Book club. What are you reading and is it any good?
 

Anybody interested in joining in with a Book Club?

Tell us what you're reading, is it any good, would you recommend it?

Books are so expensive and the library is a bit behind the times so i don't get the new titles. Tell me some good reads... no matter how old. I need a good book....

i'll start... 5* rating to...

Yann Martell - Life of Pi
Cormac McCarthy - the road

I'm reading a couple of different books. I've got three Stargate SG-1 novels on my Kindle that I'm in various stages of reading, and in actual book form, I'm reading Glenn Beck's "Arguing With Idiots". (I also have Glenn Beck's "Common Sense" on my Kindle, but havent read much of it because I had a vision problem when I bought it and havent gotten back to it yet)

I love to read. Next to crocheting and knitting, it's my other favorite hobby. I read all sorts of stuff. History, fiction, fictional historical novels. I draw the line at romance novels tho.

I do read fan fiction on the internet too. I love to read.

I'd never heard of a kindle. i thought wtf ?
but i've looked it up... i want one!! can you download the book onto a disc or computer or is it stuck in the kindle thing? sounds cool.

Besides the initial outlay of cost, do you think the Kindle is expensive to run?

How long do you get on the batteries? How do you download?
Does it plug into your computer and do you use the internet?

I was thinking of getting one for our summer place...we have no electricity and are remote in the wilds. But we can get on the internet at the laundromat.

How much does the Kindle hold?

I am visually challenged, so the Kindle isnt something I could use. I download audio books FOR FREE! from my local library. Most cities have this now. You download it to your computer, and switch it to your MP3 player or IPod. Take it with you in the car, or where ever. i LOVE IT! I have a nice sony Walkman that was pretty cheap. 4 gigs will go a looooong way. Dont worry about buying an 8 gig. Ask your local library if they do audio books on the computer from overdrive media. If you belong to the library its free! if you dont, you can chose the next town up, and pay a small yearly fee to belong to their library.

I am listening to Julie and Julia. A young woman embarks on a journey to learn french cooking, and will cook her way through a cook book in a year. the old fashioned cook book. it was made into a movie with meryl streep. Its a great book.

I am on the wait list for Dan Brown's lost symbol. I cant wait!

This summer on my trip I read "$20 a Gallon" by Chris Steiner. I rate it a 4 on a 1 - 5 rating. The book is what will happen "when" gas hits different prices, each chapter is the dollar equivilent to the price, chapter 7 is what will happen when Gas hit's $7 a gallon. He did lots of research and I recommend the book. One thing I read was that at $18 a gallon Walmart and big box stores go away, we will return to "mom and pop" shops and buy more local.

Now I am reading (ok, I am cheating and listening to the audio book" of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" I just started it but will let you know what I think when I am done.

I have a Kindle 1, so it's not got the same features as what's available now on the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX, but the the K2 and the KDX both have a nice feature where you can have the Kindle read your book to you. (considered an experimental feature, and it's not enabled for all books. Some publishers dont have it activated for their books)

I've had a few vision problems, and love that I can change the font sizes on my Kindle. Didnt help much when I had double vision earlier this year, but it helps at other times.

The way the Kindle downloads is thru the Sprint 3G cellphone network. (which you're not charged for) It takes about a minute to get a book downloaded, depending on where you are. If you're in an area that doesnt get Sprint, you can use your computer to download the book and transfer it to the Kindle with a USB cord. (probably always a good idea to back up your Kindle library on the computer anyways)

My Kindle probably holds more than the Kindle 2 does, since my Kindle has the option of using an SD card inside the Kindle for storage. I think the Kindle 2 holds up to about 1500 books. The KDX has a larger amount of onboard memory, but I dont remember how many books it holds.

I think my Kindle 1, without the card, holds about 1500 books. (I'm no where near that amount of reading material yet) I have a 4gb SD card in mine, so that probably increases what it can hold a lot.

