New last book you read thread

[vesta111]

I went to the library yesterday and got like 6 books.(i love to read). I like historical sagas.Reading about women in history.
Bally Girl, I was interested in the Heroin Diaries. Could you send along a synopsis?? I like reading different things. One thing about librarians, though they are well read themselves, they might not read the same material I do, so it makes it hard for them to recommend books to me. I did ask the librarian yesterday about the online library site to automatically recomending books, based on the books one takes out. I did try Marvel(which was recomended by librarian), but unsure how to link the suggestions to my personal online library account as it seems to be a third party.

Came across a book with my grandmothers name on the inside----  Tittle , A Few Foolish Ones , Author, Gladys Hasty Carroll.    Printed in 1935.     From what I can understand this may be a first edition.

Story begins in the 1870's and  goes into the 1920's.      Fascinating how she took the area I live in and chronicled the lives of the family's in this area.     Only other credit I see is for a former book tittled " As the earth turns".

I am off to Google the author, her name is very familiar to me for some reason.

[vesta111]

Came across a book with my grandmothers name on the inside Tittle , A Few Foolish Ones , Author, Gladys Hasty Carroll.    Printed in 1935.    From what I can understand this may be a first edition.

Story begins in the 1870's and goes into the 1920's.      Fascinating how she took the area I live in and chronicled the lives of the family's in this area.    Only other credit I see is for a former book tittled " As the earth turns".

I am off to Google the author, her name is very familiar to me for some reason.

http://search.mywebsearch.com/mywebsearch/GGmain.jhtml?st=hp&searchfor=Gladys hasty carrroll&ptnrS=YTxdm004YYus&ptb=J3IVWm9FalPz.q.728pSKQ&n=77dd9956
 
Oh for crying out loud, now I know why the name is so familiar, she was a part of life in the area for my family for generations.

Her property was bordered by my mothers family and Lord I just have to know what she had to say about them, bootleggers and raskels.

 

[Ballygrl]

I went to the library yesterday and got like 6 books.(i love to read). I like historical sagas.Reading about women in history.
Bally Girl, I was interested in the Heroin Diaries. Could you send along a synopsis?? I like reading different things. One thing about librarians, though they are well read themselves, they might not read the same material I do, so it makes it hard for them to recommend books to me. I did ask the librarian yesterday about the online library site to automatically recomending books, based on the books one takes out. I did try Marvel(which was recomended by librarian), but unsure how to link the suggestions to my personal online library account as it seems to be a third party.

I have tons of books on my Kindle, everything from Hollywood to Islam to our Founding Father to the Mafia to the Paranormal to the Classics. I seem to be stuck in the Hollywood phase now because everything is so serious on the news so it gets me away from it. The Heroin Diaries got almost 5 stars with over 300 reviews, here's a synopsis of the book:

In one of the most unique memoirs of addiction ever published, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx shares mesmerizing diary entries from the year he spiraled out of control in a haze of heroin and cocaine, presented alongside riveting commentary from people who were there at the time, and from Nikki himself. When Motley Crue was at the height of its fame, there wasn't any drug Nikki Sixx wouldn't do. He spent days - sometimes alone, sometimes with other addicts, friends, and lovers - in a coke and heroin-fueled daze. The highs were high, and Nikki's journal entries reveal some euphoria and joy. But the lows were lower, often ending with Nikki in his closet, surrounded by drug paraphernalia and wrapped in paranoid delusions. Here, Nikki shares those diary entries - some poetic, some scatterbrained, some bizarre - and reflects on that time. Joining him are Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Slash, Rick Nielsen, Bob Rock, and a host of ex-managers, ex-lovers, and more. Brutally honest, utterly riveting, and shockingly moving, The Heroin Diaries follows Nikki during the year he plunged to rock bottom - and his courageous decision to pick himself up and start living again.

and here's a long review by someone who read the book from Amazon:

In 1987 Motley Crue recorded Girls, Girls, Girls, toured with the then unknown Guns 'n Roses, sold out shows around the country (and world) and partied like they always had a day left to live. The previous book to tell the tale of this excess, The Dirt, felt more like a glorification of the excesses of the band, even though it addressed all the drug abuse Nikki Sixx subjected himself to, subsequent overdoses that almost killed him and reemergence towards a cleaner lifestyle. Basically, you take those chapters of The Dirt and make them their own book and you have The Heroin Diaries.

