What Are You Reading the Week of 4 August 2012?

Book circle starts in an hour and a half, and it's at my house. Another week of other volunteer work for birthdays, sorry!

Yay! I'm second! :)

Still reading When we were orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro, which is interesting so far. Very curious where it's all heading.

Then I'm also reading 166x Youp by Youp van 't Hek, a collection of columns by a famous Dutch cabaret artist.

Finished The illustrated man and will start Lord of light next.

I finished Graham Swift's Wish You Were Here, one of the finest and most beautifully written books I've read in a long time. The story begins only a short time before it ends, but in between is revealed -- opening up like a flower, like life itself - the world of the main character, Jack Luxton, a man whose life has been shaped in so many ways by death. No, not a lighthearted read, but that makes the moments of joy and playfulness all the more welcome, and real. I think this book will continue to reveal itself to me for a long time after I've moved on to other books.

Later today -- after spending a bit more time looking back through Swift's book -- I will begin reading Thekla Clark's memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, Wystan and Chester. The introduction is by one of my favorite poets, James Fenton, so I'm looking forward to that, too.

A few birthdays for the week:

August 5: Conrad Aiken ("Music I heard with you was more than music . . . ")
August 6: Barbara Cooney (author and illustrator of books for children of all ages)
August 7: Alice James (so much more than "sister of")
August 8: Randy Shilts (dearly departed writer who preserved for us the early history of the AIDS epidemic in And the Band Played On
August 9: Patricia McKissack (masterful writer of biographies of African-American history: Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman is a special favorite of mine)

Checking in as usual. Still alternating bits of An Echo in the Bone with Last Bus to Woodstock.

I am reading King of the Streets by John Baker, this is the third book in his series about a British PI set in York. I am also about the start The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which I am looking forward to.

I finished Rounding the Mark and The Patience of the Spider, both by Andrea Camilleri.

Picked up Cesar's Way and Puppies for Dummies at the book store more for reference than anything. I did a pretty good job with my last dog, but sometimes you need a quick reference for how to handle certain behavioural problems.

Thanks for starting us off, Richard!

I've just started Bolivia: Gate of the Sun by Margaret Joan Anstee. So far, I'm enjoying it. Travel to Boliva seems to have been somewhat adventurous even in the 1960's!

Mollygrace, you've piqued my interest in Alice James. I assume she is the sister of Henry James. Is that correct?

Thank you Molly and Richard!

I started my TIOLI challenge last night, Six Moon Dance. So far, so good!

Am reading the Carlos Fuentes book Inez which I can't say is my favorite. It's intense and packed with symbolic and allegorical meanings some of which I catch and some I get lazy with. It's very short so I will finish it and enjoy what I get out of it.

Read a Sue Grafton yesterday. Now reading Eugene O'Neill's Desire under the elms

I've gone old school. I'm reading Mary Laswell's High Time, a sequel to her Suds in Your Eye. Written in the forties, three older beer guzzling ladies are intent on helping out the war effort. Some of the language is a little obscure - lots of references and slang that have long gone out of use - but still interesting and amusing.

>3 divinenanny: divinenanny: I really enjoyed Lord of Light. Hope you do too.

Still on H. Rider Haggard's Cleopatra,which I'm enjoying despite the narrator's manifest shortcomings. I want to shake him and shout at him. He's physically brave for all that, and he does endure a lot, though some of it is of his own making.

From a couple of weeks ago: Thanks, Bjace, for the recommendation of The Golden Age and Dream Days. I'll definitely look for them.

I think it says a great deal (both in the mindset I'm currently experiencing and in how good the books are) that I'm reading far more of and enjoying much more my non-fiction book than either of my fiction choices:

Battle Cry of Freedom, The Civil War Era
Equal of the Sun
As Simple As Snow

Ok Richard, I'll be right over!

I'm still reading The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. It was my first week back to school so it was hard for me to focus/stay awake whenever I read this week.

I finished Minding Frankie yesterday and picked up a book that is a first time read for me, Unsolved Mysteries: Stranger Than Fiction today.

Gracious goodness me! Mary Lasswell was a favorite of Mama's and we used to re-read them together when I was a sprog. Let's Go for Broke was my favorite, and Tooner Schooner was hers.

