What are you reading?

[user 30781]

William Least Heat Moon's book about writing Blue Highways is well written but I just can't get into it. I ordered a couple used books on Amazon by Laurie Colwin and they came in one day after the other so I'm reading those while waiting for the next regular book to come in. The Colwin books are Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. Home Cooking has a recipe for Jamaican Black Cake that's fascinated me since I read the book the first time years ago. One day I will make it!

 

[vanbrat]

The Moonchild must be a different book. I'm reading The Moorchild and it is not scary. In fact, it is delightful.



Just finished The White Stag and hated it with a passion. It is about Attila the Hun and his family, bloodshed, aggression, and a pagan fire god. Not a happy read for me. Can't believe this won the Newbery Medal in 1938. Why? The same year On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls was a Newbery honor book. They should have chosen that one - people still read it and the rest of the Little House series all the time.

That is definitely a different book. The moonchild book I was reading was about a child that died but came back to life as something of a monster and had to be buried in a sacred ground or something and was dug up in construction 100 years later or something. Not my usual read...

 

[travelaround]

The Booktube Spin is tomorrow. Which California-themed book will I be reading... here are the choices..

[video=youtube]

 

[travelaround]

Results! Rick just posted his spin video, and he spun the wheel twice this time!

Oh my goodness, I'm so excited! I like both of the books. #2 is California Gold by John Jakes, and #20 is The Barbary Coast by Herbert Asbury. So I'll be reading those two books during the next three months.

Here's Rick's video...

[video=youtube]

 

[user 30781]

So I went kind of nuts last week and ordered 5 used cookbooks off Amazon. Two British, 2 Laurie Colwin books and one called Screen Doors and Sweet Tea by Martha Hall Foose which I had checked out from the library long ago and really liked. Screen Doors came and I was laying in bed last night reading it and eating breadsticks (good thing I live alone) and was reading the recipe for Sweet Tea Pie. She starts out by saying something like "Anytime I've been written about, this recipe is usually mentioned." Anytime she's written about? Who is this person? I close the book and look at her name....Martha Hall Foose....OMG! She was in the book Dispatches from Pluto by Richard Grant that I read a few months ago and absolutely loved! So I had to order that too last night. It's a GREAT book!

 

[travelaround]

I admire great cooks - because they do something I'm pretty much incapable of. My talents (?) have never extended to cooking, but I love watching cooking shows on TV. I keep hoping some of that will rub off on me - but since I have nobody else to cook for I don't try very hard. My cookbook collection burned in the fire and I haven't missed it.

 

[user 30781]

I really have no business ordering books after giving away so many boxes to the thrift store earlier this year because I'm trying to downsize. Especially after helping deal with my kid's dad's estate. I don't ever want my kids to have to deal with that again, all that stuff. Plus, I'm going to have to do it anyway if I go fulltime.

But I love books so much!

 

[travelaround]

Yes, I've already bought more than I can take along in my van with me. I'll need to leave them in storage here, while I travel. I hope that storage will be on my property - I don't want a storage bin. Of course, there's the cargo trailer if nothing else.

Tonight I started reading Incident at Hawk's Hill.

 

[travelaround]

Lovely day for reading a book.

I'm trying to decide what my next audiobook will be. Right now I'm still listening to a classic - Lark Rise to Candleford (three books in one volume) .. by Flora Thompson.

I think when I'm done with this I'll listen to Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

I'm planning this in advance because I'm going to Yreka in a few days and that will give me a minimum of four hours listening time while driving.

 

[user 30781]

I ran out of library books so I grabbed something out of my own collection I haven't read for a while.

Looking for Betty MacDonald by Paula Becker who is a staff historian for Washington's History Link. What a labor of love this book is and I completely understand why. When I was about 9 or 10 my mother handed me The Egg and I and I have loved Betty MacDonald ever since. In my late 20s I discovered that she had written 3 more memoir type books and bought those as soon as I found them. Also bought all the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books for my kids when they were littles.

So I read "Looking" over the last two evenings, finished it last night (crying) and started the Egg and I. Will read that and the other three over the next week or so.

 

[crofter]

Forest Service technical bulletins about vault toilet construction and the new vault dryers, plus how microbio digesters work.
-crofter

 

[GypsyJan]

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck and I can't believe how relevent to nomads it still is!

 

[user 30781]

^^ That book made me want a standard poodle. lol

 

[GypsyJan]

"That book made me want a standard poodle. lol"

I know...that Charley was a wonderful dog.

 

[user 30781]

He was! What was it he said? "Pfft"?

 

[travelaround]

I think I'd rather have the green truck with camper.

I've been listening to Roughing It, by Mark Twain via audio..

Reading Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen via Kindle..

And in my paperback pile, today started a reread of The Barbary Coast, by Herbert Asbury... which years ago I read maybe 1/3 of. I started over from the beginning. This is the history of San Francisco from the beginning through the gold rush.

A man named Captain W.A. Richardson built the first home in Yerba Buena Cove in 1835 after being appointed harbor master there. It was 4 redwood posts with a canvas sail over them. Apparently the only previous structures in the area were Mission Delores 2+1/2 miles south of there, and the Presidio, a Mexican military post near the Golden Gate, both established in 1776.

 

[user 423]

^^ That book made me want a standard poodle. lol

The couple I'm renting S&B from has a 7-month old pup that is half standard poodle and half coonhound (a coodle?). His name is Henry and they are trying to get me to take him with me when I hit the road. They have another pup and have found that they're too much to handle sometimes.

 

[user 30781]

^^ Oh man, that sounds like it could be an interesting blend as far as personality goes.

I know a lot of people have their doggos on the road but I don't think I could do it.

 

[maki2]

Working on the Nevada Barr series of murder mysteries set in National Parks. They are popular so they are easy to find online as e- books or audio books in public libraries.

 

[bullfrog]

I met her a few years ago and was impressed she came to visit rangers that had been involved in similar cases she was writing about.