Recently finished "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clark, a novel about the history of English magic.

That was followed by "For the Love of Insects" by Thomas Eisner about chemical ecology in invertebrates. Awe-inspiring.

Currently reading "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean Carroll on evolutinary developmental biology.

I'm not sure what I'll read next. I've reserved "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping" by Judith Levine at the library. We'll see if it's any good.

Wow Mark! Sounds kind of heavy, but intreguing....I'll have to poke my nose into Endless Forms....

I"m reading "Pruning and Training" by Brickell. It is the springtime and it's a jungle out there.

just finished 'the twelve ceasars' by suetonius ( private secretary to emperor hadrian). the ceasars exposed with warts a plenty. thank the gods they aren't in power anymore or are they?

geeze did i kill this thread? really there are funny parts, i'm thinking of getting myself a toga.

Well...I guess it just shows that I'm a light weight...Here I am reading a suspense/mystery and you guys are reading pruning manuals, Suetonius, and evolutionary biology.....and I'm not even blonde! well, I once was...but I grew out of it.

That's OK, Lisa. I read some fluff sometimes too. It's part of a balanced diet. I may have to check out that book on the caesars. For last night's pre-sleepies reading, however, I had nothing new after I finished the evo-devo book and just randomly picked up Beowulf again. Trying out Old English aloud did not please the bedmate. Maybe I'll go back to looking for the horcuxes in the Harry Potter books.

So many books, so little time.

.. hey johnathan strange and mr norrel was an awesome book all though a few of the later chapters got kind of slow. also. i read "the five people you meet in heaven" which in any case is oddly a very nice tail about one mans mortality and his expierience with the after life and now i think its time for another in the red wall series heheh.

Gaston

I couldn't get through Jonathan Strange- I got really bored. I started the Harry Potter series- yes I know I am behind the curve. I got a box set of the first 5 books and am halfway through the second book.

I like to read shlocky easy read books. I've read 8 books by Janet Evanovich aka the Stephanie Plum series since December. I can't read serious thought books before I go to bed. It would keep me awake longer than Stephen King!

But I can't read Harry Potter on a business 'vacation' (my husband qualifed for a 'trip' through work) so I may need some suggestions on what would make me super cool by the pool in San Diego. :)

the Da vinci code.. but then again. even that book has its lulls i think a book i want to read is good/bad omen.. what ever its called. it just seems like an interesting read that or S.kings new book "Cell"

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett? Hysterical apocalyptic satire.

"Gathering Moss" a non-fiction about - you guessed it - moss. A botany professor writes all about mosses, tells stories and gets a little schmaltzy about moss and life.
OK, not everyone's cup of tea, but I learned a lot and thought it was time well spent. The best story is about the guy (with too much money) that wanted his own moss garden, so hired crews and re-arranged an entire estate ...
And there's the glow-in-the dark moss, moss sold at craft stores which is really moss stripped from trees in the northwest US from colonies which are hundreds of years old... sigh.

I like non-fiction...
Maryanne in WMass

Claire, anything by Carl Hiaasen is so much fun to read by the pool.. or anytime..

I liked Bump and Run by Mike Lupica.

I couldn't read Cell by Stephen King.. way too much violence for me..

One of my faves - The Private Life of Plants by David Attenborough - an absolute GEM

Here is a link that might be useful: Private Life

I agree with you, Maryanne. Good non-fiction can be really entertaining. Have you read any of Kurlansky's works like "Salt" or "Cod"? I read the former on the beach and the latter on a schooner. Maybe the setting made them better. You might also like Michael Pollan, particularly "Second Nature" and "The Botany of Desire." I got to hear him speak once and he is just a really smart, down-to-earth guy.

Carl Haissen! Yes! One of my favorite vacation authors along with David Sedaris. I can't remember the name of the last one but it was about the woman whose husband thought he killed her by tossing her off the cruise ship. Good stuff!

I'm off to reserve the Attenborough and moss books at the library. I LOVE being able to do that. I've saved so much money by borrowing rather than buying! :)

Has anyone read anything by Nora Roberts? I love it when I find a good author and buy up everything they've written. I've shied away from Roberts for some reason but I found a review on the latest "Blue Smoke" and it sounded pretty good.

I'm currently reading a book called "Kafka on the Shore" by Hakuri Murakami. Very strange but interesting so far. I also bought a book called "Labyrinth" by Kate Mosse which I have yet to read yet.

