*** What Are You Reading? (Part five)

Another 200 posts have passed by so here is Part Five of the What are you Reading? series. I'm currently reading Natsuo Kirino's Out which is thrilling but now that I'm in Japan the reading will slow down as I try to switch fully over to Japanese and limit my English.

What are you reading?

Margaret Fuller by Megan Marshall

I'm impressed, lilisin. I'm reading more in German than usual now that I'm living in Munich, but the vast majority of what I read is still in English. I hope I can at least increase the amount of German read in the next year.

I'm reading History of the Rain by Niall Williams, which is an utterly perfect book about reading, family history and Ireland. I've also started Ellen Feldman's The Unwitting.

I've also just laid my hands on a copy of Tana French's newest book, The Secret Place. I'd like to save it for the right moment, but I think the thrill of reading a book before the rest of you get it may prove too much for me.

>3 RidgewayGirl: I am so jealous about The Secret Place! :) Looking forward to that one.

ETA: I finished The Young Clementina by D. E. Stevenson. I am driving home from Cape Cod this morning, and will contemplate what my next book should be. I'm afraid that I am still in the mood for lighter fare. I don't want the vacation feeling to leave too quickly.

3 -
Thanks. I'm trying to be good about immersing myself. So far it's been easy to do until I'm home on my computer as I've yet to switch over to Jpn websites for things like the news.

As for the thrill of reading a book before everyone, that is indeed a great feeling. But then you also have to wait for it to be translated so you can talk about. I read Haruki Murakami's latest but I can't talk to anybody! It's been about a year and a half and I have to wait another half year before it's translated. I really want to see what others think about it!

I finished and reviewed What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World by Jon Young, a fascinating look at bird calls and behavior and how learning to observe them can provide insight into the behavior of the other animals that live around us.

I've just started Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It.

The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express is very, very odd. It included this sentence: "Trains had everything but a future. They looked very much like the stew pot or like Uncle Albert's bronchitis."

>3 RidgewayGirl:
>4 NanaCC:

I'm behind with the Tana French books. I still have Faithful Place and Broken Harbor on the TBR shelves.
I'll get one of those out next!

Right now I'm reading A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power by Jimmy Carter and
Ludie's Life by Cynthia Rylant.

Like Kay I'm also reading and enjoying History of the Rain by Niall Williams, which was chosen for the Booker Prize longlist, along with an LT Early Reviewer book, Nevirapine and the Quest to End Pediatric AIDS by Rebecca Anderson.

Started The Liars Club by Mary Karr

I finally finished that book on Predator drones I seemed to be reading forever, and have now started The 1987 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. I've read a bunch of these old World's Best SF anthologies in the last few years, and based on the stories I've read so far, this may well turn out to be the best of them. Who knew 1986 was a good year for science fiction?

I'm reading and loving both Buddenbrooks and The Cuckoo's Calling - kind of a contrast but I love them both so far!

Just finished Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas by Rebecca Solnit & Rebecca Snedeker. It was great! Now I'm moving onto Cinder by Marissa Meyer, which I hope is a fun read.

I'm definitely reading Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan and sort of reading the classic Alice in Wonderland.

I'm reading The Leopard, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, my audio book is The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (Maggie Tulliver is such a great character!) and my non-fiction book is a biography of Buddha, by Karen Armstrong.

Avid --looking forward to your thoughts on Zealot. I keep thinking I'm not interested, but then I hear him interviewed yet again and change my mind.

>13 kaylaraeintheway: I just read an essay by Rebecca Solnit in the spring issue of Granta. She's a big walker. I'm curious about the New Orleans book.

>13 kaylaraeintheway: and >16 dchaikin: Rebecca Solnit was the one who wrote Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, which I read a couple of months ago and liked quite well.

I am reading the wonderful The Harem Within, a memoir of growing up in 1940s Morocco.

Still reading Du côté de Guermantes and started It's Complicated by Danah Boyd, a book on how teenager use social networking.

