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Golden Oldies out there...what books are you reading right now?


Guest Jetsun Milarepa

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Little Sparrow

I have just started SPQR by Mary Beard. I studied Roman history (among other things) at uni, but haven't read anything on the subject for years. I'm still interested though.

I decided earlier this year that I wanted to get more into sci-fi and fantasy, something I rarely read usually. I discovered the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks, which are great.

I just started reading a book called "Heartwood" by Freya Robertson. Only about 100 pages in, but so far I like it.

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I just finished reading two books by C.J. Box. He has a mystery/adventure series featuring Joe Pickett, a Wyoming Game Warden. I could hardly put either one down. Endangered and Off the Grid, both of which are excellent and feature the land as a strong part of the story. I'm starting with a new (to me) writer, Nevada Barr and her Anna Pigeon Mystery series. Anna is a Ranger for the National Park Service, and her first outing is Track of the Cat. I have a couple of books by Dee Henderson (Full Disclosure and Unspoken) to read. Her O'Malley Series was excellent. She's an inspirational mystery writer. I also have The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien to read. I'm also watching (on Netflix) The Chronicles of Shanarra which are somewhat based on the long and expansive series by Terry Brooks. It somewhat follows the books, but then syfy fantasy is hard to put on screen.

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

Little Sparrow, Mary Beard is amazing, love her stuff! When I went to Rome, the first thing I did was to take a photo of the drain covers...all with SPQR on them! Was surprised to see people laying flowers at the place in the forum where Julius Caesar was murdered. Surreal.

I was trying to get around to the Chronicles of Shanarra Spazikat, but run out of time due to Outlander and Vikings this week.....it's on the watchlist though!

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The Beekeeper's Apprentice ~ Laurie R. King.

(it's a Sherlock Holmes story. borrowed and updated by that lady. ^)

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I have just started SPQR by Mary Beard. I studied Roman history (among other things) at uni, but haven't read anything on the subject for years. I'm still interested though.

I decided earlier this year that I wanted to get more into sci-fi and fantasy, something I rarely read usually. I discovered the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks, which are great.

I just started reading a book called "Heartwood" by Freya Robertson. Only about 100 pages in, but so far I like it.

I finished SPQR about a month ago- history as it should be written, informative but unpretentious and takes a very level-headed approach to the bits of Roman history that everybody thinks they know.

Otherwise, at the moment for me- in between Ian Rankin's Rebus novels, currently reading a bit of railway history, the Kalevala (I read some poetry every night to strengthen my voice) and the letters of Ted Hughes.

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Just looked online at my local library to see if SPQR is available, but alas, it is out and not due back till mid August. :(

I just read Anne Tyler's A Patchwork Planet. Pretty good. Was reading The Martian but just couldn't finish it--I felt too bogged down in all the technical stuff.

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

Lanigsy, I love the Rebus books too. Will have to read SPQR when there's time, presently wading through 'Even Dogs in the Wild' by Rankine, but the heat and fatigue are getting the better of me.

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imnotafreakofnature!

Haven't been on this thread for a while and was glad to see Hamish McBeth come up! I was introduced to that series a few years ago by a woman at my writer's group, who loaned me some of the episodes she had on DVD. I've wanted to read some of the books (and the Agatha Raisin books, too), but life gets in the way and I just simply forgot about it. I'll have to see if any of those are available through the library.

Another light-reading mystery series for anyone interested is the Mrs. Jeffries series. I can't remember off-hand who the author is, but it's an easy-reading series about a housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, and the rest of the staff, who basically solve the mysteries for their employer, the police inspector. It takes place some time ago (like the late 1800s or early 1900s). There's no sex in the ones I've read (which I'm very glad about!), but there is a romance between two of the household servants who eventually get married, if I remember right.

Just finished reading World Without Cancer by Griffin, and Summer Lightning by PG Wodehouse.

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Gentle Giant

I plan to get more Hamish Macbeth books next time I go to the book exchange. Those stories are fun to read. I haven't seen the TV show and am content with just reading the books.

I just finished "Torn" by Chris Jordan. I think it's a good story. A mad man holds kids hostage in a school is the start of the story. I won't go into detail about the rest. There's some violence, language and sex references, but not excessive.

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cavalier080854

I have the happy talent of being able to read many books together without getting confused between them. I'm currently reading 1 Madam Bovary. 2 To the Last Round. 3 God Emperor of Didcot. 4 Dune (again). 5 Pyramids. 6 History of the Art of War in the 16th Century. 7 Sanditon by Jane Austen (she was writing this when she died). 8 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Lastly 9 The Ohio and Malta.

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imnotafreakofnature!

Just finished the Requiem for Dragons trilogy. It's been out for quite a while, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I plan to read other books by that author, but probably not right away. I'm not sure what to read next - I've got too many to choose from!

