I re-read Post Office (Bukowski), Ballroom (Lifshin) and have started Gertrude Bell, Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations (Howell)

What did you read?

Magic School Bus:  Expedition Down Under (hahahaha with my first graders)

(also The Dance Most of All - Poems by Jack Gilbert)

:)  good thread Lavonne! M

Wolf Woods Girl - Hoogland
Bellyful of anarchy - Plath

Just got some Guilty Pleasure from Amazon - Dead Zero - Hunter

i read:

the continual condition - bukowski
if there is something to desire - verra pavlova
        (picked it up at half price books. 100 pretty short poems.  i love that store.)

tiko

Reading Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin and Lyrical BALLADS edited my Michael Mason.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, Alexander McCall Smith. 12th in No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, not as good as the first 10, but I'm hooked in bad. Tom

anthony bourdain - bone in the throat (just finished)
nikki giovanni - love poems (ongoing)
orson scott card - enders game (just started)

and of course,
Trash & Crackers

annnnnnd my notepad jumps on the couch next to me, always killer to discover new names!  lawrence

I'm gathering a very long list to explore!  Lawrence - How was that Bourdain book? He is such a wonderful bastard.

Lavonne-

read Post Office for the first time a few months back, a fantastic read!  although, in all my consumption of Bukowski, his in-home encounter with that female companion seemed to cross the line legally, if you catch my drift (would hate to spoil for anyone who has not yet read!)

the Bourdain book was mediocre.  now, this was my first foray into his fiction writing. a fast, fun read for sure, but not much depth.  previously, i had read his book A Cook's Tour, which i thought was much better.  the traveling, the characters, and that is the book that launched No Reservations.  he is such a wonderful bastard, but sometimes fairly conceited!  but you have to love his foul mouthed sassiness!  lawrence

Forgot - Rourke "The Canal" - Good stuff...

Lawrence, I was very disappointed in Giovanni's Love Poems. Not a one rocked me.

Didn't they just try that as a TV show, Tom. Heard something about it being cancelled.

Yes, saw every episode, thought it was uniformly marvelous, am in mourning over cancellation.

where am i when all this good tv is going on?

Lawrence, have you read Women? I'm on a quest to read every one of his books. So I've started over with the ones I have on hand and have more on order!

Been reading The Orientalist  by Tom Reiss. An incredible work of historical weaving. Deals with uncovering of the identity of Kurban Said who wrote a wonderful love story, Ali and Nino published in 1937 and is still in print. Reiss concludes that Said is Lev Nussimbaum who wrote under the pen name Essad Bey. He was a Russian Jew born in Baku on the Caspian Sea, in teh Caucusus, now Azerbaijan. Nussimbaum witnessed the Russian Revolution, the death of Nicholas, the rise of anti-semitism in Germany, aquainted with Pasternak, Nabakov. The book does an amazing job of creating perspective of that extraordinarily upside down time in history.

Also, The Collected Poems of James Tate. Highly recommend both.

Larry they sound great. I have them on order.  Oh and Tom, I just got the first five in the Detective series. I'm gonna be a busy girl.

wait till it comes to Netflix, el vee.  And on a rainy Saturday...................you can get it all in. That's my plan.

Lavonne i have not read Women as of yet, will have to put that in my chinaski queue.  so far i've scratched these off his list-
Open All Night, poems
Hot Water Music
Post Office
Come On In, poems

and all winners for me.  Maggie -  i very much share your views on giovanni's Love Poems.  i am half way through and honestly it reads very elementary for me.  quite a contrast from when i saw her read as an undergrad and Ego Trippin oozed down my chin.  i did recently pick up her collection, Cotton Candy on A Rainy Day at a used bookstore in boulder and have much higher hopes!  lawrence

49 pages into No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  Delightful read so far!

Well, good luck. It's my melomel.

Finished No. 1.  So I knew when she said she couldn't help the schoolteacher find his son, that she would find the son; and I knew when she said she would never marry, that she would marry; and I knew when the child's bone was found that it would not be the bone of THAT child, and yet, and yet, I still cried when the father once again held his son in his arms and I closed the book smiling when she said yes. 

A very good book indeed. I look forward to the rest!

You're right, Lavonne. No tricks, simple-seeming writing style. I can't pin down, myself, what he does that works so well. Glad you got your $'s worth from #1! Tom

Tom. Have you read Little Bee by Chris Cleave?  An absolutely marvelous though sometime terrifying book.  There is the same authentic sounding female african voice telling the story. I recommend it highly.

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Little-Bee/Chris-Cleave/9781416589631

I tried Little Bee but didn't get into it, Lavonne. I am an absolute PAIN when it comes to fiction.

Tom - finished Tears of the Giraffe and am halfway through Morality for Beautiful Girls - I'm hooked. 

Wouldn't this make a fine TV series?

Oh, dear. But there are 12-step programs.

Anthony Minghella made one season for TV in England -- ABSOLUTELY marvelous.

OK - I'm going searching for the DVD.

Got it.  And I only have half of number 5 left to read. I can pretty much read half of one of the books during lunch at work.  Anyway I have the other five on order.  Will wait for number 11 until it comes out in paperback - I want the set to match!

There's a bit of a drop off for me in the last two. Curious to see what you think. Oh, how I wish I could watch the TV episodes again for the first time! I'm jealous. Tom