recommending "30 Lessons in Living" which is a collection of over 1000 interviews with some elderly folks on how to live!

I'm reading The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer.  It has a lot of D.C. intrigue and secrecy, a la Dan Brown.  It's a good read so far, I'm anxious to get to the big ending but not to finish the book.

thanks for sharing this, barry! so happy to see you here again!

I'm reading The Warmth of Other Suns:  The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson.  Alice Walker recommended it.  It's a historical look at the decades long migration of black citizens out of the south.  Very eye-opening and heart-wrenching for this southern white girl.  A must read.  I'm also reading The Uncommon Path:  Awakening Authentic Joy, by Mick Quinn.  Challenging and interesting.  I'm about half through both books. 

i love alice walkers, so between you and alice, how could i go wrong with this? :-) thank you, carla!

Haven't been on here for a bit...8 books in between that time and I think I am beginning to see why my Mom used to do the "get your nose out of that book " speech in my direction...just started the last in the Wicked series " Out of Oz" and so far so good...way back in November the one I was reading "Hello I must be going" ended up being pretty depressing ....

so glad you're here, nancy!!

thanks had to redo my password but I got here.....once I finish my Christmas books (gifts)plan is to look back through this and pluck out the names of a few books and head to the library.....

I finished up 11/22/63 by Stephen King and give it a thumbs up.  It was a BIG book, though, and made me wish I had a kindle.

I am currently reading "Set This House In Order" by Matt Ruff.  It is a very interesting fictional, first person story about a person with multiple personality disorder.  Very intriguing.

thanks for these, nancy and margaret! i love hearing what you guys are reading and so do other folks!  stephen never seems to be able to write a bad book, right? ;-) as for matt ruff, i would think that would be a difficult topic to write about!

j.k.rowling has a new novel geared towards adults headed out. more info here

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/23/j-k-rowling-to-publish-firs...

and I of course will read it.. and I also would give Stephen Kings 11/22/63 book a thumbs up...and for anyone who tried to make it through the Le Morte d' Arthur and couldn't a more modern version by Peter Ackroyd isn't bad..it is at least not as tedious...

Just finished the Dove Keepers by Alice Hoffman and it was a good read...story of 4 women who all end up at Masada during the Jewish wars...

so happy you stopped by here, nancy!!! i wish we could get a ton of new members on here and have a very active book section. or maybe we could read a book together. not sure about that one but open to ideas!

that would be cool a wifflebook club ...I have never joined one because I would have the book read and about 3 more in between one meeting and the next..LOL

maybe i could give us alot of time...or maybe even a short time to read it....hmmmm...thinking

readers! tonight PBS American Masters has back to back profiles of Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee!

thanks for the heads up on the pbs show..

Just started on the hunger games trilogy but I just finished a beautiful book that I think every reader should see..."The Invention of Hugo Cabret" it is a story told in words and pictures and is one of the most amazing books..the art work is wonderful and the story is warming...I haven't seen the movie yet but I will and wonder if it will even come close to being the experience the book is....

thanks for that, nancy! i'm really wanting to read "Enemies"...it's about the history of the FBI. good stuff on it from Charlie Rose and NPR....

so many books ...so little time...sigh...

Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" is one of those books I have always known about but had not yet read.  It had been mentioned to me over the past several weeks, so I finally got around to reading it.  For some reason I had it in my head that it was a book that fell into the "should read" category rather than the "want to read" category.

I could not have been more wrong.  The characters are beautifully crafted, and the story is compelling.  The description of the theocratic government's rise to power shows how edging over one line...and then another...and then another makes even the implausible possible.

All too close for comfort with the challenges to women's rights happening across this country every single day.  Highly recommended.

"The Rich and the Rest of Us" by Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornell West...and important book about poverty in America!

Some of you might know, But along with being a painter, I help manage a indi bookstore!  My special is YA.. LOVE IT!  So right now I'm reading, Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers.  Love the tag line: Why be the Sheep when you can be the Wolf?!  I'm also reading for our young bookgroup, Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani and for our adult bookclub, Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  !!! Love my books.

hey guys...check out frank langella's "dropped names". i think alot of you might enjoy frank langella talking about his life through his many encounters with famous people. kind of extraordinary observations

I just finished "War is a Racket", written by Brigadier General Smedley Butler in 1937, after World War I.  It is amazing how much things haven't changed.  ONE - WAR IS A RACKET! CHAPTER TWO - WHO MAKES THE PROFITS? CHAPTER THREE - WHO PAYS THE BILLS? CHAPTER FOUR - HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET! CHAPTER FIVE - TO HELL WITH WAR!  Pretty much lays it out there.  I think this should be required reading before one can call oneself a liberal.

Cyclops One by  Jim  Deflice

This is one of his Andy Fisher series. Only on page 3 - will report more later.

readers! what are your summertime ocean side books right now?

One of my I'm reading A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1) by Deborah Harkness.
I'm also reading The Obsidian Blade (The Klaatu Diskos #1) by Pete Hautman a YA title

I am reading Homeward Bound Angel by Thomas Wolfe ... it is quite the adventure in obscure vocabulary and a word fest serving up copious amounts of food for consumption ... along with the authors apparent aversion to the human form .... T.W. describes most of his characters in ways that leave one with the impression that most human form is grotesque!