You can download music and audiobooks to the Kindles also. With my Kindle, using headphones is annoying, because they put spot to plug headphones in the bottom of the unit. The K2 has the headphone jack in the proper spot on the top. (my dad has a K2, I should put some music on his and see how it sounds) The music playing ability is pretty basic, you have to use the keyboard and the CTRL button to control the music, but if you're just going to sit and read and listen to music, it's not too bad. Not an iPod, but at least with mine, the sound quality is pretty good thru headphones.

The screen is not backlit, so it's easier to read, not as harsh on the eyes as something backlit, like when I used to read on my PDA screen. The Kindle uses E-Ink technology. It's really cool. But, because it's not backlit, you need light to read it. But, collecting booklights that clip onto books is fun. You should see people on the Kindle forums, collecting covers for their Kindles, purses, skins (decals that you can decorate the Kindles with) It's actually kind of fun if you're into doing stuff like that. I'm one of the people who collect purses and cases for my Kindle.

So far as I know, to read your books, you HAVE to read them on the Kindle. I think there are people that have figured out how to hack the DRM (Digital Rights Management) and unlock the books to read on computers, but I dont know how difficult that is. It would be nice to be able to read the books in other digital/electronic formats too, so maybe someday Amazon will figure out a way for people to put the books on their computers without being too jerky about giving up the DRM (and hopefully the Author's Guild wouldnt be too sucky about it either. They're part of the reason that the Text To Speech function is disabled on the Kindle 2 for a lot of books...they whined and said the TTS was doing "performances". I thought the TTS would be great for people with vision problems. The TTS is one of the biggest reasons I want a Kindle 2 now)

The Kindle has a few limitations, but I still love mine. I still like real books too, but I'm really liking my Kindle right now while my left hand is a bit screwed up by the MS. My Kindle 1 is easy to hold, it's light, (have you read a Harry Potter book lately. Those books are heavy! even if you get the paperbacks! HP isnt available on the Kindle yet...) The Kindle has nice big Next Page buttons that I dont need a lot of coordination to press. It cant read to me like the Kindle 2 can, but it's so comfortable to read. I really do enjoy reading books on my Kindle.

When I go to the gym to walk on the treadmill, I take my Kindle with me. It sits on the little book ledge on the treadmill and I walk and read. I love that I dont have to fumble around with pages blowing around, and I can increase or decrease the text size of the words. It made the tediousness of walking on a treadmill a lot more fun. I cant wait till my MS flare is over so that I can get back to doing that again.

Currently, I am reading my textbooks. That's all the reading I have time for. LOL Actually, my literature book is pretty cool as it is full of short stories (it's an anthology). I love my anthropology book as well.

Before starting classes I read an interesting book - "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life." It was a tough read as it is a translation from French but really good. Pud's you may enjoy it as it has to do with the aboriginals in Australia and how they formed religious life. Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist that studied the aboriginals and wrote the book.

Recently, a friend of mine gave me a copy of "The Scalpel and the Soul" which was written by a neurosurgeon who is now disabled. She said he talks about patients and experiences from the physician's side as well as many other things. Hopefully I will be able to read it soon.

Well, here's the obscurity find of the day:

I just finished reading "The Last of the Titans", which is an autobiography/memoir of Ernestine Schumann-Heink, an Austrian-born opera singer who died in the early thirties.

Before you say "whuh?", Heink was someone whose voice my mother greatly admired as a girl. In fact, I have a letter written to my mother by Heink's secretary/assistant concerning a letter Mom had apparently written to Heink.

My curiosity got the best of me, and I found the book on ebay (written in 1928) and it has been fun to read. I did a little research on Heink and found out that she apparently put a positive "spin" on much of her life story! But I STILL liked it. Maybe I'll have to find a CD or something so I can listen to her sing.

Not that I know anything about opera, unless you count Bugs Bunny singing the Barber of Seville. :D

Not my usual read, but nevertheless. You asked!

My brother has his master's in opera and he and his wife sang with the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. I can't stand opera. LOL

Just for you . . .Give it a little and you will hear her sing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1DD1lNkrcs

I always wanted to belong to a book club so a year or so ago I joined one with a few local moms I met on a mom's site. The best part is they are now my good friends. We actually met today to discuss our latest book. We do have a few favorites that I want to recommend. They are all books that we were able to discuss at length, and they are books that have stuck with us long after we read them.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - we saw the movie together too
World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - we are going to see the movie together also

We go to Barnes & Noble, enjoy a coffee, discuss our last book, then look at the books on the tables to pick one. But we check it out from the library to save money. Besides reading good books, we get together for good conversation and eventually get around to talking about the book.

