What Are You Reading the Week of December 10, 2011?

There wasn't a new topic for this week so I took the liberty of starting it.

Currently reading Mind's Eye by Hakan Nesser.

Thanks for getting us started, Seitherin!

I'm finishing up How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. I've loved this book! The main character/narrator, Huw, is one that is easy to sympathize with, even if he does use his fists far too often. The entire Morgan family, Huw's family, is the same.

Surpassing Wonder is a lot longer than it looks. I am still reading it, although I'm now in the appendices, more than a week after I started it. I have a much better feel for, even much greater knowledge of, the religious texts of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism that came out of the fall of the second temple having read what I have of this book.

Robert

>2 bookwoman247: - bookwoman247 - I read How Green Was My Valley many years ago and remember liking it very much. I think it's time for a re-read, tho! I find I don't remember the story! Glad you enjoyed it!

ETA...forgot to mention what I'm reading! I'm in the last couple of hundred pages of A Game of Thrones and quite liking it. I'll be on the lookout for the second in the series, but have to get back to some of the books I've started and haven't finished yet!

I am reading A Fine Balance still but it is a very good story.

I'm about to begin At Freddie's, my first Penelope Fitzgerald whom I've heard so many good things about.

Yes, you may end a sentence with a preposition.

#6, NarratorLady, I liked The Bookshop. Maybe I should try more of her books. Need to finish The Monkey Wrench Gang.

I'm about to start Snuff by Terry Pratchett but am putting off starting as I don't want to get to the end of it. I hate having to leave Ankh Morpork!

I have just started, and am loving The Night Circus.

(2) bookwoman247, I loved that book too. Are you going to get the sequel, Green, Green My Valley Now?

#10 Fuzzi: I'll definitely read the sequel in the future!

I've now finished, and loved How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. It made me cry in places, and made my heart sing in places. Such a beautiful book!

I'm not quite yet settled into my next book. I think it will probably be Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh, but I may read another book first. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez and The Aforesaid Child by Clare Sullivan are both in the running. We'll see.

I'm still working my way through A Game of Thrones. Should be finished this weekend, tho.

Finished Hugo Cabret earlier today. . . not sure what I will read next. I would like to get in a couple "school" books before Christmas when I will (hopefully) get some more fun books . . .

Finished up Anne of Ingleside today and will continue with Ian McEwan's The Innocent.

I finished Mary Doria Russell's Doc today and I believe one of the reasons it took me so long to read this book is because I was enchanted by it and didn't want it to end. The author has certainly done her homework, not only on the lives of John Henry Holliday and the Earp brothers, but on the lives of many of the people who lived in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1878. The story she tells is rich and quite lovely, and though it is a work of imagination, it seems grounded in history and fact. I laughed and I cried and I didn't want it to end. I heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good story, well-told.

Next up: A Book of Secrets by Michael Holroyd

I'm about halfway through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Mysterioso!

I'm in the middle of Doc and, like mollygrace, am enchanted. Russell sure does know how to tell a story, but it's the characters that makes the novel so special.

Also listening to New York to Dallas on audio and, for a little light reading on the Kindle, Tacitus: The Histories Volumes I and II.

For those of you were curious about my reaction to Pirate King, I just finished it and posted my thoughts in my 75 Books Challenge Thread.

In the next day or so I plan to start Tell it to the trees.

(18) I can't find it! Can you link to it here?

I am still reading and enjoying The complete Gormenghast.

I finished Jane Eyre tonight. I had started reading this with a group read headed by Mark and I finally finished it. I found it very Victorian and was astounded at the level of the vocabulary, but perhaps because the outline of the story is so well known, it was also very predictable. I guess now I will have to watch a movie version of it, and perhaps get a dog so that I can name it Pilot.

Molly, I too loved Doc and have recommended it to my RL book club. I'll see if they accept it.
I'm almost finished with Drinking: A Love Story (it's like falling for a guy who's very bad for you). Caroline Knapp has a way of making addiction make sense or rather helps me understand some of the feelings behind addiction. I'll also finish, within the next couple of days, listening to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. It's kind of nice to have all the romantic machinations broken up with mucous and maggots and two headed swimming people eaters.

