# The SBHonline Community Daily > Books, Movies, and TV >  >  Planning Ahead

## amyb

Just curious to learn what forum members are reading now. I am putting together a pile of books to ship down for January beach reading. Tell me what you are reading and if you have anything to recommend. Thanks, Amy  FYI-I am now reading Bram Stoker's DRACULA

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## JEK

Amy,
I recently started looking at some old classics and they still play pretty well after all these years. Read Call of the Wild and working on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Huckleberry Finn is in the queue next. Back to the basics.

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## fourthtimer

I picked up a copy of The Kite Runner on-island last June and finished it in a couple of days between naps.  I highly recommend it.  Since then other good books, all fiction, include a couple by Michael Crichton (I enjoy most of his books), one of Nelson DeMille's earlier books, The Talbot Odyssey (I liked it more than most of his more recent novels), and earlier this week I finished Follett's sequel World Without End (it was really engrossing, but my paperback copy weighs a ton so you may want to hire a porter to carry it back and forth to Saline Beach for you).

Les Miserables and War and Peace (really) are both on the nightstand right now with a few others.  I hope the Dearly Beloved buys a couple of Baldacci books soon or she will insist I finish those two so the table can be dusted.

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## noel

Speaking of classics, Didi and I both read "Catcher in the Rye" on the beach a couple trips ago.  It was great.

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## rivertrash

I've mentioned a couple of these before, but in response to your question, here are a few I have read recently that you might consider if you haven't already.  The Art of Racing In The Rain by Garth Stein.  Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva.  Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley.  The Last Time I Was Me by Cathy Lamb.  An old classic that I had not read before, The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (politically incorrect with regard to native Americans - written in 1945).  Just found out about James Lee Burke, writer of a series of books about a washed up dirty New Orleans cop named Dave Robicheaux who now lives in New Iberia, LA, home of Tabasco pepper sauce (that has nothing to do with the books).  Actually, these books aren't nearly classy enough for you, Amy, but I've gotten a kick out of a couple of the first ones, Neon Rain, and Black Cherry Blues.

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## MIke R

The Maytrees by Ann Dillard
Snowball by Alice Shroeder
Dewey by Vicki Myron

\those three are on our nightstands and we are enjoying them all

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## amyb

A good plan, John. Usually I try to read a "classic" in December to finish off my year with a bang. I have Huck Finn ready to go as well. MOBY DICK made one December feel like it had 62 days-over 500 pages till Ahab spotted the whale, UNENDING, but powerful&gt;

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## amyb

I have 2 Burke's on the pile to go! Maybe Rosita will stash them away for you if I entrust her with them!..I picked up RACING IN THE RAIN after your review. Read it last weekend-I did not want to put it down. I can see the movie in my mind's eye-sad no middle aged Paul Newman around to cast in it. On the whole it held my interest but in the end not one of my best of 2008. I like Silva and I will look for it.Thanks for the tips, Amy

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## amyb

I had picked up TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD-maybe the 50th or 25th anniversary a few years ago.Loved it all over again. Great characters, Scout and Atticus.

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## amyb

MAYTREES is good and DEWEY, the library cat seems cute. A cat book to even off the joy I felt in MARLEY AND ME and the dog book THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELL will even the sides.This is the first I am hearing of SNOWBALL and will check into it, Mike..

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## amyb

OMG-976 pages about Warren Buffett-too heavy for the beach.Maybe an at home book for a long winter's spell..

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## JEK

> OMG-976 pages



This is why I like my Kindle. I've even read a full book on my iPhone. Not as good as a Kindle, but definitely readable.

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## amyb

I know. I just resist change. I still say Victrola and ask what record was that? and I even know what an aerial was for.

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## JEK

If you had an iPhone and the Shazam app, you could "listen" to the "record" and it would tell you :-)

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## MIke R

> OMG-976 pages about Warren Buffett-too heavy for the beach.Maybe an at home book for a long winter's spell..



yeah but is good stuff if you're into that sort of subject matter...but thats why I keep two or three books going at once...this way if I'm not in the mood for one book, I have alternatives...

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## julianne

Amy,
Just read "The Brass Verdict" by Michael Connelly---Terrific. "Moscow Rules", as mentioned by others, is also very good. "Testimony" by Anita Shreve is thought-provoking but not her best.

Have you ever used "Daily Lit"?---www.dailylit.com.  I am addicted to it. You get an e-mailed passage from one or more books every day. I'm re-reading "War and Peace" this way and am getting much more out of it than I did when I ploughed through it years ago. I've enjoyed so many classics and old favorites in my daily lit and since I'm at a different point in life, I approach them with a fresh eye.
Julia

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## phil62

So nice to hear from you. I will check in to this dailylit. I am enjoying THE WHITE TIGER-a new book set in India-quiite well done too.  Charming and funny and just a good story. Amy

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## phil62

Mike, I have an office book, a car book, and at home an upstairs and a downstairs book-I think I have a problem and will soon look for a 12 step RA (Readers' Anonymous) meeting. Amy

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## MIke R

you dont have a problem..we bookstore owners love you to death

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## KevinS

Regarding classic books...  It was intersting to find that an on-island American friend and I were both reading the same classic book recently.  She was reading Rudayrd Kipling's Kim in hardcopy, I was reading it on Kindle.

To answer Amy's question, I downloaded Ken Follet's World Without End to my Kindle while I was sitting at the gate in SJU, and that's what I'm currently reading.

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