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Posted: |
Feb 3, 2007 - 3:02 AM
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By: |
CAT
(Member)
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Hi Joan.
Yup...Gus, Deets, Clara, Newt, Dish, even the incredibly EVIL Blue-Duck. Oh, and you know Joan, I really cared about those TWO PIGS! Now if we can just get CAT to put down that Jackie Collins book...........
Jackie Collins? I have NEVER so much as picked up a book by Jackie Collins! What? Am I missing something? 
Nah, I'm still struggling through "A Thread of Grace" by Mary Doria Russell. Joan, this book has finally caught my interest after a fairly slow start. Russell's style, her character studies, and her attention to detail are amazing.
This is a very complex story about the Italian Underground efforts to save and protect Jewish refugees during the German Occupation in WWII.
Based on facts, this is a must read for those interested in this period of time, as it is loaded with historical details...hence, the "struggle."
Jackie Collins, indeed! 
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Posted: |
Feb 3, 2007 - 11:52 AM
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By: |
David in NY
(Member)
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Jackie Collins? I have NEVER so much as picked up a book by Jackie Collins! What? Am I missing something?
Nah, I'm still struggling through "A Thread of Grace" by Mary Doria Russell. Joan, this book has finally caught my interest after a fairly slow start. Russell's style, her character studies, and her attention to detail are amazing.
This is a very complex story about the Italian Underground efforts to save and protect Jewish refugees during the German Occupation in WWII.
Based on facts, this is a must read for those interested in this period of time, as it is loaded with historical details...hence, the "struggle."
Jackie Collins, indeed!
Joking, Cat! I doubt anyone on this board has picked up a Jackie Collins 'book'. (Now I'm expecting bricks through my window from someone here who loves her!)
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Another great sports history book "The Punch" by John Feinstein on the tragic 1977 NBA brawl in which Kermit Washington punched Rudy Tomjanovich and caused probably the most horrific injury ever suffered in an NBA game that all but shattered Tomjanovich's face. Feinstein is one of the most gifted sports authors of all time (though I wish he'd write more about sports I enjoy and not so much about college basketball and golf!)
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Reading an updated version of Jack Finney's 1954 sci-fi classic "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Read the original years ago, and in 1978 the author revised it changing several details including the name of the town from Santa Mira to Mill Valley. Still a really haunting read.
An introduction by Stephen King (the book is part of the Stephen King Horror Library series) is very insightful. I had read elsewhere that the story was a political allegory for the communist threat during the 1950's. Following the release of Don Siegel's film version, film critics said that both Finney's novel and the movie were really about the communist witchhunts. Siegel himself said that his film was about the Red Menace and the paranoia surrounding the notion that "there was a Commie under every American's bed". It was easy to see the story in this light since the main fear throughout was one of "they're out there and they look just like us!" Finney himself according to King was most correct: it is just a good story, to be read and enjoyed for "its own unique satisfaction". Communist???? Balderdash!!! Whether you look at it as a political allegory, or as what Finney intended, as an invasion from outer space, the story still is frightening some 50+ years later.
Thanks Cricket853. I loved both the 50's version of the film and the 70's remake (of which I saw being filmed in San Francisco) didn't care too much for the latest 90's version, though it had it's moments. The book I've never read, but I did see it in the stacks at The Strand Bookstore here in New York a few weeks ago. I picked it up, but then put it down. Mill Valley... is outside of San Francisco, Santa Mira..I think was a ficticious town, though the first film was filmed in Sierra Madre just above Pasadena,California. Anyway... how hard was it to find the original 'un-tweaked' version of the book? Any suggestions from the author WHY he made some changes?
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Currently reading 'CHASING THE RODEO' (given to me for Xmas.) by W.K.Stratton on Harcourt Press. If you love Rodeos..(that probably eliminates most of you) you should hugely enjoy this book about The Rodeo Circuit. Described on the cover: 'On wild rides and big dreams, broken hearts and broken bones, and one man's search for the west'. Readable!
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LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND, the one printed on pages that are as big as a newspaper page. I have to read it in bed, it's so big.
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Posted: |
Feb 5, 2007 - 11:47 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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I just finished THE TERROR by Dan Simmons.
In l845, two ships, the first steam-powered ships, are in search of the Northwest Passage.
They become stranded for years in frozen ice.
Quote from the cover:"Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and the ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. ....and..an unseen predator is stalking their ships, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in."
This is a huge novel, almost 800 pages. It really is a survivalist story. For me, it was a little TOO detailed. Still, I couldn't put it down and grew to care about many of the characters and their impossible struggle with starvation, relentless cold, and a predator.
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