I just finished "Lost City" by Clive Cussler. I give it thumbs up for an action-packed-page-turning-adventure. Really a fun read and since it's part of Cussler's "Numa series" (National Underwater and Marine Agency) it's good to take along on a cruise.

Just started "The Big House," by George Colt. Story of a summer home that has been in a family for 5 generations and the family is now selling it.
I personally know a family that is having to do this with a lake house that has been in their family for 100 years. The taxes are now $25,000 per year. Ouch! Everyone is very sad about this happening.

I know a similar story about lake cottage in same family since 1890 - cost to maintain it getting out of control -

Let's see .. "My Sister's Keeper"; "The Other Boleyn Girl", "The Known World" and "The Kite Runner". Thumbs up for all of them. cheers, Anne

Communications Detailed Design for....

Communications network satellite.....

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Anne, I read "The Other Boelyn Girl" too. One of my favorites.

I just finished "The Rice Mother" and before that "The Red Tent". Thumbs up, too.

Still working on "1,000 Places to See Before You Die". I've made it all the way to Switzerland!

Betty, your book sounds interesting. And, Karen, Alan is a fan of Clive Cussler. I will tell him about that one.

Also really enjoyed "The Other Boleyn Girl". Am now reading "Love in the Time of Cholera", which is slooooow going (did anyone else read "One Hundred Years of Solitude"?) and I have "Evidence of Things Unseen" in the queue.

Another thumbs up for "The Other Boleyn Girl". If you like it you should read another book by Phillipa Gregory - "The Queen's Fool".

Anne, I enjoyed Picoult's "Vanishing Acts" too.

I need to start "Snobs" soon, and I need to finish "Interpreter of Maladies". I am anxiously awaiting Nicholas Evans' new novel "The Divide" - release date 9/27!!

Marnalou, I read "One Hundred Years of Solitude". I kept thinking, at some point, I'm going to understand this book. I finished it but that's about all I can say.

Editing to say, I love it when this thread gets started. This time, I'm writing all the books down on my "read next" list.

Thanks! An old one that I liked very, very much is "Desiree" by Annemarie Selinko. It's got some parallels to "The Other Boleyn Girl". Great for anyone going on the Baltics cruise or the Dover to Monte Carlo run. Mary Ellen found a copy for me at a garage sale. I am eternally grateful.

Marna Lou - I tried "Solitude" and didn't get too far with it. Best of luck with "Cholera".

I'll check out some of the other recommendations - thanks! In honor of ROAR I'm going to try the #1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Anyone like Sophie Kinsella's stuff? It's very light reading for the summer. I haven't gotten around to them yet but I love the title of the newest one - The Undomestic Goddess. Her dad is a real hoot (tennis addict y'know. He & Gary just can't wait to beat each other's brains out on the court. Male bonding)

Cheers, Anne

Anne, Sophie Kinsella cracks me up! Yes, it's light reading, but definitely good. Her Shopaholic series is a riot. I haven't read the new one yet as I'm waiting to get it from the library. I've run out of room for books, so I'm trying to cut back.

I'm going to look for "Desiree" as I would love to do the Dover to Monte Carlo cruise with Ngaire next August!

I read all I can. Have books in every room. Currently reading Jonathon Tropper's Everything Changes and just finished Elizabeth Berg's The Year of Pleasures. Sophie Kinsella is a hoot. I can relate to her craving for the "Angel" handbag ;)

I can't believe I forgot to mention "Egg on Three Sticks" by Jackie Moyer Fischer. She's a friend of ours and she named her male character George Goodman!! "Egg" is her first novel, her second is on the publisher's desk and she's working on a third. We are thrilled for Jackie.

Marc, Light enjoyable reading.....

Anne, I read Desiree years and years ago and just loved it. Thanks for reminding me.

Since my return from the Baltics I started reading Catherine the Great by Henri Troyat. I also bought the bio of Peter the Great. It will have to wait until retirement with my long list of other books waiting to be read.

