**What Are You Reading Now? -- June 2012

Tell us about your reading in June.

My plan for June is to (1) finish The Master and Margarita - I'm nearly finished. And (2) read The Book of Joshua...and possibly Judges. I'm going to try KJV. Otherwise I'm open. I'm waiting for two Early Reviewers, and I'm thinking about starting When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant.

In June, my hope is to finish both Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel. I also hope to finish Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation.

I have lots of hopes of books to read, but I'll probably continue my addiction to Inspector Montalbano first!

I am extremely busy with work, so I haven't finished any books over the past 10 days; my sparse reading at this moment includes Roughing It by Mark Twain, The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett and on my bedside table, but usually I am too tired, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.

I am struggling through le Morte DArthur, Sir Thomas Mallory progress is slow - great literature it isn't.

However Lady Chatterley's Lover which is a re-re-read for me is absolutely brilliant.

I will be starting Voss by Patrick White very soon.

I am all over the place - about 1/3 of the way into The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, hoping to finish The Awakening by Kate Chopin tonight, maybe 100 pages into Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and itching to start The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which I just bought.

Finished George Guidall's excellent audio of Don Quixote (started in February!) and am halfway through the easy, engaging, also-1000-pager Pillars of the Earth. In nonfiction, I found The Sociopath Next Door okay and it got me back to finish Gavin deBecker's The Gift of Fear which is similar but outstanding.

I'm reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 and about to start a reread of Wolf Hall. I loved it when I read it a couple of years ago, but I was in the total haze of having a newborn and I want to reread it before reading Bring up the Bodies.

Just started Blood Feud: The Hatfields and the McCoys: The Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance by Lisa Alther. They have a big mini series thing on the History Channel but since I gave up on cable tv I got the book. Very interesting I am enjoying the book very very much. Then I need to go back and finish Howards End since I have gotten sided tracked. And Im going to join in on The Walden group read.

>10 ALWINN: hmm, Walden. Can you point me to the group read?

Th poll thread is here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/137093#3402689
The June thread has not been created yet. George said he would do in on or about June 1st

>12 ccookie: thank you!

Wolf Hall 12 12 Group Read Thread has been created
http://www.librarything.com/topic/137797

I have finally completed and posted a review of Colum McCann's masterful short story collection, Fishing the Sloe-Black River. I have also finished and am struggling to review Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.

I have a number of things in progress: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, Orhan Pamuk's The Naive and Sentimental Novelist, Elizabeth Benedict's Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives and several short poetry anthologies.

Linda - I just finished Master and Margarita this morning. No clue how to review.

I'm with you Dan. Maybe we should just let Lisa do it for the whole group!

I have my one or two chapters at a time reading of The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology still going. I have a stack of partly read and unread magazines to turn to. And I am between books. I hope tonight to continue in the Handbook and finish the Scientific American I started last night then see what draws my attention. It may be that sleep will; I have to get up uncomfortably early tomorrow.

Robert

Reading Everybody's Autobiography by Gertrude Stein. I've never read anything by Stein and am finding this surprisingly enjoyable.

Also reading One's Company, Peter Fleming's travels through Manchuria in the early thirties.

I plan to finish Malcolm X: Life of Reinvention, Manning Marable's Pulitzer Prize winning biography, by no later than tomorrow. I'm also reading The Master and Margarita, and I'll start Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel's sequel to Wolf Hall.

I finished my reread of The Master and Margarita, and loved it just as much as I did the first time, and have been reading more and more of the aforementioned Inspector Montalbano mysteries. I am steeling myself to start some other books too!

Reading Money by Victoria Fredriksson, a 19th century Swedish author who wrote under a male pseudonym.

I just started Sunnyside by Glen David Gold.

I read the first hundred pages of Desolation Road last night. It starts off in turgid prose, but the author's turgor muscle weakens and some humor begins to shine through. So far the plot is an agglomeration of events, and the characters are instances rather than people. I'll read on for the entertainment value with hope for some substance.

Robert

I am still reading Don Quixote. Hope to have it finished soon. Now that I have passed the CPC exam which took up quite a bit of time, and that school and my school job will be over in a few days, maybe I can finally sit down and devour this book like I've really been wanting to do!

More Camilleris and the puzzling Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir, which I didn't like as much as others did.

I'm still reading Goeff Ryman's The Child Garden, which is good in all sorts of identifiable ways, but which is for some reason just not doing all that much for me. Next up is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which looks like it might be less the interesting work of psychology I thought it was when I got it, and more of an annoying self-help kind of thing, but we'll see. It's been on the TBR pile long enough, either way.