What fun the books were. I'm afraid to re-read them now. If they haven't held up, I'd be really disappointed. Looking forward to your review.

Homemade blueberry pies were served at the book circle.

Merely announcing to the world my good fortune.

#8 - Yes, she was Henry and William's sister. There's a wonderful biography of her by Jean Strouse, Alice James. I highly recommend it for both the scholarship and the writing, but also because it sheds so much light on the James family and the situation of creative, intelligent women in that time.

#18: Richard, I wasn't planning on writing a review for High Time but I have written one for the first in the series, Suds in Your Eye.

It's entry #49 at http://www.librarything.com/topic/130336

I see that there are five in the series. They certainly are a blast from the past ... not my past, but fun anyway!

>21 NarratorLady: I don't think it's nice of you to write such a heartfelt, sparkling appreciation of that cute but silly and dated book and keep it all to yourself. I just don't. Why on earth did you not post your review on the work page, and come let us know you had done so? This was, I can't thumbs-up it the way it deserves. Shame! Shame!

Have you run across the way to link directly to a specific post before? All you need do is click on the number of the post that you want to link directiy to, like in this case post #49 on your thread, and then copy the URL in the address bar:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/130336#3278797

I was so pleased when I found that trick!

I have finished Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura, it was indeed very special, it reminded me some of The Pearl by John Steinbeck.

I have now started on The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, it is set in my country, Australia, it was hidden among my TBRS', I had not long just loved On The Black Hill by Chatwin, so for me it was a surprise find!!

Ah, thank you Richard.

I need some remedial classes in LibraryThing.

I finished and reviewed Rebecca and feel pretty confident in saying that'll be my last du Maurier, maybe I'll do better sticking with the movie versions.
Reading now:
Nook: The Judge - Rebecca West
Audiobook: Delta Wedding - Eudora Welty
Paper: Union Street - Pat Barker who is fast becoming a favorite author.

Speaking of favorite authors, here's a fun site:
http://www.literature-map.com/

If you put in the name of a favorite author, you get authors who are similar. It leads to lots of strange recommendations. I put in Larry McMurtry and got Emily Dickinson - not one I would have come up with, but I can see the connection.

ReadingThe Rift by Walter J Williams. It's about an earthquake occuring along a faultline near the Mississippi. There was a big nasty one in the same area in 1812. Apparently the Mississippi ran backwards and there was massive devastation over a widespread area-the quake was so strong it rang church bells in Baltimore and woke up Thomas Jefferson in Monticello. So far so good. I like apocolyptic fiction, as long as its aliens or natural disasters causing the apocolypse. Diseases and zombies give me nightmares. Also reading Pill Head by Joshua something or other. It's good too.

#25 I'm sad that you hated Rebecca. We seem to have such similar literary tastes in general that I was sure you'd love it. Ah well, that's what keeps this whole reading thing interesting, I guess! And many thanks for the Literature-Map link. Looks like yet another time-suck for me.

I finished Gillespie and I and put up a review - one of the best novels in recent memory.

I am almost done with When the Night by Christina Comencini and while I have to say the writing is hypnotic and very easy/fun to read with its first-person alternating viewpoints, neither of those narrators are remotely likeable. Boy, all the contemporary Italian literature I've read really gets to the heart of the uneasy parts that lurk within us, especially women. In this instance, what if you really did not want to be a mother, yet had a child anyway? Interesting book, for sure, but not an emotionally easy one.

Might need either some NF or fluff next!

I have the following going at the moment:
11/22/63 by Stephen King;
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson; and
The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
I'm having trouble focusing and my attention span is really short so these are taking awhile to read

Finished reading Madame Serpent by Jean Plaidy the other day. The remaining 2 books in the trilogy will be out next year.

Reading The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. I am actually rereading many of these stories (something I don't usually do), but Flannery O'Connor's work is so unusual and beautifully written that rereading these stories reveals something new with each reading. In addition, this collection has all 31 of her short stories- some I haven't read before.

Still working on Brood of Bones by A. E. Marling and Exodus by Leon Uris.

From my thread, some book porn!

Those look suspiciously like legal books (to this lawyer, anyway) ...

Finished When the Night and blech, the end was just goofy and weird and I did not buy any of it. Talk about icky characters too. It's okay to have a little conflict in humans, but give a bone here, SOMETHING to like about them.

