You always make me want to read things Agony! Thanks Another on my list!

"The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling).

I've read a few stock market books lately...doubtful they'll be to much interest to those that read this topic.

I did make the mistake of reading "Five Days at Memorial" by Sheri Fink. It was promoted as being a neutral/journalistic account of what happened at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While reading it, it seemed to be written with a slant...but I didn't think much of it. I was just about finished with it (it's not a well written book, IMO) and decided to see what others had said about it on Amazon, only to find that the author and her "journalism ethics" had been called into question repeatedly by many people, including just about everyone in the book that wasn't associated with law enforcement. According to a couple sites I visited, she also flat out stretched the truth to fit her narrative and implied events that never happened (at least all those that were there say never happened).

Anyway, my point being if you notice the book and thought about giving it a try, avoid it.

On a lighter note I did recently finish two books by Justin Halpern "I Suck at Girls" and "S#&t My Dad Says" (yes, it was the basis for the TV show and blog) and found both really good. Basically it's about Halpern growing up in the 90s with a tough Dad that showed both wisdom and psychosis in how he taught him about life and love. A lot of funny stories and a joy to read.

Thanks a lot and welcome, Pyonir. It's always good to read peoples opinions/
I now write down books that people recommend. It saves that confused feeling in the library or bookshop.

Just started reading Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King. I'm laughing hysterically. My father read it first and found it too graphic and unfunny. Two perspectives for you.

Started reading this...and, boy, is it boring. I like Bryson and will continue to read it...but I've taken breaks from it and read something else a couple of times already. There are some interesting tidbits, but no flow to it at all.

I seem to be in a Irish women authors phase at the moment. I'm in the middle of reading Anne Enright's 'The Gathering', which deals with a family's response to the suicide of their brother and what it means to their own lives. The background themes of sexual abuse and institutional care have a particular poignance given the issues that have been prominent in Ireland in recent times.

Next on my list are Eimear McBride's 'A Girl is a Half-formed Thing' and Anne Enright's 'What Are You Like?'

Oh, too bad, pyonir. I tend to listen to stuff like this on audiobook, and it works fairly well for that.

I'm having a Stuart Macbride binge - rereading his Logan McRae series and some other stuff.

"Lake Wobegone Days" by Garrison Keillor. Again. I do love it. I would recommend it to anyone who has worries and needs help coming to terms with trying situations.
So witty, so clever. I always find myself quietly giggling at a scene I missed last time I read the book. Lovely.

Ron Goulart's "Groucho Marx, Private Eye", "Treasure Island", Borges' "Ficciones", Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" (The basis for There Will Be Blood) and Susan Orlean's "Rin-Tin-Tin: The Life and Legend", among others.

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Keillor was born just a few miles from where I was born and raised. In fact I think my father attended high school with him (I don't think he knew him though). It's always interesting seeing someone who is so locally regarded being named in the International community.

Edit: I did talk to my father and he was a couple years younger than Garrison, so didn't attend with him.

I'm 120 pages (out of 600+) in Dan Brown's Inferno. So far, not bad...

Have you read his others? I didn't find anything wrong with Inferno...but didn't find it much different at all from "Code" and "Angels". I do like his suspenseful style though.

I've read the other ones featuring Robert Langdon, yes. I really liked The Da Vinci Code - it seemed to have the most puzzles to solve to find the next step, I liked that. Angels was good too. The Lost Symbol I liked less. It was good enough that I wanted to keep reading but I don't think I'd read it again

The books are all quite similar though, I agree. Inferno has a different element of suspense in that the reader doesn't even know yet (almost 200 pages in now) how Langdon has even gotten himself involved in this adventure, and hardly any inklings of what the heck is actually going on, whereas in the other books, a problem/crime was presented at the outset and then had to be solved

Pyonir, how proud you must be to have Garrison as a Local boy made good.

As to Mr Brown, I find the Da Vinci Code just awful. I was struggling not to be too rude and disparaging about it. I was looking to see if anyone else thought like me and what they had said. This one Page says it so much better than I could.
So sorry, and I am sure people are thinking if she thinks like that why doesn't she write a better book? Well I think I could , and when I have time I will try. As the man hints , even the guy who wrote the Hardy Boys could.

I do know lots of people didn't like it, but I feel like that's an incredibly picky review. Hardly says anything about how he felt about the actual story. I never expected anything "intellectual" when I started reading it. I enjoyed it but I'm not in the habit of picking apart every sentence of novels I read for fun. Oh well, my favourite 'thrillers' are James Patterson books, certainly there's lots of people who think those are total crap too. (Well a lot of the ones that he clearly doesn't write himself ARE)

I agree about Patterson, but he doesn't I think, pretend to be anything but an entertaining thriller writer.
On the other hand there seem to be people who speak in hushed tones of the genius of Brown. Maybe it is a harsh review, I agree, but I found I could identify with a lot of it.The pulling apart is , after all, only of the first page or so, but is surely enough to point out the inadequacy of the writing.

I think the thing about Dan Brown, and James Patterson for that matter, is that they are good storytellers rather than good writers. So that those who are reading mainly for the story can really enjoy the books, while those who are reading mainly for other things - where the story is only one element of what is going on - are just shaking their heads.

Personally, I can live with bad writing if the story grabs me and pulls me under within a page or two. If that doesn't happen, then I just can't do it.

I skimmed the critique (for the most part) and it seems to be more a critique that Brown should have had an editor. Isn't most of the gripes things an editor would correct? And complaining about the blurbs on the back of the book jacket? Do people really read those?

To me, the critique reads like sour grapes from someone jealous of the success for a poor "literary" writer. I don't think Brown is a good writer by any stretch, but I wasn't expecting Twain, just a entertaining read and I got that out of the books.

It's akin to someone complaining that the "Fast and the Furious" movies are wholly unrealistic and pointing out all the inaccuracies of the movies and what couldn't actually happen. No one expects them to win Oscars, they are just entertaining flicks.

Anyway, back off my soapbox. :P I think Agony hit it on the head...that they are storytellers, not good writers. I agree.

Yes , Agony usually does. Thanks. But my problem then therefore is that I am one of the ones who wasn't even entertained. I would have like the puzzles and codes to have been more challenging, maybe that's it.
Points taken though.

Ah, that I can understand completely Ren. I'm not as much of a fiction reader, so really don't read books that have challenges (codes/puzzles/etc) like that...which is probably why I and a lot of others found the book entertaining.

I can understand how someone that is more used to that type of reading would find the book underwhelming and amateurish to put it bluntly.

Well I finished Inferno and liked it well enough for the most part

I'm now just starting Beware this Boy by Maureen Jennings, the author of the Murdoch Mysteries books. Beware this Boy is the second in her Tom Tyler series, set in England during WWII. I definitely recommend her books for anyone who likes a 'non-thriller' type murder mystery, but especially if you have an interest in historical settings (I really like the Murdoch books for her depiction of turn of the century Canada).

I'm about to start reading Janet Evanovich's "Top Secret Twenty-One".

Oh, I read a couple of the Murdoch Mysteries, I think, and liked them.