What is your summer reading list? I am reading "A Whole New Mind" for work, to gain some ideas on how to be innovative. However, I am looking for fun books.

Here is Christopher Borrelli's Top 5 summer reading books:

1. "The Leopard" by Giuseppe di Lampedusa

2. "The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing"

3. "The Complete Game" by Ron Darling

4. "RAbbit at Rest" by John Updike (Shu has started it, but isn't impressed)

5. "The Food of a Younger Land" by Mark Kurlansky

What are yours?

With the exception of John Updike, I confess I've never heard of any of those books, or their authors. I have also never heard of Christopher Borrelli.

I'm not a flag-waver (in fact, when I was drafted, my mother called me "The Reluctant Patriot")and I generally don't like biographies about war. But I have to highly recommend "Flags of OUr Fathers" by James Bradley. It's the book on which the Clint Eastwood movie was based and it is gripping. Bradley's father was not one of those TV-made heroes who made lots of money from his "bravery." He came home and never told anyone about the horrors he'd witnessed or the courage he exhibited during the fighting on Iwo Jima. It's a great and well-told story about a man who in this horrible fight never carried a weapon.

"The Leopard" by Giuseppe di Lampedusa

Made into a movie, starring Burt Lancaster, directed by Luchino Visconti.

My current book stack includes:

• Clark Hopkins (1979) The Discovery of Dura Europos.
  
• David W Anthony (2007) The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-age Riders From the Eurasian Steps Shaped the Modern World.
  
• Trevor R. Bryce (1999) The Kingdom of the Hittites.
  
• Terence Parr (2007) The Definitive ANTLR Reference: Building Domain-specific Languages.
  
• Jacques Ellul (1964) The Technological Society.
  

I am almost done with Hopkins; it is a good yarn about the excavation of a Roman/Parthian city in Mesopotamia. Anthony and Bryce are good reads, too. I've read most of Parr in bits and pieces now; it's well-written and funny. I haven't started Ellul's yet, but it's supposed to be a classic.

I don't have any of these books yet, but I'd like to read them this summer

Adam Roberts Yellow Blue Tibia
Terry Pratchett Nation
Enki Bilal Animal'z
Alexandro Jodorowsky, Charest & Janjetov Les Armes du Méta-Baron
Calvert Watkins How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics

I've just encountered a first line in a non-fiction book that, for some reason, made me LOL: "I am standing in the magnificent lobby of the Hotel Metropole in Brussels, watching three Nobel laureates struggle with the elevator."

From "13 Things That Don't Make Sense" by Michael Brooks.

Yesterday we drove up to the area gold was discovered in back in 1849. I grabbed a book of the library shelf: Alice Harris and Lyle Campbell Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective (1995, link). Got up to chapter 4 before we had to head home. It was scrumpsh.

I was out of reading as I was about to head from Durban to Chicago, and I picked up "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga. I am enjoying it tremendously. It's fiction, and provides a satirical eye toward India's poor. I especially am enjoying the humor.

quote:

Originally posted by goofy:
Adam Roberts Yellow Blue Tibia

I just read this. Stalin commissions some science fiction writers to write a story of alien invasion that will inspire the Russian people. It has to be so convincing that everyone in Russia will believe it. Then 40 years later, the surviving writers discover that their story is coming true. It's like the X Files episode Jose Chung from Outer Space set in the USSR. The title is a cross-linguistic pun, it sounds like the Russian for "I love you" (я люблю тебя ja ljublju tebja).

Here's one which I haven't yet read but will at the first opportunity. At first, I thought it was my family history.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
"The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga. I am enjoying it tremendously. It's fiction, and provides a satirical eye toward India's poor. I especially am enjoying the humor.

Snap, Kalleh! This is the very book that inspired the Bangalore limerick game. I listened to it on CD, which I can recommend for the flawless narration and superb accents. Interestingly, the local pronunciation of Bangalore, I discovered, is BANG-law - they reduce it to 2 syls and almost completely lose the final "r".

And this would be winter reading for you, eh Stella?

;-)

WM

I am currently enjoying (for a book group), "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," by Mark Haddon. It is a mystery about a 15-year old boy with autism, or more likely, Asperger's syndrome. Particularly if you're a maths (as they call it) whiz (which I am not), you'll enjoy it. There is also plenty about words, etymology, and the use of metaphors, similes, and the like. We're going to be taking a "deep dive" into it, though I am still reading it at this point.

quote:

And this would be winter reading for you, eh Stella?

;-)

WM

Yes, indeed, wordmatic - the wild, stormy weekend we just had was perfect reading weather!

Now I'm on to my next Indian Booker winner (those British do love the Indian novel) The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai, also excellent, not in the satirical style of The White Tiger , but another humorous, engaging and beautifully written book.

