i'm (of course) an incorrigible bibliophile; and this is my latest pleasure (that had nothing to do with school, etc.)

I just read [ame="http://www.amazon.com/The-Impostors-Daughter-True-Memoir/dp/B005OHUK7M"]The Imposter's Daughter[/ame]--and loved it. I wanted something confessional and structurally complex. For those who love a memoir, it's fantastic--and for those who adore comic prose, it's breathtaking.

daisygrrl, I soooo loved The Imposter's Daughter! It would figure you loved it too! You're the first person I've talked to who has also read it :).

I am reading "I am the Central Park Jogger." Well, I'm listening to it on tape, let's be honest here. It's read by the author which is cool. It's certainly a heavy topic. It's very well-written and flows beautifully. Much of it is about how one recovers from a traumatic injury which I find to be quite fascinating.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Am-Central-Park-Jogger-Possibility/dp/B000C4SZ10/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369443499&sr=8-1&keywords=the+central+park+jogger"]I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility: Trisha Meili: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]


On a much lighter note, I'm listening to the CD of the new David Sedaris book: Let's explore Diabetes with Owls. It's a collection of his usual humorous, memoir-type essays. He always reads his own books for the recording, and I love his voice. It's very soothing, and he clearly gets a kick out of himself which is kind of sweet. I'm a little less into it because I've already read most of these essays by him in the New Yorker. Oh, what can ya do?

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Explore-Diabetes-David-Sedaris/dp/0316154695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369443666&sr=8-1&keywords=understanding+owls+diabetes"]Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: David Sedaris: 9780316154697: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

Hi everyone, I am very interested in reading a biography about Elena Sendler. Google search provided "Courageous Heart."

I welcome your suggestions regarding a good read
about her.

Thanks.
Brock

I downloaded this last night, just finished. I usually buy graphic novels (or in this case, graphic memoirs) in hard copy, but the iPad/Kindle app did a good job with the graphics.

Great read, thanks for bringing it to my attention! It has this interesting blend of titillating and insightful. Now that I think of it, that's the standard addiction-memoir formula, but it's interesting to see it as an illustrated narrative. The ending is a bit too tidy and abrupt for my taste, but that might have more to do with the comic book format/presentation.


Recommended!

I'm reading the 'Killer Wore Leather' by Laura Antoniou. It's very amusing, humorous, and if you have ever been to a leather contest - you will laugh your arse off.

superb.
 

Currently reading:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/End-All-Wars-Rebellion-1914-1918/dp/B009LPNH0K/ref=la_B000APHVX4_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369616575&sr=1-2"]To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918[/ame]
by Adam Hochschild.

World War I was supposed to be the “war to end all wars.” Over four long years, nations around the globe were sucked into the tempest, and millions of men died on the battlefields. To this day, the war stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation.

To End All Wars focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Many of these dissenters were thrown in jail for their opposition to the war, from a future Nobel Prize winner to an editor behind bars who distributed a clandestine newspaper on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britain’s most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other.

As Adam Hochschild brings the Great War to life as never before, he forces us to confront the big questions: Why did so many nations get so swept up in the violence? Why couldn’t cooler heads prevail? And can we ever avoid repeating history?

Summer Reading List (personal studies)
 

My summer reading list will comprise largely a re-reading of books authored by Salman Rushdie and Dr. Khaled Hosseini:

Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, 1981; Shame, 1983; The Satanic Verses, 1988; The Moor's Last Sigh, 1995; The Ground Beneath Her Feet, 1999; and, Shalimar The Clown, 2005).

Dr. Khaled Hosseini (And The Mountains Echoed, 2013).

I once took several sociology study classes, at an undergraduate level, wherein the current professor of studies was an ardent admirer of Rushdie and his post-colonial views, as both Rushdie and my former professor are members of the Indian Diaspora. Reading the Rushdie collection of books will be my all-summer immersion study on the works of Salman Rushdie and to add toward notes I have kept since the time I undertook sociology courses in post-colonialism.

