No. And while it was an excellent book, it was also a very depressing and disturbing book, and I really don't feel the need to relive it with the film version, so I think I'll take a pass on that.

Actually, I really, really enjoyed the film. But I'm hung up on the fact that I know the twist and I wonder if that ruins the book for me. I wonder if I'm just rationalizing not reading it because a) I've seen the movie and b) I'd rather start with Two Thousand Splendid Suns.

I'll definitely check out the new book, but I need a break from anything that dark. I kind of fizzled out on the Aaron Burr biography I started a couple of weeks ago. I think I'll give myself a few days off before picking it up again.

I just finished "Getting Mother's Body," the 2003 first novel of Pulitzer winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks.

I tore through it in a couple of days and absolutely drove my wife nutty relating anecdote after anecdote from the book while I was reading. I'm usually not the annoying type of reader who has to share every little interesting thing with other people around me while I'm reading (yes, Ms. NewPhin I'm talking about you if you happen to read this), but I just couldn't resist with this book. There is so much thought provocation in the book that it's unbelievable. To paraphrase the inside cover: this will keep you in material at cocktail parties for years.

I've heard very good things about Water for Elephants, and it's on my to read list for the near future. The Kite Runner is excellent. It's one of those books that will stick with you, and it makes you feel like you've really read something meaningful once you finish it. The Subtle Knife was a disappointment to me, as I was so in love with the world of the GC that I hated the broader scope that the second two books took on as they moved into alternate worlds in expanding the story.

I also finished the Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci. It's YA literature, but it's an absolutely excellent mystery that also deals with a lot of social issues relevant to high school kids (bullying, popular kids vs. outcasts, the falsehoods of the perfect appearance).

Currently reading Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner, and I have about 10 pages left. Tore through it in a couple of nights before bed. Hilarious book that is great for any teenage boy who you don't mind reading something a little edgy. Sort of similar in tone and theme to my other favorite YA read of this year, King Dork by Frank Portman.

For more weighty fare, I have the Omnivore's Dilemma lined up in the queue.

If there are any Arthur C. Clarke fans out there, I'm about 200 pages into his last work and loving it. It's a collaboration with Stephen Baxter (British Hard Sci-fi author) called "A Time Odyssey". The trilogy is "Time's Eye", "Sunstorm", and "Firstborn". I think Baxter had the most to do with book 2, it's not as good as the first and last (so far).

Clarke called it an "orthoquel". In "A Space Odyssey", the intelligences that sent the Monolith were cultivating "mind" throughout the galaxy. In "A Time Odyssey", their goals and methods are considerably different.

It's no "Childhood's End", but what is?

Hey, what were the other Roth books you picked up? Did you read them? I just finished The Human Stain and thought it was excellent. Thought the stuff about Clinton was hilarious and outstanding. He really does a great job of setting up all the characters so you think you know who you like and dislike, and then as he tells you the story of each person, you understand them and gain compassion, and it becomes much more complicated. I love that.
I think this was one of my favorites of his, along with American Pastoral.
His early writing seems to be whimsical and funny, while the later writings have a lot more anger and emotion. Reading the Human Stain and American Pastoral just got me really riled up and got me to think a lot about our country. He is definitely my favorite author. Hopefully you got around to a book of his that you actually like.

I just started rereading "A Game of Thrones", first in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire".

I really liked the series the first time I read it. On this second go-through, I'm about 325 pages in, and I'm not sure this isn't the best fantasy book I've ever read. And that's with about 500 pages to go...

The last four I've read are:

The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman
Power Play by Joseph Finder
The Collectors by David Baldacci

Collectors and Power Play were easily the best of the four, followed by The Street Lawyer, and I didn't care much for Obsession

I am now reading Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child and it is good so far

"Overhearing the Gospel" by Fred B Craddock.
It's about how to preach.
It's kinda long winded and dry so far, and I'm not even sure why I'm reading it. But my wife got it for her birthday, and I picked it up and started reading it.

Still reading The Client. I wake up at 6:00AM and get an hour of reading in before the rest of the family wakes up. I make a fresh pot of coffee, sit at the kitchen table in my robe and read for an hour. Its' quality time. I try to read at night, in bed, but after about 10 minutes, I'm nodding off.

Nelson's Trafalgar by Roy Adkins.

I know...ZZZZZzzzzzz

Seriously though, it really helped in explaining the situation in Europe between England and France and naval warfare at that time. Easy read.

Nelson took a very bold move in this war to a unheard of major naval maneuver.

Make sure you check out some great historical fiction from that time period (a few decades after Admiral Nelson) in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series.

Finished James Crumley's The Final Country about 3 am this morning. Not his best novel (that would be 'The Last Good Kiss' or 'Dancing Bear') but very good 'hardboiled' detective fiction.

It's brilliant; I recommend it to everyone.

I've been re-reading some of August Wilson's plays from his Century Cycle: Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Jitney, Radio Golf, etc).

I'm about to start on some things I picked up at the North Kansas City Public Library book sale: "Last House," by my beloved M.F.K. Fisher, and "The Eleventh Draft," a book on the craft of writing by former students and faculty of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.