Cruising steadily through the last 200 pages of Our Mutual Friend.

I finished and enjoyed Midnight Rising. I am absolutely loving Sea of Poppies for the group read.

I'm reading a series of short stories, Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant. They're excellent with varied characters, some surprises and all infused with an ambiance of melancholy rootlessness searching for meaning.

20-Here's a link :)

http://www.librarything.com/topic/106684

#26 - I love Mavis Gallant! Her stories are fantastic.

(22) Watch the Timothy Dalton version of Jane Eyre if you can find it. I liked that one the best of all I've seen.

Thanks for the review of Pirate King, seasonsoflove. I probably will give it a try, but right now I've got a lot of books sitting and staring at me...

Started Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka yesterday & am a few pgs from the end.

Decided and started The Trouble with Islam.

I finished Drinking: a Love Story. It's great reading for anyone involved in any way with an alcoholic, and who isn't. Caroline Knappsays so many pertinent things: (at the beginning of her drinking) I loved the way drink made me feel, and I loved its special power of deflection, its ability to shift my focus away from my own awareness of self and onto something else, something less painful than my own feelings. - Alcoholism is a disease of more (I've heard that from other alcoholics, they can never get enough. There's no end point to their drinking). - When you're actively alcoholic, you don't bother to solve problems, even petty ones, in part because you have no faith in your ability to make changes. You get so used to being a passive participant in your own life... - (on deciding to go into rehab) I felt like I was giving up the one link I had to peace and solace, my truest friend, my lover. (or as Norman Mailer said) sobriety kills off all the little "capillaries of bonhomie." - (at the end of her drinking career) My life was so woefully embarrassing. It was embarrassing and tedious and exhausting and in the end, what was the point? You drink to avoid those painful choices and you wake up in the morning and all those choices are still with you, still unfaced; all those unresolved problems are hanging around your neck like pieces of lead, weighing you down, keeping you from moving forward. - ...thinking or acting alcoholically...the search for an external solution ..."My husband is acting like an idiot," a woman said at a meeting. "I have to remember that the solution is not "Get a new husband." What an excellent book to read, especially this time of the year.
Now on to a novel, Disobedience by Naomi Alderman about Jews in Great Britain.

I just finished the graphic novel of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I wasn't sure about this as I love Pride and Prejudice but it worked quite well and I really liked it.

I am now reading Charlotte and Emily a novel about the Bronte sisters.

I have a good start now on The Book of Universes by John D. Barrow. We don't have to look at the equations of tensor calculus to understand that there are different progressions for different universes and at some level to recognize the variations, so this book looks like it will be informative and go quickly.

Robert

Finished Our Mutual Friend late last night and just got started on Inquisition by Alfredo Colitto.

Finished H. V. Morton's A Traveller in Rome. Excellent and thought provoking, but Rome can get a little weary after 420 pages. Started Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson and really enjoying it. Maybe I empathize with Major a bit too much.

I'm re-reading Native Speaker, by Chang-Rae Lee. He is quite eloquent in many passages, and the story is compelling, both for its mystery and its characters.

#37 - "Maybe I empathize with Major a bit too much." That surprised me, too, when I read Simonson's book, but it's one of the things that made it such a satisfying read. I avoided that book for awhile, figuring from what I'd heard that it was just a sweet little story of a crusty old gentleman finding romance, but I was delighted to find there was so much more to it than that, and the best thing was the complexity of the characters, how real they were to me, how much I empathized with all of them. Enjoy, Smiley.

Finished The Little Stranger, an excellent, haunting story! About to start listening to Night Circus and will continue reading Sea of Poppies.

Am reading and enjoying The monkey wrench gang but could do without the descriptions of heavy machinery and explosives. Have decided that that's a guy thing and am sort of reading over them.

I'm finishing up Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. It isn't earth-shattering, but I'm enjoying it.

Next up, I think, is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I'm just starting In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh. It's too soon to have an opinion, but, the premise is an interesting one.

A couple of obscure references to an Indian slave owned by a Jewish merchant in the 1100's were found. Records of any but the elite from that time are very rare. Ghosh decided to research his story.