I just finished a great book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It's historical fiction about the lives of the people in Guernsey during the German Occupation during WW2. I loved it and couldn't put it down! Another favorite of mine is "Water for Elephants", it's about a man who is a circus vet during the depression. I'm about to start "South of Broad" by Pat Conroy, he's one of my favorite authors.

I am always reading so I'd love to have a book club to share books with!!
Karen

hulagrl - the one you just finished is one we looked at. I'll make sure to put it on our to read list!

Karosel - I just finished The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls!

I am now reading A Team of Rivals, The Genius of Abraham Lincolnby Goodwin(?).

I use a Kindle 2 and it does not give the entire title or author name after I purchase it. It does (so contradictory) somewhere, I am just too lazy to figure it out later to put it into long term memory!

I love my Kindle. It recharges with electricity, simply plugging it into one of the outlet in my home. I can only purchase books through Amazon Kindle Books. Easy to google to see the choices are huge and the prices for books are much less than if I bought them new. Some older books can be purchased for $1.

Might be comparable to getting them slightly used.

I can look online by computer or by my Kindle. WiFi is built in so I can look anywhere, in a airline terminal or in a park, etc.

It loads a sample for free to read the beginning chapter or so. At the end, I can either buy the book or not. That is a cool feature. It holds a crazy amount of books.

It also had a built in dictionary. My favorite feature.:)

Cost is initially high but book costs and lightweight and convenience. Really it is simply amazing. (Can you tell I am VERY happy with it?)

Thanks, Erin. How long does the battery last?

So it is like a phone, and it just goes to a nearby tower?
Our tower up North is only 2G so far, and maybe it won't work?
My husband's laptop was very slow this summer, for example with his 3G card.

I can see a distinct advantage for heavy big books...which hurt my hands.

I read the 4 huge books in the Song of Fire and Ice Saga...by George R.R. Martin. These were immensely interesting. And they had over 1000 pgs each. A Kindle would have been nice for them. It was quite the addicting series of books...far better than Harry Potter, and more adult IMO. The violence was bad at points, but still it was a neat thing to have for the long cold wet vacation, that the weather dished up for us. The magic was subtle, so it was rather like historical fiction. George Martin is really a good writer... you can imagine it all in your head easily.
I love books like this with easy visualization. This book series will be on HBO as a series starting in 2010. They are casting it now, and all his fans are awaiting book FIVE... its been 4 yrs in the making!

I read "The Lovely Bones" a few years ago and it was good.

Right now I'm reading "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. It's a true story of a woman going through breast cancer and treatment. So far it's good. It was a New York Times bestseller and it's an Oprah book club pick so I figured it would be good. I've read several of the books she has recommended over the years and I've never been disappointed.

Another one I read not long ago is "Love in the Time of Cholera" another Oprah pick and very interesting and different.

I have another new book that I started but it's very disturbing, a book of short stories called "Say You're One of Them" about suffering in Africa from poverty, all short stories from different children's points of view. I got about 15 pages into it and had to switch to a different book, that one is very real and very disturbing. I will go back to it though, maybe next summer when I can get sunshine and it won't affect my mood as much.

The battery on my Kindle1 seems to last a long time. I probably charge it every couple of weeks, unless I forget and leave the wireless turned on. The wireless is a battery drainer, but as long as you're not downloading something, you dont need it turned on.

I do tend to leave my Kindle turned on a lot, sometimes for a day or two (it goes into a screensaver/power save mode) and not seen the battery life drop much. Not sure if the K2 is like that.

I'm not sure how often my dad charges his Kindle2, probably about every two weeks like I do.

I know I've been able to go longer than 3 weeks without charging my Kindle, but that was during a short time where I wasnt reading much (had double vision at the time).

