| Author |
Message |
|
| carrobin |
 Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 5:34 pm |
 |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| Sad news for me and my fellow British-mystery lovers: Dick Francis has died. He was 89. I guess this means no more new novels, unless his son wants to carry on alone. |
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:38 pm |
|
|
Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
|
"Paddy's Lament: Ireland 1846 - 1847: Prelude to Hatred", by Thomas Gallagher (1982). It was tough reading such vivid descriptions of slow deaths by starvation; nearly as bad as reading about the Holocaust, because the Famine was aggravated at every turn by the Brits. They continued to ship all the barley, corn and livestock to Britain throughout the three-year potato blight. And the London Times was merciless.
Worst of all were conditions aboard ship. Four hundred people locked in below for most of ten weeks without latrines. One in five died on the way or shortly thereafter. I kept thinking of my great grandmother Mary Killeen, who made that trip in 1846, fourteen years old and alone.
Through starvation and emmigration, the country's population went from eight to two million. Only now, even with typically large families, are they approching eight million again. |
_________________
That was great for you. How was it for me? |
|
| Back to top |
|
| yambu |
| Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2010 11:23 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
|
I'm reading "Tales from Old Ireland", retold by Malachy Doyle, beautifully illustrated in minimalist style by Niamh Sharkey, and with a pronunciation guide and two CDs.
It begins with the well-known "Children of Lir", whose wicked stepmother turns them into swans for nine hundred years. When at last they hear a monk ring the bell of St. Patrick, they come ashore in human form. But since they are nine hundred tears old, they die on the beach. |
_________________
That was great for you. How was it for me? |
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 3:49 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
A couple of months ago I was chatting with some friends about the funniest books we ever read, and once past "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and P.G. Wodehouse, I recalled laughing out loud on the subway while reading "Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York" back in the seventies. I found it still in print on Amazon, ordered it, and just finished it. Any woman who remembers the trials and tribulations of being single in Manhattan in that decade should consider it a classic.
It's a good bit darker than I remembered, though. Gail Parent is writing it as a suicide note by a nice Jewish girl who has decided to kill herself--she's bought a plot, interviewed a rabbi, found the perfect dress, even ordered a "DECEASED" stamp for the mail--because she's 31 and still single. There's a lot about Jewish angst in it, but I was brought up Southern Baptist and it ain't as different as you might think. And her recollections of dating, job-hunting, apartment-hunting, and other aspects of life in 70s Manhattan brought back some very sharp memories. Oh yes, and dieting, always dieting. "The first thing I did when I decided to kill myself was stop dieting. Let them dig a wider hole."
I won't say how it ends--just that it's not sweet and it's not bitter. Worth a read, especially if you're my age. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 4:27 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
I remember it being quite dark when I originally read it. But the one line you quoted made me laugh. Enough so, that I might be interested in reading it again.
I'm hoping that once this surgery is over, I can start to make better use of the library. This might be the book with which to kick that off. |
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 4:36 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
The library--I never even think of the library. Got to get myself a library card again one of these days. But my apartment practically IS a library.
"Sheila Levine" made me glad that my main interest in life wasn't finding a husband. It was usually finding jobs, considering how often I seemed to lose them. Of course I always had hopes--and, like Sheila, I had a younger sister who got married not long after I moved to New York. But I never felt that compelling need for a man, and as the years went by, what need I had faded away. (Ah, Alan Bates, if only you'd asked. You could have had your boyfriends too.) |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 9:18 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12894
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| One of the funniest books I ever read was James Thurber's "autobiography," My Life and Hard Times. The story of what happened the Day the Dam Burst is priceless. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 11:22 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| I love James Thurber but never read that book. Darn, another one on the long list... Maybe I can find it at the library.... |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| mitty |
| Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:12 pm |
|
|
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Location: Way Down Yonder.......
|
carrobin wrote: Sad news for me and my fellow British-mystery lovers: Dick Francis has died. He was 89. I guess this means no more new novels, unless his son wants to carry on alone.
I was introduced to Francis books back in the mid '80's, I immediately read every one up to that date, and have impatiently waited every year since. I know his son helped with the last few, and I hope he does carry on his father's type of writing.
I felt I could always count on Francis for an upstanding [sorta  ] hero, and a satisfying ending.
Presently I'm reading two books. The Wolf by Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen and Bitter Steel by Charles Allen Gramlich. The latter is a departure for me, "Tales and Poems of Epic Fantasy". Good writing I'm happy to say, as he is in the writing group we are part of now. Nice fellow. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:21 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
Just finished "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane," which is a nice summer read about a scholarly girl working toward a graduate degree in Early American history who discovers that one of her ancestors was executed as a witch--and had a book of spells, which evidently still exists. It's entertaining and gives a different kind of POV concerning the Salem trials, and I went through it pretty quickly despite its length.
Now I'm into "Dark Fire" by C J. Sansom, which also has to do with alchemy and history--but more interesting to me because it's in 16th-century London. It's one of a series about a lawyer in King Henry's reign, and the details make me feel that I'm right there. (And it usually smells awful--let's give thanks for modern plumbing!) |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| mitty |
| Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 5:24 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Location: Way Down Yonder.......
|
I'm reading Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg presently. I've had it on the shelf for several years. Sorry I haven't gotten to it before, it's a delicious, slow moving sort of mystery with an interesting heroine.
I'm also still working on the non-fiction The Wolf, great story to it, but too much politics are given in excruciating detail. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 11:25 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
I read "Smila's Sense of Snow" several years ago, and remember liking it but I don't remember much about it. Except that it was awfully cold there.
What is "The Wolf" about? The Sansom mystery I'm reading takes place during Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, and it's making me think about reading "Wolf Hall." When it gets to paperback, of course. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| mitty |
| Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 12:18 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Location: Way Down Yonder.......
|
The Wolf was a German converted coal steamship, disguised as a freighter that traveled thousands of miles during WWI, all through the Indian and Pacific Oceans destroying ships carrying supplies and goods headed to and from Australia etc. They did not deliberately kill any of the crews or passengers of those ships. Those were captured and held prisoner on board their ship.
The Captain was quite an interesting man, and tried to remain a gentleman under horrific conditions.
Here is a link...
http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-German-Raider-Terrorized-Allies/dp/1416573178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277571673&sr=8-1 |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| mitty |
| Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 12:21 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Location: Way Down Yonder.......
|
| Oh, meant to add that I have the C.J. Sansom series you are talking about Carrobin. One of these days I'll get to them. I love the premise. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2010 4:18 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
"The Wolf" looks intriguing--reminds me of a proofreading job I had a few years back, working on a two-volume listing of every German U-boat in the Second World War. Where they were built, where they went, what happened to them. Much more interesting than it sounds. I hadn't even known that German U-boats were in Caribbean waters, though I did know that some were around New York's coast.
I'm enjoying the Sansom book, and will probably pick up another in the series once I finish "Dark Fire." But I have so many unread books around, and so little time... yet I keep buying more! |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