Need to finish Harry Potter 5 so I can read 6.

Loved "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" ...also the other two in the series, "Morality for Beautiful Girls" in addition to "Tears of the Giraffe". (People of Botswana-so nice; can read in a flash but, yes, in honor of "ROAR" Anne! ) Just finished the little, but powerful, "Mutant Message Downunder" (good one!) and a bio on George Washington, "His Excellency".
Thanks all for the recommendations! Michele
P.S. Agree with comments re: One Hundred Years Of Solitude - @#$%^&*!!

Anne, Andrea and Michele, read " Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, an African Childhood" by Fuller. This should get you ready for ROAR.

Thanks Suzie! I'll get that one, too.

The other "oldie but goodie" is Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. It is beautifully written, indeed. We watched "In My Country" on the flight back from the UK last month and found it very good.

Thankfully, a trip to Chicago this week means I can read uninterrupted. Cheers, Anne

Cripes, I thumbs uped a book about a fountain of youth drug that turns people into red eyed mutants. The rest of you are suggesting Pulitzer nominees, does anyone else think that that is funny? :)

Thanks, Suzie, I'll put that one high on the list ..and "Cry the Beloved Country" is the title that I had forgotten. Tks everyone.
- michele

You're my kind of girl Karen -

MarnaLou, most Latin Americans won't admit to this, but I am not a big fan of GGM (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) either...I think he's overrated(and I can read pretty much anything) and I don't know what all the fuss is about him (other than he's leftist but that's another topic). I read his "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" over Christmas and it was typical GGM yet it plodded on...I just don't find him compelling or his characters compelling...his stories seem slice of life but they are supposed to highlight other things at work in the Latin American society in symbolic ways (e.g. in Chronicle it was about Racism and Ethnic Violence)...I guess because I'm too Latin American and have lived too close to the themes he talks about, I just don't find it interesting or "enlightening" or even a good read...his writing style is to writing what baroque is architecture (and I don't mind good baroque). A writer of similar style whom I find much more engrossing, Milan Kundera is 1000x more interesting and compelling to me.

I'm sorry if I'm offending any GGM fans, this is just my opinion only.

I worked in a library for years. No one's reading habits surprise me any more. If you like mutants.....well Karen, a mind is a terible thing to waste, but have fun. At least you read.

I'm making a list of all the suggestions. I want to add the book about the cruise ship. Do you remember which one I'm talking about? Joanna, I think you suggested it on another thread. Editing to say, it might have been Margo.

I am a compulsive reader - prefer non fiction but have been known to read telephone books in strange hotel rooms for lack of...every morning I read (not completely) the NY Times, Boston Herald, LA Times, NY Daily News (great trash) and Chicago Trib - newspaper groupie - so authors??? I LOVE DAVID SEDARIS - his self deprecating humor about his eccentric family - and he is on NPR - most important thing is we read as you said Betty - I also love People magazine - judge me judge me

Well Joanna, in our house I have a subscription to Business Week AND US Magazine/W Magazine. Peter subscribes to Forbes, The Economist which I also read...and I've caught im peeking at the "fluff" stuff even if he wont fess up. Hey, you have to stay informed, on all fronts!!

Analuisa: I like Harpers ...love wall st journal especially the weekend edition - you are right ...we have to stay informed -

This is such a great list. I have to admit I just finished HP..vol. 6.

I'm in the middle of James Patterson's Lifeguard. I've just finished The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrison and The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty.

It's a bit odd, but the man who is walking from California - east reminds me of the character in McLarty's book...he rode a bike from New England to California...sometime life is even stranger than fiction.

Hey Joanna,

We used to subscribe to Harpers...I was a longtime reader, but we now have the problem of having too many magazines and not enough time to read them all (two young ones will do it)...so unfortunately we had to make the cut...we get the New Yorker as well, passed down from Peter's mom. WSJ, yes especially the Friday edition is great. So is the Sunday NYT.

