huge consortium of podcasts featuring author interviews: "Covering 100+ subjects, disciplines, and genres, we publish 70 to 100 episodes every week."
936 pages.
Somebody recommended A History of the Modern World over on Ask Metafilter and I leapt over to the San Francisco library's website and requested it.
It's 936 pages. Not counting the (excellent-looking) appendices and bibliography.
I don't know what I was thinking.
Wow. So far I love this book. I'm especially wowed by Haas's ability to craft a brilliant simile. I'm enjoying the story, the characters, and the writing. So far, it's superb.
This was a pleasant read. The main character, Alice, was likable enough (although I was occasionally impatient with her over-accommodating ways early in the book), and I enjoyed the plot's journey - I was slightly surprised by Alice's ultimate career shift, and there were a number of nice moments along the way.
Not a huge favorite, but enjoyable.
I picked this up while browsing the fiction shelves at the library. The cover illustration is beautiful and intriguing, and the plot description on the flap drew me in enough to check it out.
What enchanted me was the writing. Davis is poetic and mystical and simultaneously precise and clearly descriptive. The striking language is never gratuitous; Davis keeps the story unfolding.
I think this may be a book I need to own, just so I can reread the beautiful sentences, to revel in them, to learn from them.
I really want to actually read this book, but I haven't been able to make the time to give it my serious attention, and it has to go back to the library.
From flipping through it, I'm particularly interested in Dean's acquaintance with Stanley Milgrim, and I'm curious, now, to read Dean's other books as well.
I hope to return to this sometime later this year if my workload slows a bit.
I sought this out after seeing it mentioned in John McPhee's Coming Into the Country.
I'm nearly finished with this - really enjoying it so far ...
I've been putting off reading this, thinking it would get me all inspired to write ... which is not a good frame of mind to be in at bedtime. Having skimmed it, though, I think I can read it for enjoyment and give it a quick second pass, taking notes and inspiration, later, during daylight hours.