What are you currently reading?

[Cato]

Picked up a book for my Kindle. I'm now, the Kindle says, 70% finished - after starting it on the train ride to work this morning!



Unreasonably entertaining! Actually, given this story's narrator, I should say... shrewdly reasonably entertaining!

Again, many thanks to Brian for the review! 

Brian and other readers will want to know that the next volume is now available on Kindle with a print version coming in a few weeks:

http://www.amazon.com/Dial-Murder-Capsule-Murders-ebook/dp/B00CQBYHFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368297837&sr=8-1&keywords=dial+emma+for+murder

[asin]B00CQBYHFU[/asin]

[DavidRoss]

Second time:

A good un, Bill!

Looking for some light reading for my Kindle. These should fit the bill!

[asin]B00BB0NJFG[/asin][asin]B00CQBYHFU[/asin]

20 seconds later and they're loaded and ready to go!

[Cato]

A good un, Bill!

Looking for some light reading for my Kindle. These should fit the bill!

[asin]B00BB0NJFG[/asin][asin]B00CQBYHFU[/asin]

20 seconds later and they're loaded and ready to go!

Many thanks!  I hope the result matches the anticipation!   0:)

[Karl Henning]

I've bought my Emma, too!

[Parsifal]

One of my favorite writers.   

Him, Cormac McCarthy and Faulkner are three that I re-read a lot.  Do you like Nostromo?  It is probably the Conrad book I enjoy the most.

I'm on a project to read all of Conrad's fiction (after accumulating it all in Kindle/Project Gotenberg editions).  I re-read Nostromo a few months back.  It is was of the great books in the English language, I'd say.  Aside from Conrad's established masterpieces (Heart of Darkness, etc) I'm very partial to "Victory."

I also have a strong affinity for Faulkner (McCarthy not so much).  I want to re-read the Snopes Trilogy and Absalom Absalom soon.

[DavidRoss]

I just finished Absalom - great book, some think it his best.

Prob'ly

[Karl Henning]

I've bought my Emma, too!

This book may be a work of fiction, love it!

[Cato]

A good un, Bill!

Looking for some light reading for my Kindle. These should fit the bill!

[asin]B00BB0NJFG[/asin][asin]B00CQBYHFU[/asin]

20 seconds later and they're loaded and ready to go!

This book may be a work of fiction, love it!

Many thanks, and welcome to the mysterious world of The Unknown Narrator!   

[DavidRoss]

A smartass adolescent narrator who knows more than s/he should, but without Holden Caulfield's potty mouth or shoulder chip (and perhaps more suited for adaptation as a Disney series...?)

[Brian]

A smartass adolescent narrator who knows more than s/he should, but without Holden Caulfield's potty mouth or shoulder chip (and perhaps more suited for adaptation as a Disney series...?)

Only if the Disney series manages never to reveal his/her gender!

[Cato]

A smartass adolescent narrator who knows more than s/he should, but without Holden Caulfield's potty mouth or shoulder chip (and perhaps more suited for adaptation as a Disney series...?)

Only if the Disney series manages never to reveal his/her gender!

IF we ever reach the number of sales where Disney or anyone else starts to pay attention to the series, I have proposed that there simply be two versions, one for each gender.

A third possibility - where the camera is the narrator (?) with alternating voices, or an "asexual" voice which could sound like both - might be too much for the modern audience!   0:)

When my brother proposed that I should start a mystery series, during my (short) period of sudden unemployment, he said the story and characters would need to be "edgy" to appeal to the modern adolescent.

No Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew stuff allowed! 

Hence the home-schooled, admittedly arrogant - and proud to admit his/her arrogance! - and too-wise-for-the-age narrator, along with the discussion of details about death by hanging, etc.

I was told by the mother of one reader of Dial Emma for Murder that a scene where girls are encouraged to use their budding sexuality to trap a suspect was almost too "edgy" for her!   0:)

[Bogey]

Gotta be careful, Cato.  Look what they did to Burroughs!

[Karl Henning]

Bring it!

[Cato]

Gotta be careful, Cato.    Look what they did to Burroughs! 

Bring it!

In one sense, the books are (almost) scripts: but yes, as soon as one sells a book to Hollywood, beware!

As they say in Germany, much, much water must first flow down the Rhine, before any such thing happens!

I puckishly told my brother he should offer the books to e.g. David Lynch     Brian De Palma  and Wes Anderson   .   

[Bogey]

Or Spielberg....PAY DAY, but script will take turns that even you cannot predict.

[Cato]

Or Spielberg....PAY DAY, but script will take turns that even you cannot predict.

Camera pans through a typical high-school corridor and focuses slowly on a girl, with the camera coming up from the floor and centering on her face, as she frowns about something.

Suddenly a flood crashes through a wall: a great white shark in the water eats her.

Then a tyrannosaurus rex crashes through a wall and eats the shark.

Okay, so that was entirely predictable after all!   

[kishnevi]

Roughly five sixths of the way through this 300 pager. 

Unlike his book on Custer's Last Stand,  he doesn't let his modern political filter get too much in the way, although once every chapter or so he can't help but bring in something to show that Blacks, Women and Native Americans were oppressed by colonial white males--sometimes relevant to what the narrative is focusing on, but often not.  But packed with first hand citations and narrative details not found in a lot of other books on the Revolution, in part because his focus is relentlessly on what happened in Boston and environs in 1774-75, introducing events in the other colonies or England only when needed to make sense of the narrative flow.  Although the title refers to Bunker Hill, the book covers the entire series of events from (approximately) the Boston Tea Party through the British evacuation of Boston under Washington's guns.

[Brian]

I puckishly told my brother he should offer the books to e.g. David Lynch     Brian De Palma  and Wes Anderson   .

Wes Anderson is an inspired choice! But you may also want to seek out the film Brick, a bona fide high-school film noir directed by Rian Johnson.

[Bogey]

Roughly five sixths of the way through this 300 pager. 

Unlike his book on Custer's Last Stand,  he doesn't let his modern political filter get too much in the way, although once every chapter or so he can't help but bring in something to show that Blacks, Women and Native Americans were oppressed by colonial white males--sometimes relevant to what the narrative is focusing on, but often not.  But packed with first hand citations and narrative details not found in a lot of other books on the Revolution, in part because his focus is relentlessly on what happened in Boston and environs in 1774-75, introducing events in the other colonies or England only when needed to make sense of the narrative flow.  Although the title refers to Bunker Hill, the book covers the entire series of events from (approximately) the Boston Tea Party through the British evacuation of Boston under Washington's guns.

Jeffrey, might I also rec. this one. Probably one of the best that I have read on the American Revolution:



What took it to another level was that I finished it not a week before we visited the area.

[kishnevi]

Jeffrey, might I also rec. this one. Probably one of the best that I have read on the American Revolution:



What took it to another level was that I finished it not a week before we visited the area.

I'll look for it, thank you. 
I noticed in the Amazon listings that Joseph Ellis has a new book coming out on June 4 covering the same time period, roughly, but (going by the title) not so focused on Boston.