Because of numerous mentions on public radio yesterday I cracked open my Baldwin: Collected Essays last night and read three of them. I am charmed by his word selection, and his themes are both germane and important; I don't know how clever he is. I have set it to be read from from time to time.

I have also started The Lake for discussion in my book group. It is of an entirely different temper than Snow Country or The Master of Go.

Robert

This week I finished two books and finally had a chance to review them: Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three, which is at its best when telling the tale of the revolt against the French Revolution in Brittany but bogs down elsewhere, and The Mongolian Conspiracy by Rafael Bernal, a satiric noir thriller that also comments on Mexican politics, corruption, and brutality.

For my next book, I'm trying to decide between Siri Hustvedt's Booker nominated The Blazing World and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. They are both set (from what I can gather) in the art world and I'm not sure I'll have the energy for both of them in the near future. Anyone read both and recommend one over the other?

Otherwise, I'm still enjoying Buddenbrooks and have start the dense but readable A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman.

>22 japaul22: Well, I loved The Goldfinch possibly more than it deserved, but The Blazing World is Booker nominated and what is better than having an informed opinion about an upcoming prize? Also, I am very curious about The Blazing World and would love to find out your reaction to it.

I vote The Blazing World.

I sped through Ireland: A Concise History, which I didn't love or hate (did feel it had a pro-Britain bias). Now I'm reading Accidents of Nature and happy to be immersed in a world of other disabled people. Just starting Empire of the Summer Moon and The Phoenix and the Carpet as well.

I'm reading Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique, which is good.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (YA novel) and
Phantom Instinct by Meg Gardiner (thriller)

>23 RidgewayGirl: Kay, I started The Blazing World and I'm so intrigued that there's no way to skip it now. Maybe I'll get to The Goldfinch someday soon as well. Expect a review on The Blazing World in the next week or so!

I am reading Platero and I which was originally published in 1914, but you would never guess this from the University of Texas edition that I am reading which is copyrighted as 1957; the date of the translation.

I'm reading The God Delusion and trying to finish Springtime for Germany by Ben Donald, which I have been reading in spurts for several months.

I have also, in the course of an undisciplined summer, acquired several new books, which I am eager to read immediately. However, there are several all vying for my attention at once and so I'm finishing up books which have been hanging around a while.

I finished a very good LT Early Reviewers book this morning, Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, which I'll review later today or tomorrow, along with another good LT ER book I read earlier this week, Nevirapine and the Quest to End Pediatric AIDS by Rebecca Anderson.

I have one more LT ER book to read to catch up with my latest batch, The Inevitable City: The Resurgence of New Orleans and the Future of Urban America by Scott Cowen, and I'll also resume reading History of the Rain by Niall Williams, which was chosen for this year's Booker Prize longlist.

>22 japaul22: I adored Buddenbrooks and have been eying A Distant Mirror, which has been on my TBR for at least 30 years, over the past few months . . .

>25 bragan: I read Land of Love and Drowning recently and liked it too.

I seem to have started The Puttermesser Papers...because it was on top of a pile of novels I really wanted to get to, and I had that leisure.

Robert

>31 rebeccanyc: Land of Love and Drowning remained good to the end!

I'm now reading Rabid: The Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy. Right now, it's drawing weird and interesting connections between werewolf legends and rabies.

I picked up The Secret Place by Tana French this morning and am now readjusting my schedule to allow me to spend the day with it.

>34 RidgewayGirl: So jealous!!!!!!

Colleen, I'm a third of the way in, and it is fabulous!

Kay, It is coming out here next Tuesday. I will download to my Kindle then. :)

Am still plodding my way through the Landmark Herodotus but needed a break, so I read Bartleby & Co., which was sitting there conveniently on my Kindle and which turns out to be one of my favorite books read this year.

I've finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann which I loved and am continuing with The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowles... based on the previous part of this thread, I'm following several others on this one.

I had a nice light fiction break with a Cadfael mystery, The Holy Thief, and I've gotten a good start on an ER, Without You, There Is No Us, about the author's time teaching English in North Korea. Still listening to The Phoenix and the Carpet.

