What Are You Reading the Week of 30 March 2013?

Marguerite Donnadieu, known as Marguerite Duras (4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), was a French writer and film director. She was born in Gia-Dinh (a former name for Saigon), French Indochina (now Vietnam), after her parents responded to a campaign by the French government encouraging people to work in the colony.

Marguerite's father fell ill soon after their arrival, and returned to France, where he died. After his death, her mother, a teacher, remained in Indochina with her three children. The family lived in relative poverty after her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of farmland in Cambodia. The difficult life that the family experienced during this period was highly influential on Marguerite's later work. An affair between the teenaged Marguerite and Huynh Thuy Le, a rich Sa Dec merchant, was to be treated several times (described in quite contrasting ways) in her subsequent memoirs and fiction. She also reported being beaten by both her mother and her older brother during this period.

At 17, Marguerite went to France, her parents' native country, where she began studying for a degree in mathematics. This she soon abandoned to concentrate on political sciences, and then law. After completing her studies, she became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party). In the late 1930s she worked for the French government office representing the colony of Indochina. During the war, from 1942 to 1944, she worked for the Vichy government in an office that allocated paper to publishers (in the process operating a de facto book censorship system), but she was also a member of the French Resistance. Her husband, Robert Antelme, was deported to Buchenwald for his involvement in the Resistance, and barely survived the experience (weighing on his release, according to Marguerite, just 84 lbs).

In 1943, for her first novel published Les Impudents, she decided to use as pen name the surname of Duras, a village in the Lot-et-Garonne département, where her father's house was located.

She was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays and short fiction, including her best-selling, apparently autobiographical work The Lover (1984), which describes her youthful affair with a Chinese man. This text won the Goncourt prize in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in three other forms: The Sea Wall, Eden Cinema, and The North China Lover.

Other major works include Moderato Cantabile, also made into a film of the same name, The Ravishing of Lol Stein, and her play India Song, which Duras herself later directed as a film (1975). She was also the screenwriter of the 1959 French film Hiroshima mon amour, which was directed by Alain Resnais.

Duras's early novels were fairly conventional in form (their 'romanticism' was criticised by fellow writer Raymond Queneau); however, with Moderato Cantabile she became more experimental, paring down her texts to give ever-increasing importance to what was not said. She was associated with the Nouveau roman French literary movement, although she did not belong definitively to any group. Many of her works, such as The Ravishing of Lol Stein (1964) and The Man Sitting in the Corridor (1980) deal with human sexuality. Her films are also experimental in form; most eschew synchronized sound, using voice over to allude to, rather than tell, a story; spoken text is juxtaposed with images whose relation to what is said may be more-or-less indirect.

Despite her success as a writer, Duras's adult life was also marked by personal challenges, including a recurring struggle with alcoholism. Duras died of throat cancer in Paris, aged 81.

Thanks Richard :o) What a fascinating life!

I have just started Best American Mystery Stories 2011, only one story in and I'm hooked - why haven't I read any of this collection before???
....and going back to River of Smoke, hopefully being Easter weekend I can get some serious reading in, although the weather is glorious for autumn so will be in the garden for much of the weekend.

I feel a little guilty as the farmers are suffering after such a dry summer, much of the country is in drought, but the vineyards and orchards are having a great season - and we have all enjoyed a long hot summer and very warm and settled autumn.

Am working on Henry James' The spoils of Poynton I've never been able to finish one of his books except for Daisy Miller which is short.

Just finishing up a couple of mysteries for Mystery March: The Hard Way by Lee Child (a Jack Reacher thriller) on audio and What Darkness Brings by C.S. Harris (a St. Cyr historical mystery) in hardcover. I probably won't finish the others I'm working on (The Dark Monk and The Mystery Woman) until sometime in April as I will be spending most of Easter with my godson and his family, which will cut into my reading time big time.

Can you believe Monday will be the first of April already?

I loved The Lover, the book and the movie. I've always found Duras fascinating.

Haven't been reading much of interest lately. A few pages into The Dinner by Herman Koch. Seems interesting so far.

I have always meant to read The Lover, especially after I saw the movie. Great start to this thread, thanks, Richard.