Snap, Kalleh and Stella! Just finished "White Tiger" for book club (we did Inheritance of Loss a while back..)

For those who enjoyed (or plan to enjoy) Lampedusa's "The Leopard"-- after a suitable breather (required, I feel after such a compact subtle work)-- you will also not be sorry to get this under your belt: "The Day of the Owl" by Leonardo Sciascia.

I just finished "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," by Hadden for a book group. While I did enjoy the book (about a boy with Asperger's, from his point of view), I thought it a little simplistic for a book group. I did like it being from the kid's point of view though, as it reminded me of one of my favorite classic books, "The Sound and the Fury" by Faulkner.

Interestingly, I just picked up "White Tiger" in an airport and had known nothing about it. What a pleasant surprise!

BTW, if any of you more serious readers would like to join us, a few of us are considering reading one of the four greatest classical novels from China, "A Dream of Red Mansions" (sometimes translated as "Dream of the Red Chamber"). As you can see from the thread, the translation by Hawkes and Minford seems to be the best. In reading z's post there again, he says that's the Penguin version. I am still having trouble locating the books (they come in 5 volumes). Anyway we'd love some company in reading this huge classic!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Apparently animals figure greatly in the titles of books on the summer reading list. (See Kalleh's last)
I'll try to peruse her aforementioned tomes as soon as I finish my summer "animal" read: "The Cat In The Hat."

I'd have thought "Cat on A Hot Tin Roof" was more your style, Proof. Yeah, OK, it's a play, but you can still read it.

Here's a new book which some may find fascinating.

My summer reading went like this...

Most interesting: The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. My book club is reading the highly-regarded translation by Natasha Wimmer that came out last year. Scroll down from Amazon's book listing to "Editorial Reviews" for an interesting interview http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Detectives-Novel-Roberto-Bolano/dp/0374191484 with the translator, which touches on some of the issues of translation. Despite the title this is not a detective story but rather a literary romp and tour de force widely regarded as the first novel to get out from under the late '60's Latin American "Boom" writers (Garcia Marquez, Paz, Llosa) and establish a direction for subsequent generations. It is as much as anything an outspoken rebellion against that generation of writers, whose "revolutionary" ideals must be re-examined in the light of decades of protection by murderous government elites.

Along the same lines, for any of you that enjoy reading in Spanish, I am continuing a series of detective novels by Paco Ignacio Taibo II with Cosa Fácil. Of course Mexican Taibo II is no more a detective novelist than Bolaño. Taibo's family fled Franco's Spain in '58; he was a student activist and witness to the Tlatelalco massacre in '68. He adopts Raymond Chandler's 'noir' tone to spin rueful, cynical tales which are as much a commentary on the increasingly degenerate police state as they are nostalgic visits to the days when Mexico City was a hotbed of idealistic intelligentsia.

I took a big breather after "Savage Detectives" (500+ pages of literary romping is wearing ) with a couple of Lee Child page-turners, and two classics by Elmore Leonard (LaBrava and Road Dogs)

I received a PM from bethree asking me about my reading of "A Dream of Red Mansions." I had looked in bookstores and online, but I hadn't gotten it. Therefore, I just went to Amazon and ordered Volumes I and V from the Penguin series, as all reviews (including my colleague's) say that that series has the better translation. I'll let you know how they are! Thanks for the nudge, bethree!

I received my 2 books (Volumes I and V) from Amazon. Does anyone want to join me?

Does anyone want to join me?

OK, I guess I'll try to get a copy of volume one.

This will be Asa's next read: http://www.slate.com/id/2218650/pagenum/all/

My Chinese friend is thrilled that I'll be reading it. Of the book, she said "Many of the struggles apply to what happens in our daily lives now." I've not started it because I am into something else, but I've scanned some of the poems. I wondered if it rhymes in Chinese. I'll have to ask my friend.

I wondered if it rhymes in Chinese.

Some Chinese poems use rhyme and others do not. Your friend may opine differently.

Yes, I will ask her. It really doesn't matter to me if poetry rhymes or not, but I just wondered. I remember Shu telling me that he saw a Marx Brothers movie in French and it was amazing because, as in English, there were similar puns that were consistent with the action.

I feel compelled to show the latest additions to the library at The Home for The Terminally Odd:
http://www.abebooks.com/books/...rdbX-_-image07#howto

I stopped at "Critter Cuisine!" Yuck!

I noticed "The Waterless Toilet." Is that only for dry heaves?

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
I noticed "The Waterless Toilet." Is that only for dry heaves?

Not sure, but it would have worked well for me yesterday. I commemorated 9/11 by having a colonoscopy. I had to purge my innards of anything and everything, so a toilet to me was analogous to someone playing "air guitar."

Some of us have all the fun!