I looked up that author you mentioned on Amazon. He's got some of his books in Kindle format. I might have to download a sample or two. (I love sampling books on the Kindle!)

The thing I really like about my Kindle, is that I can go to the Gutenburg Project on the internet, (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) find a book there that's no longer in copyright, and copy/paste it into a Word document and then email it to my Kindle (wirelessly, or I can download the document to my computer so I have a copy saved) and then read it on my Kindle. I think if you have it wirelessly sent to your Kindle, there's a fee (looked it up, 15 cents a megabyte...not bad) or you can have the document sent to your email for free, and you just download it onto your computer and use the USB cord to transfer it over.

I mentioned that I read a lot of fanfiction on the internet. (fan fiction is fiction written by fans for the fans of particular tv shows...some of it is total crap, and kind of creepy, and some of it is really good, just as good as commercially bought books...just depends on the author and if you can find someone who's got talent that writes in a fandom you read) I've sent a lot of fanfiction to my Kindle.

I've even sent crochet patterns to my Kindle. I really like all the different ways it can be used.

about the question on whether it's like a phone. It cant be used as a cellphone...but it uses cellphone towers for transmitting the books between Amazon and the Kindle. I know my Kindle (the Kindle 1, which is no longer made, now that they've come out with the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX) isnt on the 3G network, but all my books that I've gotten have always arrived within a few minutes of ordering. I've ordered a book at the same time my dad has on his Kindle 2, and both our books arrived at about the same time. (yes, I'm geeky enough that I tested it)

I think, that I'll go read my Kindle now...or nap...which ever wins out first.

We have been watching the Kindle... for our purposes on vacation...where we are very remote, it would be handy.

How long does it take to charge? We have no electricity (it is an island 1.5 miles into Lake Huron), except for a little generator. We charge our laptops and MP3 and camera batts at the laundromat when we do our clothes. They have 3 outlets there. Anything past 2 hours would become a problem. We have a fast charge Sanyo charger for AA and AAA.
This year I am going to try Eneloope batts for the camera since they discharge so fast and are a pain. Or I might get the new Sony super 20x zoom with its lithium batt... it will depend on the $$ situation next spring.

Carrying boxes of books is a pain in the you know where.
So far I buy books at the book sales in town, take them up there and then donate them to the library up there. It can be alot of work carrying things back and forth, esp now since we are getting old and less physically capable. :rolleyes:

I really appreciate the Kindle info, Erin.;)

You know, I've never timed how long it takes to charge the Kindle. I'll have to ask my dad if he knows how long it takes to charge his Kindle2. Since I think it has a different type of battery than the Kindle1 does.

I just read Debbie Macomber's 9th book in her Cedar Cove Series. Great Series!

She's a good knitting designer too. I'm not that great a knitter (havent followed a pattern yet) but I've been looking at some of her knitting patterns and wishing I was a more advanced knitter.

I've got samples of one of her novels on my Kindle. I'm just trying to get thru my backlog of reading material to get to the sample to see if I want to buy the full book yet.

Jodi Picoult
 

I just finished "Handle With Care". Her books are always interesting and usually have a unique twist at the finish. This one did not disappoint.

I am almost done with The Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.(their newest one)

It is rather cheesy, but engagingly cheesy! Thriller thing.
They did the Relic...which was made into a movie.

It has recurring characters, but does not have to be read in sequence. I've read all their books. They are masters of action and quasi scifi/crime stories. Good escapism. There is some science in the stories too. This one has a supernatural theme as well.

I just finished City of Thieves by David Benioff and I loved it. Considering it takes place during the siege Leningrad in WWII, you wouldn't expect it to be thrilling AND gently humorous but it is. I recommend it.

I'm currently reading 2666 by Roberto Bolano and seriously, I can't even put the plot into words. I'm not even sure I know exactly what it's about. I alternately love it or hate it, depending which page I'm on. I'm halfway through it ....weirdest book experience I've ever had but I think I recommend it. ;)

"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb is fantastic and really long (I think that's a bonus since it takes longer to read :)). Any of his books are really good. I read tons of books so I buy a lot of them used. I get most from half.com or amazon. Just make sure the seller has a good feedback rating. I've never had any problems.

