I have been reading the Love Comes Softly series. I am on book 6 now. Loves Unfolding Dream.

Sometimes you can see the series on the Hallmark Channel.

FROM RUSSIA FROM LOVE

By far the best Bond book I've ever read. It was truly gratifying to see how faithful the film was to the novel. What I really enjoyed about this book is that Bond isn't introduced until around chapter 11 (almost half-way through the book). The first half of the book is from the Russian side trying to set their trap for James. An absolute AWESOME read!

Gotta go with Klyd on this. And I agree, the majority is with babe. I know since I remember I was one of the few students in class who actually loved it. They threw rocks at me. (ok not really..) but what I love most is the way Hawthorne use the english language with such richness that every description is so vivid. I wouldnt include it in the mount rushmore tho.

My "Mount Rushmore" of American novels:

1) The Great Gatsby
2) Moby-Dick
3) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
4) The Grapes of Wrath

Had to leave out quite a few excellent novels, but I think that's my Mount Rushmore.


Anyone else willing to share his/her Mt.Rushmore of American novels ?

Actually, she's reading Huck Finn now. Love that book. However, on my list would be:

The Great Gatsby
The Fountainhead
The Sound and The Fury
To Kill A Mockingbird

It was very difficult to narrow it down, since I would have preferred to add more Rand and more Fitzgerald, but those two are my favorites.

I'm surprised you're such an Ayn Rand fan, Babe. Don't get me wrong, she could really write. But she was such a batshit, insane, conservative that it surprises me a little bit.

As I've posted a hundred times before. Gatsby is my favorite novel of all time.

Just read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. Read it and you'll never look at a porterhouse or a ham the same way.

Foer's a boob. As a novelist, he's unconventional and bombastic. He reminds me of Nick Tosches.

As for this non-fiction book about not eating meat? Aaah, fooey.

Rand was a bit of a raving psychotic, but her books are amazing. Anyone who can write "We The Living" as a condemnation of a way of life combined with one of the most beautiful and tragic love stories ever, has to be a little crazy. Aren't all geniuses?

You're kidding, right?

About not giving up meat? They'll have to pry the corned beef out of my cold, dead hands.

"Fast Food Nation" did God's work. It got people out of McDonald's amd into cooking at home. Giving up meat all together is just sacrilege .

As far as Foer as a novelist? I respect him. Vegetarians just rankle me .

PB, read the book. He doesn't get all preachy about carnivores. His beef is with factory farming of animals. He does to factory farms what Fast Food Nation did to McDonald's.

For you, Don T, I'll check it out and let you know.

Just read the autoboigraphy of one Sid Waddell,who commentates on the darts over here and also hails from Newcastle,my neck of the forest.

It is called BELLIES AND BULLSEYES and it was hilarious. Helps to be an English darts fan though i reckon

Off and on I've been re-reading Tolkien's "The Silmarillion" which is his collection of myths and events that occurred thousands (millions) of years before his Lord of the Rings story.

In particular I've just finished the chapter "The Akallabeth" which is Tolkien's retelling of the myth of Atlantis. Faithful humans are given a great island in the West and abilities/knowledge far beyond that of the average human.

However over time they grow increasingly jealous of the gifts of the elves and fall into evil, becoming imperialists and men of war and brutality. Eventually they reject good completely. Seeking not only immortality but mastery over all creation, they turn to the worship of Sauron and launch an attack on Paradise.

So God changes the world so that not only is Paradise completely removed from men for evermore but Numenor itself is destroyed and falls into the sea. It's really a very lyrical and elegant story and is somewhat of an allegory or metaphor (though Tolkien famously hated both) of the inability of humans to be happy with what they have.

Just finished reading Bill Parcell's "Finding A Way To Win"

Excellent book which not only applies to coaching football, but to life in general.

DC - I have always been a big fan of Parcells. At one point I was hoping the Bears would get him as a coach. He can be a real SOB, for sure but he's got the titles and the rings to back it up. What is he up to these days?

He's currently with the Miami Dolphins. I believe that he is an Executive Vice President.

Hard to see him stuck behind a desk. Seems odd not to see him on the sidelines barking at someone. But we all chill out some time in life, I guess. We could sure use him here in Chicago. We love Lovie Smith but we would like to win also!

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

This is a mixed genre book set in England of the very near future. In this book not only is there widespread proof of life after death but all sorts of previously unbelievable creatures-vampires, ghosts, werewolves, demons etc are found to exist and taken in stride by humanity.

The book's protagonist is Felix Castor, a man who's had the ability to see and talk to the dead since childhood. It's only in the past decade that he's been making a living as an exorcist.

Of course working as an exorcist you tend to make a lot of enemies with unnaturally long memories so Castor decides to get out of the game but not before taking One Last Job.

This leads to all sorts of unpleasantness as might be expected. This is really an updated detective novel with supernatural events thrown in and is a lot of fun. It comes complete with mob bosses, damsels in distress, femme fatales and all sorts of other typical genre cliches. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, it's a fun read with great characters and more than a few surprises along the way.

DR. NO

This film was probably the closest to any novel yet. In part because it was the first Bond film and also because Ian Fleming was still alive then. Pretty much the exact same way it's shown on film except for a minor addition towards the end that I'm glad wasn't preserved on film.

