BOOKS THREAD

Denis Johnson's new book, Tree of Smoke, is real 'effin good.

 

Anyone like Stephen Hunter's Bob Lee Swagger thrillers?

You'll like the new one, The 47th Samurai. Swagger goes to Japan to take on the yakuza. (Even though he's 60 years old.)

As always, it's a fun ride.

 

The excerpt about a 30 year old friendship with Lucien Bouchard was a telling tale of betrayal. Actually that part was a good read. Someone taped the interview last night and I guess Mulroney was quite open about things. Guess what his next book is supposedly, the Airbus scandal. Can't wait for it.

 

I know it's a more popular book, but I finished The Memory Keeper's Daughter not to long ago.

It didn't live up to the hype at all. Very depressing, hardly any payoff.

I just discovered Jodi Piccoult (sp?) not too long ago. My Sister's Keeper was absolutely fantastic and so was Plain Truth. My Sister's Keeper was the better of the two, and I'm really looking forward to 19 Minutes.

 

I know it's not exactly the point of the thread, but I have a question. I read Dr. Seuss' The Cat In the Hat Comes Back to my son. There are two bizarre references. One is to killing little pink spots. Of course, it's done with pop guns, but I found it somewhat alarming to be talking about killing and guns with a 4-year-old. I don't intend to be overly picky, but I'm not sure I see the point of using "killing." There were plenty of other words that would have conveyed a less violent message. After all, violence is a fact of life, but I doubt the day will ever come a time when kids just aren't being subjected to enough violence. Why go there unneccesarily?

There's also a reference to "little pink pills."

I don't the backstory, but surely there is one.

 

Huggy, this is why Mulroney is still regarded as the most hated Prime Minister in my eyes and Trudeau seen as one of the best.

 

Great Book. I remember when it first came out, I read about it in the NY Times book reveiw, and I went out and bought it that afternoon. I sat down and read almost the entire book before going to bed that night. Recently I was looking something up on Abebooks, and the first american editon, first printing is selling for about 90 dollars. ( maybe me and farmer j can pay our student loans after all)

Has anyone read his newest, "A Spot of Bother" ?

I just finnished reading Haruki Murakami's, "After Dark". Another solid effort. I was just amazed by how much he packed in so few pages (191).

 

I like the Swagger series, but Dirty White Boys is Hunter's best IMO.

 

I just picked Scoring From Second: Writers on Baseball, which is edited by Philip F. Deaver. It's not what you might expect from the title. Instead Deaver calls it "broadly defined creative nonfiction" and the writers of the 35 pieces include Rick Bass, Ron Carlson, Michael Chabon, Andre Dubus, Lee Gutkind, William Least Heat-Moon and Tom Stanton.

 

Finished reading The Ruins today. Gawd...what an amazing read! The best book of pure horror I can remember reading in a long, long time. Carter Smith better not screw up the movie version. If you'r

 

19 Minutes by Picoult is a good read, but I was disappointed by the ending. She tied it up too quickly.

I'm reading The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer right now and it is excellent. It's about issues in Iran in the early 80s and folks being sent to prison for no real reason, and how children and wives deal with their husbands being taken away.

 

Just finished Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns", which is one part history lesson about modern Afghanistan and one part fictional storyline revolving around two women growing up, giving birth (and not giving birth) and living. Both are splendid in their own ways, and the room got dusty several times. Highly recommended. A great follow-up to "The Kite Runner."