I agree with you. The Godfather is one of the very few novels I have ever read, but found it quite inferior to the movie, both in terms of ambition and quality.

That's good to know. I found The Godfather book in a thrift store for almost nothing, but I might not read it now.

Catch me if you can by Frank Abengale Jr


Worth the 50 cents I paid so far...I never saw the movie.

A-ROD: THE MANY LIVES OF ALEX RODRIGUEZ

An interesting read with some behind-the-scenes stuff I was never privy to but A LOT of speculation. The author, Selena Roberts, has numerous anonymous sources which, at least for me, makes it difficult to believe some of the things she's accusing Alex of in this book. Many of the people quoted in the book have rather than flattering remarks about A-Rod, so why hide your identity? Again, an interesting inside look into the youth or Alex and his many father figures he adopted over the years since his father abandoned him at such an early age such as his agent Scott Boras and his "circle of friends." But again, just a lot of speculation and Selena seems to be asking the reader too many questions and drawing too many conclusions of her own.

THE GREAT GATSBY by Scott Fitzgerald. I enjoyed it but was surprised at how short it is?

My favorite novel, Yogi. Still.

Mine too, old sport.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

The green light at the end of the dock - what could be more romantic??

Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers. If you've ever read his biography, Daisy was based on Zelda, Fitzgerald's wife. Almost all of his female characters were. And Zelda was some kind of crazy.

Batshit insane by most accounts, Babe. And he wasn't exactly the picture of mental health himself. They were both seriously depressed and chronic alcoholics. But he was as much of a genius as he was crazy. I've read everything he ever published at least twice. I've probably read "Gatsby" a dozen times.

Zelda was also an excellent writer. Have you ever read her "Save Me The Waltz"?

Yes he was fond of the term "old sport" was he not?

I seem to have awoken some good discussion from reading this book which is good. It was a book i had meant to read for years,just never got round to it. Glad i did eventually.

I did a research paper on Fitzgerald years ago. "Gatsby" is one of my favorites, and when my daughter was reading it for a class last year, I reread it so that we could discuss it. That was fun.

My husband's eyes are too tired from looking at a monitor all day to read at night, so I've taken to getting him audiobooks out of the library. The library also allows you to download some books from their website. He downloaded "The Fountainhead" not too long ago, which is another favorite of mine. I reread that one as well.

Terrific book if you haven't read it.

As you can see from my posts in this thread I've been reading a lot more as of late. I'm wondering if anyone can recommend any good books about WWII (particularly about the Nazi regime), 9/11, and Jack the Ripper (I'm really interested in the Kennedy assassination as well and have both books that the film JFK is based on).

I was thinking about reading MEIN KAMPF but from what I've read it seems like a difficult book for me to comprehend. At times it just seems like the ramblings of a mad man.

Also, I was looking through Amazon and this book: Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It seems like an interesting read (it's from the hijackers point of view).

A friend of mine has this book, THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER: THE DISCOVERY, THE INVESTIGATION, THE AUTHENTICATION

I have read a couple of books about old Jack the Ripper but i got them from the library and can't remember their proper titles. One was written by Patricia Cornwell,the popular novelist,that i do remember. Apparently she is a Ripper buff!

Yogi, I read the Cornwell book, too. Supposedly she spent tons of her own money tracking down a letter written by the Ripper and analyzed the DNA on the stamp. I think her theory has been misproven, though. Can't quite remember.

Just about any library is full of books on WWII and the Nazis. I would start with the seminal text: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and the Goebbels diaries (actually written by him). That should give you a good start and foundation. On the JFK assassination Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History is about all you need (Oswald was the lone assassin). As a counter though, start with Mark Lane's Rush to Judgement.

Thanks for the recommendations on WWII. The 2 books I have on the Kennedy assassination are the 2 books the film JFK is based on: On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs

It's been a long while since I read eitehr of those two assassination books. However, their premises (and those of similar works) have been just about rendered null and void by recent computer-based crime scene investigation and analysis. Another good book is Case Closed by Gerald Posner. By the way, there is a webiste entitled Lancer that is an assassination conspiracy site you might want to visit.

