*** April - What are you reading?

April is the official "Don't Read Any Books" month. Instead we shall be investigating the effects of book withdrawal on the LibraryThing bibliophile.

I expect to see nothing posted below for this month.

And it isn't even April 1 yet!

lilisin, does your cruelty know no bounds?

It's not 1st of April even in Japan or further east yet!
I am going to boycott you and post all my reading this month!

2, 5 -
So you know that this is not a joke! ;)

>April is the official "Don't Read Any Books" month.
hmm I suppose I could make a dent in my stack of unread articles...

I remember the complete ban in the "reading deprivation" week of the creativity path, The Artist's Way. Very hard to forego the well-thought-out written word in favor of the spoken mess!

I've just read the beautiful and heartbreaking Slamming Open the Door, a collection of a mother's poems about her murdered daughter.

Now there's a good idea. I have way more than a month's backlog of periodicals to look at.

Robert

April 1st. I am reading The Wonderful visit by H G Wells and The Tigress of Forli by Elizabeth Lev

Reading Song of Solomon. The book wants me to read it slow, but the library wants it back on April 6....

Also, I finished Seeking Palestine and am still debating myself about how I should respond to it -but it's really great stuff. Recommended.

Just finished The Forsyte Saga and now reading Of Human Bondage and Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard Von Bingen

I haven't been able to get very far in The Butcher Boy, so it becomes my first book for April. (Taxes are slowing me down, or rather my procrastination with doing my taxes.)

I feel your pain Colleen.

I think we should open a "File your taxes" support group.

Mine are pretty much done, just need to file them and I keep returning back and checking on some things...

I'm just about finished a reread of Wuthering Heights in audiobook, and The House of Mirth in paper.

I continue on in The Cambridge Companion to Homer and The Song of Achilles. I suppose it is possible that I will finish one or the other by our book group discussion at church on Wednesday, but it is not likely. The topic of the discussion is actually The Iliad, and I have finished that.

Robert

I tried to re-read The Great Divorce but couldn't stand most of the characters.....am now well into First Drop, which is more my style......gun totin', ex-military bodyguard, Charlie Fox.....tough lady with a conscience.....oh my!

I love finishing a book and thinking about the next one to read although it can be sad to say goodbye if the book is a good one. I finished Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb. I enjoyed it but I am happy to say goodbye. On to Waverly by Sir Walter Scott for the April read and I will read A Student of Weather by Elizabeth Hay.

Hi bolder, I see you are new to LT and Club Read. Welcome!

If you put square brackets around a title, you will get a touchstone, which is a link to that title's book page. And if you put double square brackets around an author's name, you will create a link to the author page. Touchstones are the items in blue letters you see in other people's posts.

When you type in the message box, you will see an explanation and examples to the right. I can't illustrate them here because they would just create touchstones and you wouldn't see the brackets, but that way you could have Sweetness in the Belly and Camilla Gibb, etc. as links.

ETA When you find your way around LT, start a reading thread here (with your name in the title) so we can follow what you think about the books you read.

In addition to reading The Butcher Boy (despite taxes), I started listening to Dissolution by C. J. Sansom. This is the first of the Matthew Shardlake Mysteries. I am hooked already. I love historical fiction, and this time period (16th century Tudor England) is one of my favorites. I wish I could remember which Club Read member recommended this series so that I could say a proper thank you.

Edited to say "Thank you" to Laura (lauralkeet) for the recommendation.

I finished Lisa Lutz's The Spellman Files yesterday, and am now reading Economix: How Our Economy Works (And Doesn't Work) in Words and Pictures by Michael Goodwin, which, much to my shock, is practically unputdownable.

I am almost finished with Three Armies on the Somme: The First Battle of the Twentieth Century. It's a very good study of the strategy and tactics of World War One starting with the Battle of the Somme through the end of the war.
I am looking through my shelf for some tomes for April. I think I will follow up The Greek Way with some Greek drama. Also on my ROOT shelf is A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems a book of beat poetry I have had on my shelf since college.