I just finished Dennis LeHanne's "Shutter Island". Really, really, REALLY amazing! I could read it again already :). I'll be buying or borrowing all of his other books soon.

I read many different genres but I don't like historical fiction or romance novels. I do read some chick-lit though occasionally to break up my thriller habit :D.

I've read at least one of Wally Lamb's books so I have to keep that in mind. I don't usually like historical fiction either, but I read "An Inconvenient Wife" (don't recall the author's name) but was set around the mid 1800s and high society New York. It was excellent! :)

I'm going to revive this thread again so we can all update with any good reads.

I've personally had a drought of good stuff to read and got really bored of everything until...

Michael Conolly, The Scarecrow. Gripping, thrilling stuff. He went off the boil last year but has come back a treat.

And Lance Armstrong, the Comeback 2.0. I've only read it in a bookshop as yet. Still saving up for that one.

Okay, kind of a story here..Just read The Complete Approach by Barry FitzGerald and Dustin Pari. Not my usual fare, but kind of interesting.

Had the thing with DGD seeing the old lady knocking on my door, remember? I think it was Kitty, advised me to contact one of the paranormal investigators, as seen on tv. Well, I tried a couple. Only one responded - Barry FitzGerald (GHI). I ended up getting the book and some good info. He's such a nice guy, very helpful!

We emailed back and forth a couple times. Maybe his rep proceeds him, cuz the activity in my house has amped up since, lol. Are *They* afraid ghost hunters are coming?

:D

I am in the middle of Eat, Love, Pray. it came at the perfect time in my life. This book has truly fed me. She has a new book called Committment that just came out too.

btw, I still do the audio books free from my local library. its an online service that NH uses to download audio books to your computer, or your Ipod. I am in love that I can hear books again. Reading it out of the question with my vision and cog dysfunction, but this has saved my sanity.

We listen to books on tape in the car. :cool:

I have been swamped by work, but the most recent three I have been reading are "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton, "Control of Nature" by John McPhee (re-reading it for about the 3rd time), and "Going Rogue" by Sarah Palin.

Pirate Latitudes was apparently a "complete" manuscript found by Crichton's family or friends after his death. I put complete in quotes because while it is a quick and engaging read like most of Crichton's books, it seems to me like he was trying to experiment a bit with the "historical thriller" genre which was somewhat different than many of his other popular works that were more in the "techno thriller" genre. The characters are typical of any pirate story, and the reading is fast paced...but I can't help but think maybe it was previously unreleased because Crichton didn't feel like he was quite done with it yet. While it was a good story and kept me entertained, it just didn't have that zip you expect from Crichton.

Control of Nature is one of my favorites. It is non-fiction and details various examples of mankind battling to control nature in places like New Orleans (vs. Mississippi River flooding), Iceland (vs. lava flows from a volcano), and California (vs. debris flows on mountain slopes). McPhee does a good job of pointing out our many follies in presuming we can defeat nature, but also highlights examples where we have won at least temporary victories (i.e. Iceland). After reading it the first time many years ago, I came away from it betting on the Mississippi to win in New Orleans.

Going Rogue was a good read. I will leave out my feelings about the politics involved to avoid starting debates here and just say that it reveals a picture of Sarah Palin that is at odds with what the media created in the campaign. Her life story has had many twists and turns in it and I came away from it seeing her as a very genuine person who believes in trying to do what she believes is right, even if that takes her outside of what is popular or easy. Very little of the book is actually about her race as VP in 2008...and the part that is really stays focused on her path, not on the politics between the parties. Give it a try, I doubt you will be disappointed.

I was very dissapointed with this one. A HUGE Crichton fan, but I personally think it was a secret book he wrote for his own pleasure, never meant for publishing and he's probably turning in his grave. :o

Going Rogue is next on my list, and I am looking forward to it.

I am really enjoying Eat, Pray, Love. i was surprised at just how much I needed this exact book, at this exact moment in my life. Have you ever just read/listened to a book that fed you? This one is feeding me.

Just finished the lost symbol by Dan Brown. it was sort of a let down in the end. I expected more than the typical movie of the week plot in the end.