The book is set up like a diary. In fact, it is a diary: the book accounts the year (Christmas 1986 to Christmas 1987) that Nikki spiraled down a deep hole of addiction and depression and kept insanely careful track of it in a notebook. In addition to his entries (cleaned up a bit so we can understand them), Nikki includes commentary from himself as well as those who were close to him at the time (it's clear that a lot of care and work was undertaken to get all of these voices lined up to tell this story).

I'm reminded of one entry where Nikki says in passing that he had a blast at a radio interview the other night, but probably got the DJ fired. The commentary afterwards is the DJ's account of the debauchery that went down that night (and, yes, he did indeed get fired).

Nikki doesn't pull any punches and asked all of his contributors to do the same. They are brutally honest and help paint a magnificent picture of what it is like to find yourself on a speeding train charging forward into a brick wall. If you ever wanted to know what the rock and roll lifestyle was like, or what it feels like to be addicted to drugs, this is the memoir for you.

It's actually amazing to me that there could possibly have been any lucid entries. We assume of course that a number of them were cleaned up by the editor, but there are times when you are stunned at Sixx's foresight into the future of the industry (the eventual downfall of the hair metal genre by the flood of copycat bands), the future of the band (that they'd make their next record a #1 album) and even his own dim foreboding of the consequences of his lifestyle.

He talks to the diary as if it were a person, as if it were his wife and only confidant in the world during that year (and it probably was). He addresses it with things like, "I have to go to the show now, but I'll see you when I get back tonight." When he departs without an entry for several days (sometimes simply because he is sober and sane) he is always apologetic and makes jokes about how he only writes to it when he is on drugs.

The book pages are broken up with scribblings, notes that presumably came out of the original dairy (To Do lists, lost lyric ideas, notes and the like), drug abuse inspired art and photographs of the people and places addressed, as well as song lyrics from a whole career of Sixx's songwriting. There are Motley Crue songs, songs from his 58 solo album, and songs from bands Nikki has adored in his life and reflect his lifestyle then and now.

Each chapter is a month in the year, with an introduction, intermission and afterward included to set us up, take a break to reflect and plow forward into the future. The afterward in particular is interesting, because in it Sixx explains what happened in his life after that year: getting on and off the drugs, his failed marriages, his struggling band, his solo projects; everything (he calls it his Life After Death). It goes up to and beyond everything covered in The Dirt, and answers a number of niggling questions leftover from that book, like what was going on during the Girls Tour, what did some of the people mentioned in that book think about things discussed (Slash talking about his interactions with Nikki back then and his own struggling band and drug addictions), or whatever had become of certain events (like all that drama with Vanity).

I found myself taking the ups (yes, there were good days) and downs along with Nikki on his ride of drug use, paranoia, rage, attempts at detox, thrills and pitfalls of touring, women, joys of songwriting and love of music, falling off the wagon, struggling on, wondering if he was killing himself, hoping for a way out, dying and coming back to life. I found myself reading an entry, wondering a question about it, and having it answered by the commentary. I also found myself wondering if the now clean and sober Vanity, turned Evangelist, is really any less insane than she was back then. Sure the drugs are gone, but the woman seems like she has a few permanent screws loose (there's one entry where she rambles on about the devil, leaving you thinking, "huh?," and then there's Nikki's commentary under hers going "Huh?" as well: fantastic!).

The book has a message and Nikki Sixx has a hope that by writing this, that by laying his weaknesses bare for the world to see, that maybe that message can get through to people: the tunnel is dark but there is a light at the end, and even though it's probably better if you don't get into that tunnel in the first place, just because you are there doesn't mean there is no hope for you.