Reading the newest book by Hosseini will largely be my own independent and extended study on issues pertinent to Family Communication studies. When I set time aside for this reading project, it won't be for pleasure (per se), but more along the lines of critical analysis on as-near current theorems pertaining to Family Communication. My approach will be to read his newest book as if it were an upper-graduate course reader; compiling an annotated bibliography that connects previous scholarly authored works within the frame of Family Communication.

Toward the end of summer, I was just sharing with Katniss that, I was looking for recommendation, hoping to come across a book (fiction or non-fiction) that might have a dose or two of romance but not mushy romance: I am looking for something more along the lines of a good crime-like novel or mystery or, unsuspectingly, something that un-nerves the reader in a good way. I would welcome any suggestions, from our coummunity of readers, with appreciation.

I'm reading (well, listening) to the book:

"On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave"
by Daniel Hays

This is my second time listening to it. I'm listening to it on tape (Yes, I love old-fashioned tape recorders.). It's a memoir about a man who takes his wife and step-child to live on a small, rugged island for a year. He goes through the day to day tasks and problems and miraculous moments with nature. I love it because it takes me out of my urban world and makes me feel like I'm living on the island too. The author reads it aloud himself so that only adds to feeling like I'm there. His love for the hardship and beauty of this way of living is evident, and clearly if his wife didn't feel understandably stifled by it, he'd stay there indefinitely. I love learning about other cultures and ways of life by hearing/reading someone's lived experience. He's a good writer and funny too. It's a very real book, like he's sitting across the table, telling all about it. Thumbs up. I always love this kind of book.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Whale-Island-Notes-Place-Never/dp/156512345X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369789817&sr=1-1&keywords=whale+island"]On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave: Daniel Hays: 9781565123458: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

I finally finished 'Life After Life' by Kate Atkinson.
It was a tome, and it was a bit of a slow start; I had to push through the first 100 pages, when I finally got into it I finished it in two marathon sessions. I enjoyed it once I got it to it.

I've just started reading '[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Penumbras-24-hour-Bookstore-ebook/dp/B008FPOIT6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369855109&sr=8-1&keywords=penumbra"]Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore[/ame]' by Robin Sloan. It's a very funny and easy read... delightful, in fact. I was giggling aloud all the way through the first few chapters.

I am almost finished reading History's Greatest Mysteries and The Secrets Behind Them - Bill Price

The next two books I have lined up to read are

Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World - John Shelby Spong

In this thorough, substantive guide, Spong explores the origin and essential meaning of each of the individual books in the Bible, examining the background, the context, the level of authenticity. He explains why these particular books, written between two and three thousand years ago, came to be regarded as authoritative and preserved as sacred; he traces the pathway that biblical religion has traveled as it evolved through the centuries, and shows how people have misused many of these texts in the service of their prejudices.


Civil War Top Ten - Thomas R. Flagel

A ranking of the best, the worst, the bloodiest, and the most important people and events of the war between the states.

I'm about halfway through "The Imposter's Daughter" and love it!!

Also started "The Warmth of Other Suns" on recommendation from Juney and it's a fascinating read.

From the New York Times review of "The Warmth of Other Suns":


In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

The book is beautifully written this is a great book for anyone thinking about going vegan. Lots of information , great true stories of lots of people recovering from diseases. Liking it.....


http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/978160286...2_s260x420.JPG

Walden; Or, Life In The Woods~ Henry David Thoreau

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is the autobiography of James McBride first published in 1995; it is also a tribute to his mother. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life and first-person accounts of his mother Ruth's life, mostly taking place before her son was born. McBride depicts the conflicting emotions that he endured as he struggled to discover who he truly was, as his mother narrates the hardships that she had to overcome as a white, Jewish woman who chose to marry a black man 1942.

The Wolf Gift Anne Rice