Continuing my literary August in France, I read Dumas's The Women's War and found it thoroughly delightful with its combination of intrigue, identity deception, and romance, if not up to (but what could be?) The Count of Monte Cristo.

I finished listening to Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (The audio version was great), and finished a wonderful little book, Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort by Edith Wharton.

Next up in print, Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell, and for audio, A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny.

I've finished Tana French's new novel, The Secret Place. I have some non-fiction to fall back on (The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Springtime for Germany by Ben Donald) until my head clears.

About a week ago I was ready to read a novel and approached a pretty random pile of fiction knowing that Anne Patchett and Cynthia Ozick would be in it. I was hopeful that one of those would be toward the top was happy to find The Puttermesser Papers. Then Dan responded on my thread and mentioned Anne Patchett's bookstore. That was enough to start the gears of an obsessive turning. I am about fifty pages into State of Wonder now. It was in the same pile.

Robert

Was wondering where I'd left that monkey wrench. I'll look forward to your comments. I might want to read either of those.

After two months, I've finally finished the incredibly detailed The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark. It is a remarkable achievement but was much too much for me.

I finished Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth yesterday and hope to post my thoughts on it soon. Today, (after all the other stuff is done) hopefully I can find the time to start reading my library's copy of The Demon's Parchment and finish my own copy of Alice in Wonderland.

I'm halfway through Without You, There is No Us, and a good ways into The Eastern Front 1914-1917, which is very dry and detailed. It's not going to be my favorite, but I've barely read anything about the eastern front during WWI, and I think it will be a good enough anchor for further reading. Also just barely started Caddie Woodlawn as my kitchen audio book.

>49 mabith: Oh, my! Caddie Woodlawn! I haven't thought about that book in 50 years but I loved it as a girl.

It's part of my "Children's books I didn't get around to as a child" reading, which I'm generally having a ball with.

Having finally finished JCO's latest American Gothic romp, I have now started All Days are Night by the Swiss author Peter Stamm.

I've finished and reviewed Balzac's The Wild Ass's Skin and a memoir by a Hungarian artist about his experiences in World War I, The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914.

I've just finished The Blazing World, one of this year's Booker nominees, which was excellent. I'm now reading Alberta and Freedom, the second in a semi-autobiographical trilogy by Norwegian Nobel prize winner, Cora Sandel, and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century which I'm finding much more readable than I expected.

Just starting Lord of the Flies. Without You, There Is No Us was pretty interesting, and a look into North Korean life that maybe no one else has given us.

I finished the amusing Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell. I plan on downloading Tana French's new book, The Secret Place, tomorrow morning when it is released here in the U.S. My Kindle is charging so that I can devote the next two days to that one, and then I will follow it with The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert for a book club read.

Continuing with Herodotus, and for the sake of variety I have been alternating with Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz, which is one of the first recommendations I acquired from CR way back in 2011. I must say, this is presenting quite a different view of Cook than I had in mind.

I really enjoyed Blue Latitudes a lot.

I am reading New worlds for old, H G Wells

I'm reading Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto for the sheer enjoyment of it and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which is a bit of a slog. He does a lot of discrediting of things only fundamentalists believe, and probably not all of them. But there is a little wheat among the chaff.

I've just finished The Mauritius Command, book four in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, which I am very slowly and gradually making my way through. And I've now started Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz, after seeing lots of positive buzz about it on LT.

I could barely put down The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia, a tale of how the lives of two sisters who are brothel owners spiral wildly out of control.

Finally reading The Devil in the White City, one I've been meaning to get to since its release. Also reading Caddie Woodlawn, having missed it as a child.

We have in mind a trip to Kuala Lumpur sometime next summer. I never know how our plans of this sort will turn out, but I've started reading about it. My first books are an audio, which is wonderful so far, The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, and a not so great but useful history book, A History of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei by Constance Mary Turnbull. The Garden of Evening Mists is my first try at fiction on audio. As for the Turnball - from 1989 - so far I've spent a lot more time on google and wikipedia while "reading" it than actually reading it. This region requires a whole new language of places for me. (Would be nice if instead of just naming several random places in each paragraph, the book might provide a map with them shown somewhere, or the text could maybe introduce some of them in some way.)

