The Last Book You Read...

The Time Traveler's wife

Absolutely stunning, this book is beautiful and tragic. The story of a man who meets the love of his life for the first time when she is 6 and he is 43, and again when she turns 21. You should read this book, one of the most riveting and original books i've read in a while.

Prozac Nation

Another great one. I went in expecting another Fast Food Nation, but about depression rather than fast food. I didn't realize it was a memoir. She is a very very very good writer. It really helped change my views on depression and helped me understand someone I know better.
 
Last book I read was Glue by Irvine Welsh. The world of the book is very much the same as in Trainspotting, which means the suburbs and side alleys of Edinburgh. This story even has some minor characters that starred in that most famous book of the author.

The book follows four working class kids through three decades, their experiments with alcohol, drugs and young ladies and their participation in miscellaneous events of violence and crime. What makes me praise the book are the characters. They are portraited in such manner that a reader starts to categorize one's own aquaintances in accordance with the book characters' qualities. The book's events have unpredictable rhythm, so you'd better not miss a line. In the English edition some may find the Edinburgh accent a little hard to understand first, but I saw it as a jewel in this little treasure chest. Generally, it is quite light reading.

I would slightly recommend this to anyone who doesn't live in a utopia where the world is spotless. For those in that utopia, the book is compulsory.
 
The Time Traveler's Wife was a great book! One of my favorites. I love that poem at the end: (forgive me, I'm not sure about the line breaks, I only have the words memorized, not the syntax. ;) )

he tips my head back,
kisses me -

he tries
to put his heart
into mine,
for safekeeping,

in case he loses it
again.

guarded
for his small time's
end.

his time -
who saw infinity

through countless cracks
in the blank skin of things,

only to die of it.
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I haven't read it recently, though. I've been re-reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Which is also an exceptional book. And The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. And THAT is a book that everyone should read. It's pretty short (less than a hundred pages, I think, if not, only barely over 100) and totally worth it.
 
Speaking of time travel, the last (fiction) book I read was Doomsday Book by Connie Francis.

Plot outline (warning! Here be spoilers):
In the near future, Oxford, England, historians are sent back in time through a special 'net' to study the past in disguise. A young female historian called Kivrin persuades the bigwigs to send her back to the early 1300s - a period previously thought too dangerous. Unfortunately, due to a technician being ill, she is sent back too late, to the date the plague hit England.

A subplot concerns the illness that caused the tech to balls up Kivrin's time travelling; although it's nowhere near as compelling as the stuff set in the 14th century. For one, it has two of the most pointless and annoying characters ever (one of whom was a teenager with the tedious catchphrase "Apocalypical!", which he sprouted every 5 seconds); whom I wished were mangled and killed. Sadly, they aren't.

Fortunately the characters of the 14th century make up for it, particularly the stalwart priest of the squalid village Kivrin finds herself in; Father Roche.

Overall, if you ignore the weak 'future' stuff, it's a good read. A few anachronisms leap to out to my historic eye; for example mentions of potatoes and sugar in 14th century England. This didn't ruin it, however, for it's spiced up with compelling historical nuggets that give some idea of the zeitgiest; exerts from John Clyn's accounts, and a particularly haunting quote that reads; "Buried with my own hands five of my children in a single grave. No bells. No tears. This is the end of the world." - Agniola Di Tura. Siena 1347.
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The nonfiction books I've been re-reading are Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. I'll go over Stalingrad:
Outline: A fascinating, violent, shocking and compelling account of the battle of Stalingrad, including the events leading up to it and the aftermath. Even if you're not into history, battles, dates and all that I urge you still to read this. Less a recount of a battle than a journey into the suffering encountered by all in that city. Beevor paints a vivid picture of what life was like for for the top brass, the Soviet Frontoviki and the German Landser, as well as the civilians caught up in the middle.

Gave me nightmares. Read it before you read Berlin, you'll understand the Soviet 'noble fury'. Beevor writes it almost like a novel, so it flows from the page. Also includes, for the military history buffs (like me), detailed maps and descriptions of army formations and movements for the period throughout October 1942 - February 1943, as well as discussing the overall situation thoughout Europe to give you an idea of 'the bigger picture'. Highly recommended.
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I am going back to school now to get a grad degree, so my books don't tend to be very interesting. The last one I read was simply called Green Economics . Despite the boring name, it was an interesting look at four basic philosophies behind environmentalism. Unless you are Green, don't bother. But if you are interested in either environmentalism or sustainable economics, I found it balanced and analytical rather than endoursing one particular environmental view.

End of book report. :D
 
^^ Was something I had to audit image quality for, for work. I didn't say I chose to, and I didn't say I liked it, but that is, in fact, the last book I read. :P
 
I read Slaughterhouse Five. What an exceptionally odd book. Really loved the ideas expressed in it. The idea that we are alive in other moments of time is a comforting one, and takes a lot of emphasis away from death! I also enjoyed the mini story about a tree that grows $100 leaves, rubies as fruit, and so on. And everyone fought and killed eachother over it, in the process fertilizing the tree. What an interesting and eccentric writer.
 
IndieGirl:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.
It's funny cuz it's sad...
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Oh yes, a really good book. I just bought it because the title was funny. It is funny, but it is pretty sad, too and that makes it a very good book.

My last one (finished yesterday) was from David Hosp - Dark Harbour.
One of the better crime novels, well structured, interesting turns and enough suspense.
 
I've been trying to reread House of leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski again...but it freaked me out so much last time I'm not sure if I can manage it.....
 
IndieGirl:
Germany's Iron Chancellor by Bruno Garlepp


It's about Otto Von Bismarck.


He had my same birthday.
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What's your thoughts on Otto? The man to me was a great leader, and if he was not forced out of the gov't by the Kaiser Roll...well then WW1 would not have occured in its intense and montrous form thus leading to the even more intense and montrous WW2.
 
Lois McMaster Bujold's "Cordelia's Honor".

Best sci-fi I've yet read, next to Asimov and Douglas Adams, of course.
 
Into the heart by Kenneth Good.

A good love story, yet it still made me a bit squeamish about the choices he made. Some of them were not very ethical (according to the AAA) and they got him in trouble. I also was kind of upset to see a Yanomami woman sitting on a couch wearing clothes in Pennsylvania. So out of place. :(
 
Goodbye Berlin: Christopher Isherwood......

A classic.....amazing how different Sally Bowles is compared to the movie (Caberet)
 
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