What are you reading the week of June 20, 2010?

[DUgosh]

Bitter Recoil by Steven Havill

[SheilaT]

1. The Book of God and Physics

by Enrique Joven.

It's a novel about the Voynich manuscript, which has been around at least 400 years, is written in a completely undeciphered, apparently undecipherable language or code. Quite fascinating.

[lordsummerisle]

2. The Spirit Level

Wilkinson and Pickett/ Recommended by Thom Hartmann.

[PDJane]

3. Elizabeth George,

This Body of Death. The White Queen, Phillipa Gregory. Slow Death by Rubber Duck, Rick Smith. Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford. I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish. Nomad by Ayaan Hirslali (I have read Infidel, and may re-read that, too). A Most Wanted Man, Joh Le Carré. I also have A Brief History of Tea, Quantum Leaps, and A Brief History of the Crusades. And yes, that's about 10 days worth of reading. And yes, I've always been that kind of reader.

[applegrove]

4. Gorky Park. It was good. What a horrible place Moscow must have been to live in back in the 1980s.

[pitohui]

26. (part) of the point of the book was the affection the main character had for moscow

i won't comment further (than this one post) because of family member, business/academic interests there at that time but...

i love gorky park but my takeaway isn't how ugly moscow was, it's the sense of place and how hard it is to give up where you're from

the whole series (of which gorky park is the first) is pretty much predicated on how he's not willing himself to flee to the west

is your takeaway from "to kill a mockingbird" how ugly mississippi is? i doubt it!

[WCIL]

5. Making serious progress on The Passage by Justin Cronin

still unputdownable, still kinda scary.

[MountainLaurel]

10. Waiting for that from the library

I've heard so many good things about it.

[Zoigal]

6. "Stalking the Red Bear" by Peter Sasgen

[Stardust]

7. Can anyone rec a book involving the lobbying industry (preferably

fiction, otherwise, it might be too dry for my tastes.) Thanks.

[meowomon]

8. Plain Truth

by Jodi Picoult

[provis99]

9. Econometric Analysis by William Greene.

Just some light bedtime reading.

[MountainLaurel]

11. The Glimmering by Elizabeth Hand

And I'm waiting for "The 900 Days" by Harrison Salisbury

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Still working on The Remains of an Altar (Phil Rickman) as my bedside book, but

my new purse book is Peter Robinson's Close to Home.

[Onceuponalife]

13. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

[Dr. Strange]

16. An interesting character, I thought.

Although I didn't care much for the second book.

[Onceuponalife]

34. Finished it.

It was a bit corny and a little too preachy at times but it was entertaining enough. I'll continue reading this series. Koontz' books seem to be becoming increasingly spiritual in nature. I hope he doesn't pull an Anne Rice and go downhill with the quality of his writing.

[abluelady]

14. Dorothy L. Sayers

"Gaudy Night"

[fadedrose]

15. EVEN by Andrew Grant (eom)

[fadedrose]

21. Quit after 200 pages (out of 330 or so)

Too many paragraphs describing in too great detail things I don't think I need to know to enjoy the story. Could be more dialogue and less thought on the part of the main character. Story sounds somewhat familiar - maybe a Bourne book, not sure.

[JitterbugPerfume]

17. The Winter of Our Discontent--Steinbeck

this is my summer for re reading Steinbeck

It is the story of a deeply conflicted man

I am also reading The Clinton Tapes, wrestling with History by Taylor Branch , it is a fascinating accounting of the Clinton years

the story of another deeply conflicted man

[azmouse]

18. "The Somnambulist" by Jonathan Barnes

[Mz Pip]

19. P.D. James, The Private Patient

So far I am really enjoying it.

[MaineDem]

29. I liked it a lot

But I love all the Dalgleish novels. (Not sure I spelled that right.)

[YankeyMCC]

20. East of Eden

opening up that familiar box of treasures again.

[RamboLiberal]

22. I just finished Circumference of Darkness

I bought it for $6 on my Nook to check how closely it paralled that piece of dreck Beck claims to have authored The Overton Window. The writer of Circumference Jack Henderson was one of Beck's ghost writers. While there were elements and characters that were a bit similiar and a plot of a nuke being detonated in Las Vegas the books were dissimiliar enough that I don't think Henderson completely plagiarized himself. I was surprised that Circumference was actually a decent thriller. Certainly a good summer read. The bad guys in this one were a RW militia looking to overthrow the Bush Govt. In this book they engineered 9-11 only it was supposed to be much more extensive. Only bad part was Bush came out decently though he didn't play that big a role in the book. The computer geek in me liked this book.

