Sunday, August 28, 2005
Book It
Over the last week or so, various readers of this bilge have been listing the books they've been reading this summer, or books they'd recommend based on the books they've been reading this summer, or books you just oughta read because they're good and stuff. Because it seems like a good thing to do on a Sunday morning, let's recap. First, my original list:
Those of us who have time to read lots of books, or a few deep-n-heavy tomes, enjoy quite a luxury, really. I know of people with high-maintenance families and/or stressful jobs who claim to read only a couple of books a year. But at least their intentions are good. It was widely reported in the UK a couple of weeks ago that Victoria Beckham, one of the Spice Girls, who has actually written a 528-page autobiography, has never read a book. "I prefer listening to music," she said, "although I do love fashion magazines."
It figures.
Information on any of the books mentioned in this post can be found here.
Over the last week or so, various readers of this bilge have been listing the books they've been reading this summer, or books they'd recommend based on the books they've been reading this summer, or books you just oughta read because they're good and stuff. Because it seems like a good thing to do on a Sunday morning, let's recap. First, my original list:
Until I Find You/John IrvingNow, here's the list contributed by blog readers:
Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail/Christopher Dawes
Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco/Peter Shapiro
American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies/Michael W. Kauffman
The Guns of the South/Harry Turtledove
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?/George Carlin
Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping/Patrick Radden Keefe
Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War/Penny M. Von Eschen
They Marched Into Sunlight/David MaranissNot a typical beach book in the bunch--no mass-market mysteries, no romance novels. (The Harry Potter books don't really count--any book that's so big it would block out the sun can't really count as beach reading.)
Hitchhiker/M. J. Simpson
Wodehouse/Robert McCrum
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince/J. K. Rowling
Seven Soldiers of Victory/Grant Morrison
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana/Umberto Eco
Dune/Frank Herbert
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone/J. K. Rowling
Main Street/Sinclair Lewis
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation/Matt Ridley
Bitter Grounds/Sandra Benitez
Those of us who have time to read lots of books, or a few deep-n-heavy tomes, enjoy quite a luxury, really. I know of people with high-maintenance families and/or stressful jobs who claim to read only a couple of books a year. But at least their intentions are good. It was widely reported in the UK a couple of weeks ago that Victoria Beckham, one of the Spice Girls, who has actually written a 528-page autobiography, has never read a book. "I prefer listening to music," she said, "although I do love fashion magazines."
It figures.
Information on any of the books mentioned in this post can be found here.