Needed a little faith in humanity, so am starting The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker ... so far, it feels like a fable and a nice one.

>34 CarolynSchroeder: It's possible, Carolyn, as Baron Sherborne was High Sheriff of Hampshire. He also wrote scholarly tomes, so these probably include some of his own writings and a boatload of other reference books.

I think it was someone on this thread who recommended Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes? And many thanks, it's a perfect little bit of fluff, I'm really enjoying it!

I've also got Bikram Choudhury's Bikram Yoga on the go, and I have to say it sounds like he's running a cult. I'm trying to see it as entertaining (and at least a little informative) rather than disturbing.

Also started John Mohammed Asfour's book of poetry Blindfold (Michael Enright interviewed him on the Sunday Edition on CBC a few weeks ago). I still don't get poetry, but I have the weird feeling that this is getting me.

OK, I realize the "cult" language is inflammatory. But I'm standing by it. Check out my (admittedly premature) review if you want to see my reasons. (And then, if you think I'm a fool, feel free to go on considering me so :)

#31 ellenflorman, I purchased a copy on-line of The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, it arrived last week!! It has some of the others of her that I have read, however this does not bother me as I can reread Flannery's writing many times, and it is good to have them all under one cover. 550 pages all up!!!

@25 - citizenjoyce - Thanks for the link to literature-map! I'm often asked what writers are similar to a favorite and this will help a lot! :)

Yesterday morning I finished Memoir of the Sunday Brunch, which I enjoyed. Then, yesterday afternoon I started, and this afternoon finished, The Age of Miracles, which was amazing!

Next up is The Politics of Barbecue.

Some other fun book-finder sites (as if any of us needed help):

whichbook.net (I especially like this as it lets you choose scales for things like how conventional, demanding, optimistic, etc. a book is)
booklamp.org (choose a book and it it will rate its "Book DNA" and find similar books)
bookseer.com (general recommendations, including library thing)

This whole thread is just a purveyor of book porn, Richard; but I think your picture needs comfier chairs to be truly decadent.

I had to give up on Delta Wedding. I know Eudora Welty gives a detailed description of southern charms, but it was putting me into a coma, so I've started Agnes Grey instead. I'm liking it much better but have pretty much decided that I'm not going to apply for a governess position.

>42 Citizenjoyce: Citizenjoyce: I hope you continue to enjoy Agnes Gray. Yes, being a governess must have been simply dreadful. There's a chapter in Jane Eyr wherein all the highborn guests reminisce about the horrible way they treated their governesses, even the seemingly nice girls. I suspect what Ann Bronte describes in Agnes Grayis extremely mild and tame. Gives a person the shivers just to think about it. Thank Heaven, nowadays girls can grow up to be and do just about anything they want to!

Finished Pill Head by Joshua Lyon. It was ok. I think it described the drug culture, and especially the pill culture, pretty realistically. I still think he missed a big part of that subset of society in his interviews and tales of his personal experiences. There are people who take drugs, legaly prescribed to them or illegaly purchased on "the street", who don't spiral out of control and become addicts. Some might be dependent on them but that is not the same as being addicted. And many of these people continue to use their drugs socially and/or medicinally without ever losning control like the people described in this book and others like it. I guess a story about a guy popping vicodin and then cleaning the kitchen and helping his kid with homework would be pretty boring.

Catreona, I'll definitely continue with Agnes Grey. I think my revulsion to audiobooks is over for the time being. I've had some financial scares in my time, but It's frightening to think of the limited opportunities available for women to support themselves in the Bronte's time, and the lack of a safety net.

So, I finished Unsolved Mysteries: Stranger Than Fiction in one day! It was a short read for me and after I finished it, I immediately picked up Sea Glass, which I am loving! I plan to "break the back" of this book today. Trust me, I'm not going to crack the spine or rip up the book in any way - "break the back" just means that I'm going to really get into it today! :)

I am reading Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater and The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. I have finished Divergent by Veronica Roth and The 4 Percent Universe by Richard Paned. I am enjoying the different 'werewolf' perspective that Shiver offers. Divergent moved along with a strong female character and feed my ever world changing scfi hunger. The 4 Percent Universe was very good. Sometimes it was a little slow because it was brimming with information.
@ rosefireandmoonshine, I have heard Sea Glass is excellent. Enjoy your 'back breaking' read today! ")

>48 NovaLee: NovaLee:

Congratulations on finally being finished moving!

