Books you are currently reading ...

[brebis noire]

I've been wanting to read this one for a long time: The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

It's just as good as I thought it would be  - I read one of his previous books, THe Botany of Desire, and it was a delight of information as well. I'd say it's a must for anyone remotely curious about food.

[Papal Bull]

The Upside of Down was spectacular! It singlehandedly turned my mom into more of an environmentalist. Right now I'm going back and reading the old John Wyndham and Howard Fast dingers that I have laying around in my apartment.

[arborman]

After a brief diversion into a dreadful couple of pulp novels (bus reading), I plowed my way through 'The Walmart Effect', which was excellent.

My addiction to Neal Stephenson books continues, I'm now working my way through 'The Diamond Age.'

[faith]

I have just finished 3 different books and they all had their good points
- "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards I bought at the same time as "De Niro's Game" by Rawi Hage and I read TMKD first because I sensed it would be the lighter read and I was right.
Memory Keeper started off riveting but couldn't keep it up through the whole book. I thought that although it was a good story there were issues that were not explored centering around privelege in society and feminism that would have added a lot of dimension to the book.

De Niro's Game had been recommended by 2 different people in the G&M as a must read and so I picked it up. It was haunting and definitely not an easy read. The setting is the war zone of Beirut and the violence permeating all levels of existence is unsettling to say the least . I find myself thinking about the novel weeks after I have read it and I think I may read it again after my daughter returns it.

The third book was "The Lost Van Gogh", a mystery best seller in paperback which was fun and interesting to me because it dealt with so many art types and cliches. I needed some entertainment after reading De Niro's game.

[skdadl]

If you ever have the chance, faith, catch Volker Schlöndorff's film Circle of Deceit/Die Fälschung (1981). He filmed it in Beirut while the war was still on. I barely remember the plot, but the images of what was done to the city and the people -- those have lasted permanently.

[Holly Stick]

Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith; one of his books aimed more at children.  Very good; lots of witches with wonderful names like Miss Perspicacia Tick.

[faith]

Thanks skdadl, flagged for future viewing. I wonder if I can order it through my local library?

[Trudi_E]

My favourite thing about books is that there is something for everyone.

Not knowing what I wanted to read recently, I went with some referrals from friends and was pleasantly surprised.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam.  I thought it was engaging and interesting and didn't present the med school/medical practice in the same way I've read before.

The Birth House - Ami McKay.  I was really engrossed in this book.  I learned that Ami McKay lives in the house in which her story is based and there was an actual midwife and she used the town's stories for the basis of her tale.  It was funny, touching, a little feminist and interesting.  If you liked books like The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) or The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd), you'll likely enjoy the community of women in this story as well.

[Caissa]

I loved the Lam book; almost impossible to put down.

I've got six books on the go at the mment.

1) Early Dashell Hammett collection from pulps many never anathologized before.

2) Church Marketing 101

3) Margaret Somerville's Masey Lectures (I want to better understand her arguments if onlt to critique it)

4) Christine Todd Whitman's critique of the curent Republican party

5) Winning Checkers (written 1940, reprinetd 1961)

6) The Oxford shorter guide to the Popes.

Ms. C. is picking up the new Hitchens book for me today.

[Berlynn]

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread to be posting this to, but what the hey!  By the Secret Ladder will be a book I start reading after I get a copy of it tomorrow at the Regina launch.  I'm so excited about this book, mostly because I'm friends with the author, but also because it explores that side of mothering that we tend to not talk about.

I've recently finished reading Loyal to the Sky by Marisa Handler and it's a fantastic memoir -- what's with me and memoirs lately?

I also have other books on the go (sorry no time for links on these):

Lilac Moon by Sharon Butala
Mudras: Yoga in your Hands by Gertrud Hirschi
Birding, or Desire by Don McKay
The Drunken Lovely Bird by Sue Sinclair

and I still haven't finished Monbiot's book, Heat.  Don't know what that's about...

Oh, and then there's the YA novel my daughter wants me to read.  She claims it's the funniest book she's ever read, but I can't remember the title.

There are a few others lying about, too, on the bedside table, beside the couch, in the studio...but the titles escape me...

[BCseawalker]

Hello everyone. I'm new to BnR...

I've just finished reading and recommend highly is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1998).

Borrowed this book from the library on a short-term loan - other library patrons are waiting in line to read it too. The story, the prose, the philosophy, made such an impression on me that I'd have read it a second time if I could.  

From the back cover:

 

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy.

[fern hill]

Hiya, BCseawalker.

Sounds like a good book. Similar premise as The Mosquito Coast for which I'll find a link.

ETA:Amazon link to the book

A movie was made of it that I have not seen.

The Mosquito Coast

Peter Weir directs this film about a man, Allie, fed up with society whotravels with his family to the Mosquito Coast to set up his own Utopia. In the tradition of the Conrad novel Heart of Darkness, Allie(Ford) becomes obsessed with the Utopia he has created a will not let anything or anyonestop him from his near perfect world. The person intent on stopping Allie from his "destruction of mankind" is the Rev. Spellgood, a missionary who plans on converting the "heathens" along the coast. Allie has his atheistic beliefs though and is not willing to left Rev. Spellgood interfere withanything that he does. For many people this movie was an absolute disgraceand according to my mother it was a complete attack at Christianity andGOD.But if you are willing to put religion aside to get a view from both sidesof the fence then Mosquito Coast might have something to offer you.

Oh look, another dam cat.

[GDKitty]

: Hey!  Great to meet you!  Don't mind fern hill...the kitties rule the roost around here :lol:

[skdadl]

Groovy! Another kitty!

Great to see you here, BCseawalker. I think we met very briefly in the past. Welcome aboard.  

I haven't read Kingsolver, although I remember that she was a favourite of our nonsuch, sadly absent for some months. Sounds like a great story of a very hard time.

[brebis noire]

I loved The Poisonwood Bible - I read it in 2001, if I remember correctly. I tried some other Kingsolver books after that, but I didn't think any of them were nearly as good. I did like her book of essays however.
She's a biologist by training, and has a really wonderful way of writing about nature, animal life and such.
I think she has a new book out, something growing food or documenting her family's year of growing their own food.