I just started A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks. And, I'm still reading How Will You Measure Your Life?. And some exam-related textbooks that I will leave out naming here . :)

I am currently reading The Endless Forest to wrap up a great series. I will miss these characters. Next up to bat is Light Years

Still with Geek Love.

I finished The Shell Collector: Stories by Anthony Doerr, which was awesome (and think I discovered a new author I may love!), and will put up a short review.

Now on to Black American Short Stories: A Century of the Best edited by John Henrik Clarke on the very high recommendation of an avid reader buddy and so far, it is excellent. Here too, there seems to be almost an entire book of outstanding writers I knew very little (to nothing) about.

So ... week of discovery!

I'm focusing on Antic Hay in the hopes of finishing it by the end of the month (shouldn't be a problem since I'm over halfway through and it's not a very big book). Once I've finished that, my attention will shift to Everything Is Illuminated, which I'm about a quarter o the way through.

Also listening to John Adams, who isn't someone I'd have wanted to hang around with, but is pretty interesting. During my runs, I'm listening to You're Not Doing It Right, which is so far pretty good. I love Michael Ian Black and everything he touches, so having his voice in my ear while I run is perfect.

My goodness!Another author I'v heard about before! I've considered reading her work. I'd thought that The Lover and The North China Lover were the same work, just with the title changed. Wasn't The Lover made into the movie Indochine?

Thanks for another great start to the week!

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I should finish The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander today. It's been a real eye-opener.

I read The North China Lover and thought it gave a very interesting view of that period in Vietnamese history. Beautifully written.

Started Mornings on Horseback and continuing with Shanghai Girls.

Thanks whymaggiemay, and thanks, Richard. The Lover/ The North China Lover have been somewhat on my radar for a while. Thanks to this thread, they're more firmly there.

Still lost in the The Dark Valley of the 1930s.

I've been having a hard time keeping my mind on a book lately, but each morning I do read a few chapters of San Miguel by T. C. Boyle and I'm enjoying it. This novel is based on the experiences of two families who lived on San Miguel Island in the 1880s and the 1930s. It's always a pleasure to "travel" with Boyle -- he's wonderful at recreating time and place and making you feel as though you're there, too. I hope to finish this weekend, but company's coming so perhaps not.

Am looking forward to beginning Anthony Shahid's House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East. But first (or maybe simultaneously) The Burgess Boys because it showed up at the library and they'll want it back soon.

Am now 570 pages into War and Peace. It's a fascinating book; at first I thought I'd never be able to remember all the characters, but I have, and they all have personalities and characterisics of their own. So much more to get through, though.

I've started to read White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties by Dominic Sandbrook. The only problem I have with this book is that it's difficult to put down, and I tend not to want to read anything else; so I'm rationing myself.

Reading King Henry IV Part Two, hot on the heels of Part One.

Love Duras....nice choice, Richard!

Finished A Nail Through The Heart by Timothy Hallinan. Not bad.

Still reading Zoli and about to start listening to Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey

Finished The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

Now: Queen Jezebel by Jean Plaidy (library copy)

I've reviewed the outstanding and beautiful first collection of Eudora Welty's stories, A Curtain of Green: And Other Stories, in my thread...post #27.

I'm about halfway through Collum McCann's soon to be published novel Transatlantic and it is fabulous, not that I expected anything less from him.

#4 I too have Lee Child on audio book - Gone Tomorrow, but I have put it on my MP3 for walking. I am new to using an MP3 (and possibly a little dense here), but instead of numbered tracks they are named chapters so they slot in alphabetically, and all in the wrong order urrggh!

HELP Can I put them in the correct order somehow, or is everything on an MP3 alphabetical??

#17> Henry IV Part Two may well be my favorite Shakespeare.

Reading: Phillip Dick: Confessions of a Crap Artist

Just finished David Moody's second instalment in the Autumn series Autumn: The City which was very exciting. I've ordered the third from the library already. I started The Orchardist this morning and 50 pages in, I think I'll be liking the rest. Listening to a Jim Crace on mp3 - All the Follows, and still enjoying A Storm of Swords part 2 on the reader.

