as opposed to beach, that is. I picked up Madeleine Albright's book The Mighty and the Almighty, and another by Elizabeth Gilbert called eat pray love(One woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia), which looks interesting, because she gave everything up and traveled for a year.. haven't started it yet.
Just nice to weed the nonsense out and read of someone who has achieved something different than my checkerboard existance.(though gawd knows I try to make it interesting,lol). J. hmm, how does one make the Aquafina symbol, since it's Monday and I've been behaving myself...

thanks for the recommendation! i just finished the clinton autobiography (two weeks overdue at the library...) and now i only have "fluff" reading to catch up on. it's just not the same! i'll definitely check out the albright bio.

lynne

i just read Night by elie weisel. it's a short book, but has quite an impact.

What about "God's Politics" subtitled
Why the right gets it wrong and the left doesnt get it, by Jim Wallis

Yes on both Wiesel and Wallis books which I've read recently. Just finished a new biography of Henry Ward Beecher, philandering but phamous preacher, entitled "The Most Famous Man in America." A must is Kevin Phillips "American Theocracy." Does anyone else get upset with right win religous fanatics surrounding the White House? And for a scary look at Iraq debacle: "Assasin's Gate" by Packer.

ozarksbill

Not doing ANY serious cerebral reading this summer - too much time during the year in textbooks. I am FINALLY getting to read Empire Falls, and I just bought Secret Life of Bees. I have a lot of fluff to catch up on!

I just reread Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., by Ron Chernow.
-Bill

Probably should return to deciphering Russian novelists or attempting to like Eyre/heathcliffe <sigh>

But y'all are waaaaay too much fun!

After starting Devil in the White City a year ago for my book club I finally finished it. Whew. Lots of details about the architects and their struggles to build the Chicago Worlds Fair in the later part of the 19th century. So many people and their roles to remember I spent a good deal of the book going back to figure out who did what and how each person knew each other. The stuff about the devil was pretty easy to remember.

"Easy" reads but quite beautifully written: novels by Kazuo Ishiguro. Just finished Wish You Were Here. Excellent!

Not necessarily cerebral, but when I want to dig into a juicy, well-written novel, I go back to Henry James again and again. And William Gaddis is (was) so good it's scary.

I have to admit I hate so-called beach reading. And usually I'm such a fun person.

Wow, quite impressive everyone! mooselywild, you are scaring me, though I have some Russina blood

Leely, I know, it's like being seen with the National Requirer aboard a plane, ha ha.

Eli Wiesel is on my list too. I feel like I have wasted too much time on fiction sometimes, but the world is so harsh that I need my escapes, wine, and some tolerant Fodorites.., J.

Every time I see Eat Pray Love I want to read it. The last time I saw it was at a friend's house and she promised I was next in line. Apparently, she's a slow reader, darn. That's okay, I've been engrossed in the Forest Lover, by Susan Veerland about the painter Emily Carr. That was an easy book to judge by the cover. Carr was a spunky woman in her time.

One of the things I enjoyed about the Devil in the White City was the way one chapter focused on the architects and the next about the devil. About half way through I skipped the chapters about the devil and read only about the architects, than it became a good book for me.

I have a very good friend in Calif. who belongs to a book circle.. she sends me a list every few months and I can hardly keep the list together. She recommended Jodi Piccoult, but the material seemed a little too real.
So I'm back to non fiction and happy. I love reading about strong intelligent women, and men, who have broken barriers and especially overcome personal challenges. J.

Ive recently enjoyed reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's " The Cost Of Discipleship"

jetset1 - let me recommend one of my favorite books, one of the few I have read several times, as it fits neatly with themes of travel and "strong intelligent women, and men, who have broken barriers and especially overcome personal challenges."

The book is "Everest: The West Ridge" by Dr. Tom Hornbein and is his reflective recounting of the 1963 expedition to climb Everest that became the first successful American effort, and Hornbein's and his climbing partner Willi Unsoeld's remarkable ascent of Everest via the never-before-climbed West Ridge as part of that expedition. A sampler: "There was loneliness, too, as the sun set, but only rarely now did doubts return. Then I felt sinkingly as if my whole life lay behind me. Once on the mountain I knew (or trusted) that this would give way to total absorption with the task at hand. But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind." And it only gets better.

Hey we read Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. That book had most of us really mad at the mom character and we felt that the author wrote a cop out ending rather than face the real dilemma she had created. CHICKEN!

We just finished the Other Bolyn Girl and we're doing Night and The Known World. Yeesh that's heavy stuff!

Loved Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love but wouldn't consider it cerebral. Delighted to be reading Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country again in preparation for our October trip to Australia.

L48SKY,
I did just the opposite with Devil in the White City. I became oddly fascinated with the devil. Then, I went back and read the other chapter by single character too...

Bayougirl,
I'd really like to know what you think of the end of Empire Falls. I loved the book, but not the conclusion (and I'm not one for happy endings but...) I won't say anymore and ruin it for you. Secret Life of Bees is wonderful.

To those of you reading Night... yes, it had a strong impact, but did not wring my heart in the way I expected... anybody feel that way?

I'm reading The Poisonwood Bible... not exactly cerebral, but interesting. Kept my attention on a recent flight...usually I can't focus well enough.

Also trying to finish Anna Karenina... not the right choice for summer reading. Maybe I'll finish in the Fall.

MRand~ thank you. I will write that one down. J.

I finally got to Freakonomics - Steven Levitt is my new hero..he's brilliant!! It was my beach reading...is that a bad thing???