I am in love with books again, now that I can hear them!

I was rereading what I'd written earlier in this thread, and thought I should update something about the Kindle.

They now have a Kindle for PC program (free download) that you can put onto a Windows computer and use that to read Kindle books.

I've got it on one of my computers, and really like it. Came in handy when the battery died on my Kindle1 awhile back and I wanted to read my book and couldnt get the Kindle1 to stay on even with the power cord plugged in. (problem fixed itself once it got a good charging)

The program is really nice, the text can be made fairly huge. I wish I could use a text-to-speech program with it, but so far I havent been able to find any info about any TTS programs that are compatible with it.

I got a Kindle 2 for Christmas, and love the fact that it has the text-to-speech program on it. I've used that a couple of times, it's not quite as nice a TTS program as the one that I have on my computers, but it's do-able.

The K2 is also lighter than the Kindle 1, so I like that aspect. Stupid numb hand gets tired easily sometimes (that's putting a crimp in my crochet and knitting activities too)

Right now, aside from some Stargate fan fiction that I've gotten on the internet that I've emailed to the Kindle, I've been reading the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...trying to at least... (still on the first book) I'm a big fan of the movies that Basil Rathbone was in, so reading the books is kind of fun. I just imagine Basil Rathbone as Holmes...(havent seen the new movie yet that has Robert Downey Jr in it)

I think I read Hound of the Baskervilles when I was younger, but I dont remember if I ever finished it. That's probably the only one I ever read, so it's kind of neat to be reading them now. I'm probably appreciating the stories more now than I would have when I was younger.

I'm probably going to skip ahead to Baskervilles once I'm done with the first book. Either that or I'll read The Final Problem (that's the one with Moriarty)

I'm at various stages of a few books... All very good but I have poor concentration.

The Shack
The Soloist
The Blind Side

Recommend all of them... the last two were made into movies... but I haven't seen them.

Loved the soloist! awesome movie too.

Adobe has a digital book reader for FREE! to download to your computer. I get free download audio books from the NH libraries, and its awesome! alot of books from the library can be downloaded in printed form for free too. the Adobe digital book reader is great! it will even read the book for you too!

http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/

check it out!

I do the same thing - start a bunch of books at the same time. I have 2 Dean Koontz and a Stephen King open now. Under the Dome is really good, but while I favor those 1000 plus page type things, it really is too heavy (physically).

I must be a little ADD in my old age. I'm also in the middle of a sweater, just finished 2 scarfs and started another, and cutting sewing patterns. Just trying to survive the cabin fever.

Just read "South of Broad" by Pat Conroy; really enjoyed it. I am currently reading three books. I always have one in my car that I can read if I am eating out alone or at appointments. The best of the three is "True Blue" by David Baldacci. For bookclub next month we are reading, "American Wife," by Curtis Sittenfeld, which is a fictional account of a woman married to politician. It is based on Laura bush and the Bush family. I really like it and found it to be rather amusing, but if you are a Bush fan I would not really recommend it.:)

Knitting or crochet? I've got about 5 or 6 scarves that I'm knitting, and I'm crocheting two or three afghans.

I read at my computer a lot while I'm crocheting and knitting.

Crochet. I tried to knit, but no way. I can nver remember, which way did I just go? Dh came in and asked how I was doing with it, I said not too well. He said - "Well, you still have both your eyes, that's better than I thought you'd do, so that's pretty good!" And I put the needles down, lol

Granddaughter saw my big Under the Dome sitting on the table and wanted me to read some to her. So I picked it up and started...

"No pictures of dinosaurs?" she asks.

"Nope, no pictures, just words," I said. Read a little more.

"I think I wanna read Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) instead," she said.

:D

I never do much more than scarves with knitting, and really nothing more than knit and purl ribbing, or just plain garter stitch. I've tried to knit cables, and I cant never remember what row I've just done, and still, after three years of knitting, cant tell which side is purl and which side is knit.

At least with crochet, I've been crocheting since I was 6yrs old and it's a heck of a lot easier than knitting. If I want to get something crocheted within a week, I can do that...as long as my hands cooperate.