What Are You Reading

[Sunny]

^^Yes, I'm really looking forward to reading Earl Harbinger's story!

I'm also looking forward to Larry's "Hard Magic" series the sample chapters I've read are really good, and it is set in the "Golden Era" as well...Bonus!

Ditto that! I was really impressed by it (although the cover art leaves a lot to be desired) when I read the sample chapters. It was very engaging and interesting, not so straightforward as MHI [seems] at first.

 

[Diamondback]

Am I the only one who thinks the foiled cover on MHV was a little Over The Top?

 

[DesertDan]

Well.....Larry's an over-the-top kinda guy!

 

[vinspired]

"Vroom with a view" by Peter Moore [non-fiction]
- An Australian travels through Italy on a 1960s Vespa scooter.

"Dreaming of Dior" by Charlotte Smith [non-fiction]
- I would love to have this dress-up trunk!

"Soul stylists: six decades of modernism - from Mods to Casuals" by Paolo Hewitt and Paul Weller [non-fiction]
- A great read and very informative.

"Hell's belles" by Paul Magrs [fiction]
- another spooky installment of the Brenda and Effie mystery series.

And finally, the latest Phryne Fisher Mystery "Dead man's chest" by Kerry Greenwood [fiction] - as per usual a great read!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Men & Machines of the Australian Flying Corps 1914-1919
by Charles Schaedel
(Dandenong, Australia: Kookaburra Technical Publications, n.d.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Orchids On Your Budget -- or, Live Smartly On What You Have," by Marjorie Hillis, the 1937 sequel to her best-selling "Live Alone And Like It." Sage advice for the single woman trying to live elegantly on a diminished income, presented in a delightfully hands-on-hips-and-tossed-curls manner. The gals here who haven't discovered Hillis's books need to head to Bookfinder pronto -- she's a woman for our time.

 

[Wally_Hood]

About two-thirds the way through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

 

[CopperNY]

"The Strange Case of Spring Heeled Jack" by Mark Hodder

if you are looking for a "steampunk" novel that doesn't insult or pander, try this one.

Sir Richard Francis Burton is the protagonist (not the nicest fellow in this ), set in an England that took a left turn at the Industrial Revolution. and we find out why.

reads very much like Ian Flemming crossed w/ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Burton being the first commissioned "secret agent" of the Crown.

i loved it. the wife thought they made Burton too rough/unlikeable.

 

[Corto]

I'm reading:

"Night Life of the Gods" by Thorne Smith: Great take on the social and sexual mores of the rich and elite of the 1930's.

and this:

Poor Herman Wouk- he must've been in dire need of money. This is a pulp novel (as pulp as they come) about a jaded ex-Navy-WWII-vet-flier involved with a shady businessman, who goes after his best war-buddy's wife. Halfway through- waiting for the hurricane. IT'S NO CAINE MUTINY I TELLS YA.

 

[AmateisGal]

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis. There is something refreshing about reading a young adult book as opposed to an "adult" book. I'm really enjoying Lewis' writing.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Modern Aircraft
by Maj. Victor W. Page
(New York: Norman W. Henley, 1929)

An overview of the state-of-the-art in aviation technology as it existed in 1929. What makes this book particularly priceless is the wealth of drawings and photos -- especially of the aircraft engines. Some of the photos appear to be WWI era and look like they were taken from the original maintenance manuals. I found the chapter on propellers very interesting especially the part that describes the construction of propellers out of bakelite.


Eve Plays her Part
by C.M. Fox
(London: Thomas Nelson, 1934)

An example of the popular fiction of the Golden Era. And popular it must have been for it later reappeared in a 1952 edition.

A take on the Prisoner of Zenda theme, the heroine of the piece is Eve Dallas, a young London typist employed in a shipping firm and who lives with her brother a journalist. Eve is persuaded by her mysterious employer to impersonate Princess Claudia, ruler of Varenia a fictitious European country, of whom Eve closely resembles -- Quite a surprise, innit?

It seems that the princess has vanished and if her disappearance were made known, it would plunge the tiny nation into civil war. Throw into the mix Eve's brother Dick off to the rescue on his motorcycle, Prince Peter and Prince Basil, Claudia's half-brothers who are plotting to usurp the throne and the lovestruck son of the British ambassador and you pretty much know where this yarn is going.

But nonetheless, I suspect that Eve Plays her Part was just the kind of book one probably would have curled up with on those cold, foggy London nights with Jack Payne and the BBC Dance Orchestra on the wireless and the flat warmed by a comforting gas fire which the adverts on the trams assure us are "healthy fires." A welcome escape from the interminable headlines and talk of Chamberlain, Hitler, Munich and Czechoslovakia.

 

[Mr Vim]

I always read Bradbury in October, specifically "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "The Halloween Tree."

 

[Gilboa]

I very rarely read novels, I somehow cannot concentrate. Often I read a sentence and something in it makes my mind wonder, and forgotten is what I just read so I have to read it all again!


Only exception: The Perelandra Trilogy by C.S. Lewis I must have read it 4 times by now.


The stack of books next to my bed (it is the only time I get to read undisturbed) is: Henry VIII, Walter Raleigh, History of Tower of London, Shops and Shopping 1800-1914

 

[VitaminG]

Jasper Fforde - The Fourth Bear

"Detective Jack Spratt & Sergeant Mary Mary long to collar The Gingerbread-man - psychopath, sadist, criminal genius, cookie - who's at large in Reading. Instead, they're demoted to searching for missing journalist Henrietta "Goldy" Hatchett. The last winesses to see her alive were the reclusive three bears, and Jack thinks somethng's odd about their story. How could that porridge be too hot, too cold, and just right if it was poured at the same time? The question is: was there a fourth bear?"

 

[Harp]

The Few Among The Few; Alex Kershaw, World War II magazine.

Found this on the train, and while Kershaw isn't the most responsible historian, anything on the RAF gets read.

Now I need to see Piece of Cake again. :coffee:

 

[Harp]

I very rarely read novels, I somehow cannot concentrate. Often I read a sentence and something in it makes my mind wonder, and forgotten is what I just read so I have to read it all again!


Only exception: The Perelandra Trilogy by C.S. Lewis I must have read it 4 times by now.


The stack of books next to my bed (it is the only time I get to read undisturbed) is: Henry VIII, Walter Raleigh, History of Tower of London, Shops and Shopping 1800-1914

Raleigh was one helluva poet; and, he lost his head over a woman...occupational hazard.

...and you live in the Midlands and do not read Emily Bronte?
Emily was a star struck from life all too soon but her brilliance illumines English Literature's constellation.

 

[Gilboa]

Raleigh was one helluva poet; and, he lost his head over a woman...occupational hazard.

...and you live in the Midlands and do not read Emily Bronte?
Emily was a star struck from life all too soon but her brilliance illumines English Literature's constellation.

I know, shame on me

But my plans are to catch up, particularly since you have now mentioned it twice, there is in fact a post it note on my screen

 

[Harp]

... a post it note on my screen

Charlotte and Anne Bronte are also brilliant.

 

[WH1]

Midnight in the garden of good and evil. A well written book which makes me want to go 5 hours east for a month or so next summer.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Tea House on Mulberry Street by Sharon Owens.