Talk Healthy

I just read Den drunkade by Therese Bohman, and thought it was very good. It's recently been translated to English (Drowned), and I'd definitely recommend it.

Today I started Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. So far, so good.

I saw a Penny Vincenzi book at the Salvation Army yesterday, but I couldn't remember why her name was familiar to me ... now I wish I'd picked it up, since Blush and I seem to have similar tastes. I'm still working on The Dovekeepers and liking it, but it's hard to find time for it. Yesterday I star...

That might be another of those regional things ... in Idaho we're more likely to say hardback.

I finished up The Sense of an Ending in a day or two and thought it was pretty good. Funny and sad and thought-provoking. I'm not sure if I thought it was Booker Prize-worthy, though. Now I'm reading The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. It's a pretty big departure from her other stuff, so I have to kee...

I finally finished The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy . I confess, I was sort of "meh" about it. I'll probably give the sequels a go, but right now I need a break from it. Last night I started The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. It's supposed to be really good, so I have high hopes.

Spudd wrote:50 Shades of Grey - I just happened upon this review and yeah.. I won't be reading that.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22 ... ews_widget

Wow ... I'm speechless.

I just finished What Alice Forgot , and I really liked it. Now I'm on to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so that my husband will finally stop mocking me for not having read it. :lol Mellen, I really want to read Gods of Gotham since it's been compared to Caleb Carr's The Alienist , which I LOVE...

I'm almost halfway in to What Alice Forgot (another Blush recommendation!), and so far I like it a lot.

I just finished A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian , a novel by Marina Lewycka that my mom got for me a couple of months ago. All the reviews say that it's a comic novel -- it even won a comic prize -- and words like "hilarious" and "jaunty" are used to described it. I thou...

Also, I never posted that a few weeks ago when Jason and I drove 4 hours north, we listened to "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" by (and read by) Bill Bryson. He is such a pleasure to listen to! This one is about his childhood, so it explores the 1950s in the US and how times ha...

I finally finished the Henrietta Lacks book the other day. Irked me in some places, but definitely worth reading. Now I'm on to a novel my mom sent me called A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian . It's about a woman whose elderly, widowed father marries a much younger woman. I've just started it...

And Beverly, we agree sometimes, don't we? :headscratch Ok, we may have disagreed a lot lately, but I have a feeling that our tastes are not that different. Hey, I also hated The Postmistress! Yeah, I think we mostly do agree, actually. We've just hit a rough patch lately. :lol Oh, The Postmistress...

Still plugging along on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ... I'm starting to agree with you, Rowan. The tone she takes with the family is so condescending that it's really coloring my enjoyment of the book.

Sílvia wrote:I was going to say that Paulo Coelho sucks! He does! His books are all self-helpy and badly written and just....just.... bad!

Finally, one we agree on! I HATED The Alchemist, for all these reasons.

I've been in such a reading slump since October or so that I was feeling pretty dismal about my 2011 book list ... looking back, I was glad to see that I did manage to read some good books during the year after all! Isle of Palms by Dorothea Benton Frank -- light entertainment that felt like it was ...

I am just not reading much at all lately. I'm about halfway through both The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry, and I haven't really read any of either since around Thanksgiving. The former is a terrific non-fiction book about the origin of HeLa cel...

I agree about the neatly-wrapped-up ending ... that bugged me, too, when I read it. Still, though, I really loved the book (and the title, man -- it just hits me *right there*, you know?). I should re-read it ... when/if I ever get through the ever-growing stacks of books piled up around my house.

I read Rockabye: From Wild to Child by Rebecca Woolf (she has the blog Girl's Gone Child). I wanted to like it, but it wasn't more than okay. It was just sort of trite and self-important and not very deep. Too bad, because I really like her blog most of the time. Now I'm on to Long Spoon Lane by Ann...

I finished The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman, Very good, as usual. Now I'm working sort of half-heartedly on Rockabye: from Wild to Child by Rebecca Woolf. She's got the blog Girl's Gone Child, which I love, and the book is also good. It would be a quick read if I could get the time to put into it.

Isn't that insane? I remember when the story broke when I was in college, and I was shocked since I was already a fan of hers. The movie "Heavenly Creatures" is about the crime. It's a good movie about a weird, horrifying story ... I think she's a good writer, though. I really like the Tho...