Just done with Vertigo by W. G. Sebald. Brilliant as always with him. Next up for me are Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas and Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse. I'm considering going through the several novellas in the anthology Masterworks of Latin American Short Fiction.

I've just finished and reviewed The Box Man by Kobe Abe, probably the most mystifying book I've ever read.

I've just started Anna Karenina, which I'm hoping to finish sometime this summer. (My mom and I might do a tandem reading.)

Everything else on hold at the moment while I read some more D H Lawrence and so I have started:

D H Lawrence:Novelist by F R Leavis.
The letters of D. H. Lawrence: 2, June 1913 - October 1916

I've just started Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay and plan to start The Sense of An Ending this week.

I got a very brief start on Snakes in Suits last night to continue my pursuit of psychopathy (actually I'd rather be autistic). So far I am disenchanted by the writing but still hope that it will be informative.

Robert

I am struggling to get through E.M. Delafield's four volumes The Diary of a Provincial Lady (finished yesterday), The Provincial Lady Goes Further (almost done), and then still have to plough through The Provincial Lady in America and The Provincial Lady in Wartime.

In late May I read Scenes from Provincial Life and its sequel Scenes from Married Life by William Cooper, which I assume were inspired by Delafield. All these books probably inspired Paul Gallico to write his Mrs Harris books, of which I read Mrs Harris goes to New York two years ago.

Except for William Cooper's Scenes from Provincial Life all very tedious stuff, I can assure you.

I just finished the classic kid's story Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, which I loved as a kid and was still delighted with as an adult, and am about to start Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which I know I read in high school English class, but remember pretty much nothing about.

>15 Linda92007: I struggled on and have posted my thoughts (I hesitate to call it a review) on The Master and Margarita.

Reading Grey Souls, by Philippe Claudel, which is, according to Le Monde "a sumptuous novel whose theme bears comparison with the great Russians."

I'm reading Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan. It alternates between compelling and confusing. There are an awful lot of character names and unfamiliar place names. I wish more books had character lists and maps! That said, I'm motivated because I know so little about Tasmania and I hear this is chockablock with Tasmanian history.

#36 - I struggled on and have posted my thoughts (I hesitate to call it a review) on The Master and Margarita.

Okay, you've completely scared me off The Master and the Margarita.

I'm now reading (and enjoying) Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson, which tells the story of how Sir Isaac Newton, in addition to revolutionizing physics and humanity's understanding of the universe, also fought crime and helped to save the English economy. And I've finally finished The Discworld Companion, which I've been reading in little chunks for weeks.

Next up is The Void by Brett J. Talley, an SF/horror novel I just got from Early Reviewers, and I've also just pulled Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning by Sol Steinmetz down off the TBR shelves as my next book to dip in and out of.

>39 Nickelini:. Oh no! I did not mean to discourage anyone from reading The Master and Margarita. It is a wonderful and accessible book that can be enjoyed with or without getting all of the references and symbolism. I only meant to imply that it is not an easy book to review, and my thoughts certainly don't do it full justice. You really should read it, Joyce!

Yea I have to admit I didnt get all the references and symbolism until I read the post from the group read, but The Master and Margarita will be one of my favorite reads for this year. By all means Nickelini pick it up.

#41, 42 - I own The Master and the Margarita, so I will try it one day. It wasn't on the horizon for this year anyway, so your comments will be forgotten by the time I get to it.

Just starting Bring Up The Bodies. Incidentally, it's good news for Hilary Mantel that this was sold out of both branches of WHSmith's in Stansted airport main departure lounge. It would have been bad news for me, but I managed to find a copy in a mini-Smiths close to the boarding gates!

been mostly off LT for about a week, so catching up...or, starting to catch up.

I read and adored When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant; got lost in all the descriptions of early (1946) Tel Aviv. But then I really wanted to learn about Tel Aviv.

Now adding The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller to list of books I'm reading.

#39/43 Joyce - I was super intimidated by starting The Master and the Margarita. Somewhere around the point where naked people were flying over Moscow on brooms I thought about how silly my fear was in hindsight. For all it's seriousness, it's first very playful.

Finished reading Modern Movements in European Philosophy last night, and posted my review this morning.

I am now starting Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, which is so far very engaging and original.

Bummer! Was just getting really (122 pp) into The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico, now I left the book in my classroom. Won't know till next Thursday whether they found it.

Otherwise beastly busy, so keeping away from LT. Things should become better next week. Pity I could not join the group read. I will read it later this year.

