Ahira's Hangar

Rereading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the group read over on the Watch.

...still working on The Illuminati. Slow going, cause the POV jumping is driving me crazy.

I'm a bit burned out on fantasy & science fiction right now, so am continuing to read some general fiction and historical fiction.

I just finished reading Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas. It is historical fiction, set in Iowa in the American Civil War. A teenaged bride - flighty and flirty and very immature - is left on her new husband's family farm with his dour mother while he goes off to fight for the Union. Needless to say, there is a lot of suffering on the home front, and the girl grows and changes drastically as a result of witnessing the suffering of others (she goes from being a very prejudiced person to someone who welcomes an African American to join in for Christmas family dinner, for example) or from the direct suffering of herself, her family, and her friends.

About to start reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Sweetsmoke by David Fuller. It is historical fiction from the POV of a Virginia slave during the Civil War. It is a debut novel, and very well written.

Just finished Sweetsmoke by David Fuller. It is his first novel, and it was quite good. It was historical fiction, set in th Civil War in Virginia. Cassius is a slave on a tobacco plantation called Sweetsmoke. A friend of his, a freed black woman who serves the larger community as an herbalist and fortune teller, is murdered. Despite the restraints put upon him as a slave, Cassius vows to find the killer of the woman who taught him to read and once saved both his life and his sanilty and bring that person to justice.

Among other things I liked about the book is the complicated love/hate relationship between Cassius and his master. And how it shows that in trying to dehumanize the blacks, the whites succeeded in dehumanizing themselves every bit as much.

next up:
Scheisshaus Luck, the memoir of a French gentile who had the terrible luck of visiting a friend on the same day the Gestapo came and being carried off to Auschwitz at age 18. Reading this sort of thing tends to be painful, but it important for us all to remember what happened in the death camps.

Last Saturday, I re-read (for the umpteenth time) all 5 volumes of The Borrowers, by Mary Norton. Don't know why, just had the urge.

Has anyone else read these books? I first read them when I was a child and have always enjoyed them.

Hahaha, yeah I loved them. Especially how everyday items take on entire new funtions and meanings to them. Years later, I was reminded of them by Pratchett's "juvenile" series, Diggers, Truckers, and Wings. Also very good.

--A

Just remember, human beans are put on this earth to provide for borrowers.

Just picked up George Martin A Game of Thrones so hopefully after a while I can read through your comments on the GM thread.

Nearly finished rereading Snow Crash, after a reread of Gates of Fire. Next up will be Tombs of Atuan, for the WoE group read.

--A

Finished Dragonfly in Amber and put a hold on Voyager at the library.
Next up for me is also a reread of The Tombs of Atuan for the group read.

After reading four YA novels by Heinlein (and loving three of them), I am about to read some historical fiction about Alexander the Great, called The Afghan Campaign by Steven Pressfield (he is the same guy who wrote Gates of Fire).

Foamy picked up a book called at the library and encouraged me to read it. It starts out a bit oddly, but turned out to be a really good read.

It also made me crave cheese.

Anyone ever heard of this book or author?

I have not heard of it, but will keep an eye out if you and Foamy both like the book.

You are making me crave cheese as well. MMMMMMMM. Hungry! CHEEEEEEEEEEESE!!

The other thing that book did was get the Sound of Music soundtrack stuck in my head.

If you read it, you'll find out why.

I've been reading lots of history and mythology, thanks in part to research I needed to do for the NaNo novel. (It always comes back to that bloody novel for me, doesn't it? )

I'm taking a break from the Slavs for now and reading "A Brief History of the Normans", which I found at the library. Mom was Czech (hence the Slavic stuff); Dad was Irish (among other stuff), and more specifically an ancestor was among the Normans who came to Ireland with Strongbow in 1100-and-something (hence the Norman thing).

On the way back from Roanoke last weekend, I stopped at Green Valley Bookfair in Harrisonburg, VA, and picked up several remaindered books for the reading stack: among them, a history of Boudica, a book of Slavic (mostly Russian, alas) myth, and four plays by the Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (in translation, thanks very much! ). I've also got a book of Native American myth that needs to go back to the library with the Normans at some point....