Hey, What Ya Reading??? A book???

[Lynne]

Jess - when you get some time, post some of top fave Sci Fi reads - I haven't read much of it and wouldn't know where to start, but I'm always out of something to read.  I *love* Douglas Adams, though - Hitchhiker's Guide should be required reading, IMO.

[michaelflanagansf]

I hear people suggest Robert Crais a lot - I haven't read him yet, but I did put one of his books on a 'Summer Reading' table today.

Right now I'm reading Thomas Savage's 'Power of the Dog' and quite enjoying it.  Terse narrative and at least on strange western character (Phil Burbank, one of the brothers who is at the center of the novel).

I'd like to read Orhan Pamuk's 'Snow' - I read 'My Name is Red' and liked that a lot (although the way the narrator switched from chapter to chapter was very confusing).

[mvansand76]

I'm reading Bill Bryson's the Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid!!!!

Bill Bryson is my favorite writer. You cannot read his books in Public Transport, because you would make a fool out of yourself by laughing so hard and not being able to stop! LOL!

This book is about him growing up in Des Moines in the 50's. God, my boyfriend is so fed up with me now, I cannot stop laughing hysterically at it.

Has anyone ever read anything by Bill Bryson?

 

[Lynne]

I hear people suggest Robert Crais a lot - I haven't read him yet, but I did put one of his books on a 'Summer Reading' table today.

Hey there, Michael!
If I were you, I'd start with LA Requiem or The Two Minute Rule.  Crais has matured with age!  I'll make a note of the others to add to my list...
-Lynne

[southendmd]

Here's some great summer reading:  Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. 

It's sort of an epilogue to the six, very popular Tales of the City books that he wrote in the 70s and 80s.  (The first three were turned into TV miniseries with Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney.)  The original stories were written in old-fashioned serial form in the San Francisco Chronicle, one little chapter a day, later compiled into books.  I have a beat-up legal file full of clippings that would become Further Tales of the City.

I was fortunate to meet him at Harvard in the 80s and he signed my book "to Paul love, Armistead". 

The story picks up almost twenty years since the last one, Sure of You.  Michael is 55, has found new love with a younger man.  Maupin works in all the other characters to a greater or lesser extent.  Michael is dealing with the older and younger generations in his life.  Hilarious and moving.  I don't want it to end, because I fear it's necessarily the last one. 

[delalluvia]

I read constantly.  Just finished re-reading a book on General Armstrong Custer's last stand (forgot the name/author of the book) that I consider a very excellent and interesting read and have picked up again Crack in the World about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

[injest]

I like memoirs and stories of real events...

[mvansand76]

Here's some great summer reading:  Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. 

It's sort of an epilogue to the six, very popular Tales of the City books that he wrote in the 70s and 80s.  (The first three were turned into TV miniseries with Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney.)  The original stories were written in old-fashioned serial form in the San Francisco Chronicle, one little chapter a day, later compiled into books.  I have a beat-up legal file full of clippings that would become Further Tales of the City.

I was fortunate to meet him at Harvard in the 80s and he signed my book "to Paul love, Armistead". 

The story picks up almost twenty years since the last one, Sure of You.  Michael is 55, has found new love with a younger man.  Maupin works in all the other characters to a greater or lesser extent.  Michael is dealing with the older and younger generations in his life.  Hilarious and moving.  I don't want it to end, because I fear it's necessarily the last one. 

Oh I love the Tales of the City books, I read them all in one month I think but it was years and years ago! It was then that I also saw the series and before that I met Marcus D'Amico who played Mouse on the tube in London! 

[michaelflanagansf]

I read constantly.  Just finished re-reading a book on General Armstrong Custer's last stand (forgot the name/author fo the book) that I consider a very excellent and interesting read and have picked up again Crack in the World about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Being a librarian in the Bay Area I'm aware of a whole plethora of books that came out last year for the 100 year anniversary of the quake - one (which I haven't read) is '1906' by James Dalessandro. 

One of my favorite books that takes place in this era in San Francisco is 'The Barbary plague : the Black Death in Victorian San Francisco' by Marilyn Chase.  It's about the politics surrounding Bubonic Plague in San Francisco at the turn of the century - particularly regarding the racism towards the Chinese here.  And there is a whole world of information about how San Francisco changed due to the plague - there was originally a poultry industry in the South of Market neighborhood that moved north.  I was also interested that the endemic plague that exists in the Southwest originally came from this infestation in San Francisco.

[michaelflanagansf]

Hey there, Michael!
If I were you, I'd start with LA Requiem or The Two Minute Rule.  Crais has matured with age!  I'll make a note of the others to add to my list...
-Lynne

Hi Lynne!  Welcome to the Bay Area and thanks for the recommendation!