BOOKS THREAD

[Angola!]

Just finished Pillars of the Earth and I am ever drained. What a magnificent book. Just stunning.

I feel like my heart was ripped out multiple times throughout. One thing I love about the book is all of the intricacy into how they built cathedrals and castles and all of that, as well as the detail paid to the Catholic Church. I learned a lot, but yet it was still just a stunning story.

Follet does an astounding job introducing characters and expanding on them.

I've always been a fast reader, but I have not read nearly as much as I did in college. This was one of those book's you truly can't put down. It's 1,000 pages long and I read it in less than a week.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Also, I heard he wrote a sequel, set 200 years later. Has anyone read it?

 

[imjustagirl]

I'm reading "Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul" by Karen Abbott. It's all well-researched, but written almost as a novel. It flows so well. It's about the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in America at the turn of the 20th century. It's really entertaining, really well written and thoroughly enjoyable.

 

[finishthehat]

Just finished Pillars of the Earth and I am ever drained. What a magnificent book. Just stunning.

I feel like my heart was ripped out multiple times throughout. One thing I love about the book is all of the intricacy into how they built cathedrals and castles and all of that, as well as the detail paid to the Catholic Church. I learned a lot, but yet it was still just a stunning story.

Follet does an astounding job introducing characters and expanding on them.

I've always been a fast reader, but I have not read nearly as much as I did in college. This was one of those book's you truly can't put down. It's 1,000 pages long and I read it in less than a week.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Also, I heard he wrote a sequel, set 200 years later. Has anyone read it?

I'm waiting for the paperback edition, which comes out in October.

I liked Pillars of the Earth well enough; I didn't love it as much as you.

But I am looking forward to World Without End, which is the name of the sequel.

 

[Angola!]

Just finished Pillars of the Earth and I am ever drained. What a magnificent book. Just stunning.

I feel like my heart was ripped out multiple times throughout. One thing I love about the book is all of the intricacy into how they built cathedrals and castles and all of that, as well as the detail paid to the Catholic Church. I learned a lot, but yet it was still just a stunning story.

Follet does an astounding job introducing characters and expanding on them.

I've always been a fast reader, but I have not read nearly as much as I did in college. This was one of those book's you truly can't put down. It's 1,000 pages long and I read it in less than a week.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Also, I heard he wrote a sequel, set 200 years later. Has anyone read it?

I'm waiting for the paperback edition, which comes out in October.

I liked Pillars of the Earth well enough; I didn't love it as much as you.

But I am looking forward to World Without End, which is the name of the sequel.

Damn, I have to wait until October for the paperback? That sucks. Maybe I'll find the money to get the hardback, though I don't like to read hardback books.

I will say, my only problem with The Pillars of the Earth, was how the same tribulations kept happening over and over, just under a different name. Then again, that is how life seems to work.

 

[zimbabwe]

Been re-reading Mosley's Easy Rawlins series as of late.

A strong mix of page-turning mystery and social commentary, without the latter hitting the reader over the head with the Hammer of Obviousness.

I strongly recommend the entire series.

Read the rest of Mosley, too.

Mosley rules.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I am now reading S.L. Price's "Far Afield." I am about 100 pages in, and really enjoying it.

That was a fantastic, and quick, read.

 

[Gold]

Been re-reading Mosley's Easy Rawlins series as of late.

A strong mix of page-turning mystery and social commentary, without the latter hitting the reader over the head with the Hammer of Obviousness.

I strongly recommend the entire series.

Read the rest of Mosley, too.

Mosley rules.

I third the emotion

 

[Huggy]

Just finished Live From New York, the oral history of Saturday Night Live that came out a few years back. I was a huge fan in its early, glory years and a lot of those stories brought back some great memories. Regardless of the ****fest it has turned into over the years reading this gives you a pretty good look into the creative process and how hard it is to churn that thing out every week.

Best story: the writer confronted with Milton Berle's legendary hammer.

 

[Gold]

Did anybody mention Water for Elephants on this thread?

I am in the middle of reading this book and I wanted to see what somebody else thought.

 

[MrWrite]

Just read a book called "The Last Town on Earth" by Thomas Mullen -- it's fiction set in pacific northwest during WWI flu outbreak, and a small logging town quarantines itself against the virus. great book.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Pope Dirk --

New one that might be up your dirt road.

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1656/Nixonland%3A%20T.htm

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

If it wasn't for some cash flow probs, I would have picked it up. The reviews sound great. I've always meant to pick up 1964 -- have you read either one?

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

I saw 1964 in a very good foreign bookstore last week and thought it over. I have my hands full with other stuff right now but I will be giving it a try at some point.

The late shift in the LBJ historiography is of great interest to me. There have been greater vistas of understanding reached on him since a certain morning in 2001 than ever would have seemed possible. These new LBJ works make Goodwin look like coloring book.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

I saw 1964 in a very good foreign bookstore last week and thought it over. I have my hands full with other stuff right now but I will be giving it a try at some point.

The late shift in the LBJ historiography is of great interest to me. There have been greater vistas of understanding reached on him since a certain morning in 2001 than ever would have seemed possible. These new LBJ works make Goodwin look like coloring book.

I wonder to what extent the latest Caro book about his presidency will reflect those shifts?

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

If the first three were any indication, Caro's forthcoming volume on his presidency is going to knock people flat on their ass. Where he's sifting through 60,000 pages of documents and saying something new, others are merely making casserole.

Recently found this amusing 1991 rant by Sidney Blumenthal on some of Caro's methods.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DB173CF932A05750C0A967958260

 

[finishthehat]

I thought about picking up that Nixonland book, but it was going to cost $40 with sales tax.

That's just insane. I'll wait for the paperback or see if it lands at Half-Price books.

 

[Birdscribe]

If the first three were any indication, Caro's forthcoming volume on his presidency is going to knock people flat on their ass. Where he's sifting through 60,000 pages of documents and saying something new, others are merely making casserole.

Recently found this amusing 1991 rant by Sidney Blumenthal on some of Caro's methods.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DB173CF932A05750C0A967958260

His LBJ trilogy, as I believe LJB pointed out earlier, is a literary and historical masterpiece.

Is this new book the fourth and final volume, the one chronicling LBJ's presidency? Or is it on something else?

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Birdscribe --

Yep. Two Pulitzers. That's rarefied air.

The next volume is on the presidency. He has said he will be fair and charitable, though his critics have said an overabundance of that has marred the previous books.

 

[KG]

I'm about finished with Brave New World. I thought I'd read it before, but I was wrong. I still can't believe it was actually written in 1932.

 

[Birdscribe]

Birdscribe --

Yep. Two Pulitzers. That's rarefied air.

The next volume is on the presidency. He has said he will be fair and charitable, though his critics have said an overabundance of that has marred the previous books.

Yes, heaven forbid he should point out when LBJ was a tool and when he wasn't. Unlike McCullough's tiresome reach-around to John Adams, you actually felt like you got inside LBJ's brain.

When is this coming out?