I just finished Zarafa by Michael Allin. It felt more like a history lesson than the story of Muhammed Ali's gift of a giraffe to Charles X. I wasn't whisked away on a journey with them but I did learn something.

Thanks for another great start to the week, Richard!

I finished the 4th book in the Travis McGee series - The Quick Red Fox. I should take a break from these for a bit.

I'm also reading Wallace Stegner's The Big Rock Candy Mountain which is terrific.

I've finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I didn't hate it, but I'm not altogether sure I liked it either. For a vampire novel (which I generally hate), it was different enough that the vampire part could be mostly overlooked.

Next up is The Beggar King by Oliver Pötzsch.

Last week was an indulgent week. I finished Among the Mad and then inhaled World War Z. I am not going to say its a great book, but I LOVED it, and was sorry when it was done. Am now back on the 1000 novels with Earthly Powers. Best of reading to you all.

Sadly I am about to finish Plainsong by Kent Haruf and I shall collect Eventide from my library after the Easter break. Next I intend reading The Stillest Day by Josephine Hart, this lady is new to me, it is a nice slimish novel, just my size!!

My final book of March was Gift of Gold by Beverly Butler. I thought I'd read it before, but nothing was familiar.

Starting Enchanted April for a Group Read.

I started Still Life on the recommendations of friends and Lters. So far so good. And it is always nice to discover a new series, with several titles in, so I can dig in if I like!!

I've put up the April Short Stories read-along thread for them as wishes to read along for another month.

Fiona, I'm not much for audiobooks, but the few I've used were numbered (my last mp3 was a Debbie Macomber, come to think of it: it was her writing that drove me away, not the file structure). Maybe you just stumbled upon an inexperienced (sadistic?) publisher?

I finally - wait, hang on a sec - FINALLY finished A.E. Stallings' translation of The Nature of Things! Very dense reading, but now that I'm through, can see going back and revisiting bits and pieces, and relatively painlessly. (I'm no expert by any stretch, but the translation seemed fabulous to me.)

Also finished The Wisdom of Psychopaths which was fascinating (then again, I say that about every book on psychopaths. I'd probably be fascinated by the raw lab reports.) Now reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and just starting on The International Bank of Bob. Have been very sporadic about reading (and hanging out on this fabulous thread with all of you!) lately, though: apartment-hunting is taking up huge gobs of time. (And my realtor appears to be geographically impaired, because this wasn't near challenging enough already...)

#Heduanna, I managed to finish the book over this Easter weekend while I was sewing, a bit disruptive having to continually find the next track, but it was a Lee Child book so kept me focussed. Just hope I don't come across this again - definitely won't work while I'm walking!!

Lately, I keep re-reading things I've read years ago: Emma by Jane Austen, The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison... Do any of you ever do this? I keep finding that the things I read 20+ years ago I barely remember at all.

Still reading 2312 - it's not good when you have to take long breaks between reading "sessions"...
>40 Coffeehag: - Oh yeah - it's well worth the trouble to reread the books - you pick up way more from the book than that many years ago - just as a coincidence I just bought You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat ! CheerZ Everyone :)

I have lots going on in my reading life. I am still reading Big Rock Candy Mountain for the group read that was to end in March. I'm slow. I am also reading Kingmaker's Daughter the fourth in the Cousins War series (The cousins war is the War of the Roses) by Gregory and I must say that I am really enjoying this series. The author writes about the same events told through the eyes of different women involved in those events. I have about two discs left to listen to in the recorded version of Lady of the Rivers the third in this series. The narrator of the books in this series is excellent. I think these may be the best done recorded books that I have listened to in ages.

My current non-fiction in Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

I finished listening to The Magicians by lev Grossman and I liked this book. I know that some people here on LT didn't like it. It was so twenty-something, (all that what is life, and what will I do with my life angst does grate) but I still liked the book and found it entertaining.

I have Enchanted April and Alias Grace on my list for April as well as Time and Chance. All for group reads here on LT.

Just finished The Dinner by Herman Koch, a book I didn't love, but that left me with a lot of questions. It was a fast and interesting read.

Underway in Beloved.

