Reading anything?

[Vik]

[InformationGeek]

I've been reading Oishinbo: Japanese Cuisine again.  It was good book for a collection of stories from the series.

I'm going to be rereading When They Cry: Cotten Drifting Arc soon for a review on my blog.  I had already read it before hand and it was really good.  Hopefully, it is still good after I do a hard examination of it.

[indianasmith]

Just finished the latest in the Special Agent Pendergast series by Doug Preston and Lincoln Child - it's called CEMETERY DANCE and is a rollicking good read.  The novel begins with the brutal murder of one of the series' recurring characters, NYT journalist William Smithback.  He is brutally stabbed in his apartment by a man who apparently committed suicide two weeks before.  Then the story rolls on to an exciting adventure involving voodoo, zombies, a mysterious, ancient cult operating out of a park on Manhattan Island, and angry animal rights protesters.

I finished it in a single day!!

[Jim H]

Reading Promise to a Dead Man.  Fast moving and short western story.  Pretty enjoyable.

I also just read a big chunk of the Enemy Papers.  This has the novella, Enemy Mine, which the film of the same title is based on.  It also has a lot of the Talman, the alien bible, in it, as well as two followup stories.  Worth checking out for anyone who likes hard sci-fi.

[InformationGeek]

I checked this book out from the school libray: Social Reform Movements: The Civil Rights Movement.  We are getting close to that in our history and since it is one of the most interesting parts of U.S.'s history, I wanted to know more about it.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es.

Rick Geary's "A Treasury of Murder"

Some from the 19th century. Some from the 20th century. Some in the U.K. Some in the U.S. Some well known. Some lesser known, but all seemingly have the . . .

Who: people involved.
Where: maps provided to show location
What and When: the events, as can be best determined, in chronological order.

As of 2008, there were nine books in the series. I've only read two of them so far. The Borden murders and the Lindbergh kidnapping.

The others . . .

Jack the Ripper
"The Fatal Bullet." From the cover, it looks like the murder of President Garfield.
Mary Rogers., which gave rise to Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Mystery of Marie Roget," one of the first detective short stories in American literature.
"The Beast of Chicago" aka Herman Webster Mudgett aka H. H. Holmes. Regarded as being one of the first serial killers in American crime.
The murder of President Lincoln.
Madeleine Smith, who was tried for the poisoning of her blackmailing lover.
The Bloody Benders, who ran a boarding house in the Midwest, during the 19th century. A boarding house where their boarders checked in but did not check out.

If you are interested in the subject of murder, there are a good introduction, as the author and illustrator is apparently totally neutral about the guilt or innocence of the murderers. In the case of the Borden murders, he provides reasonable evidence, as to why she was guildty. And in the case of the Lindbergh kidnapping, he provides reasonable evidence as to why the kidnapper might have been innocent.

Next time: "Graphic classics"

[Jim H]

I just started reading Showdown in the Show-me State: The Fight Over Conceal-and-Carry Gun Laws in Missouri.

Yeah, what a title, huh?  For those not aware of the issue, and those outside the country, concealed carry had a long and arduous process of being passed in Missouri, and in fact Missouri was one of the last states to pass it.  Took about 14 years, with many failed efforts.  This sort of political book I often find interesting, as Missouri is often divided more regionally than by party.  That is, numerous democrats were very important in getting concealed carry past, and there were also republicans who fought against it.   It's more rural VS urban, than democrat VS republican. 

The book is also dated in several aspects (as it came out when passage was still new).  And considering how recent this history is, it seems a shame there's no new research conducted for the book (it's all newspapers, etc).  But, as a basic and mostly correct chronology, it's still interesting reading.  So are the amazon reviews, where a couple of the important politicians/people involved in the story comment very negatively.

http://www.amazon.com/SHOWDOWN-SHOW-ME-STATE-CONCEAL-CARRY/product-reviews/0826215874/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

I'm not through with it yet, but in a lot of ways it's interesting reading.  Sometimes it's actually inspiring, as it's nice to read about political action and government workers fighting, debating, and working hard (on both sides) to do something they obviously believe in. 

It's refreshing after seeing so much cynical political posturing at a more national level.

[Trevor]

I'm currently re-reading John Wyndham's The Day of The Triffids ~ I haven't read it since high school and the BBC series in 1981 with John Duttine, Emma Relph and the late Maurice Colbourne was great. 

Now the Beeb have gone and remade it: is nothing sacred? 

[Psycho Circus]

Now the Beeb have gone and remade it: is nothing sacred? 

No Trevor. Please come over here and help me murder absolutely everyone. 

[3mnkids]

How to make friends with demons by Graham Joyce.

[Torgo]

I'm currently working my way through "Peter Jackson: A Filmmaker's Journey".  Got it for my birthday this past March.

[AndyC]

Figured with only two more left in the series, I'd keep going with Slade's Special X thrillers. The one I'm on right now, slightly out of order, is Bed of Nails, which happened to be at the local library. Funny, they have about three of the books from ten years ago, but nothing before or since. I might donate a set of paperbacks.

Anyway, The Ripper returns, having been locked up following his tribute to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" a couple of books ago. He's completely broken with reality at this point, and he's directing a similarly delusional killer from within a high-security mental hospital. Pretty good so far. It digs further into the occult and the story of Jack the Ripper, which were explored in the earlier book, "Ripper."

[BeyondTheGrave]

[Joe the Destroyer]

Still reading Lair of the White Worm, and it's failing to impress. 

[Jim H]

I just started reading Alice in Wonderland + Alice Through the Looking Glass.  Never read them before.