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What are you reading? April 2011

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fljustice
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Post by fljustice » Tue April 12th, 2011, 4:19 pm

Started Coalescent by Stephen Baxter. An interesting mix of SF and parallel HF story.
Faith L. Justice, Author Website
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Elysium
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Post by Elysium » Tue April 12th, 2011, 7:47 pm

[quote=""LoobyG""]Guilty Pleasures, book one in the Anita Blake vampire hunter novels by Laurell K Hamilton :) [/quote]

How are you liking it? I love that serie!

I'm reading Shadow Chaser by Alexey Pehov. Haven't read much mut it seems this is better translated.

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Telynor
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Post by Telynor » Wed April 13th, 2011, 6:51 am

Well, finished Pratchett's Making Money. Still slogging through The Hostage Queen, but that may be jettisoned soon, I fear. I think I will switch soon to The Second Duchess.

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Vanessa
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Currently reading: The Farm at the Edge of the World by Sarah Vaughan
Interest in HF: The first historical novel I read was Katherine by Anya Seton and this sparked off my interest in this genre.
Favourite HF book: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell!
Preferred HF: Any
Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Post by Vanessa » Wed April 13th, 2011, 8:30 am

I'm just about to start Electric Brae by Andrew Greig, a contemporary novel set in Scotland.
currently reading: My Books on Goodreads

Books are mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you ~ The Shadow of the Wind

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EC2
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Post by EC2 » Wed April 13th, 2011, 8:36 pm

Reading my chic-lit of the year The One You Really Want by Jill Mansell. By this I mean that I don't read a lot of chic-lit, but now and again, I like to read one and Jill's a friend and I like her writing.
Other than that, I'm reading lots of non-fiction reference material at the moment and learning a lot from some of it and wall-banging the rest. Not sure what I'll read when I've finished Jill's. Nothing's calling to me in a loud voice.
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

www.elizabethchadwick.com

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SonjaMarie
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Post by SonjaMarie » Thu April 14th, 2011, 2:21 am

I finished last night: "The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History" by Robert Darnton (268pgs, 1984orig, 2009ed). Despite the title this book was a bit of a bore. Some chapters were better then others, some sections of chapters were more interesting then other bits, but over all, yawn. Also you should have a strong grasp of French or at least willing to constantly inpute stuff into a translator to understand some of the stuff.

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boswellbaxter
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Post by boswellbaxter » Thu April 14th, 2011, 2:38 am

I'm reading Rivals in the Tudor Court by D. L. Bogdan (narrated by Thomas Howard, his wife, and his mistress).
Susan Higginbotham
Coming in October: The Woodvilles


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Divia
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Post by Divia » Thu April 14th, 2011, 3:03 am

Vespertine YA
News, views, and reviews on books and graphic novels for young adult.
http://yabookmarks.blogspot.com/

annis
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Post by annis » Thu April 14th, 2011, 4:59 am

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe (NF) by Glynis Ridley. Fascinating!

"An 18th-century peasant expert in countryside herb lore, Jeanne Baret posed as a young man to gain the post of assistant to the naturalist aboard France's first global seafaring expedition in the 1760s. Ridley (Clara's Grand Tour: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe) quickly crushes modern romantic ideas of the golden age of exploration: there were rat-scrounging days of starvation and crowded quarters, and significant abuse suffered by Baret at the hands of crew members who at first suspected, and eventually learned, her sex."

Also Karen Robards' Shameless, a historical romance. A typical Regency romp, good for reading without having to think :)

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Ludmilla
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Post by Ludmilla » Thu April 14th, 2011, 1:40 pm

I finally finished Carsten Jensen's novel, We, the Drowned, which is about the seafaring community of Marstal, Denmark. I don't think I can describe it and do it justice, but this review at the Washington Post is what put the book on my radar. The book is an interesting case study for those interested in narrative technique. This is a multi-generational tale covering 100 years from 1848 to the end of WWII, somewhat episodic in the storytelling, but unified by long-running themes. The PoV shifts throughout the novel, and he uses the collective "we" in what he has described in interviews as something like a Greek chorus. I was fascinated by how that worked.

I've switched to brain candy this week, reading some swashbuckling romance by Marsha Canham.

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