I've just finished and reviewed The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa, one of my favorite writers, and found it a frustrating mix of fiction and biography.

> 47

I tried Frye's Anatomy of Criticism because I heard it was a foundational text in literary theory. But then I realized that I would not understand it very well unless I read his foundational texts. Let me know if that is your experience.

I have started 2052 in the hopes that it will vividly gory, but I suspect it won't be. This is an update for the Club of Rome written forty years after Limits to Growth about the coming forty years.

Robert

Interesting! I read Limits to Growth when it came out -- hard to believe it was 40 years ago!

Today I started Scenes from Early Life by Philip Hensher, a novel about a young boy growing up in 1980s Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. I'm also reading Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye, and The Loss of El Dorado: A Colonial History by V.S. Naipaul.

Read a graphic novel today - How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden - and found myself very emotional afterward, in a complicated way. Recommended to anyone Jewish, liberal and critical of Israel over the last 10-15 years.

OK. Finished my library's copy of Don Quixote, which I thoroughly enjoyed, this afternoon. Going to watch the TNT movie, "Don Quixote" starring John Lithgow as Don Quixote, tomorrow.

Now I'm off to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot which is a bookclub pick. My bookclub meets this Tuesday afternoon - I have some seriously intense reading to do!

I’m a third of the way through Thinking, Fast and Slow on audio. It’s terrific, although it’s illustrated and interactive enough that I’d probably recommend a printed copy (I could refer to a CD of PDFs but I’m listening away from my computer).

For example, a puzzle:

A bat and ball cost $1.10.
The bat costs one dollar more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?

If you reached the intuitive (fast) answer of 10 cents, you need to read the book. If your rational (slow) brain kicked in to verify that was wrong, you’ll still want to read the book to learn all the ways the fast and slow systems of the brain work to compensate for one another.

I reached both answers..."obviously it's 10 cents, that's easy...wait a second..."

I have a bunch of books going--the type to dip in and out of, but my main book right now is My Sister, My Love, by Joyce Carol Oates. I think it's an awful title, but so far the book is interesting and very readable. It's sort of a fictionalization of the JonBennet Ramsey case, with small details, like names and places, changed to avoid legal action.

I loved Thinking, Fast and Slow. It's full of little puzzles, some like that, some more thought-provoking, as well as fascinating information and ideas.

I finally started The Master and Margarita yesterday for the group read, although some people are finished already. I made it through the first hundred pages of the Glenny translation and am really enjoying it. Soon I will be able to look at the discussion threads, which I had been avoiding until I had read enough so that there would not be spoilers.

>50 JDHomrighausen: - In all honesty, I haven't read all the foundational texts to which Frye refers, but this hasn't been a problem so far. He mostly explains what he is talking about very clearly, though he will occasionally presume knowledge of texts with which one may not be familiar. He also seems to have an inordinate fondness for some texts that, though not obscure, aren't really that foundational (Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun is one that springs to mind).

I actually finished two books over the weekend: The Master and Margarita which is excellent, even as a re-read; and The Complete Poems (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by D.H. Lawrence, which is also excellent, if uneven.

Just started Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald, enjoying the writing.

>61 dmsteyn: - Oh, forgot to say what I am reading at the moment.

In fiction, I've finally gotten around to The Book Thief, which is surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting it to be bad, per se, but I was worried that it might be another over-hyped novel.

I am also busy reading Master and Margarita: A Critical Companion by Laura Weeks, which gives excellent insight into the book. I think I'll finish reading this before I attempt a review of The Master and Margarita.

Finally, on the poetry front, I'm reading the Fifth Book of The Faerie Queene. Old hat, I hear? Well, I enjoy my hat old, and realised that I hadn't finished Spenser's poem, so now I'm going to.

I'm just starting two books about the Vikings. One fiction, The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson, and one nonfiction, The History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones.

#63 I have pleasant memories of getting lost with the FQ last year. Enjoy.

#64 Oh, how I loved The Long Ships! Hope you do too.

#63 I am gearing myself up to complete The Faerie Queene by the end of the year, but I have three books to read.

I have just finished Voss by Patrick White - Is it the "great" Australian novel?

I am now back into the Italian Renaissance, continuing with Renaissance in Italy by John Aldington Symonds. There are 7 volumes and I have read one and will probably read another couple as each book takes on a different theme.

I will be starting Meditations on the soul selected letters of Marsilio Ficino.