"Everybody Smokes in Hell" by John Ridley.

Ridley is a screenwriter by trade (he was the screenwriter for the movie "U-Turn" which was based on his book "Stray Dogs" and the screenwriter for the comedy "Undercover Brother") and his book has a very visual element to it. It reads VERY much like a movie script. This is not always a good thing.

The book takes place in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Paris Scott is a thirty something loser who works the nightshift at an LA mini-mart and just got dumped by his girlfriend. He happens to be working one night when he runs across Ian Jermaine. (a barely disguised Kurt Cobain incarnation) Paris tries to take the depressed rock star back to his hotel room but once they arrive Jermaine commits suicide. Paris winds up with Jermaine's unreleased final recording. He returns home and hides this recording in his sofa.

Meanwhile Paris' roommate-a wannabe gangsta- has just completed a ripoff of the meanest heroin dealer on the West Coast, one Daymond Evans. The roommate hightails it back to the apartment where he also hides the heroin in the sofa.

Neither man tells the other what he was up to and both proceed to try to negotiate a reselling of the "stolen" material to the record company and the drug dealer. As both men are thorougly inept at this the record company and dealer decide that they would just as soon kill them and retrieve their "merchandise". However they get the men confused and send the wrong people after each man. Both men go on the run separately. Something approaching hilarity ensues as Ridley does a accurate satire of the common predatory tactics to be found in Hollywood and the underworld.

However ultimately the book is sort of thin. It's quite "Tarantinoesqe" for anyone who likes that sort of thing. The most vibrant character is not Paris, who spends most of the book whining, wishing he had money for strippers, getting beat up or shot at, but Brice, a hitwoman with the psychology of Luca Brasi, the looks of Scarlett Johannsen and a taste for Bachmann-Turner Overdrive.

GOLDFINGER

I was pretty disappointed with this book. GOLDFINGER and GOLDENEYE are probably my two favorite Bond films, so needless to say, I was very excited to read this book. The novel and book are for the most part similar however this is the first book that isn't followed as closely as DR. NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE were. Minor differences but enough to turn me off from this novel compared to the film

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

A collection of 5 short stories thrown together into a novel. The first is FROM A VIEW TO A KILL, which the film version has absolutely NOTHING to do with the novel. Secondly, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is mirrored on film. QUANTUM OF SOLACE was surprisingly my favorite story from this book. Although this film has next to nothing to do with the book, it was quite an interesting story. RISICO and THE HILDEBRAND RARITY are the only stories not adopted yet into a film but I've heard rumors that RISICO could be the name of the next Bond film. However, the story of RISICO was also used in the making of the film, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. I found THE HILDEBRAN RARITY to be the most boring and my least favorite out of this novel.

Recently read John Grisham's, "The Associate". I enjoy his style of writing and plotlines. I've probably read all of Grisham's books. For my style of reading they are a perfect fit; quick, not too much to think about.

MC, I like Grisham, and believe I've read nearly all his books, too. However, I don't think any of them lived up to his first.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb. Although I wasn't a huge fan of "She's Come Undone", I loved "I Know This Much is True".

This newest book is captivating. It's about a schoolteacher and his wife, a nurse, who run into some marital trouble. Determined to start over, they leave Connecticut for Littleton, Colorado in 1998. They are both hired to work at Columbine High School. Based on true events, this fictional work follows the after-effects of the massacre, from terror to grief to survivor's guilt to chronic PTSD. It's an amazing book, although I find his main character to be a bit TOO flawed for my tastes. There are times he's just plain annoying.

At 800 pages, it's a bit of a challenge, and Lamb sometimes goes off in too many directions, but I haven't been able to put this one down. I highly recommend it.

I work in a book store, and so tend to steer clear of the books the masses flock to. But I caved and read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson and it was awesome! Insanely slow to start, but it's worth it's hype. Also, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas was one of the best books I read last year.

My uncle loaned me this. He raves about the trilogy.

I'm reading Chris Harman's Marxism and History, a thin but cogent read. It's two essays, "Base and Superstructure" and "From Feudalism to Capitalism". Recommended.

rumour has it, capo, that his wife found a manuscript for the fourth book under their bed. your uncle will no doubt be happy to hear it.

Just finished reading Beat the Reaper, written by Josh Bazell. Incredible novel that I just happened to stumble upon by accident while shopping at Target. The story centers around a Dr. Peter Brown, an intern at Manhattan's worst hospital, who just so happens to have been a hitman for the mob in a "past life." After certain things went down, Pietro "Bearclaw" Brwna enters the Witness Protection Program, gets his M.D., and starts practicing medicine. Things take a turn for the worst, though, when an ex-associate of "Pietro's" ends up in the hospital, under "Dr. Brown's" care.

The story is an excellent mix of drama, action, and dark humor that is sure to tickle the fancy of anyone who has even a passing interest in crime fiction or medicine. There are scenes of humor, horror, and one particular scene near the very end that will have you cringing. An excellent, quick read that I highly recommend.

I found the paperback at Target for about 11 bucks, but I bought the hard cover on the Barnes & Noble website for a mere 3 bucks.

Just re-read Joe Pantoliano's autobiography WHO'S SORRY NOW. an excellent tale of his youth in the 1950's in Hoboken with a wide cast of family members and anti heroes,none more so than his slightly deranged mother