Just wondering ... what is everyone reading now?

[Claire]

I, too, have noticed an increase in whodunits by Scandinavian authors. For the most part, I enjoy them, but they are usually on the dark side (I kinda have a weakness for English cozy authors). I do read a lot of books in translation simply because I enjoy the world travel vicariously. There are some authors I have a hard time with. Russians. Way too much gloom and doom and negativity, they can put you in a depressed funk. There are two Turkish authors, one I like a lot, one I can't stand (the latter, I think, got a Nobel prize!). Since I love murder mysteries, there is one Belgian I enjoy. Maigret mysteries are translated by two different translators, one I like, the other I don't. But overall, I like the insight into different cultures.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I read the words as I would read an unpronounceable name in SF, that pattern of letters is "this" and head on from there. I didn't even attempt to try to say the words, there is no way I was going to learn Swedish so I could read a book. I'm too busy playing with Japanese.

Wakadi mas. However, I do speak German, and Swedish is a Germanic language, so pronounciation isn't that much of a problem. My problem is I don't know the cities, which makes it difficult to follow the story, and the characters, without a map.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I, too, have noticed an increase in whodunits by Scandinavian authors. For the most part, I enjoy them, but they are usually on the dark side (I kinda have a weakness for English cozy authors). I do read a lot of books in translation simply because I enjoy the world travel vicariously. There are some authors I have a hard time with. Russians. Way too much gloom and doom and negativity, they can put you in a depressed funk. There are two Turkish authors, one I like a lot, one I can't stand (the latter, I think, got a Nobel prize!). Since I love murder mysteries, there is one Belgian I enjoy. Maigret mysteries are translated by two different translators, one I like, the other I don't. But overall, I like the insight into different cultures.

You won't be seeing any more from this particular author. He wrote two more books about girls who did dumb stuff (one kicked a hornets nest and the other played with fire), and then he died.

 

[JoAnn L.]

One of my favorite authors from Sweden is Henning Mankell. I love his series with Inspector Kurt Wallander. I have read all of his books on this series, he even has a DVD out from the mysteries being on PBS (which I also have).

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

One of my favorite authors from Sweden is Henning Mankell. I love his series with Inspector Kurt Wallander. I have read all of his books on this series, he even has a DVD out from the mysteries being on PBS (which I also have).

Have you read The Troubled Man? I just finished it, and mostly enjoyed it but it ruined my desire to read previous books in the series due to the ending. Anybody who wants to read the series should read this one last.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

You won't be seeing any more from this particular author. He wrote two more books about girls who did dumb stuff (one kicked a hornets nest and the other played with fire), and then he died.

The same girl in all three books.

 

[JoAnn L.]

Have you read The Troubled Man? I just finished it, and mostly enjoyed it but it ruined my desire to read previous books in the series due to the ending. Anybody who wants to read the series should read this one last.

You definitely should read them all in order, his first one was called Faceless Killers (1991). Here is a site to see all he has written.

Henning Mankell

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

There's a significant part of the fourth novel in the series completed, and if Larsson's family can quit quibbling it's quite possible that a ghost writer could complete the fourth either as a novel, screenplay or both. If this ever happens the likely cause will be if the three American version movies make huge amounts of money and the producers want to hit the piggy bank again.

"Larsson left about three quarters of a fourth novel on a notebook computer, now possessed by his partner, Eva Gabrielsson; synopses or manuscripts of the fifth and sixth in the series, which he intended to contain an eventual total of ten books, may also exist." (source)

I think it's more likely than not that the fourth novel will not be completed, but when there's money involved it sometimes tips the scale. As I said, demand for a fourth movie would drive the desire to complete the fourth in the series.

Other writers have died and then gone on to produce new books, like for example Robert Ludlum and his Bourne series, the latest having been written by Eric von Lustbader.

 

[JoAnn L.]

Just finished reading THE VAULT by Ruth Rendell. I have read all of her Inspector Wexford mysteries, there are 23 of them. As you can tell I am a big fan of hers.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

"The Overlook," by Michael Connelly, one of his older Harry Bosch stories.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

I just finished "The Fifth Witness" by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller series), and have his next book "The Drop" (Harry Bosch series) reserved at the library. I like his Harry Bosch stories better. Once I've finished "The Drop" I'll have read all his novels and impatiently waiting for the next one!

 

[Aunt Bea]

The biography of James Beard.

 

[DebLynn]

I'm reading the Pretty Little Liars book series by Sara Shepard... my guilty pleasure.

 

[Claire]

I, too, love Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, and think I've read everything she's written. Right now I'm slogging through The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollnghurst. I'm 139 pages into a 435 page book, a Booker award winner. It seems to me it's one of those books that go on and on with a lot of words but no real activity. Sometimes when I pick up a prestigious award winner book, I feel I have to slog on through it even if I'm not enjoying it. If something doesn't happen in the next several pages, it'll go back to the library half-read.

Another one I've started and will probably complete is Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. In this case it is simply the pigeon English and other jargon that I'm wading through. But the story line is good (I think it's another Booker).

By my bedside right now is a book (I actually think it's a text book aimed at high school or maybe early college) about famous philosophers. It's just thumbnail sketches, but the subject always interested me. I can read them in minutes (I'm a very fast reader) and try to distill the theories.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

I've never heard of pigeons speaking English!

 

[Claire]

Ha-ha! Pigeons would be easier to understand than some pigeon English! (I lived in Hawaii for the better part of a decade, and can understand that version!)

 

[Claire]

When I was at my "third place" Friday, a friend told me that an acquaintance of hers told her she might like historical murder mysteries. She, knowing I read a lot, and am pretty indiscrimate in what I read, asked me what I know of the genre. Little did she know that she hit a real chord with me. Murder mysteries (I think the Brits call them crime fiction, which is more accurate) are my true guilty pleasure. So I told her I'd email her with my favorites. Since I read so much, I can never remember authors, so sat down and did the research. I came up with:

Ellis Peters
Caleb Carr
Anne Perry
Laurie R. King
Elizabeth Peters
Stephanie Barron

Anyone have any more to add?

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Elizabeth George


And the word you need is "pidgin." Pidgin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[tinlizzie]

Finally got through The Food of a Younger Land (Mark Kurlansky), which contained a teaser in the Middle West section: "...the Galena Guide, considered one of the best small-town guides in the series..." Paging Claire -- do you suppose it's in the Galena library?

Am nibbling my way through Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman. A morsel: "...on a table-top pebbled with crumbs lay the remnants of her breakfast -- a limp starfish of a banana peel..."

Also, a very strange book by Eric Garcia, Anonymous Rex, a detective story in which the protagonist is a velociraptor required to masquerade as a human, as are all the other dinosaurs - a highly inventive tale.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Finally got through The Food of a Younger Land (Mark Kurlansky), which contained a teaser in the Middle West section: "...the Galena Guide, considered one of the best small-town guides in the series..." Paging Claire -- do you suppose it's in the Galena library?

Am nibbling my way through Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman. A morsel: "...on a table-top pebbled with crumbs lay the remnants of her breakfast -- a limp starfish of a banana peel..."

Also, a very strange book by Eric Garcia, Anonymous Rex, a detective story in which the protagonist is a velociraptor required to masquerade as a human, as are all the other dinosaurs - a highly inventive tale.

I love the Rex books, lots of fun. My brother suggested them to me a few years ago.