I am also reading Therese Raquin by Emile Zola, in the original French and so progress is very slow. I hope to finish by the end of the year and perhaps with an increased vocabulary.

I have completed and posted a review of an outstanding poetry collection: Eternity on Hold by Mario Susko.

I have also finished and posted a review of Orhan Pamuk's The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist, six lectures on his theory of the novel that I greatly enjoyed.

I just finished and reviewed The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore, a witty and thought provoking series of interconnected essays by one of my favorite writers.

And now I've just finished and reviewed the mystifying but gorgeously written Dreams and Stones by Magdalena Tulli.

I'm reading Scenes from Early Life by Philip Hensher, which is a fictionalized account of the childhood of his husband, who grew up in Bangladesh before, during and after its independence from Pakistan after a civil war in 1971. It's quite good so far, and I should finish it by this afternoon.

I'm currently listening to the Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan on audiobook, and I'm almost finished My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates, and I'm picking my way through a collection of essays by Nora Ephron and A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf. All of these books are annoying me greatly. Do you think it's really the books, or is it me?

I finished Outlander by Diana Gabaldon while on vacation last week, and while I don't usually like to use the phrase "guilty pleasure," if ever there was a book I felt guilty about taking pleasure in, that was probably it. Today, I read Serenity: Better Days and Other Stories, a graphic novel based on the TV show Fireflry, and next up is Blackout, the third book in Mira Grant's trilogy about zombies, bloggers, and political conspiracies. Maybe after that I'll read something serious. Maybe.

Over the last week I finished The Hunger Angel and read two graphic novels: Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan, which takes place in Tel Aviv, and Radioactive : Marie & Pierre Curie : A Tale of Love & Fallout by Lauren Redniss, which is gorgeous. Also, somewhere back there I finished Joshua.

At the moment I'm reading Judges (using the Harper Collins Study Bible), Jewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words : Oral Histories of 23 Players by Peter Ephross with Martin Abramowitz - which is a crap in terms of book production, but the interviews are still quite fascinating, and a 1997 issue of The Missouri Review...doesn't that all just sound obscure?

I'm reading Moral Disorder and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.

I've finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and commented upon it in lieu of a full review. Also finished The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, another book that doesn't really call for another review. I enjoyed both of these popular books, though I'm not blind to their defects.

Also finished Why the West Rules-For Now by Ian Morris, which I didn't enjoy as much.

Busy with Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King, The Faerie Queene, and Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye.

Having just finished Mustang Genesis: The Creation of the Pony Car by Robert A. Fria, I felt like continuing with the automotive theme and am currently reading Burning Rubber: The Extraordinary Story of Formula One by Charles Jennings. Unashamedly pro-Brittish sure, but very entertaining.

Haven't been around in a while, but I just finished up The Master and Margarita (which a RL friend was also randomly reading, don't think that's ever happened to me before) and am almost done Music: A Very Short Introduction which was a birthday gift from a musician friend.

Linda's Nobel Prize winner challenge inspired me to read some early winners, of whom I possess several but have never read any books. So, I am nearly done with The apple tree by John Galsworthy and have started Cass Timberlane. A novel of husbands and wives by Sinclair Lewis.

Ongoing is my reading of Roughing it by Mark Twain, some Victorian horror in the form of The beetle by Richard Marsh and the novella You Went Away by Timothy Findley.

I am reading Kurnovelle by Hanna Johansen and Fremde, Freunde, Feinde. Eine private Zeitgeschichte by Claus Jacobi in German, and Arcadie, Arcadie by Jean Giono in French.

...besides a couple of other books...

I am really liking Kraken by China Mieville

I have finished and posted a review of the Early Reviewer Book, The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller. This is the first of Müller's books that I have read and in my opinion, her writing is brilliant.

I'm finishing the month off with an ER book: The Martians Have Landed!: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes by Robert E. Bartholomew & Benjamin Radford.

I'm nearly halfway through God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet, a internal medicine physician who has worked at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco for over 20 years. It was probably the last almshouse in the United States, and was based on the legendary Hôtel-Dieu, which has served the poor residents of Paris since the mid-7th century. Unfortunately the city hired a health care efficiency team, which instituted changes to Laguna Honda that allowed it to be run with greater fiscal responsibility, but also led to worsened patient outcomes and increased staff dissatisfaction and turnover. It's outstanding so far, and I should finish it by tomorrow.

I'm 1/4 of the way through Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, and I'm also reading the poetry collection The Earth in the Attic by Fady Joudah, a Palestinian-American poet and emergency medicine physician.

The July thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/139200