Cavalier080854, you've sure got a wide range of interests! Thanks for the mention of Sanditon - I'd never heard of that one before. I'll have to look into it.

Happy reading, everybody! :D

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

I've finished with 'Solomon Creed' and now on to 'The Magicians' by Lev Grossman. After that I'm savouring the next one....'The Cursed Child'!! I have tickets to the play next March, it's so booked ahead, but can't wait that long to read (my daughter is adamant she's going to see the pay first, but I'm not so well disciplined!).

She's reading 'the Wasp Factory' by Iain Banks....it sounds horrendous, not one for me!

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cavalier080854

Hi, the Sanditon novel is by Jane Austen and another Lady. I think Jane died writing page 138. There are a lot of novels about characters from Austens books. "The Third Sister" (Sense & Sensibility), "Jane Fairfax" (Emma). Unfortunately most are average to not very good. As an alternative try "Scarlett" by Alexandra Ripley, a follow up to "Gone with the Wind" There is a DVD mini series made in 1994, which you can still get.

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Gentle Giant

I just finished "The Inferno Collection" by Jaqueline Seewald. It's sort of an o.k. murder mystery, if you can stomach the sex, romance and flirting crap. WARNING! There is an explicit sex scene in it! YUCK! I will put this author on my NOT to get list.

I did get a couple more Hamish Macbeths and also one Agatha Raisin. This will be my first Agatha Raisin story and will be the next book I read.

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HesitantAlien

I'm reading 3 at once.

Splintered by A.G. Howard. A sort of retelling of Alice in Wonderland I am enjoying. It is a teen type book. So there is romance in it, but so far nothing overly so. I'm enjoying it a lot actually.

Lament of Lamb Volume 2 A Manga about Vampire that I am really liking.

Fallen I have read this one before, but I need to read it to refresh my memory so I can read the whole series.

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

I'm sure I've read some Boyczuk. Maybe I'm getting him mixed up with another author who wrote a book of short horror stories about a group of people chosen to complete some unsavoury tasks and the winner was to have their debts erased.....or maybe I'm wrong?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I recently finished the Agatha Raisin book "The Wizard of Evesham". It was pretty good, but I was a bit annoyed with the sex/romance stuff in it. Hamish Macbeth stories tend to have the sex/romance stuff too, but is a little less annoying than Agatha Raisin. At least so far the Hamish and Agatha books aren't as explicit as that last book I read (The Inferno Collection). So I will probably give Agatha another try.

Next up to read is "Lightning" by Dean Koontz. I've read 2 others by him and liked both of those. "Velocity" and "From the Corner of His Eye". I especially liked "Velocity" as it was so engrossing. It was very disturbing but such a page turner! In "Velocity" a bartender finds a note on his windshield that says something like: If you don't take the note to the police, someone will die, if you do take the note to the police, another person will die, you have six hours to decide, the choice is yours.

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imnotafreakofnature!

Recently finished Exploring Shamanism by Hillary S. Webb (very good), and now finishing up Spirit Walking: A Course in Shamanic Power by Evelyn Rysdyk (also very good, but in a different way - if that even makes sense). Next on the docket (simply because they're library books and have due dates) are Manual for the Peacemaker by Jean Houston and Earth Medicine by Kenneth Meadows.

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

I'm not much into the sex/romance element either Gentle Giant, but the rest sounds interesting!

The books on Shamanism sound like they are from the Native American culture I'mnotafreakofnature, which I always find very connected to the earth in an age of human isolation , I'm used to the Tibetan variety, which is related to the Native American , seeing as that was the passage of humanity into America, through the Tibetan plateau, Siberia , Alaska and down into the plains of the states. Some of the ideas are very similar.

The present one here is The Magicians, which my daughter lent me. I'm sure it was made into a film. It's ok, but its too much like Harry Potter! There are elements too close for comfort and I can see that it was written a long time after Rowling's books. However, I'm sticking with it, as there might be a different plot line. I read the Cursed Child, but it's plain that Rowling didn't write it. I'm not going to give anything away!

HesitantAlien, I worked my way through all the Anne Rice vampire books, after seeing 'Interview with the Vampire' , if you like your Vampires, try those as well.

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sparklingstars

I read the Magicians, and the two other books in the trilogy as well. I really enjoyed them. I don't know that it was made into a movie, but it has been made into a TV. But the TV show is very different from the books, and I like the books much, much better. The show was just a disappointment after enjoying the books so much.

I saw a talk Lev Grossman (the author) gave in which he states that in the late 90's he came up with this idea for a book in which the main character was a young boy who attends a school for magic. But he never really followed up on it, and right after that J.K. Rowling came out with the first Harry Potter book. And so he waited until some of the Harry Potter hype faded away before he finished working on the Magicians books. I don't know if the story is true or not, but that explains why The Magicians is so similar to HP.

