Recent reading

[bunrab]

This is mostly just titles - I might come back and fill in more details later, and then again, maybe I won't get around to it. I'll save the details for more exciting books.
No Nest for the Wicket - latest in Donna Andrews' Meg Langslow series (murder mysteries, humorous, featuring eccentric relatives, academia, and birds.)
Obsession - latest in Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series (murder mysteries w/ a child psychologist assisting police detectives, set in LA)
Several SF and murder mystery anthologies not special enough to provide details.
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry - tales of child psychiatry in a sort of Oliver Sacks vein.
Stolen - one of the books in Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series that I had missed. Mad scientists/evil billionaire kidnapping werewolves.
Many Bloody Returns - anthology of vampire birthday stories, with entries from most of the big series - Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse is in there, Tanya Huff's Henry Fitzroy, etc. If you're following any vampire series, you'll want to read this anthology to get some of the fill-in-the-cracks bits of story.
A couple of books in Susan Rogers Cooper's Milt Kovack series that I had either forgotten or missed.
Jack Kerouac's On The Road - didn't like it. Much prefered the Jack London stuff I read earlier. I kept thinking, buncha repressed guys trying really hard to act heterosexual and screwing it up badly. I guess it was more interesting when it was new.

I'll get more reading done once our home is our own again - Cindy moves into her own apt. the 13th, and I will be relieved. Other people are a pain to live with, you know?

Comments

book question

[fritzsmomma.livejournal.com]

What are your thoughts on the Meg Langslow series?
Your description intrigues me.

Do you recall the title of the first in the series?

Smiles!

Re: book question

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

The first one was, IIRC, Murder with Peacocks and I wasn't that impressed by it, and didn't think I'd be following the series. But then, later on, We'll Always Have Parrots was an irresistable pun, and I found it so funny, I decided to go back and read the others, and keep up with the series. So far, I like them reasonably well - put it in the category of "not well enough to pay hardcover prices for" but "well enough to nag the library about ordering them" and occasionally buying a paperback copy.

They are played for farce, a bit, but it's good farce, and the eccentric family members are well done. And, in this volume, the XTreme Croquet game is pretty funny.

Re: book question

[fritzsmomma.livejournal.com]

Comparable in anyway to Stephanie Plum's eccentric family; by Janet Evanovich?

I'll probably try the series. In an effort to divest myself of books I'm finding that I have credits at two local used book stores.

I do find the soft murders to be just too plain soft. At least Stephanie makes me laugh or I'd probably think she's too soft.

Thanks for your input.
Smiles!

[manjinakon.livejournal.com]

People suck.

[guavmom.livejournal.com]

Are you a Jonathan Kellerman aficionado too? Until a few years ago, I had read almost every one of his Alex Delaware series. Love them!

The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog sounds interesting too. I loved the movie that was about Sack's work with patients in the Bronx Psychiatric Hospital whom he was traeting with L dopamine. I just can't remember the illness they had suffered from that caused their neurological damage, right off the top of my head right now. Did you see the movie? Can't remember the title either. It starred Robin Williams and Brenda Kavener as Sacks and his nurse, and Robert De Niro, and Anne Meara as two of the patients. Meningitis, maybe?

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

I don't see very many movies - I'm really a "I'd rather read the book" person, and my peculiar glasses prescription also means that sitting in the dark watching giant flickering images gives me a headache, so there aren't many movies that sound good enough to go through that. Sometimes I'll see them on DVD on the small screen - but even then, not many - maybe 3 times a year or so? So I have a real blind spot about movie culture.

[guavmom.livejournal.com]

Well I don't go to the movies much myself. No, this was on tape. I don't know if there was a book it was based on. I too prefer reading. I have a really good video and DVD collection, but rarely watch them, preferring to read, of noodle around on the computer, while listening to NPR on the radio for their intelligent and varied programming, and classical music.

The thing I like about movies is not only their entertainment value, but I love to view the craft of acting, and compare an actor's performance to their previous work. I was brought up in a very culture oriented family: museums, theater, dance, concerts, art galleries, etc. so it's in my blood, more or less.

The movie I referred to might have been " Shadows". I found it very interesting and well done.

Are you very light sensitive, or is it just the contrast between dark and light that troubles you? I think that fritzsmomma has a similar problem, from what I gather from a conversation we had the other night.