The Enchantress, the last in the 'Immortal Nicholas Framel series by Michael Scott.

i just saw a book i want to read plugged on chris hardball's show. it's by michael duffy called "the president's club" (i think that's the title, but the author is definitely correct) about the special group that ONLY the presidents have formed. it's almost a secret support group. it has rules and regs, meetings and rivals. cool. i want to read this!

I am reading a lovel by Anna Quindlen, written in 1994, called One True Thing, about a woman who puts her life on hold to care for her mother who is dying of cancer.  At the outset, the daughter is in jail accused of killing her mother (euthenasia); I'm not far enough into the book to know what happened, but the minute description of her mother's physical deterioration and how she faces what is happening to her is compelling right now; I think of my mother caring for my father at home through his final terminal illness, and of my friend Julie who died last Sunday after a multi-year battle with breast cancer . . . I am drawn to this book even as it reaches into my gut . . .

I am so sorry about the loss of your friend Julie, Robin. As I recall book was made into a movie with Meryl Streep and Renee Zelweiger (sp?). It was obviously a heavy subject, but good. Anna lost her mother, and it was a huge change in her life. She had to become the mother to her younger siblings, a role she hated and her siblings hated. I just saw her on a long interview on CSPAN. If you happen to see it in a rerun, I think you'd enjoy it. Thanks for sharing!

ok, Just started Gone with the Wind!! Never read it, Never saw the movie!! and for me that is rare!
I'm also reading Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham (YA) and Souless by Heather Brewer (YA)!

Lisa - I knew it was made into a movie and I also heard a great interview with Anna Quinlan on NPR very recently, in whgich she talked about having to raise her younger siblings.

GWTW is a wonderful book - the movie is outstanding, but it doesn't do the book justice.  However, don't even think about reading the sequel, Scarlett - it goes from bad to ridiculously bad.

oh i love the activity here. i love hearing what everyone is reading, old or new. robin, that interview with anna quindlan was probably very similar to what i saw on cspan. she talked alot about her writing process which i loved.....annie, GWTW was one of the best times i've ever had with a book. i, too, love the movie. but the book is more entertaining and more than 4 hours worth of continuous entertainment too! you're going to have so much fun!!!! if i didn't need a new pair of reading glasses, i'd read it along with you!

Finished the book, surprised by the ending.  Can't imagine Meryl Streep as the mother 15 years ago . . . now some lightweight beach reading.

have any of you read the book "wild"? i'm watching oprah interview the author about her experiences on the trail....it sounds compelling. anyone?

what's your lightweight beach reading going to be? i believe strongly in lightweight stuff. it's all good for the imagination!

Our recycling center here in Dennis, MA (on the Cape) has a great shed for people to take useful items they don't want & pick up other useful items that people didn't want but you can use.  They usually have a lot of paperbacks and that's where I pick up all my summer reading.  Just started a novel by Barbara Delinsky, picked up novels by Nora Roberts & Anne Rivers Siddons & Golda Meir autobiography. 

This may seem goofy, but I just read volumes 1, 2, and 3 of the Walking Dead graphic novels!  I love the show on AMC and wanted to see how it followed the graphic novels.  I'm really enjoying it!  They are very fast reads, and I'm hoping to get to read them all!  Definitely fun summer reading!!

sounds like fun stuff, ladies!! :-)

I'm finishing up "A Tale of Two Cities."  Although I'm a Dickens fan, I had steered away from his most serious work, preferring his more comic novels (or at least ones with comic characters).  However, there are great dramatic scenes in "A Tale," despite its lack of humor.

he's one of the best novelists ever, paul. i'm so glad you brought him up as a great read. i loved great expectations. i've heard bleak house is a true work of genius, but i haven't read it yet. ...so, tell me. is it the best of times or the worst of times? :-)

Just finished A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash.  It will definitely make my top ten of the year.  A Greek tragedy in North Carolina.  If you like Tom Franklin, you must read this.

We lost an important writer today..Gore Vidal. I recommend "Alexander Hamilton" by him. But here is an article on his books and essays ...something might appeal to you here! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/gore-vidal-book_n_1728606....

The last several weeks I've been doing some video editing. It takes about 5+  hours to render a 1 hour tape. So I have lots of time on my hands. No use in washing clean dishes again and my lawn mowers are still in Colorado.

I've gotten into Jack Higgins and Stephen Coontz. Its been nothing for me to start a tape conversion and find myself 15 hours later finishing one of the book. I almost can not get the the library fast enough to keep myself supplied.

Jack Higgins:

The Killing Ground

Presidents Daughter

Midnight Runner

Luciano's Luck

Angel of Death

Bad Company

Stephen Cootnz:

Liberty

Lairs and Thieves

Hong Kong.

thanks so much for this, dave!

Well, a friend lent me 50 Shades of Grey, so I felt compelled to read it... I shall not comment, because enough has already been said about the quality of writing (or lack of it).

Moving on... I am now reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. I have been going to my local Shambhala Centre for a while, and realized that I haven't read any literature about meditation or related subjects. I haven't read much yet, but I'll be sure to come back and comment once I have!

thanks, helen! i am glad someone here has told us they have read 50 shades of grey. i had heard it was terribly written, but i haven't read it. i don't think i will. it sounds boring.  please be sure to let us know about the meditation, because i can use help on that topic for sure!