Donna...was it this one...about a guy who throws his wife off the cruise ship? It is very funny, but not in the context of recent news!

Well, I guess I should fess up as to what I plan to read during the Alaska cruise:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (the guy who wrote Guns, Germs and Steel: the fates of human societies)

Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad by Jon Hein

If you haven't heard about "Jumping the Shark" I suggest you visit the following website

www.jumptheshark.com

I guarantee a good laugh

Analuisa: Our house is full of magazines and papers - I love weekend edition of WSJ but LOVE Sunday NY Times why???? brides and grooms or better known as wedding celebrations - cracks me up -

" Jumping the Shark " The end of " Happy Day's ". Poor Fonzie

Yes, Margo, that's the one. Thanks.

And, Joanna, all those newspapers, that's a lot of early morning reading. I'm impressed! If I tried to read that many every morning, it would be lunchtime before my day started! I like non-fiction too.

I never get to all of our magazines. I especially like Arizona Highways - great photography. We also get National Geographic and Smithsonian but it seems that I only have time to look at the pictures these days! When we travel, I take some along to read and leave them in the hotel rooms, better than tossing them in my own trash.

LOL Suzie...Yep that's how they started the term!! The site is hilarious, it deals only with the TV shows...the book actually takes pop culture events and figures out when "they jumped the shark"

Oh dear Marc,
no takers on those books from my camp honey..sorry!

I used to try to faithfully keep up with all the "trash" going on in movie & tv land by reading People Magazine. Now, I have never heard of most of the people profiled so had to give that up.
I too am impressed with all the newspapers you read, Joanna. I don't have time to get through my local paper or USA Today. I am like Donna, it would be noon before I could start my day.

Don't feel bad Karen, I just finished re-reading Lost City. Due from Amazon.com tomorrow are a Robert B Parker, a Kay Hooper, and a J. A. Jance novel. And there is also another Cussler Numa Files book that I'm considering ordering. Also pre-ordered the Patricia Cornwell Scarpetta book that will be released in October. Not all of us read Pulitzer level books.

Saw the Phillipa Gregory novel - is she the writer who has 3 pen names? Also writes as Victoria Holt and another name that I can't remember?

Another mystery set on a cruise ship (to Alaska) is Birds of Prey by J. A. Jance.

to paraphrase Betty, it doesn't matter so much what you read as the fact that you read!

Continuing the line of popular fiction, has anybody read any of the novels from Kelley Armstrong in the "Women of the Underworld" series? Strong characters, good plot development, and werewolves, witches, and demons. Well worth reading. :)

Masaki

Donna and Betty: I simply read the headlines, a favorite columnist or two(Howie Carr from Boston Herald and Maureen Dowd NY Times) and a few articles in papers I mentioned - probably takes an hour every morning - have them all saved in my "favorites" -

Vickie, I read Victoria Holt in high school and remembered reading one of hers under the name of Philippa Carr. Did a google search and found this on a messageboard call allreaders.com "Victoria Holt had 8 pen names. Her real name was Eleanor Hibbert. Her maiden name was Burford. She began with ELEANOR BURFORD (romance), then JEAN PLAIDY (historical fiction based on the lives of English Royalty from William the Conqueror to Queen Victoria), ELBUR FORD (True Crime), KATHLEEN KELLOW (fictionalized true crime), ELLALICE TATE (historical fiction), VICTORIA HOLT (mystery, suspense, romance), PHILIPPA CARR (a family saga about the daughters in a family from the reign of Henry VIII to the early 1900's) and she wrote one book under the name ANNA PERCIVAL (Brides of Lanlory). Maiden's Crown is currently reissuing several of her Jean Plaidy books."

As an elementary librarian, I told my children that you have to read the junk (comics, etc.) to know what the good stuff is. We need a balance in our reading.

Carol Higgins Clark (daughter of Mary) wrote a cruise ship novel called Decked.