I've just finished and reviewed It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway, an examination of the Russian response to its Stalinist past that I found interesting, chilling, and annoying.

I just finished Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children, which I found dense, disturbing, and memorable. Have started Norman Lewis's encyclopedic Europe: A History which I really don't have a target date for finishing... In the meanwhile, there's Marguerite Yourcenar's poignantly beautiful Memoirs of Hadrian, as my fiction read.

I've just finished and reviewed The Issa Valley by Czeslaw Milosz, a poetic coming-of-age story and much more.

I just finished The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. I wasn't going to read another Sarah Caudwell for a couple of months, but I need something that I know will make me happy after reading McCabe's excellent book. I am just starting The Sirens Sang of Murder by Caudwell. Hopefully, it will make me smile, and keep me from dreaming about the other.

I have just started Odd John by Olaf Stapledon It is no.5 in Abe book's list of 50 essential science fiction novels. It was published in 1935

I am starting Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates today. I've heard many good things about.

I've just finished The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (which, unfortunately, had too much Baxter and not enough Pratchett), and am now about to start Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner.

I really liked Revolutionary Road, Dewald, and be sure to stay away from the movie!

Now I've finished and reviewed Smile As They Bow by Nu Nu Yi, a Burmese novella about a spirit festival and the transvestite "spirit wives" who participate in it.

I am reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. I like it but it is predictable as the characters struggle in a poverty stricken town. It reminds me of A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.

I read through chapter 1 of Drift by Rachel Maddow last night. It looks like it will be interesting enough reading. If I am not done with it by the end of the week I will be alternating it with a novel.

Robert

Still reading Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Philip Yancey. It is a dangerous book to read, though, as all of Yancey's essays end with recommendations for two or three books to read on the various people he's writing about! :)

I have started reading Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. He was a writer from the Harlem Renaissance and I am looking forward to reading some good poetry.

>30 rebeccanyc: I haven't heard good things about the movie, Rebecca, so I'll heed your advice.

I'm also reading Revelations: Personal Responses to the Books of the Bible and Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin.

I've had Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy on the TBR for years, so I'll be interested in what you think of her Dickens biography. Of course, I should probably read something by Thomas Hardy first!

I am reading Machiavelli's Virtue by Harvey C Mansfield, which is definitely in the realms of Academia and so I am expecting slow progress.

To lighten up a bit I am also reading The Island of Doctor Moreau by H G Wells

I'm reading Third Culture Kids by Pollock and Van Reke. It's an easy read with great info and anecdotes.

I listened to a series of lectures on moving internationally by Pollock right before one of our moves and it helped so much. Third Culture Kids is also good and I'll have to reread it before we haul the kids over to Germany.

I just finished and reviewed The Necklace and Other Tales, my first encounter with Maupassant's wonderfully descriptive and psychologically astute short stories.

Finally finished First Drop. Although the story line was good, there were some elements that seriously detracted from my enjoyment of the book. My review will be posted as soon as it's written.

Don't know what i'll read next...too many choices!

Stayed up past my bedtime last night and finished Soul Survivor. I'll probably start Major Pettigrew's Last Stand today.

I'm now reading Reached by Ally Condie, the final book in the YA trilogy that started with Matched. So far, it's better than the second book, but still disappointing compared with the first one. Next up after that is The Bible According to Mark Twain.

>45 bragan: The Bible According to Mark Twain?!?! Just the idea of it has me smiling :)

>46 avidmom:: Me, too! Hopefully it will live up to expectations.

I have got a good start on Runaway Horses for discussion in Le Salon... It is, so far, better reading than its predecessor Spring Snow.

Robert

I am on a long term project to read through Cambridge Ancient, Medieval and Modern History volumes. Starting with Volume 1, Part one of the Ancient ones. :)

Plus a few more books: Soldiers of Salamis on the Kindle and The Humans Who Went Extinct - to compliment the Cambridge volume with some of the newer research.