Right now I'm reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which is a non-fiction book about a murder in Savannah, GA. I'm also reading a book called The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules, which is a humorous fiction book (although it could be funnier and I'm not thrilled with the author's ability to tell a story ; I may quit soon). I have quite a stack of books that I want to read but my problem is finding the time to get to them all!

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imnotafreakofnature!

Oh my FRICKIN' god!! WHY do sexual people HAVE to explain everything in sexual terms, even things that are supposedly spiritual in nature?!?!? :mad:

I started reading Earth Medicine, a book that's supposed to be about a mix of Native American, Taoist and Jungian teachings. Only 24 pages in, the author started taking about the yin/yang symbol. In spite of the traditional teachings about the dark side (yin) being described as feminine, dark, passive, receptive and negative (many of which are also sexual as well as sexist terms), I've managed to appreciate the symbol anyway; mainly for its depiction of day/light and dark/night, and even good/evil, each containing the seeds of the other. However, this author seemed even more determined than most to sexualize the yin/yang: "The thrusting, positive, masculine principle was constantly seeking union with the receptive, negative, feminine principle which was constantly seeking to be possessed by its complementary opposite." :wacko:

I was so completely sickened, disgusted and infuriated, I almost threw the book across the room. :angry: (The only reason I didn't is because it's a library book and I didn't want to have to pay for damaging it.) Try as I might, I couldn't get past that paragraph. Needless to say, that one's going back to the library unread!

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

I'm further into the Magicians now Sparklingstars and yes, it's opened up into a really interesting storyline. Glad I stuck with it!

Imnotafreakofnature, yes, that sounds pretty much like the content of that topic :rolleyes: When I was a Buddhist nun, a lot of the meditations were on Tantra, which is common to early Hindu and Tibetan scriptures. I never got the point of it, even when I was told that it was a way to use sexual energy for higher purposes...ie divert it away from its baseness. Well, if you don't have that kind of energy, it's wasting time, so I was happy to give it up! Hope you find more useful books on the subject. There surely were asexuals around when shamanism ruled.

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I'm listening to the first of the Jack Reacher novels. Also on deck are The Chopin Manuscript and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The Harry Potter books I know well enough that if I put the audio on for fifteen minutes, I'll fall asleep before the timer turns off the audio. The story gives my mind something to focus on (instead of spinning from subject to subject) and since I know the story my mind relaxes rather than listening carefully to see what happens next.

On my reading list, to actually READ, are Emotional Intelligence and Uprooted.

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Phantasmal Fingers

I generally only read stuff on Buddhism - or mysticism (in various traditions) - which obviously isn't most peoples' cup of tea. I haven't read any fiction for a number of years now but I did finally get around to reading a memoir I always meant to read many years ago, i.e. "Far Away and Long Ago" by W H Hudson. It describes Hudson's boyhood living on a farm on the pampas in Argentina in the 1840s. Apparently it has become highly regarded in Argentina and I'm not surprised. It's very evocative of an idyllic childhood spent in beautiful surroundings and has the same sort of nature-mystical tone you get in Richard Jeffries. In that sense it also reminded me of "The Autobiography of a Super Tramp" and "Lavengro" - the sort of books which make you feel as if you've been to the places described.

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Re-reading "Blood & Mistletoe" for an on-line study group, Re-reading "Neverwhere" because I love it & just started "Death At Buckingham Palace" a light murder-mystery.

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cavalier080854

I've finished reading swankivy's book and it left me no wiser, from a male point of view. It was very much a female perspective from a gender studies course. The biggest issue I had has caused a crisis of conscience with regards the LGBT issue in chapter 2. A number of examples were given of what I regard as double standards if not hypocrisy. The best was asexuals cashing in on straight cishetero norms. Well I know from a gay friend Simon that when he came out, no one in the LGBT crowd said the same thing, it was congratulations. In the whole book double standards were called out, but with LGBT, nothing. I am considering putting a topic on this when I have decided which thread to chose and the relevant page info has been collated. I've been an ally to the LGBT community for 31 years here in the UK, asked for nothing, been In a couple of fights with gays against others. This is normally a deal breaker for me, but Simon is not available in the far east for me to ask for clarification if this true for the UK. I hope not. Read the chapter again and see what you think, do you agree?

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Currently, I'm on Season Two of the running application "Zombies, run!". Yes, it's a running app game, but works pretty much like an audio book, with excerpts heard after specific amounts of time or distance, depending on how you've selected the app to run. It's an immersive piece of fiction that is experienced entirely in the first person, with you as "Runner Five", a person with a mysterious past and a gift for running long distances quickly, which happens to come in handy in various adventures set in a zombie apocalypse set in Britain. Is it literary masterpiece? Probably not, but it's entertaining and engaging enough to keep motivated while I run.

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