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Bibliophile - September


What a great month of reading. The much anticipated third and final volume of Ken Follett's Century Trilogy - Edge of Eternity - was released. I read the first volume in August of 2011 and the second volume in November of 2012. It's been a long wait but the conclusion of this sprawling tale was worth it. The interesting aspect of Follett's epic has to be how he sets his characters against actual events of history. For example a main character works for Bobby Kennedy. Another, for Nikita Khrushchev and so on. I enjoyed this tomb although at over 1000 pages it took a while to read.

Another highlight was the recently published The Bone Clocks a fascinating tale of time travel and the supernatural. The story centres on a central character but the various sections of the book are told from the perspective of people she comes into contact with. I loved it.

And The Rosie Project was a hilarious read involving a fellow who develops a questionnaire in order to determine worthy wife prospects.

My favourite music book this week was Hard Listening about a group called the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of writers and their friends who played rock and roll in their spare time for twenty years. Not so unusual until you realize the group membership includes Stephen King, Dave Barry, Mitch Albom, Matt Groening and a host of others. Another funny read.

I got through seven books in September bringing my year to date total to 76. Here's the seven I read.

A Morning For Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux 4/20) - James Lee Burke ****
The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion *****
Hard Listening - Rock Bottom Remainders ****
The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell *****
The Children Act - Ian McEwan ****
Edge of Eternity, Volume Three of The Century Trilogy - Ken Follett *****
Me The Mob and The Music - Tommy James ***

What have you been reading lately?

Comments

jannaverse said…
I remember reading Dave Barry books and hearing him tell funny stories about the Rock Bottom Remainders. I always wondered what a group with Stephen King would sound like.

P.S. It turns out Disqus appears wonderfully quickly on WiFi. I'm listing to R.E.M. videos even as we speak.
And, when I say "we", I mean all my molecules that are happy to be on WiFi instead of stone-age dial-up.
(On my other computer I was just about to discover the wheel and fire. I'd heard good things.)
nonamedufus said…
Yeah i recall reading articles about them too. Who knew they'd been playing for 20 years and have now packed it in.


The wheel worked out really well. Fire not so much.
You really have been rocking the reading and the big books too. I'm just plugging away very slowly...only four books last month. Right now reading-wise, I'm wiping the slate clean pretty much (taking everything on hold on ebook at the Free Library of Philadelphia off hold). The only thing on my plate is a contemporary poetry collection about Pennsylvania cleverly called Common Wealth since Pennsylvania is a commonwealth. Get it? ;)
The wheel works out until you get ground down on it. Or you have to run on it every day. :) Sorry, just felt compelled to add my two cents. I'm with Jenna, though, I love WiFi too. Data not so much.
jannaverse said…
Au contraire; fire is used for flame-grilling BBQ ribs and bacon cheeseburgers.
I would almost be willing to walk away from WiFi for those.
Unless some kind person could just walk over and hand it to me, of course.

Getting slightly back on topic, which instrument did Stephen King play? (I can't remember if Dave Barry specified or not.) I really hope he was a bass player, because that would just be totally awesome.
jannaverse said…
Gggghhh. I just realized I said "listing" instead of "listening". Which makes it sound like I'm aboard a sinking ship and my last request was to check out "Shiny Happy People" one last time.

I guess that could happen.
nonamedufus said…
But Bryan I thought you used your wheel to power your TV?
nonamedufus said…
Isn't flame-grilling the way the competition (horrors) Burger King cooks their stuff? And I use the word "cook" loosely.
That's why I'm ground down on it.
nonamedufus said…
Oh, and I believe Stephen King played rhythm guitar.
nonamedufus said…
Or your McDonald's could be sinking.
nonamedufus said…
I have undertaken a few big books but luckily I enjoyed them. I'd hate to invest all that time in something meh.


That comment of yours was pretty rich, Bryan.
nonamedufus said…
Bryan and Janna this is the most comments I've received on a book post...ever.
nonamedufus said…
Hence the need for fire. You need to light a fire under yourself.
jannaverse said…
I thought about that as I was typing it, but didn't want to actually spell out the name of the competition, for fear they would cancel my WiFi privileges.
jannaverse said…
Drat. Well, the Stephen King who lives in my head plays bass. He also likes brussels sprouts, but I try not to hold that against him.
jannaverse said…
Yay for literacy and WiFi. Not necessarily in that order.

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