What are you reading?

[yiddishkopf]

My significant other and I just booked the Hawaii cruise for 4-6-10. There are a lot of sea days, which I love, especially when I have good reading material. When I find a good book, and I have a trip coming up, I hold the book until the next trip. My daughters claim I am a book hoarder!

 

Recently, I have read Wally Lamb's newest book The Hour I First Believed. Also, I've read a number of Johnathan Kellerman and Fay Kellerman books, also Michael Collins newest Scarecrow.

 

I tried The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but I couldn't get into it (I think that is the correct title). I've finished a few of Daniel Silva's books but I want to wait to get his newest one for the Hawaii trip.

 

Please let me know what you have read or what you are planning t read. I welcome your suggestions.

[Krazy Kruizers]

All HAL ships have great libraries if you run out of reading material on those sea days.

[Redsailstheseas]

Have you read Michner's Hawaii ?

He usually has a wonderful amount of history in his fiction (hence the category "historical fiction")

 

I'm reading his Caribbean in preparation for my Feb 2010 cruise.

[catl331]

It is best to bring along a few paperbacks and leave them for others in the library. Edgar Sawtelle and Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth are probably a no-no on a cruise--too big to carry. Sawtelle was hard for me to get into also. The HAL ship libraries are wonderful. I am just finishing "It's not about Tapas" by Polly Evans. Nonfiction paperback about a young woman traveling Spain on a bicycle. She brings into the story historical, biographical and foodie tidbits about the area she is traveling in. I have put 3 others by her on hold at our local library.:)

[Archie's Mom]

Boy do I love to talk great novels with a fellow reader! My passion is contemporary novels and I am reading novels and reading about current literature all the time. Here are my picks of fabulous books I have read recently and the one I am taking on my Jan. cruise:

 

If you love great detective fiction, Stieg Larsson's first two of his trilogy are really a cut above every other detective novel I have read. Last month I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I am now reading the sequel, The Girl who Played with Fire. A Swedish journalist, Larsson died shortly after these were finished. They are real page turners with fascinating main characters.

 

Last summer I read Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. It is about an imagined Alaska that FDR selected as the home of the Jewish people after WWII. Funny, chilling and a good mystery. Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is also a good read, about Jewish refugees from Poland who draw comic books about superheroes defeating Hitler in NYC during the war. Again, funny and full of history. Chabon is one the best contemporary novelists around.

 

On our last cruise, my husband could not put down Michael Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. He wanted to sit on the balcony and read it above all other activities! It's 800 pages about Victorian London. It will remind you of Dickens but covers topics Dickens never dared discuss! The main character Sugar is a prostitute who is absolutely fascinating.

 

I am taking Abraham Verghese's new novel, Cutting for Stone, on my upcoming cruise. He is a physician and a writer of enormous sensitivity. I know him from his tenure at a hospital in Texas and find his relationship with John Irving very interesting. Cutting for Stone is about twin brothers from Ethiopia who become doctors and is also a crossgenerational saga about Africa, US and the medical profession. Got just fab reviews.

 

Speaking of John Irving, I still think Son of the Circus is his best novel. It is a good, long read about life in an Indian circus. I must have read it 10 years ago and it still haunts me. It is dedicated to Abraham Verghese, by the way.

 

The best book I have read in 2009? Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. About forming relationships in post 9-11 NYC and playing cricket. I have heard several critics compare it to The Great Gatsby and it's a fair comparison.

 

In Vancouver before an Alaskian cruise, I picked up Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor because I has spent the day in that lovely place. This turned out to be a most unusual novel about indigent people who live in Stanley Park and the world of haute cuisine where a debate about world fusion cooking and the benefits of local ingredients goes on. The role those indigents play in this novel about restaurants is as fun to read about as any concept for a novel I have read this decade.

[yiddishkopf]

When we travel, I usually bring only paperbacks, no hard covers. I've used the HAL library a lot and have found some good books there. In fact on our cruise last year, I had taken 2 of Phillipa Gregory's books (The Other Boyelyn Girl and The Virgin's Lover.) On the last day, just before disembarking, a friend who had been on my trivia team found The Other Queen and left it at my door -- I was very grateful.

 

On this trip, we will stay a few days in San Diego at my brother and sister-in law's home, and I plan to ship our luggage there, so I can take a lot of books. After I read them I divest/trade etc., so I return with far less books than I have when I leave home. We fly back to Chicago from Vancouver, so at that point, I want o lighten my luggage.

[yiddishkopf]

I read Hawaii many years ago and I am a Michener admirer. The last trip I took with my husband before his untimely death, was to the Chesapeake Bay area where we followed Michener's story while we traveled. It was great.

 

I love all your suggestions and welcome more.

 

Cruise Critic is a wonderful community.