This should be a very interesting book. I was in a bit of confusion as to whether this was fiction or non-fiction, but, the LoC indicates that it is, indeed, a biography, among other subject headings, and the local library has it catalogued under a non-fiction call number.

bookwoman, did you read Sea of Poppies? If so, what did you think of it?

#44 Hemlokgang: Not yet, but it's definitely on my radar.

So many books, so little time!

I don't remember who suggested the audio of Night Circus, but WOW! Great narrator!

#46 hemlokgang...The narrator is Jim Dale, who did the U.S. versions of the Harry Potter audiobooks. I've got the audio version of The Night Circus on hold at the library. I ordered the book from Amazon, and then after it arrived I discovered that Jim Dale was the reader, so I decided I had to listen to it instead. But I'm still working my way through A Dance with Dragons, so it'll be a while til I get to it. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it!

Edited to add (apropos of Christmas)...I discovered several years ago that Jim Dale also narrates an audio version of A Christmas Carol, which I've been enjoying ever since.

>47 AlaMich: - Jim Dale reading A Christmas Carol - I'll have to look for that one!

I recently finished the 3rd Joe Pickett book, Winterkill, by C.J.Box.

My current read is the very enjoyable, light and easy The Puppy Diaries by Jill Abramson.

My audio book funk seems to have been cured by my re-listen (?) of I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project by Paul Auster and read by same. It's just as the title says and is a delight.

I finished Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. What a fun story.

I have just finished reading the novel Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton .

I just finished reading Independence by Dana Fuller Ross. Great read. Historical Fiction. I am now reading Sultana by Alan Huffman. A true story about Surviving The Civil War, Prison, and The Worst Maritime Disaster In American History.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa was very good. What an imagination the author has! In this case he shares it with the scriptwriter, who is juggling writing several radio serials at the same time and starting to come apart at the seams. Mario's travails and his disruptive love affair with Aunt Julia are interspersed with stories from the serials. The serials eventually take on a hilarious life of their own. This was well-written and fun to read.

I will have to bump that one up on my TBR list, jn!

I thought Aunt Julia was great, too. It reminded me a lot of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, what with all the started & unfinished stories.

48coppers
Today, 2:10am >47 AlaMich: - Jim Dale reading A Christmas Carol - I'll have to look for that one!

I just found this on our library's website!!! Put myself on the waiting list - thanks!

I loved Little Stranger! I got hooked on Sarah Waters books when I was in England.

I started reading "The Meerkat Wars" last night. So far, it's pretty good. And I love the illustrations.

EDIT: Touchstone not working on that book for some reason...

EDIT 2: Now it is, go figure...

I am reading The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri. I think this is the first of the Inspector Montalbano novels. Loving it!

I started Sure of You by Armistead Maupin yesterday- my goal is to have finished the Tales of the City series by the end of the year- only two books to go

I finished John Barrow's book on the shape of the universe and picked up the congruent work Cycles of Time by Roger Penrose. This book may be too obscure for me, but I'm not quite ready to give it up.

Configuration space, anybody?

Robert

I'm halfway through Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and am enjoying it. I enjoy it more when I can have a good run at it - an hour or so of reading, rather than short snatches. It reads much better that way.

Count me among those who are Penelope Fitzgerald fans. I just finished At Freddie's and was delighted by her superb, sly writing. I found myself going back to read passages after I finished the book for hints about what happened to the characters. In some cases, she leaves their fates up in the air for the reader to imagine. I understand that this could be annoying for some but I thought it was delicious.

I just received my ER copy of Hurricane Story by Jennifer Shaw, so that's at the top of my list now! An unexpected pleasure since I missed the message stating I'd won it! That's what I get for being too busy! lol Also I started City of Bones by Martha Wells and have the other two in the series. I was thinking they would be a quick read before I get started on the second George R. R. Martin one. I enjoyed A Game of Thrones but am feeling the need for a bit of lighter reading.

Finished Monkey wrench gang and am now reading Malice in Maggody by Joan Hess.

