What are you currently reading?

[skeeterbess]

Re: What are you currently reading?

I'd like to meet her one day and just talk story about small keed time. I bet i grew up "down the street" from her, in a sense.

Do you go to the plays at Kumu Kahua? They've produced several of her plays over the last few years since I've been going. Always funny and sad and very, very local. Good stuff.

[timkona]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Currently reading the biography of Vince Lombardi. Did you know he coached at Army during the cheating scandal in 1951?

[Leo Lakio]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Just finished the biography of Bill Parcells. What a great coach.

The Education of a Coach. It's the story of Bill Belichek.

Currently reading the biography of Vince Lombardi.

I sense a pattern here, Tim. Hope your recent return to posting (and reading) is a sign of some stability returning to your life.

[timkona]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Reading between the lines has always been your specialty Leo.

My selection of reading material belies my passion for the game of football. Couple that with an aggressive coaching style that borders on mania, and an impressive win/loss record in 2 seasons of coaching in West Hawaii, and it should be obvious why I have not been invited back to either Konawaena or the local Pop Warner program. Too bad for the kids.

Winning sometimes takes a backseat to nepo-politics in Hawaii.

[U'ilani]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Currently reading and enjoying Joseph Finder's latest corporate thriller, Power Play.

Also reading and enjoying a very compelling YA book titled Candy by Kevin Brooks. I carry this one with me in my purse in case I'm standing in a long line at the bank or something like that.

[Donna]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Blu's Hanging - Lois Yamanaka

How is that book? I just finished a Lois-Ann Yamanaka book entitled, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, which made me somewhat nostalgic at her mention of things long-forgotten like the Checkers and Pogo Show.

I bought Father of the Four Passages at the same time, but found the story too dark and angsty for my taste. While I was on bed rest following my embryo transfer, hoping like mad that I can have a child of my own, it was far too disturbing to read about a character who aborted 3 babies and had thoughts of killing the one that she didn't.

I've read the reviews and the synopsis and it sounds like a compelling tale, but not one for me at this point in time.

From Publishers Weekly
Readers devoted to Yamanaka's Hawaiian trilogy (Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers; Blu's Hanging; Heads by Harry) will be pleased with her fourth novel, an uncompromising story of the tenaciousness of motherly love amid the chaos of drugs and dysfunction. In urgent, virtuosic prose, Yamanaka introduces a fierce, often wayward protagonist, Sonia Kurisu, who trips back and forth from past to present in her first-person narrative, evoking her nightmarish childhood punctuated by visions of God and the devil. Her unstable mother, Grace, abandons Sonia and Sonia's older sister, Celeste, to the care of their grandmother, while their wandering, koan-spouting father's attempts at communication only further distance him from his daughters. In an attempt to escape her troublesome and troubled family, Sonia leaves Hawaii for Las Vegas, struggling to finish college and raise her son, Sonny Boy. But she can't seem to pull herself together: she is haunted by the memory of the three children she aborted in Hawaii, all of whom begin to clamor for her attention in voices and visions. When Sonny Boy is diagnosed as autistic at age two, Sonia first overdoses on drugs, then returns home to Hawaii, where her journey toward reconciliation and recovery begins. Harsher than ever in its unflinching depiction of stifled rage and twisted love, and charged with a fervid yet earthy mysticism, this is Yamanaka's most challenging work to date. Suffused with pathos, but never overwhelmed by sentiment, the novel settles itself deep into the rhythms and passions of its protagonists.

[Sero1]

Re: What are you currently reading?

"Life of Pi" - Yann Martel

[zztype]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Re: Blu's Hanging...

Nadine Kam of the Star-Bulletin did an article about it many years ago with some info...

http://starbulletin.com/97/04/08/features/story1.html

From my reading, there are some really dark places and events in the story. I have not finished yet, (I read slowly.) so don't know how it all turns out. I'm not sure if it would suit your tastes, Champuru.

But I guess I am drawn to the story because it resembles very much my childhood in a small town. While not exactly the same, there are many characters and incidents in the story that I knew immediately.

Blu's Hanging is very "real," a "Reality Novel," to me.

I'll be looking forward to reading other Lois-Ann Yamanaka books.

[Adri]

Re: What are you currently reading?

The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. Fast fun read that I can pick up and leave off and go back to later.

[Donna]

Re: What are you currently reading?

I'll be looking forward to reading other Lois-Ann Yamanaka books.

If you want, I'll send you the "Passage of Four Fathers" for your next Yamanaka read. Just email me your mailing address and it'll be on its way!

[U'ilani]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Currently reading and enjoying Joseph Finder's latest corporate thriller, Power Play.

Also reading and enjoying a very compelling YA book titled Candy by Kevin Brooks. I carry this one with me in my purse in case I'm standing in a long line at the bank or something like that.

Power Play sucked. It was basically Die Hard at a corporate retreat. Still reading Candy. Just starting The Minister's Daughter--it's set during the time of the witch trials, and is also part fantasy. Interesting so far. Lyrical writer.

[U'ilani]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Candy and The Minister's Daughter both had compelling stories; 3.5 out of 5 stars for each.

Just starting Alas, Babylon. It's one of those nuclear aftermath stories. Looks good, and apparently a lot of people have read it, but I'd never heard of it before.

[mergecross]

Re: What are you currently reading?

currently reading Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

[buzz1941]

Re: What are you currently reading?

September Evening by Barry Diggens. Quite thorough.

[sinjin]

Re: What are you currently reading?

"Blood and Thunder" by Hampton Sides
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Thunder-...1286783&sr=8-1