I'm not going through a reading slump, I'm going through a reading time slump. My reading time keeps evaporating - guests, taxes, work and other things...

Anyway, I finished Song of Solomon, which was a curious pleasure to read, but I don't really know what to make of it. Now I'm trying to finish up 2 Chronicles and...I've started a few other books.

I just finished and commented on The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah Caudwell, and have started a short story Enemies, A Love Story (Kindle Single) by Josh Schollmeyer. With the recent death of Roger Ebert, it was recommended by my daughter.

Finished Behind the Beautiful Forevers I did like it it and I know it is a true "report" it is not a unique situation. A Fine Balance was my first look at the current conditions in an Indian slum and even though it is fiction there is truth to it.
Started Interred with Their Bones a mystery.

Finished Soldiers of Salamis (review in the work) and starting The Greenlanders on the Kindle side.

Finished Fossil Chronicles (review in the work) and starting Written in Stone on paper.

Completed 1 & 2 Chronicles.

I've finished and reviewed the moderately humorous Three Men in a Boat, which i enjoyed mostly for its digressions and sly insight into human nature.

I finished and reviewed the enjoyable Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon. Now it's back to pentecostal snake handlers in Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington.

56 - well it's hard to beat a good pentecostal snake handler. When I was 9 we used to go down the road to the big tent and peek in.

I am worried about reading this one at night. My only nightmares involve bitey snakes. And these guys are always getting bitten.

Oh my. Looking forward to your review on that one.

I just finished Seven Guitars a very powerful play by August Wilson. I am starting The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han.

RidgewayGirl, I'm glad to know you liked Await Your Reply, because it's next up for me, after I finish with a couple of magazines that have piled up on me. After that, I think it's going to be the ER book I just got, The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet by Ramez Naam.

I don't know if i'm allowed to post a link to reviews...but i just reviewed First Drop by Zoe Sharp...on my Club Read thread..and on the book link

http://www.librarything.com/work/490605/reviews/94920549

Absolutely; we do it all the time. As long as you post the review on the book page, people can click on the book's touchstone and go directly to the book page!

I have started reading The Virgin in the Garden by A.S. Byatt. I bought this copy in August 1987, and it falls apart under my hands.

and it falls apart under my hands.

:-( That's the worst.

I have finally drummed up the courage to start Team Of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I have been looking forward to starting it, and now seems to be the right time.

My sweetie really liked that, Colleen, when he read it several years ago, and has been encouraging me to read it ever since.

Rebecca, avidmom did such a wonderful job journaling TOR that it pushed this to the top of my TBR for this year.

I started At Day's Close last night and the descriptions of nasty streets and multiple crimes of previous times are making me glad I live today and not then. Then I have to remind myself - hmm - those sound an awful lot like today's gangs. But at least we do have sewers.

Did a quick set of comments for the three books I finished up recently Wyrd Sisters, The Gates, and Seeking Palestine. Now to try and finish up some of the other books that have languished in my Currently Reading collection for far too long.

I am working my way through The Greenlanders which is absolutely magnificent so far (if someone can read this kind of prose).

I've just finished and reviewed the delightfully satirical Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, as well as Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell about Our Pasts by Charles Fernyhough, a book full of some fascinating information that isburied in too many personal stories for my taste.

Gladiator by Philip Wylie. 1930's science fiction

I've finished Antony and Cleopatra by that other guy, but I don't know whether I should try to review it. Maybe I'll just share a few thoughts later...

Now reading Peripheral Light: Selected and New Poems by John Kinsella, a very good Australian poet. Also still busy with Revolutionary Road, which is bloody brilliant, and Charles Dickens: A Life, which is also great.

I am now a little over a hundred pages into Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire. And, I must confess, I am still mystified as to why Larsson is so insanely popular. So far he's literally had me reading his characters' shopping lists, and is now making me sit through a goddamned budget meeting. I'm really hoping this thing grows an interesting plot soon. I seem to recall The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo did eventually...