Finished Cleopatra. Going yet again to try Haggard's She. I've tried a couple of times already and haven't been able to get into it. But, having succeeded with Cleopatra after a false start or two, I'm encouraged to give it one more try.

Welcome back, @NovaLee!

Finished Brood of Bones by A. E. Marling. Still reading Exodus by Leon Uris. Started The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.

"His mother..had believed that she mattered, that the universe cared what became of her, that she and the universe were of equal importance. Frankland believed...that he was a person of consequence, that he was chosen to carry out a monumentally important plan on behalf of the being who had created all this immensity.
If they had only looked up, if they had seen those millions of stars, perhaps they would have come to a different understanding. That life was not of consequence to anyone but the living, that there was no plan but what life made for itself."
The Rift
Walter J Williams
It's good to know that the existentialism is alive and well and making its presence known in modern day apocolyptic science fiction. Sarte would be pleased, and most definately would have dug this book. Great story, great charcter, loads of scientific data and literary symbolism without being at all boring or heavy handed. Best book I have read in a long time. Happy happy happy. If all Williams' other books are as good as this one than I have found a new author. Woo hoo!

Redswirl,
I read Divergent and Insurgent. I thought they were great. Awesome future world, super original. I can't figure out why they are catagorized as young adult.

>48 NovaLee: NovaLee - congrats on finishing your move!

I finished Safe from the Sea and loved it - what a wonderful debut! Fathers and sons and family ties, with a gripping Lake Superior shipwreck narrative thrown in.

@redswirl - I absolutely loved Sea Glass which I finished today! In my opinion, Anita Shreve really develops characters that the reader can truly care for. Does anyone know how Body Surfing and Sea Glass are related? Is it just because both books take place on the New Hampshire seashore? The reason that I ask is that I've heard of Sea Glass and Body Surfing being part 2 and part 4 of The Fortune's Rocks Quartet written by Anita Shreve.

I just started The Uncanny today. So far, I can't decide how I like it but it did look incredibly interesting when I read the synopsis.

Finished The Rift. Fantastic book everyone should read. I'm really REALLY glad I live on the other side of the Appalachian mountains, the side that has got them between my family and the Mississippi.

I finished Inez by Carlos Fuentes although I can't say it got any clearer. Flashing back and forth between primordial and recent time, the book tells the story of longing and artistic love mired in a mass of allegory. I feel like I should be impressed but since much of it went over my head, I wasn't impressed nor did a particularly enjoy the book.

I'm reading Dream Team, about the 1992 U.S. basketball team, and The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle's adventure tale.

#38 hazeljune- O'Connor is unlike anyone I have ever read. Some part Shirley Jackson, but with a southern Gothic touch. Enjoy!

I finished and REVIEWED the second book in The Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz's Palace of Desire.

Now I'm reading Betty Smith's classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

I am almost finished an Early Reviewers book called The Queen's Pleasure and listening to an audio production of The Good Earth. And I am about to start Canada in the next day or so. Not getting much housework done.

I'm enjoying Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi, doing some investigating in Depression: Practical Ways to Restore Health Using Complementary Medicine by Edzard Ernst and nearly finished Zuma's Bastard by Azad Essa. Busy, busy....

*Edited to correct title and author.

Started World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. It's written as if a journalist had transcribed a bunch of survivor interviews and then put them in a book. I don't know if I like it, it reads kind of like a Zomnie apocolypse bathroom reader. Zombies scare the crap out of me so I'm putting it down until the sun comes up. Going to read some PC Cast House of Night-mindless entertainment that will not give me horrible nightmares.

Can hardly put down The Prince of Tides (it's as if Pat Conroy is writing poetry). Also Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower--Have wanted to learn Western history before WWI forever, and this makes it almost a shared experience for me.

I think The proud tower is Tuchman's most accessible book. All of her others are so long and such a commitment to read, but that one is chopped up into shorter pieces. I especially love the section on German culture.

I finished Lord of Light which will be in my mind for a while, trying to figure out what just happened. I am FINALLY picking up The Wise Man's Fear, I cannot wait!