[magandab]

There is a huge thread on this subject here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=67422

 

I am taking Carl Hiaasen - Skinny Dip

Paul Levine - Solom vs. Lord

Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

Rosamunde Pilcher - The Day of the Storm

Olivia Goldsmith - Switcheroo

 

I am traveling with my mom and as we each read these, we'll put them in the ship library so we don't have to haul them back. Mostly, with the long flights from California to Atlanta to Venice, I need reading material for the airplane time.

[magandab]

Forgot to mention, I LOVED The Story of Edgar Sawtelle but would never try to travel with a book that big. I take only paperback and donate or trade them as I go.

[pipedreams62]

[peaches from georgia]

For dog-lovers, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a little paperback gem. Also The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Post-WWII tale about the wonderful people in the British Guernsey Islands. Both great books for cruise/beach reading. Not heavy, just enjoyable and well-written ***** books.

[Nasmas]

I just finished ' The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder". If you liked the Yaya sisterhood, you will love it. It is great. I'd think its more of a chick book but the guys might enjoy it too. Its by Rebecca Wells

[jimmy2x]

 

Absolutely the best! You are one of the main reasons I visit here each day.

[magandab]

For dog-lovers, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a little paperback gem. Also The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Post-WWII tale about the wonderful people in the British Guernsey Islands. Both great books for cruise/beach reading. Not heavy, just enjoyable and well-written ***** books.

 

Racing in the Rain, IMO, one of the best books ever written. When I finished it I actually said, out loud, "That was damn near perfect." My mom searched through the blank pages in the back for more to read.

[magandab]

 

Where do I order this? I want to read it while sitting by the pool on the ODam next month. LOL Fabulous.

[wingit]

The Path Between the Seas. In preparation for our Panama Canal cruise coming up next month.

[ANSalberg]

"Poland" by Michener is TERRIFIC [ older book]

"The Reader" was excellent and much MUCH better than the movie -which I found ....distracting at best! The BOOK!

Anything by Pat Conroy [ except the nonfiction on basketball..."BORING!!!!"

;)

[Archie's Mom]

Pat Conroy's new novel, South of Broad, came out this week. His first in 14 years. Autobiographical like the others and set in Charleston. Sounds good...

[PCruzer]

My significant other and I just booked the Hawaii cruise for 4-6-10. There are a lot of sea days, which I love, especially when I have good reading material. When I find a good book, and I have a trip coming up, I hold the book until the next trip. My daughters claim I am a book hoarder!

Since you have a Hawaiian cruise in your future, I would suggest the 2 books I just finished by Alan Brennert. The first is "Moloka'i" and the second is "Honolulu." Each book takes place in the early 1900's in the islands. I loved them both.

[MrsMuir]

The most unforgettable fiction I've read in about 8 years was The Life of Pi. by a Canadian author who's name escapes me here at work. Most of it takes place at sea. The books by Gregory Maguire are all interesting, starting with Wicked, of course. I find him a bit "dark," though, and read his books with a small sense of dread. Perhaps the best of the bunch was Mirror, Mirror, his adult version of the Snow White story. He set it in Tuscany, with the DiMedicis as the villains.

 

The Little Stranger, by ?? Waters kept me up past lights out, like a good ghost story should. If you're into sagas, Ahab's Wife is an interesting twist on the Moby Dick backstory. I've never met anyone else who has read this. Or most of the books I've read, come to think of it. I could go on for hours..........great thread!

[MrsMuir]

I'm not done yet. Speaking of Rosamunde Pilcher, famous for The Shell Seekers, I can recommend just about everything she ever wrote. It's too bad she has retired from writing. We mustn't forget the Grandes Dames of evocative times and places, Daphne DuMaurier and Anya Seton. Seton's Avalon is my favorite book next to DuMaurier's Rebecca. Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon is quite a ride once you suspend a certain amount of disbelief. I climbed Glastonbury Tor with blue woad (actually blue ink from a Pentel pen) on my forehead, hoping for a glimpse of Avalon. Then my husband came up and rubbed it off, saying, "What's that on your face?" Spell broken!

[geshaw30]

As avid readers we never go anywhere without our Kindle. The easiest way to read while traveling--no need to pack huge books.

 

The wife can crank out a Sandra Brown or Higgins-Clark novel once a week.

I enjoy the epic size stuff (George RR Martin & Terry Goodkind) but really found "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy facinating. Read it before you see the movie

[yiddishkopf]

One of the books I neglected to mention, and one of the great modern novels,is Middlesex by Eugenides. It is an outstanding story.

 

Someone mentioned the Life of Pi-- I took this when we cruised around South America and kept watching from our cabin and the deck to see if there was a raft and if I would see it if it was there!

 

I am also a big fan of Margaret Atwood and Barbara Kingsolver --they have had a few clunkers but I loved most of their work.

[suse]

I am reading "Travels with Charley", by John Steinbeck right now. Why? Why not?:)

[pipedreams62]

I am reading "Travels with Charley", by John Steinbeck right now. Why? Why not?:)