40> Coffeehag, I can remember large chunks of non-fiction books, but usually forget novels within weeks of reading them - even the ones that make a big impression on me. This will be sacrilege to many of you, but with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I couldn't remember much about what I'd read the day before.

#21 Brenzi..Transatlantic is in the pipeline for me, have you read Songdogs by Colum?? it is so very special!!

I am now reading another by Colum McCann, Everything in This Country Must it is a novella and two stories.

>45 cappybear:: You're not the only one! Not only do I forgot what happens, I sometimes even forget whether or not it was any good.

>40 Coffeehag:, >45 cappybear:, >47 Heduanna:: Add me to the club!

# 40, 45 and 47-me too!

oh gosh me too - I am using age and busyness as an excuse - sometimes I even forget the characters names before I finish a book - hopeless!

Just unable to engage in Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey. Will start listening to Leviathan by Paul Auster.

>50 FionaWh: I have a hard time remembering the names of characters by the time I've emerged from a book. That made things most embarrassing in literature classes. One particular book was called Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, but the characters names were not Romeo and Julia. Most confusing!

I am still reading Black American Short Stories: A Century of the Best and loving it. But have also added NF book 3 a.m. Epiphany and it's awesome too! That is for the writer set, if anyone has any desire. Having had many classes and read many books on the craft, this one is a lot of fun, awesome exercise and well ... it seems to WORK!

#42 - I'm also currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm finding it very engaging and enlightening.

Last night I started Haunted Ground for my book club's April read. I'm also reading The Cloister Walk in the mornings and The Hungry Ear poetry collection before bed. Occasionally I'm still dipping into The Emperor of All Maladies, although not with great regularity.

Starting listening to Gone Girl in the car this morning - sooo many folks have recommended this... =:)

I've actually settled on French Lessons in Africa: Travels with My Briefcase Through French Africa by Peter Biddlecombe, which, having been written in the late 1980's is quite dated, but still it is moving forward nicely for me.

I finished San Miguel -- I feel as though I've been living on that island for the duration -- good book.

Now I'm reading Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys.

I am enjoying a real page turner The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney.

Jillian Cantor's upcoming Margot, plus the audio of Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss

>46 hazeljune: I've only read Let the Great World Spin but I also have Dancer on my shelf.

I finished and REVIEWED Collum McCann's new novel Transatlantic. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I started Marget Atwood's Alias Grace but now my library hold came in The Dinner so I'm not sure which one to grab first. The Atwood is really good and The Dinner (which is a 7-day book) has been getting some raves here from other LTers. What to do....

brenzi, I feel your pain . . . what a choice!

#60: The Dinner is a quick read. I just finished it yesterday. You'll probably be able to finish it within the 7 day time frame if you find you enjoy it.

If you haven't heard of Justin Cronin and The Passage and you love a good thriller, you're missing out. I picked this up the other day and everything else faded away as I read until 5am the next morning. I'm looking forward to the next in the series, The Twelve, which is already out, and the third next year.

The Twelve was equally as exciting!

#52 oh that is embarrassing!

I am halfway through River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh and still really enjoying it.
I have managed to muddle my way through my MP3 and finish listening to Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child, about to start the audio of....look away now Richard...Hard Times by Charles Dickens

I have just dipped in a collection of short stories Great Canadian Short Stories , the first I have read as a recommendation The Painted Door, by Sinclair Ross it was oh so special, the closing line left me gobsmacked.

>65 FionaWh: It was the damnedest thing! I woke suddenly, an hour ago, with the most horrific stabbing agony in my back! Like someone was using a chainsaw to scratch an itch on my shoulderblade, it was, and it lasted for a very long time! Now, of course, I know it was the subspace death-wave given off by decent people's souls being sucked into Dickens' metaphysical gravity well.

Farewell, Fiona, as your shambling happiness-drained self moves about the pale shadows of your existence.

LOLOLOL.........

@64 - Judylou...I'm looking forward to The Twelve already and I haven't even finished The Passage! Sure wish I had more time to read and that my eyes didn't get so tired.