Synopsis
This electrifying debut thriller delivers a gripping tale of Big Brother gone mad amid a modern world on the verge of endless war. Brimming with high-powered suspense, here is the brilliant, frighteningly believable story of three masterminds locked on a breathtaking collision cours—the outcome of which will determine the fate of the United States.

Circumference of Darkness

Twenty-two-year-old Jeannie Reese is a computer wunderkind—and the top architect of next-generation security for the Department of Defense. Her latest brainchild is IRIN, the most powerful surveillance technology ever developed. To date, IRIN has remained ultraclassified and inactive. But on the day a shocking act of terrorism strikes U.S. shores, the presidential order comes to launch Jeannie’s creation against the dark forces behind the attack.

Known only as Phr33k, forty-one-year-old John Fagan is a legendary, reclusive computer hacker. For years he has expertly hidden himself while operating freely within the shadows of the Internet’s background noise. He has remained in complete seclusion despite his infamy as the author of a slew of massive electronic crimes—and despite his long-ago, now eerily prophetic, scenarios of terrorist warfare against America.

Under Jeannie’s direction, IRIN gathers and analyzes endless data—and unearths Phr33k. If she is to stop the next stage of a terror campaign clearly begun years before, Jeannie will have to find the überhacker; but that is only the beginning. For she soon discovers that Phr33k is being held by the leader of a vast terrorist network, who now plans to use this unique genius toconceive and deliver his final, fatal blow: a devastating nationwide wave of unparalleled destruction.

For his part, Phr33k is used to working alone. But all that will have to change.

He has a new challenge, one unlike any he’s faced before: how to provide Jeannie Reese with one outrageous, impossible shot to short-circuit the perfect, unstoppable scheme he so masterfully—and so unwillingly—helped to create.

From the Hardcover edition.

Publishers Weekly

Henderson's uneven debut marks another addition to the growing list of post-9/11 thrillers in which home-grown radical elements within the United States, not Islamic fundamentalists, pose a terrorist threat. Jeannie Reese, a 22-year-old Department of Defense computer genius, has developed a powerful surveillance technology she hopes can thwart an impending attack. The terrorists, led by racist Edward Latrell, who ran for president in 1976, are holed up in a compound in Colorado, though their tentacles of sympathizers stretch all around the country. They plan to hit the U.S. all at once through a highly developed plan of coordinated attacks coast to coast. Reese, however, has assembled a crack team of techies intent on saving the nation and restoring order. Though well researched, Henderson's plot eventually crumbles into confusion and overly technical detail. Along the way, too many silly asides-including the notoriously chaste Reese's fumbling romance and eventual drunken sex with a navy lieutenant-tend to break the otherwise admirable tension. (June 26)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Circumference-of-Darkness/Jack-Henderson/e/9780553589801/

[Fire Walk With Me]

23. "Computer Connection" by Alfred Bester.

[fadedrose]

24. A STOLEN SEASON by Steve Hamilton (eom)

[fadedrose]

25. Have you read HEARTSHOT?

My library doesn't have it, and I see that it's the first one and it comes just before BITTER RECOIL. Is it any good?

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/H_Authors/Havill_Steven-F.html


This site has them all listed. I can get the ones my library doesn't have through inter-library lending.

Is it worth the trouble? I'd rather start with the very first one if it is..

Thanks..

[hippywife]

27. I just read the summary of this book on Amazon.

Sounds like some good reading even though I'm not a big mystery reader.

I also found this one at your link, which I think I may like better:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0312380712/stopyourekilling


:hi:

[fadedrose]

31. I like the idea of the old sheriff, Bill Gastner

because I like weird characters and he seems like one. I think I'll order the HEARTSHOT to learn his beginnings.

I will probably avoid the book, RACE FOR THE DYING, because of cataract and knee surgeries and other good stuff, that I try to avoid anything with a doctor in it :) :)

Who needs reminders - I need forgetters when I read :)

Thanks for looking it up tho.

[DUgosh]

32. Heartshot

I liked it okay. I like the reoccuring character Estelle Reyes Guzman

[fadedrose]

33. Thanks..

Will start this series soon - just got SHOOT TO THRILL and 61 HOURS (Lee Child) from the library and have finish them before I order any more...

[fadedrose]

35. I just ordered thru interlibrary loan...

HEARTSHOT and TWICE BURIED. My library doesn't have them, and I like to go the beginning of a series to find out how the characters got together and how they got so screwed up..

[hippywife]

28. I purposely did not stop at the library

on the way home. I have so much work to do around here this weekend that the last thing I need to do is stick my nose in a book. It would be nice to have one to read at bedtime but I know the temptation would be too great if I had them in the house right now. x(

:hi:

[MaineDem]

30. "Spies of the Balkans" by Alan Furst

Really good.