Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography by Sidney Landau of OED.
This was a non-fiction recommendation after I read The Professor and the Madman. It covers everything I didn't know about the history and making of dictionaries, which is quite a lot.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Lisa Tuttle: The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief - Jesperson and Lane Book I
Mr Jesperson and Miss Lane are Victorian detectives! This was a great deal of fun.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris by John Baxter.
Really good book if you've been and want to "re-live" the experience and if you haven't been and are planning to go at some point.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly. Did exactly what the title claims, very broad, worldwide history of the Plague in the 1300's. Excellent!
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
A Year in Paris, by Janice MacLeod.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
• Octavia Butler - Bloodchild and Other Stories
Enjoyed - good short stories, author's afterwords plus some articles. I think I've not actually read any of her novels despite knowing how important she is in the field, have added them to the list.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
We're now in hurricane season in these parts, so - - *Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm* ed. by Casey Edward Greene and Shelly Henley Kelly. Accounts of the storm and its aftermath as told in letters and memoirs written by those who lived through it. A fascinating read - - I am much impressed by the quality of the prose in the letters/memoirs.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Leviathan, the History of Whaling in America by Eric Jay Dolin. The most in depth (no pun intended) treatment I’ve read so far. The author is a commentator for the 2 hour documentary called “Into the Deep”.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES by Hiro Arikawa. In fact, it was a reread as it's just "one of those books" that charm, inform and capture the reader.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I love the books of this author...Alexander McCall Smith is so prolific. He has many different people in his many, ongoing series....and I enjoy reading about Scotland.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Superb book and indeed hard to put down, despite its size! :)
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ThriveToScribe
THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES by Hiro Arikawa. In fact, it was a reread as it's just "one of those books" that charm, inform and capture the reader.
I read this one too and liked it quite a lot.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
I finished Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty a few days ago. I liked it. A mystery on a generation ship. Clones. Revenge.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
If you've not read it yet, I recommend Nathaniel Philbrick's *In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.*. The tale of the Essex inspired the novel *Moby Dick.*
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Voiren
Lisa Tuttle: The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief - Jesperson and Lane Book I
Mr Jesperson and Miss Lane are Victorian detectives! This was a great deal of fun.
I'm going to have to try this. I love Lisa Tuttle's books.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
You're Only Old Once, by Dr. Seuss.
One of the book's drawings depicts the harried patient using a fountain pen to fill out forms.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
• Richard Holmes - The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
Very readable, interesting, and if various family members don't have this already I'm getting them all it for Christmas. It starts with Joseph Banks and his travels with Captain Cook, concentrating on Tahiti, follows him to being President of the Royal Society, goes to William and Caroline Herschel and their telescopes, off on a section about ballooning and the British scientific establishment's scepticism of its utility in science, back to Banks, then a large section on Humphrey Davy, plus Michael Faraday and John Herschel and ends with the heading towards Victorian science.
The threads are all somewhat intertwined, and there's lots of mention of others in the vicinity, and quotes from poetry. What struck me was how many of the poets at this time were writing in detail about science, and how many of the natural philosophers ('scientist' only gets coined right at the end of this book) were also writing poetry.
It is a book very much interested in how people's lives, surroundings and interactions led to their discoveries - you can tell that another writer may well have chosen another through-line and to emphasise different parts of their lives, but this was fascinating.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bisquitlips
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris by John Baxter.
Really good book if you've been and want to "re-live" the experience and if you haven't been and are planning to go at some point.
Thank you. Just ordered the book from Alibris.
Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?
Creativity Unzipped, by Jan Phillips and Ruth Westreich.
Just picked up Alice Kaplan's Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis from the library.