Hi Folks:
kwmackdog - tell me more about the 12 caesars, please? non-fiction or historical fiction?
:-)

And Shady - I do like the Michael Pollan books. I notice by your blog page you like native orchid stuff too.
I just brought back a book to the (college) library named "Bog Trotting for Orchids" by Grace Greylock Niles. This book is 100 years old ..and they let me take it !
Well, it's a gem. Grace goes trucking all over the Berkshire (Mass.) countryside and give as amny details as you could want. Right down to how you have to cross a road, duck under a fence and avoid enraging a farmer's bull. To get to the lady slippers, etc. With colour plates and black and white photos. If I could find a copy reasonably priced I would consider buying it. I copied down a few place names to see if we could track down some of these bogs. So far, my husband thinks that quite a few of the places are probably filled in and have houses sitting on them.

Any other good books we should know about?
Cheers
Maryanne in WMass

Maryanne, I've heard of that book and I seem to remember it being highly recommended. In sort of the same vein is Philip Keenan's "Wild Orchids Across North America." It sounds fun to be going all over the place looking at wild orchids.

That would be cool if you could find the sites she writes about. It's entirely possible some still exist, but you may find some heartbreaking parking lots on some of them. I started looking for wild orchid sites using the state herbarium records. Some may be helpful, but one actually said something along the line of "site to be destroyed by next summer's highway construction.

Just picked up "Nabokov's Butterflies" from the library. It's thick! Gonna keep me busy for a while!

I just finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and can't help but think of the Homeland Security laws/abilities as being somewhat like some of the things which happened in "Gilead." In Gilead, things were done for the good of the people until real freedoms were lost...hmmmm.....

meer8772-

I recently read "Kafka on the Shore", and I agree- it was strange! I'm not sure how much I truly liked it though. I mean, it was a pleasant enough read, but I wanted fluff (a good fantasy, in this case), and I could never shake the feeling that the author wanted me to really think about the book, and extrapolate meaning from it. Which is not a bad thing, but I was looking for fluff.

Lately I've been reading Arthur Holst's "The World of Catasetums" and Lance Birk's Paph Manual. Both are just incredible!

Carolyn

Carolyn, I'm with you! I just finished it this weekend. I would characterize it as more of an "intellectual" book than a good "story" book. And I agree, I'm always looking for the story, more than hypothesizing on philosophy. I have a very analytical, linear job so reading is my escape from having to think.

I just started the "Labyrinth" book and I like it better already.

Do you have any "fluff" recommendations? Something storyline-based, but still a good read?

meer8772-

If you haven't read "The Kite Runner" by by Khaled Hosseini, I highly recommend it. Not "fluff", but a gripping, wonderful, and emotional story set in Afghanistan. A lighter, great storyline book is "Forever" by Pete Hamill, a review is here http://www.curledup.com/forever.htm

I loved them both.

Carolyn

Michigoose have you read any more of Atwood's novels? I really enjoyed Oryx and Crake but have been hesitant to read any others.

I have recently started the second book in a pair of books by author Dale Pendell on the subject of drug use throughout human history. The first tells the history of plant powers, poisons, and herbcraft used by shamans and eventually the general public in later periods. The second book is absolutely fascinating and chronicles the use of stimulating plants, potions, and herbcraft through history. The history and detailed clinical information on coffee, tea, cacao/chocolate, yerba-mate, betel nut, and more recent problem drugs such as methemphetamine are discussed. I find it very interesting to discover the history of something as common as coffee is actually quite the tale. These are superbly written books with a fairly heavy dose of poetry and folklore thrown in as well.

Another good read is The Secret Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner. The book discusses the direct perception of nature. If you have ever wondered how native peoples discovered the various medical uses of plants form their environment this book tells just how they did it. No trial and error involved just a true connection with nature that is now sadly completely foreign to us.

Wow Carolyn, you and I are definitely on the same wavelength. I read Forever last year and I loved it. Much of the history is true and it was compelling after I had just seen "Gangs of New York" too.

I see the Kite Runner every time I walk into Borders and for some reason I've never picked it up. I absolutely will now!

Mentioning Afghanistan, you reminded me of a pretty good memoir I read a while back called "Shutterbabe". It's written by a female journalism photographer and her adventures traveling the world. Some of it was a little annoying, the details of her sexual exploits is one, but overall it opened my eyes to what it's like to be a 'war photographer'.

Mike, I haven't read any others yet...I'll have to. I was reading Tulips....or whatever it is called, the history of Tulips....it was a best seller a few years ago. I put it aside....and somehow picked up The Princes in the Tower...not quite was I was expecting, and I'm having a heck of a time keeping the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Glouster straight and the flipping back and forth between the Edwards and the Henrys is making me nuts!