Alright, thanks olivant

I'm reading "Lessons in Disaster," by Gordon M. Goldstein. It's an account of McGeorge Bundy, his service as national security adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and his activities in support of the Vietnam disaster. It's very good. There's a brief, amusing passage that I want to reproduce here:

The Tonkin Gulf incident in August, '64, started the US on the path of escalation. A US destroyer in the Tonkin Gulf allegedly reported that it had been attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats (it was later shown to be a fraud). LBJ convened a meeting at the White House with Dean Rusk, secretary of state; Bundy, and Thomas Hughes, an intelligence officer. LBJ asked if there'd been any provocation. He was reminded that, months earlier, he'd approved sorties by South Vietnamese naval vessels against North Vietnamese islands in the Tonkin Gulf. LBJ replied:

"Well, it reminds me of the movies in Texas. You're sitting next to a pretty girl and you have your hand on her ankle, and nothing happens. You move it up to her knee and nothing happens. You move it up further and you're thinking about moving it up a bit more and all of a sudden you get slapped. I think we got slapped."

At that point Hughes wrote a note to Rusk: "Now that we know what happens in the movies in Texas, do you wish to continue to call this an unprovoked attack?"

Just finished THE GIVEN DAY by Dennis Lehane. I like Lehane,the author of MYSTIC RIVER amongst others and also a writer for The Wire.

This is a big beast of an historical epic,set in Boston after World War I and concerning the trials and tribulations of the Police Department. It is good,just a little too long!

Still worth reading for sure.

Read Mantissa by John Fowles. Shit. My enthusiasm's waning.

Reading The Constant Gardener by Le Carré. He's still the man.

I finally got around to reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It describes the struggle for survival of a man and his young son in a postapocalyptic, brutal world where everything is barren and covered with ash.

The contrast between the father and son is particularly fascinating. While the father had lived in a world of comfort, his son, to whom he is completely dedicated, has known nothing but the constant journey south, hunger, fear and cold.

Not only do they battle the cold rains, illness and starvation, but they must avoid the traveling cannibalistic marauders, who lurk among the ashen trails.

McCarthy'snarrative style is condensed and direct, and often free of punctuation. He moves the pace of the novel with bursts of phrases. Thus his overall style base and economical, which reflects the plight of the characters. Nevertheless, as always , McCarthy drops many rich images to depict the dead universe, in which the man and the boy struggle.

None of the characters in the novel has a name. They are anonymous shells, living , corpses, whose identities were lost in the ashes of their old existence.

This was well worth my time. I regret not having read this sooner.

Just read SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS by David Guterson.

A very good,clever novel about post war tensions on the West Coast with the Japanese community.

My only gripe is it seems to end rather quickly. After building it up masterfully he wraps it all up in 10 pages or so? It's like he was only allowed 400 pages and was on 390 when he realised he had to finish it off!!

Still an excellent read however.

"Night," by Elie Wiesel.

A memoir I first read over 30 years ago. After seeing Wiesel speak with Obama last week, I decided to give it another full read through (it's a very short book; it can be read in one rainy afternoon).

Anyway, the book opens in 1941, when Wiesel was a 13 year old boy, living in Sighet, Transylvania, a Jewish ghetto in Romania, with his family. It picks up in 1944, when Hungarian authorities allowed the German army to deport the Jewish community in Sighet to Auschwitz, and continues through his time at Buchenwald, and ultimately his liberation from the concentration camps.

It's an absolutely HORRIFYING account, but remains one of the most moving memoirs I've ever read. It's not for the faint of heart, but you should read it even if you are.

There's one scene in particular that tears me apart: A violinist playing Beethoven as he dies---Jews were not allowed to play Beethoven in the camps. They were considered beneath the greatness of Beethoven because he was German. To the Nazi mind set, it was an insult to the composers memory.

Wiesel's father missing out on liberation----by a matter of days----made me cry. Again.

Please read.

NIGHT was a good read. I had to read it in school.

I am currently reading:

BRAIN DROPPINGS by George Carlin

I am also reading MOTHER NIGHT by Kurt Vonnegut

GUN, WITH OCCASIONAL MUSIC by ....Letham?

and I bought 9 books at a garage sales last week so I'll be busy reading for awhile.

Absolutely hilarious and fun read.

Just read LITTLE SCARLET by Walter Mosley.

Another in the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series.

I enjoyed it.

Just read "The Edible Woman" by Margaret Atwood. It was her first novel and it is a little dated, but it showed what promise she had, and it was the only Atwood novel I had not read.