I've just started listening to Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog by Ted Kerasote. It starts out fine but I'm already hoping this isn't one of those books in which the dog dies. His idea is that we work too hard to make dogs do what we want them to (ala Cesar Milan) but maybe we should pay attention to what nature tells them to do.

I'm enjoying John Dryden's 300 year-old translation of Virgil's " The Aeneid". I've reached middle age now and am trying to read those book that I feel that I should have read in school.

I'm still reading and enjoying Inquisition but I had a very quick glance at Maus, which arrived in yesterday's post and I got sucked in. Halfway through now and completely hooked.

#46 That could have been me! I thought the narrator, Jim Dale, adds so much to the telling of the story!

68BBleil
Today, 7:54am #46 That could have been me! I thought the narrator, Jim Dale, adds so much to the telling of the story!

Yay! thank you both! I have added Night Circus and Christmas Carol (both read by Jim Dale) to the waiting list at the audio library!

Rarely have I been so engrossed in two books at the same time. I lose myself in Sea of Poppies and then must visit the Night Circus. i am definitely becoming a "reveur".

I am reading an LT-Early Reviewer copy of A Small Furry Prayer by Steven Kotler. It is kind of weird that I requested this as I've been in rescue/humane assocation work for 14 years (foster care, adoptions, lawyering, board duties, you name it) and I'm incredibly critical and jaded, frankly. But this one is kind of surprising me. It is quite literary, well written and just ... making me think about things a little differently. It's early on though.

I just got my hands on a copyof Night Circus last night. I've been waiting anxiously for this because this is typically my favourite type of reading. I'm already 150 pages into it and it is proving to be both entertaining and mysterious.

I'm about halfway through I am Half-Sick of Shadows and loving it-my 2 hour breaks in the middle of my workday let me get a lot of reading in!

I'm reading The Tigress of Forli by Elizabeth Lev and Eggsecutive Orders by Julie Hyzy.

In Cycles of Time I thought Roger Penrose was writing unnecessarily obscurely. If they are important a more congenial author will pick up the ideas and publish them. So I abandoned it.

I picked up and read a few pages of The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. So far there are listings of languages and language clusters. I suppose that that could be dry, but it interests me.

Robert

#66-Telemakhos,

I'm a fan of Virgil's The Aeneid. My favorite translation is by Robert Fitzgerald. Faithful but with a modern echo. A new partial translation by none other than C.S. Lewis just came out. It was literally rescued from the flames after his death. Lewis' translation makes an interesting contrast to the Fitzgerald one.

Just happened to see this at the library: Winter, A Spiritual Biography of the Season. Edited by Gary Schmidt & Susan M. Felch. With essays, excerpts from a variety of works and poetry, a few pen-and-ink drawings, it is proving a marvelous read and I think has a little something for everyone. I may have to buy this one.

I was reading a couple short stories by Jack London, and found myself rereading The Call of the Wild.

There's a lot of stuff there that I never 'saw' when I read it as a child.

I will be leaving on my Christmas vacation tomorrow and will only have access to LT on an intermittent basis. I will check in with you guys from time-to-time just to see what is going on. For my reading I am taking Sea of Poppies, Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones, and plan on finishing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. For the drive I will finish listening to 3 Willows and take Blue-Eyed Devil and Snow by Orhan Pamuk. the first two are short books so will probably get them listened to and spend the remainder of the time on the Pamuk book. In case I finish all of them I will have my Nook with me and hope to get far into Clash of Kings. Merry Christmas everybody.

Currently reading We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill

Have fun, Benita. I'd like to be going on a trip somewhere. My nephew's in Thailand. That sounds good.

I just finished Disobedience and am surprised to have found a favored new author. The book is about Judaism, God, obedience, silence, words, sexuality and the place of the individual in the community. No wonder it won the Orange Prize for new writers. Very well deserved. Oh, and there were some great descriptions of migraines. It's only pain, the character says (as opposed to a brain tumor which it must feel like). Wow, I could almost feel them, and am glad I couldn't.

Benita- Happy Holidays! Have a safe trip!