I'm definitely sold on this book, as I was already sold on the sountrack weeks ago. I highly recommend it to fans of the band, fans of rock and roll, people interested in learning about the dangers of excess and any open-minded and curious individuals in general. It's a good read all around.

[seahorse513]

That looks like an interesting read...It's not in my normal genre, but hey it's good to try something different.

[The Hollywood NeoCon]

That looks like an interesting read...It's not in my normal genre, but hey it's good to try something different.

I completely agree! Bally, I do believe that's next on my to-buy list. 

[Chris_]

I'm almost done reading Nicholas Pileggi's "Wiseguy".  If they had put everything in the movie that's in this book, 'Goodfellas' would have been twice as long.

[Ballygrl]

I completely agree! Bally, I do believe that's next on my to-buy list. 

Hey! hope you're feeling better.

[Ballygrl]

I'm almost done reading Nicholas Pileggi's "Wiseguy".  If they had put everything in the movie that's in this book, 'Goodfellas' would have been twice as long.

That was a really good book.

[Chris_]

I found a few of Henry Hill's mugshots on the Smoking Gun.  He looks more like Phil Specter than Ray Liotta.

[Ballygrl]

Henry Hill hasn't aged well at all.

Also interesting is how awesome the movie was but also how different a lot of the happenings were from real life. Paul Cicero in the movie is actually Paul Vario who had an affair in real life with Henry's wife Karen, also the Joe Pesci character was actually Tommy DeSimone who was married in real life but was a bachelor in the film and was even more insane in real life, and Robert DeNiro's character Jimmy Conway was in real life Jimmy Burke who was also insane. Go to Wikipedia and read the stories of the real life people, it's an eye opener.

Yes I love mob stories and movies and have seen The Godfather over 300 times LOL.

[Mike220]

I've read a few books over the last 10 days or so.

First was SAT & BAF: Memories of a Tower Rat. It was written by a friend of mine on another forum about his experiences as a young infantryman in Germany guarding a Pershing II nuclear missile site. Kind of cool to read the first person views of a 18-19 year old soldier in a foreign country with all the drinking, carousing, fighting, pranks and boredom. Apparently they hated Engineers...

Next was Bloodstained Sea: The US Coast Guard in the Battle of the Atlantic: 1941-1945. Been wanting to read this for years and finally got it on Kindle since I got myself an IPad. Really nothing new to me since I learned a lot in history classes at boot camp, but still a good read.

Now I'm reading Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Very dense and I'm only up to the religious strife of the early 1700s between Lutherans and Pietists in Brandenburg-Prussia. But it's pretty good so far if you're a history geek.

[LC EFA]

I bought "We the Living" (Ayn Rand) today.

Gonna read it tomorrow.

Thoughts or opinions ?

[Ballygrl]

Just finished Meredith Baxter's Untied, OK book, not the best. I just started reading Nikki's Sixx's Heroin Diaries and it's awesome so far.

[TVDOC]

I just finished The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny (a Francophone author from Quebec).  I've been on a quest lately to find mystery writers from outside the US, and this one is a winner.

Although it is possibly a translation from French, and as a result is somewhat verbose, the plot is tight and well developed, the characters ingenious and eccentric, and the overall presentation is laudable.......

A great read.......

doc

[bijou]

I just finished The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny (a Francophone author from Quebec).  I've been on a quest lately to find mystery writers from outside the US, and this one is a winner.

Although it is possibly a translation from French, and as a result is somewhat verbose, the plot is tight and well developed, the characters ingenious and eccentric, and the overall presentation is laudable.......

A great read.......

doc

  Just looked that up on Amazon, it sounds good. Thanks for the tip.

[TVDOC]

  Just looked that up on Amazon, it sounds good. Thanks for the tip.

You know Bij........when we lived in Chelmsford, I used to literally haunt the little bookstore on the High Street a block up from the Rover dealership..........a musty old place, with narrow aisles and volumes piled everywhere.