I finished Thekla Clark's lovely memoir Wystan and Chester and now I'm reading The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright.

Finished Depression: Practical Ways to Restore Health Using Complementary Medicine last night. A small book and well written, just not enough information, especially on the "practical ways". Didn't take me long enough to read it to consider it a waste of time, however.

>70 NovaLee: NovaLee: I'm in a reading slump, myself,. so you're not alone, and you have my sympathy. Sometimes life throws a lot at you and you get busy or distracted with other things.

70, 71 - Is there a support group we could join? I have a hard time staying focused and once I put a book down I'm reluctant to pick it up again. I've even taken to cleaning out closets and dresser drawers to avoid reading. Anytime I choose housekeeping over reading, something's bound to be wrong.

70-72 ~ I think "book funks" just kinda happen from time to time. I had a pretty bad one lately (few months ago) re: fiction and I just could NOT stick with anything and was not enjoying each novel I picked up. Then I joined my library's Summer Reading Program and that helped. I scoured the "new fiction" shelves and found some real good ones in there. I also kept up with NF was well. Just ride it out, the love will return! I guarantee it!

I finished The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Phillipp Sendker and it was a lot drawn out and rather overdone (if not a little goofy even), but I think you have to approach it as a fable. Still, it could have used a heavy 'nother round of editing as I would have "gotten it" in half as many pages.

I am now going to start Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II by Jeff Shaara ... to read with my Dad. He is a big Jeff Shaara fan and always looks around sadly for someone to talk to about his books. So since my Dad is my hero, it is the least I can do.

Just finished a quick page-turner, Blood Stained by CJ Lyons and (for a complete change of pace) started a Member Giveaway, Five Dances with Death: Part One by Austin Briggs. Not enjoying it as much as I'd hoped, but early days yet.

#64 ampipsmith
I have that on my wish list! I'm curious to know what you think of it. Is it really scary? I'm a bit of a scaredy cat :)

Started Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway, by Dan Gardner, this afternoon. I enjoy his columns in the Ottawa Citizen and am similarly enjoying this book so far.

>67 divinenanny: divinenanny: Yes, Lord of Light is quite a book. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Plugging away at She.

# 70, 71, 72 plus most readers, please take time to open this site up, you will then know that we are not alone!!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/24/edge-closing-the-book-on-a-bad-r...

Vonini,
It's not really scary. I seem to have an unreasonable level of paranoia when it comes to zombies, surpassed only by my sheer terror of bugs. My five year old son is my bug killing "I'll protect you momma, stupid bugs, die die DIE." Check it out. It gives an excellant and widely varied perspective of the "Zombie apocolypse". I think it is a lot better than Colsun Whitehead's "Zone One". I though Zone One was kind of pretentious and highly over rated. And, more importantly, my nightmares have been minimal and not too scary. At least I'm usually armed. Sorry if my thought are jumbled. I took a xanax. No reading tonight, just excellant zombie and bug free sleep. ;}

Reading Undaunted courage, a biography of Meriweather Lewis, by Stephen Ambrose.

>78 hazeljune:- Thanks for the article, Hazeljune. I feel better about abandoning Delta Wedding. Since then I finished and loved Agnes Grey. It was all good, but her take on how humans should treat animals cinched the deal for me. Agnes Grey also helped ameliorate some of the disgust I had for all the Rebecca characters. Maybe they just needed to read and understand a good book instead of giving another costume ball. Now I'm listening to Loitering With Intent and am once again loving Muriel Spark. Her acerbic wit is a delight. I'm about 1/4 of the way through Rabid and finding out some very interesting things. Did you know there was an epidemic of werewolves in the 16th century? Well, an epidemic characterized by the "discovery" of werewolves every 10 or 20 years. Then there was an epidemic of vampires in the 18th century. The writers say such fantastical creatures are the result of the fear of rabies which brings out the "animalistic" side of humans. Did you also know that rabid human men become hypersexual? The things one finds in books.

#59: I'm thinking about getting Dream Team for my cousin. His favorite player of all time is Magic. Let me know what you think please. :)

#54: I loved Divergent and Insurgent also. Can't wait for the next one.

