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What are you reading this summer?


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The author is Dan Brown. Here is a description from Amazon's pages: "In a two-day span, American symbologist Robert Langdon finds himself accused of murdering the curator of the Louvre, on the run through the streets of Paris and London, and teamed up with French cryptologist Sophie Neveu to uncover nothing less than the secret location of the Holy Grail. It appears that a conservative Catholic bishop might be on the verge of destroying the Grail, which includes an alternate history of Christ that could bring down the church. Whoever is ordering the deaths of the Grail's guardians--modern-day members of an ancient society descended from the famed Knights Templar--must be stopped before the treasure is lost forever. To do so, Langdon and Neveu have to solve a series of ciphers and riddles while evading a tireless French police commander and a ruthless albino monk. Despite being hampered by clunky flashback sequences and place descriptions that read like tourist brochures, the story is full of brain-teasing puzzles and fascinating insights into religious history and art. Ultimately, Brown's intricate plot delivers more satisfying twists than a licorice factory. Frank Sennett

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved"

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I'm on page 154 :) right now. I SHOULD be cleaning the house, preparing a meal, taking a shower but all I want to do is read.

I see why people are so enthralled by it. It's chock-full of background on all kinds of topics: the Catholic Church's relationship to Opus Dei and paganism, feminism, fine arts and the lives of the artists, architecture, religious symbology, cryptology, mathematics (Fibonacci sequence is a biggie here) as well as being a really good mystery and, I hear, romance too.

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I'm afraid there is going to be a run on the bookstores for Da Vinci Code. I better hurry, and get mine ordered.

There was a nice list on public radio this morning. They interviewed the CEO of Amazon.com. One of the things on his list was a collection of short stories. I was busily getting ready for Church, and did not get to listen carefully to other recommendations. But, if you're interested, I bet you can find that inteview @ npr.org.

Cristina

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I'm currently reading/planning to read/dreaming of having the time to get to the following current books:

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy by Robert Dallek

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

The Clinton Wars by Sidney Blumenthal (no, I won't start a discussion)

On the less current end:

Blindness by Henry Green

The Trials of Lenny Bruce by Ronald Collins and David Stover

A re-read of The Golden Bowl. I find late James richer with every reading. Also, I saw the most recent movie version on cable last month and I need to clear it out of my head. One of the dismal things about bad movies of novels you love is that they sometimes imprint themselves on your brain whether you want them there or not. (When I go back to The Great Gatsby, it's still hard for me to block out visions of Mia Farrow in the awful wig and Redford in his equally godawful white suits.)

I was recently disappointed by the late Meg Greenfield's "Washington." Except for a few bright spots, it was as dull as her Newsweek columns. Hard to understand how someone as sharp, informed, and talented as Greenfield could manage to be so numbingly anodyne much of the time.

I must agree regretfully with Nanatchka that The Lovely Bones was a dud.

Reading Seabiscuit last summer made me return to William Nack's Secretariat: the Making of a Champion. Still the best racehorse bio I have read, and one of the best sports bios I've read, period.

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Opps, sorry, I see my earlier post was posted in this forum instead of the forum about childhood/teen reading experiences. I was planning to post in both this and the other forum and obviously got confused where I was. Hey, it was late! Please, move my previous post to the appropriate forum. Sorry, again.

As for my summer reading, I ordered the biography of "Karen Kain, Movement Never Lies." This after reading a brief thread on BA. I had never heard of her and am finding it a good read. Also reading "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser, "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore and my usual, at least one summer retreat book, to rejuvenate me for the next school year, "Understanding the Human Being" by Silvana Quattrocchi Montanaro.

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Justdoit -- I noticed that, but, although it's technically possible to move one post from a thread to another, I'm afraid to chance it. It's also very easy to delete everything when you're doing it :) So we'll just think that you enjoy staying in touch with your inner child :)

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ed waffle - i think it was 'magister (rather than 'magistrar') ludi' - please tell me if i am wrong, as i haven't thought about this book for many years? i too remember enjoying that (to a lesser degree than 'siddhartha').