I am reading Sea of Poppies for the Group Read and this is shaping up to be one of my favorite reads of the year. I love that when that happens.
On audio, I'm finally getting to A Christmas Carol, which is one I have never read. Shocking!

I think Sea of Poppies just got bumped to the on deck circle for fiction. Thanks for the review guys!

#81-Disobedience is a great book. When I was studying in London, the author actually came and talked to my class, and signed our books. She was really bright and very personable, which only made me like the book even more.

Oh, Seasonoflove, I wish I had been there. Naomi Alderman seems to be a person of many interests, science fiction, game designer and Jewish scholar. Did she mention how the people in Hendon reacted to her portrayal of their community?

#81 Citizenjoyce

I am going home to Kansas for Christmas with my family. We have lots of activities and I have lots of cousins. (36 in one town) We get together often and I hope that the activities will include some sauerkraut making and lots of baking as well. Then there will be my lovely Christmas Eve celebration in which my Dad and I will attend at least two church services and participate in Christmas caroling. The drive to get there will great fun as I will fill the time with a couple of audio books.

I finished and reviewed C. J. Sansom's second book in his Matthew Shardlake series, Dark Fire. This series just gets better and better.

Up next is the 4th book in the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series To Darkness and to Death by Julia Spencer-Fleming.

Carolyn- Sea of Poppies has been amazing. You will not go wrong.

I finished and reviewed the biography Twenty Thousand Roads: the Ballad of Gram Parsons and his Cosmic American Music by David N. Meyer. The book is a very good, very well-researched (or so it seemed to me) study of a talented, frustrating, iconic figure in American country-rock music. My review is on the book's work page and on my 50-Book Challenge thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/106335

I'm on a non-fiction run, for some reason, and have started Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

I finished The Art of Racing in the Rain for my RL book club tomorrow. This was a re read for me because I had been told I was too hard on it the first time. I liked it even less this time. Why in the world is it so popular? Now back to Hark! A Vagrant a graphic history with lots about Canada.

>90 Citizenjoyce: I was wondering the same thing after I finished The Art of Racing in the Rain. I just don't get it. I'm sorry you had to read it twice...

>89 rocketjk: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a great read - enjoy!

Having a quick but gorgeous read of Angela Carter's 'Love' (no touchstones).

#90 & 91 - The Art of Racing in the Rain was one of the few books I didn't finish this year - it was just too deeply depressing for me!

Just finished Playing with Fire, an outstanding book on contempoary Pakistan. Now reading The Killer Inside Me, a 1952 noir detective novel taking place in nowhere Texas. I came across this while reading about The Maltese Falcon. I've read 97 pages and I'm not quite sure what to think. Also reading Carl Phillips' Pastoral: Poems. He's very good. I ordered his selected poems. He was nominated for a National Book Award this year, I think for the second time.

Finished The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy this morning, and am still trying to think of what to think... I didn't dislike it, I think I loved it, but it sure was different from what I usually read or like...

Finally posted my review of The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott...not a barn burner, sad to say:

http://www.librarything.com/work/11768188/reviews/79018200

;-}

#91> Thanks, coppers. But while I'm finding Wounded Knee compelling and extremely well written, and though I'd call it essential reading for every North American, it's much too depressing for me to say I'm really enjoying it. Don't get me wrong; I'm very glad I'm reading it. But "enjoy" is not the word for me.

Hey, Jerry..if you think Wounded Knee is depressing...read In the Spirit of Crazy Horse....

;-}

I will absolutely not go near The Art of Racing in the Rain ... despite some coercion here in the 3D world. Just. Refuse.

I am still loving A Small Furry Prayer and if you guys really stay clear of rescue, dog, animal stories (due to the glut of bad ones), and memoirs too (I'm just so sick of both of those genres for the most part), give this one a try. It's really different. A lot depends on you liking where the author is coming from - a lot of psychology and weird facts about New Mexico, dogs, etc. I'm about done and will pop up my review when I finish.

Just finished Dracula by Bram Stoker and just starting As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil: The Impossible Life of Mary Benson by Rodney Bolt.

I am reading Steve Jobs, the biography. Quite an enthralling read.

Click here for the week of December 17.

Robert