Whatcha reading January 2011?

[Sarahfeena]

I've become ever more fascinated by the anti-vaccine movement, and to my delight, there are two new books dealing with this subject.

Currently, I'm reading The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin. He gets into how panics like this are started and spread, and how the cyber age has exacerbated the problem...finding it quite interesting so far. Next in line is Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, by the king of vaccine defense, Dr. Paul Offit. I've read his books before, and they're quite good.

What's everyone else got going?

[What Exit?]

Finishing up a reread of Prince of Chaos (1991); the last book of the Amber Series by Roger Zelazny.
Then I have the Rick Riordan's new book The Lost Hero which my daughter enjoyed very much.
I also have 100 Greatest moments in Yankee History queued up.

My reading list is so fluffy compared to yours Sarah. But after this run I should be back to non-fiction again.

[Orual]

I just finished this biography of Cleopatra. Now I'm trying to finish books I have gotten stalled out on: Dracula and A Journey to the West, which is incredibly awesome, but I keep not picking it up for some reason.

[Sarahfeena]

Finishing up a reread of Prince of Chaos (1991); the last book of the Amber Series by Roger Zelazny.
Then I have the Rick Riordan's new book The Lost Hero which my daughter enjoyed very much.
I also have 100 Greatest moments in Yankee History queued up.

My reading list is so fluffy compared to yours Sarah. But after this run I should be back to non-fiction again.

I just finished reading The Distant Hours, which is a longish gothic-style mystery, not super deep stuff, though quite well-plotted and compelling. Once I finish something like that, I tend to go to non-fiction until another novel catches my eye.

I just finished this biography of Cleopatra.

I've been thinking about reading this...did you like it?

[Oliveloaf]

About halfway through "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" box set.

Enjoying it massively.

[Orual]

I liked it a lot, Sarah. Stacy Schiff is a very entertaining writer. She also cites her primary sources pretty comprehensively.

I think she does a very good job of immersing the reader in the time period. Hellenistic Alexandria was one of the most awesome cities in the history of the world.

[Sarahfeena]

I think I'm going to put it in the queue, then, Orual.

[The Original An Gadaí]

I've just been reading this. It's a concise history of those events.

[What Exit?]

About halfway through "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" box set.

Enjoying it massively.

Can't go wrong with a classic master. I keep looking at the set B&N offers.

[Oliveloaf]

About halfway through "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" box set.

Enjoying it massively.

Can't go wrong with a classic master. I keep looking at the set B&N offers.

I bought a cheap paperback set off ebay.

Bad Seventies cover art, poor organization, but the text, I presume, is the real deal.

Funny how fast things change between 1885 and 1910. Sherlock gets a phone somewhere
in there.

[Peeta Mellark]

I'm reading The Lord of the Rings. I'm halfway through The Two Towers now.

Not a new read, but it's been a while and I seem to have forgotten a lot.

[OneCentStamp]

I'm reading The Lord of the Rings. I'm halfway through The Two Towers now.

Not a new read, but it's been a while and I seem to have forgotten a lot.

I re-read LotR every couple of years, and I'm always surprised which parts I remember word-for-word and which ones I seem to have completely forgotten.

[CatInASuit]

Currently reading Fire Season by VH Folland.

It's an excellent adventure story.

Admittedly I know the author, and got told to go and vote for the book trailer over here #19 (hint, hint), but it's still excellent.

[What Exit?]

I'm reading The Lord of the Rings. I'm halfway through The Two Towers now.

Not a new read, but it's been a while and I seem to have forgotten a lot.

I re-read LotR every couple of years, and I'm always surprised which parts I remember word-for-word and which ones I seem to have completely forgotten.

It has been 3-4 years for me now. I use to read it annually though. I did read the Hobbit in 2009 though. Also the History of the Hobbit. I am due for a rereading of LotR.

[Myglaren]

Just finished "Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow" by Peter Hørg, a most unusual book.
One thing in it was "You can't describe music with words" inasmuch as no matter how detailed the description, music is about the experience, like trying to describe a sunset to a blind person.
The book itself is like that. Disguised as a detective novel it is really about so much more and the language used is exquisite, almost like poetry.

I would recommend this to anyone.

Currently "Deception", Jonathan Kellerman.
I'm a bit of a sucker for his books, and his wife's, even if she is on a bit of a mission most of the time.

[OneCentStamp]

I just knocked out Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

Next up is Nature Writing, by Richard Herley. It's the first nonfiction release by Herley, my favorite criminally underrated British novelist.

[OtakuLoki]

I just gave in, this week, and picked up an electronic ARC for Eric Flint's 1636: The Saxon Uprising. It was great fun to read, but at this point the series is starting to bog down with characters. Which is also one of the strengths of the series, too: Real history isn't something made by one or two people, why should fiction be? (Well, I know the answer to that: readers generally prefer sensible plots, and really get easily confused if there are too many characters showing up.) Flint tries to strike a balance between having many prime movers, or major players, and still trying to keep the plot to something you can summarize in a paragraph or so.

I'm always annoyed when I can't wait for the regular publication schedule though. Of course, in this case, my excuse is that the immediately previous volume, 1635: The Eastern Front, is a co-joined twin for this volume - it's clearly a case of plot kudzu leaving the story too large to be told easily in one volume. Even so, there are a couple of plot points that ended up dangling rather than simply ending the novel at a point of punctuated equilibrium as some of the better volumes in the series have done.

From here I'm debating between going back to Schiller's A History of the Thirty Years' War, going with Andrew Mango's Atatürk: The Founder of Modern Turkey, and going with the advice Myrna gave me about Northanger Abbey.

[Myglaren]

Janet Evanovitch, "Sizzling Sixteen" bought for me as a Christmas present by daughter #2.
Bubblegum books and increasingly formulaic and slapstick but still readable. The first ones had me in stitches.

[Myglaren]

^Was very 'bubblegum'. May well abandon reading any further editions in this series.
Tess Gerritsen, "In Their Footsteps" crap!
Lauren Henderson, "Don't Even Think About It". Pulled off the shelf so I must have read it before but can't recall a single thing about it.

Somewhere over the past week read a Kellerman book, can't remember the title or much about it other than it was the best of the bunch.