#78 Couldn't agree more with that one, Hazeljune, it's several years now since I started abandoning books that just weren't working for me and it's given me quite a sense of freedom. I do believe, though, that there are two possible exceptions to the rule. The first is to bear in mind that we do all go through these 'slumps' and it often has more to do with our mind-set at that moment than with the books themselves. When I find myself abandoning one book after another for no particular reason aside from 'I just can't get into it', then it's time to accept that maybe I've just got other things on my mind and to put them back on the shelf until I'm more in the mood.

The second exception is when I'm reading a book that I know is 'good' and well-written but, again, it just isn't doing it for me at that moment. If you can see some real merit in the book despite it not being to your taste, then it's often worth putting it away for a year before trying it just one more time. If you still feel the same way then, fine, let it go. The Road and Robinson Crusoe are two of my own examples of that - if I'd just got rid of the books immediately I would always have wondered if I just hadn't given them a fair chance and I'd probably eventually have ended up buying them again just to find out - however, after a second attempt (in the case of RC, because it was a study book, many, many attempts) they both went on the recycling pile and I was heartily glad to see the back of them. On the other hand, like many people, I struggled with the beginning of Captain Correli's Mandolin a couple of times before something went 'click' in my brain and it's since become one of my favourite books and I reread it every year or so. I'd hate to have missed out on that just because I hadn't kept going.

ETA - Did I accidentally imply then that I thought Robinson Crusoe was well-written? Bleagh! Really bad example.

#71-78. I've been in a reading funk since my husband passed away 4 months ago. I thought if I read I could escape some of the pain I'm feeling if only for a short while. It's not working that way I can't seem to focus and even having a kindle on my iPad isn't helping. I used to race through Stephen King's books all the time. If I don't get my reading mojo back I may need to renew11/22/63for the third time

CitizenJoyce,
I have been wanting to check Rabid out myslef. I had this Value Tales book about Louis Pasteur when I was a kid; it was all about this little boy that gets bitten by a rabid dog and Pastuer's vaccine saves him. Ever since then I've been facinated by disease. There is another book that came out recently called Panic on Level 4. It is by the same guy that wrote The Hot Zone although I can't recall his name, it's Robert something I think. Anyway, Panic..4 is about a whole array of nasty diseases and looks fascinating. If you pick it up let me know what you think, I haven't been able to find a copy yet.
As a side note, I was bitten by a chipmunk I caught in my backyard when I was maybe 7. My cousin told me chipmunks carried rabies and I was now going to have to get 20 shots in my stomach. I was terrified. My neighbor, Cricket, recaptured the beast but when my Mom called the doctor he said chipmunks do NOT, thankfully, carry the virus.
Hey, you know you live in the south when you get bitten by a chipmunk you caught with your BARE HANDS and have a neighbor named CRICKET catch it again, also bare handed, and show up at your door with the poor thing stuck in a pickle jar.
We released the chipmunk. I'm sure it went on to have a long and happy life.

AygsWithLaygs,
Check out the series The White Mountains. They are older and also YA but who cares? They're set several centuries after HG Wells War of the Worlds. One of the first post apocolyptic fiction I ever read. Have you evre read Battlefield Earth by L Ron Hubbard? It's good too, though really really long. The movie did not do that book service at all.

cdyankeefan.. I am so sorry about your husband and that you are in a reading funk. Hopefully the funk will get less and you will find consolation in reading to help you through this time.

I wish you peace...

I'm hoping that Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky will be the book that breaks the slump. It's certainly going better than it has in almost a week, although I'm still only on pg. 20. So many things are factoring into this slump. A family emergency, the heat, and my own health issues. Generally, I find that the best way to break a slump is to either read something very light, even a dhildren's book, or something outside my usual genre, Usually, though, there's no outside cause.

Thank you mommom I appreciate it more than I can say. Again than you so much

48/70> You were right about The Book Thief, NovaLee (a couple of weeks ago) - it's excellent, positively crackling with tension. My wife raced through the book for the second time, but I'm trying to ration it in order to finish just before the reading group meets at the end of the month. Not easy.

Finished English Inns by Thomas Burke. Like many books on this subject, most of the inns are situated in the south of England - Burke never ventures north of Shrewsbury - but it was an enjoyable, light read for all that.

Have reached June 1664 in The Illustrated Pepys.