There are so many authors Brit and on the continent, that just never make it to American publishers and booksellers......I really miss that.

doc

[bijou]

You know Bij........when we lived in Chelmsford, I used to literally haunt the little bookstore on the High Street a block up from the Rover dealership..........a musty old place, with narrow aisles and volumes piled everywhere.

There are so many authors Brit and on the continent, that just never make it to American publishers and booksellers......I really miss that.

doc

I love poking round second hand bookshops too.  It's not the same but have you ever browsed here: http://www.abebooks.co.uk/  it would be pricey to have lots delivered but it might give   you some leads for stuff to look for elsewhere.

[TVDOC]

I love poking round second hand bookshops too.  It's not the same but have you ever browsed here: http://www.abebooks.co.uk/  it would be pricey to have lots delivered but it might give   you some leads for stuff to look for elsewhere.

Thanks!  I'll give it a shot.....

doc

[mamacags]

I just read book 11 The Vespers from the 39 Clues series.  It is a kid's book too, but I love the series!

[DefiantSix]

Running through the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card.  I've read:

• Ender's Game
• Ender's Shadow
• Ender in Exile
• Shadow Puppets; and
• Shadow of the Giant

...and I have yet to read:

• Shadow of the Hegemon
• Speaker for the Dead
• Xenocide
• Children of the Mind; and
• First Meetings

[rustybayonet]

Yep, I'm still a World War II history nut.

Just finished reading Aces High, by Bill Yenne
the story of Two pilots during WWII that became our countries all time leading fighter pilot aces.  {For those not knowing, an aces is someone that shoots down 5 enemy planes that are confirm}.

Richard Bong of the old Army Air Force during the war against Japan in the Pacific became the leading ace by shooting down 40 planes, with at least 4 probables.

Thomas McGuire is  the all-time second with 38 confirmed and another 3 probables.

Both flew P-38 'Lightnings', both born the same year 1920 and neither lived past 1945.

Unfortunately McGuire was killed during a dogfight, and Bong died about 6 months later testing the P-80, our first combat jet fighter.

If you're a WWII history buff, their life stories make interesting reading.

[Duke Nukum]

Rereading John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. A very, very, very interesting book.

[vesta111]

Rereading John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. A very, very, very interesting book.

Calling B&N today to see if they have Larry Flints ---One Nation Under Sex.

Also- Sky Lights and Screen Doors written by the brother of Pamalia Smarts husband. 

[debk]

Just finished James Rollins' Altar of Eden.

Couldn't put it down. It gets pretty gory in some places, if that sort of thing bothers you, it's very descriptive. 

I have also read his The Doomsday Key which was also quite good.

[vesta111]

Calling B&N today to see if they have Larry Flints ---One Nation Under Sex.

Also- Sky Lights and Screen Doors written by the brother of Pamalia Smarts husband. 

Found both books and started on the Larry Flint book first----really reverent with the Weiner scandal in the news today.  Written by David Eisenbach PH.D , Contracted by Larry Flint I would guess, 10 pages of bibliography and a 5 page Index---

This is the kind of book a parent with a weird sense of humor would give to an 8 grader to drive their history teacher nuts.

The questioning of a politicians morals in Private life seem to go back to our founding fathers. What is amazing is how many of them used their wives to  sexually seduce others in power for their own advantage.

I am only on the third chapter and found Ben Franklin brought over from France an upstanding man well acquainted with battle, a lover of little boys to train our solders at Vally Forge. Franklin cared not about the mans sexual acts, just that he was of great use to Washington.  DADT way back when. 

Anyone interested in American History and how life was back then will see the parallels before one gets past the first few chapters.

Our press at the time published rumors of all kind of high jinks and these are recounted with the press of France.

Was Dolly Madison a hero or Doxie.-----Fascinating so far and yes I am the kind of person that would have make sure my kids in going through the grades into College used this book for homework had it been available at that time.

Another book," Lies my teachers taught me"  is another excellent way to make sure the teachers know their stuff and not just teaching what they were taught.