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It is "Magister Ludi," grace. Ed's comments remind me of high school, which is when I remember seeing all those Hesse paperbacks, although the vogue for him started much earlier. I didn't get him, but I give myself no credit for precocious good taste. I remember being wowed by Henry Miller at about the same age. :)

I'm glad we were able to guide you to Karen Kain's book, Justdoit. I had never been specially interested in her and initially went to the book looking for Nureyev info, but I found the whole book a good read. Great pictures, too. I wish more publishers would realize how essential those are to a successful dance book.

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Guest dublindancer722

honors english... haha... the only one i would actually recommend is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

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If you've been following this forum and wondered what happened to the posts on the Red Tent, I've split them off and started another thread.

Perhaps at this point, since we've all posted our reading lists, if we have one particular book that we're reading, it could be a new topic -- that would encourage discussion of that book, and more people would notice that the discussion is ongoing.

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I have just received two copies of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - one is the British edition, the other is from the USA. Initially I'd heard there were differences between the two...at least in earlier books...but so far these two seem to be the same.

I am thinking of reading Seabiscuit and will have to scroll back through this thread to see if anyone else has commented upon it.

Unfortunately the Da Vinci Code just doesn't seem like my cup of tea. :) On the other hand, I loved Umberto Ecco's The Name of the Rose, which was filled with its own cryptic/religous mysteries.

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I couldn't resist what everyone said about the DaVinci Code. I picked it up before I left to take my DD to her SI. I read it on the plane both directions, and every moment I was not messing with getting my daughter settled. It what everyone promised it would be. I'm nearly finished, and it is really hard to put down.

My DD is reading the new HP (Harry Potter) book when she takes a break from the many social activities at her SI. When she gets back, I will start it. She tells me there are many new characters. My sister said she is making a list of all the new characters so she can keep them straight.

Until then I am picking up an old one - At Home in Mitford. Somehow I missed this book its first time around.

I don't know how much more varied (and light) a reading list can get - but I suppose that is what one should do over the summer.

Cristina

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Originally posted by BW

I am thinking of reading Seabiscuit and will have to scroll back through this thread to see if anyone else has commented upon it.

Both my wife and I thought Seabiscuit was a delightful book and one well worth reading. It is full of different types and classes of people overcoming adversity, but is not told in a saccharine way at all.

The thread that holds the stories together, of course, is the thoroughbred Seabiscuit. The resonse to him was electric--those who owned, trained, rode and groomed him, the bettors at the tracks and even men and women who never went to a track. He was a real celebrity during the depression.

Extremely well researched and beautifully written, with more than one tear-jerking scene, including the reaction of Seabiscuit's owner when the horse died.

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"Seabiscuit" is a wonderful book, and the current issue of The New Yorker (July 7) has a "Personal History" by its author, Laura Hillenbrand, that puts her great achievement into perspective. She suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and the article, "A Sudden Illness," is a harrowing account of the onset of her illness, the difficulties in getting it diagnosed, and her struggle to write the book and go on living. It's brilliant and very moving.

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I very much enjoyed Seabiscuit -- a book I doubt I'd have found were it not for the recommendations here. I did think it dragged on a bit -- I found my enthusiasm waning, even though there is a bit of suspense toward the end. Nevertheless, I encourage you to check it out, BW.

BTW, the movie is going to be released in, I think, the fall.

As for the varying versions of Harry Potter -- I noticed that the American version includes MUCH more Brit-speak than previous volumes. "Trainers" for "sneakers", that sort of thing. I am glad about this; those of us raised on earlier British kids' literature managed to muddle through and were possibly even enriched by learning that a hood is a bonnet, a diaper is a nappy, and a flashlight is a torch. I always thought having an Americanized version sort of "dumbed down" the book, culturally speaking.

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I gave up on The Red Tent about 150 pages into it. I decided I just plain didn't like it. So I've started Life of Pi and am enjoying it very much. I don't recall that anyone mentioned it in this thread. Several friends have recommended it to me.

Another book just handed to me by a friend is called Three Junes . I'd not heard of it till now.

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I just finished Isadora Duncan's "My Life" and have just started "Narcissus and Goldmund" by Hermann Hesse. It must be ten years since I last read it.

I'm still waiting for "Ballet or Ballyhoo" by Barbara Barker to arrive in the mail, so if it is not here when I finish the Hesse I might read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone. I loved that one fifteen years ago and would like to re-read it.

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