When I'm in a slump, I sometimes start & give up on a dozen or more books, cycling from print to audio to eBook and back again, before I manage to settle down to something. And I can never tell whether it will be something light and easy or meaningful and literary, fiction or nonfiction, or somewhere in between. I hate slumps. Slumps seem to happen often when I'm depressed, and it depresses me even more when I can't find something I want to read. A very good example of "vicious cycle."

I'm actually in between books now and not sure exactly what I want to read. I sure hope it's not the start of a slump. I think I'll run over to the library tomorrow at lunch and see if I can find anything to tempt me.

# 92 Storeetllr, I have been there many times, it is a good way, frustrating as it is, to thin out lots of tbrs'. This for me usually follows the reading of something special, you will find what you are looking for I am sure. Maybe fall back on some special rereads!! For me these can be like reading for the first time. Good luck.

BTW if you have time click on the site that I have given on my 78 posting, it is very interesting.

Just finished The Sandcastle Girls - amazing story I would like to say it was an enjoyable read... but this work of historical fiction - surrounding the horror of The Armenian Genocide was hard to read... but necessary for me to finish. I think the next book I pick up needs to be a bit lighter.. but I am not quite ready yet. I need to Chris Bohjalian's book first. Sigh....

Still inter-Echo in the Bone, my current read is The Devil You Know: Looking out for the Psycho in your Life by Kerry Daynes and Jessica Fellowes. Very interesting when you've known and escaped one!

>82 AygsWithLaygs: Aygswithlaygs: Dream Team, about the famous 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team, is a fun one for pro basketball nerds, and has tons of material about your cousin's favorite player, Magic. So it sounds like a go to me. My review of it is on the book page.

I just started Any Human Heart by William Boyd at the strong recommendation of Mark (msf59).

>94 sebago: sebago: I just received an ER copy of The Sandcastle Girls yesterday evening. I was in a reading slump, but this is the book that's broken it, in spite of on-going family drama. It's time to make some very difficult decisions regarding care for Mom, who, at 79, is no longer able to live on her own. I advise everyone with aging parents who live alone to have a plan in place ahead of time. Believe me, you don't want to go scrambling at the eleventh hour as we are doing.

Started Run by Ann Patchett. Bel Canto just knocked me over. I've been in a year long reading slump so I'm starting with shorter books. which Run is. Also the setting, ect. completely different from Bel Canto.

Suds in Your eye when I still lived in Cleveland & worked on the bookmobile, one of the librarians was just crazy about that series of books. Someone would walk in & he'd walk over with a copy of a Mary Laswell in his hand & give her this big pitch. She'd end up checking it out & then work her way thru the whole series,( Thanks to his exhuberance there was a long waiting list) We, who worked the circulation corner, eventually read them all, too. Funny!!!

97 bookwoman247. We have faced that with both mums within the last 2 years. It is a tough decision but knowing they are safe and cared for means everything. Take care.

MarianV: I hope Run gets you out of your slump. If not, why not a reread of Suds in Your Eye? Could be just the thing!

>93 hazeljune: Thanks, hazeljune! Definitely frustrating, but I've gotten used to it & can (usually) manage to deal because I know it will end eventually. Good article too. I've been using the Pearl Rule for a few years now. The older I get, the more I realize how little time there is left to read as many books as I want to read, so I don't feel bad anymore about abandoning a book I am just not enjoying. I also find that the Kindle is great for picking up and dropping books that don't impress: no fuss, no muss, just push a button and voila! It's gone from the list. I haven't gotten to the point where I can toss (or give away) the books on the shelf that have been waiting (sometimes for years) to be read. I mean, what if there were to come a day when I couldn't get to the library & my Kindle died and I didn't have anything new to read? Horrors!

I've started Claire Dewitt and the City of the Dead. So far, I'm not impressed, but I'm only at the very beginning, and anyway I wasn't feeling well most of today and haven't felt much like reading or doing anything but sleeping.

Earlier I finished listening to A Bear Called Paddington, impeccably narrated by Stephen Fry, and alarmed the bf by laughing uproariously in places. It's part of the collection entitled The Best of Paddington Bear, which includes A Bear Called Paddington, More About Paddington, and Paddington Here and Now. This audiobook is definitely a keeper! I also want the print books to go with it.