I am reading The Curse of the Pogo Stick. It is the fifth in the series of the Dr. Siri mysteries and the third I have read so far this year. I enjoy the characters and the story is very entertaining.

I've just finished Emma Donoghue's excellent short story collection, Stray.

I'm reading Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, a new English version by Philip Pullman, with my son who is now old enough to get the harder edged tales. I'm also reading Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell and Close to Home by Peter Robinson.

I've just read and reviewed the moving and perceptive An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman, one of my all-time favorite writers.

I finished Major Pettigrew's Last Stand last night and started Douglass and Lincoln today.

I have started The Book of the Courtier by Baldesar Castiglione first published in 1528

Continuing my reading of Zola, I've finished and reviewed the definitely non-realistic, somewhat tedious, but nonetheless thought-provoking The Sin of Father Mouret.

Just getting back to LibraryThing and Club Read after about 2+ months (!), and funny that I read at the top of this thread that April is Don't Read Any Books month, and interestingly enough (quite disappointing for me really) that I probably won't finish any books this month! I started Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by M. Barnard Eldershaw (actually Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw) last month. It has been slow going - it's a very dense book - but I am enjoying it. So, oh well, none finished in April, I'll live...

I've finished the Sefi Atta, A Bit of Difference, which turns out to be a great segue into Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I'm sorry I haven't been around much; I don't seem to be able to social on LT these days as much as I used to. Too preoccupied, I suppose. Will try to write about the Atta book in the near future.

>82 LisaMorr: Lisa me too. I browsed through one travel guide but otherwise don't think I've read 100 pages this month :( At least I've caught up on reviews.

Finished Greenlanders (loved it), The Last Policeman (liked it) and Jodi Picoult' The Storyteller (can someone tell me why I had been staying away from her books?) during my recent short trip with long flights.

Now back to the Cambridge Ancient History series and Born in Africa.
And on the Kindle, it is Mary Coin's time.

Reviews of the first three coming up.

I'm back with Albert Camus - I have started Albert Camus: A study of his Work by Philip Thody

For the 20 something time..... mans search for meaning

http://www.librarything.com/groups/holocaustauthors

#87, cbaw, if you would like to join Club Read, please take a look at the group page and some of our reading threads to get an idea of our group. Posting a link to a group you created on several threads and not introducing yourself and joining in some of our discussions doesn't help us to get to know you and your reading interests.

Yesterday I completed Burmese Days, George Orwell's debut novel, and Requiem: A Hallucination by Antonio Tabucchi. Today I'll finish No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe, the sequel to Things Fall Apart.

I have just finished up April with Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson. Some interestingly nutty stuff there.

#90 - thumbed your review. That sounds like something I'd like. Thanks for pointing it out--it's a new title to me.

90 Me too and my library has it!

>91 Nickelini:, 92: Thanks! I've read a couple of Ronson's other books, too, and find him generally to be a fun and interesting writer. I hope you guys like him as much!

One of the science fiction books on baswood's list of planned reading for May is Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. I had a copy and pulled it down to see if I might be interested in reading it with him. The first paragraph got me hooked, and I couldn't wait until May to read the rest.

Having stolen bas's idea, I don't want to be guilty as well of stealing his thunder, so I won't post anything to my Club Read thread until he has done likewise. But if you can't wait, my review is on the book page. I will say this: It is the first book I've given a 5-star rating in over two years.

Steven, Well I couldn't resist reading your review and I am looking forward to reading it next month.

Very interesting review of a book I wouldn't have thought of reading otherwise. The name George R. Stewart rang a bell with me. I took a look at his author page and saw he also wrote Names on the Land, a book about towns and other places in the US got their names which had been a favorite of my mothers. I bought it when it came out in an NYRB edition a few years ago but haven't read it yet. It sounds like he was comfortable in a wide range of writing areas.