What are you reading the week of December 27, 2009?

Until Proven Guilty by J A Jance

compares Erikson to Tolkein. Most books (9 so far, absolutely no dimunition of quality like Jordan after book 3) over 1000 pages. It just gets better with ever book.

Sierra Club Guide to bike touring.

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A friend has been bugging me for years to read some Sherlock Holmes. I just saw the new Holmes movie and it was so different from the other movie versions I have seen that I finally decided this would be a good time to go to the library and check out a couple of the actual books :)

I re-read them every so often.

The latest Inspector Lynley mystery.

Lots of characters, as usual for George.

But good.

Total crap, as in, poorly written.

This review from Amazon sums it up:

"This mystery is a real summer beach book. It is meant to be taken to the beach and left on the sand. Maybe some surfer will use to light a fire.

Actually, it is a bit of a hoot at times. The author liberally uses adjectives to the point of gluttony. Women have "masses of toffee-colored hair" Men sport "tousled ebony curls."All the women are cooly professional meddlers except for the fat, sweaty, brain-dead females of the congregation, while the men are either defense lawyers with noble goals, strong in their disabilities or heroic fighter pilots with piercing blue eyes and sea-burnished skin. Unless, of course, they are the evil fundamentalist groupies who have pustulent skin, greasy hair and braying voices.

Maybe the author should stick with "bodice-rippers" and leave serious thriller writing to the professionals who can actually draw characters."

http://www.amazon.com/review/RQM0GB0VJM4XI/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

"The Humbling"

I read mostly young adult fiction, which is just like adult fiction only without the bullshit. (just kidding...quoting a NYC librarian on that one)

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead -- getting lots of acclaim in the YA world. Possible Newbery Award contender?
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Nailed by Patrick Jones

All four are great so far. Now I need to pick one and stick with it to get this book pile tackled.

Just finished OPEN by Andre Agassi and I loved it. Next non-fic up is Ted Kennedy's COMPASS.

by Elizabeth Strout. So far it's pretty good. It won the Pulitzer and there have been times when I've read a Putlizer Prize winner and went :wtf:

Anyway, the plot concerns a man who is murdered several months after his wife disappears. Why was he killed, where is his wife, and what will be the fate of their little daughter?

About a former Detroit cop now living in the UP, MI.

Pretty good...

This is second in series. Good, so far..

The further adventures of "contract surgeon" Valentine McGillycuddy, the new Indian agent for the Pine Ridge Agency in the Dakota Territories circa 1870s-1880s.

Just finished Dan Simmon's Hyperion which was absolutely brilliant. It's really seven stories in one. My favorite was "The scholar's tale."