I finished listening to Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory. This is the third book in her Cousins War series and it is the best one so far. This series has really captured me and has changed my opinion of her writing. Her unusual approach to the War of the Roses works very well in this series. I know I am gushing but these are really good books, so if you like historical fiction with a slant towards women's and medieval history give this series a try. In my opinion this is good stuff.

And I agree with Richard about Dickens. Boring.

Tale of Two Cities is on my TBR list...

:ducking:

Currently Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore as a personal read, and Kushiel's Dart for a romance book club I belong to.
Also debating starting Watership Down for my main book club, but I don't know if I am in the right mood to read it right now.

I finished Music for Torching which presents suburban ennui gone frantic. It seems exaggerated but may not be and surely not an exaggeration of fantasy. It hardly seemed funny to me, but rather sad, pitiable, and almost understandable. Feeling themselves in a prison, they're flailing away with so much energy that there's none left to open the door.

Apparently I should have mentioned by now that I'll be reading Our Mutual Friend this year. Or maybe David Copperfield. Can't decide.

Richard you are too funny! I am reading and very much enjoying Calling Me Home. Next up for book club The Kitchen House.

snash ~ I loved Music for Torching!!!! Read it years ago and had the same feeling ... pretty real stuff. She is an interesting writer, for sure.

OOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW
owowowowowowow

What the...oh, I see. We've lost Bonnie's soul to the Sink of Iniquity and Loathsomeness too. So sad.

I am quite sure I won't be reading any Dickens this year. But not that there's anything wrong with that . . . . .

I finished The Orchardist this morning and liked it a lot. A quiet, meandering kind of story and nicely written. I think I will start I Remember You next.

lol lol lol I just love waking up to your comments Richard :o) I would hate to see you suffer on my account so I will humbly admit....'gulp' I am not enjoying Hard Times as much as other works by you know who, BUT it doesn't mean I have gone off him....sorry to disappoint :o) :o) :o)

Just started Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. This is a collection of shot stories by the author of Swamplandia.

#80
There has been lots of noise about Vampires in the Lemon Grove so you will have to let us know what you think when you finish.

>79 FionaWh: *sigh* I'll have to step up the R&D on the Loathe Philtres.

#75-momom248
I hope you enjoy The kitchen House as much as I did. I have recommended it to many people and so far everyone has really enjoyed it.

Reading The Very Picture of You By Isabel Wolff on my kindle. Fun and easy read; chick-lit.

I just brought home 16 graphic novels. :3

Working on Rising tide by M. J. Farrell, a Virago Press item that I'm not entirely enamored of. Also, reading Ginger Pye

I did it. It took me a year, but I finished Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution by Rafael Sabatini. To my surprise it turned out to be a much better book than I expected. It had unexpected plot twists and the characters grew and changed so they were by no means stock characters. This was as good as I remember the Three Musketeers being many years ago. So if it was that good, why did it take me a year to read it? I read it on my Nook while I was working out on the elliptical machines at the Gym. Do I need to say more?

I loved Scaramouche as a kid. Glad to hear it holds up to adult reading.

Hello everyone! So, I finished reading The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors, the Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker on Wednesday. While the book is marketed as having 1,184 pages, about 805 pages of that was actual reading. The rest was dedicated to footnotes, notations of illustrations and pictures, and a bibliography. This book was considerably less reading for me, certainly, but it was still incredibly detailed.

As a result, I gave this book a B+! in my review of it. It was still very interesting to me, however, my overall opinion of the book is: 'Less is More!' :)

I immediately began reading Beneath by Kit Tinsley on Wednesday. My daughter got this for me as a free download from Amazon back in February of 2013, and I devoured the book in just about a day! :) I finished reading this book on Thursday night at 11:30 PM. I enjoyed this debut novel very much and will be giving it an A! in my subsequent review of this book.

However, I do have to say, that despite this book being incredibly well-defined and very engaging as regards its horror plot, the multiple typos and numerous grammatical errors which I encountered while reading really irked me as a former English teacher.

I just started reading Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart this afternoon, which appears to be rather good so far! :)

@Bjace, I recall reading Ginger Pye years ago, and am looking forward to your review. :)

Iudita....can't wait to start the Kitchen House. I loved Calling Me Home..such a touching story.