I recently finished and reviewed The Spectre of Alexander Wolf by Gaito Gazdanov, a book with an intriguing premise and a little too much philosophizing.

I just finished The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig, which was very, very good. Now I'm reading Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto.

ridgewaygirl -
You haven't perchance been sneaking around my bookshelves have you? Those two books better be there when I get back! ;)

Lilisin, I think we've previously agreed that Seicho Matsumoto is worth reading. Sadly, this is the last book of his I have to read. For the first time, in any case.

I need to go to the bookstore and see his books in Japanese. So many not translated that are fair game for me if they aren't too long!

There are only three published in English.

I am reading Aretino's Dialogues by Pietro Aretino

I spent most of the day yesterday (OK - ALL day!) finishing the 3rd in the Crispin Guest medieval noir series, The Demon's Parchment, and posted my review. I am now finishing off the last few pages of my own copy of Alice in Wonderland.

Finished The Devil in the White City, and was not impressed. Started The Long Mars today.

I have now finished Being Wrong and have started Biting the Sun.

(That was a fun sentence to type.)

I've finished a collection of Antal Szerb's stories and early novellas/longer stories, Love in a Bottle, which I found good but not up to his longer novels and historical work.

I've finished Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and am reading Heartstone, the 5th book in the Shardlake mystery series by C.J. Sansom.

I really felt like reading some nonfiction so I went out and bought The Rape of Nanking, a book I've been wanting to read forever.

I finished devouring The Secret Place by Tana French, and finished listening to A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny on my drive to Massachusetts yesterday. I've started reading and enjoying Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert. I probably won't get to any audio before I leave to head home next Wednesday, but I have The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell loaded and ready to go.

Have been alternating my reading of Herodotus with Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, which I have now finished, and along with Dan, thoroughly enjoyed. Next in line is Venice Incognito: Masks in the Serene Republic by James H. Johnson, and hoping it isn't too dry.

The Hibernator started a theme read on Mental Illness and Suicide ( http://www.librarything.com/topic/178609) and found Mrs. Dalloway listed as "11 of the Most Realistic Portrayals of Mental Illness" so I'm reading that one now. It's just a bit of kismet, since I recently bought that book for no other reason than it was a classic - I had no idea it had anything to do with mental illness!

Along with the slow ones, I am now reading Gone Girl. I am 85 pages into it. I find it not very engaging, but I want to know the ending before I go to the movie. I have a guess, but it would entail too facile dealing with a couple of the clues (the teapot and the iron).

Robert

PS My guess: Amy is off somewhere to be found from following all the clues in the treasure hunt. Nick's father had come by the house and made a mess of it before stumbling off in a daze.

R

I'm in the middle of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, which is interesting but also a bit over my head when he gets into long sections of financial-ese. Also listening to Mary Poppins and just barely started The Woman Who Would Be King, about Hatshepsut.

I have 4 books that I started when I had a lull at work and then I got very busy and haven't made any progress. :-/

I'm reading Heartstone by C.J. Sansom, My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead, A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, and Jane Austen Cover to Cover which was an ER win.

I finished The Edge of the Storm by Agustin Yanez, a compelling look at a remote Mexican town struggling with change on the eve of the 1910 revolution.

Just finished an ER book, Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle by Douglas J. Emlen, and am about to start Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson.

I have read nearly a fifth (0.1754807692307692 — 146 of 832 pages) of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton despite feeling some tedium and some failure to go anywhere. I will probably read on in it.

Robert

I finished Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto, which was enormously fun, being this classical police procedural, but set in Tokyo in the 1960s. I have a friend visiting who spent a year in Okinawa and she was helpful in explaining certain foods and customs.

And now I'm not reading anything, which is unusual for me and is making me itchy.

I am reading Martha Quest by Doris Lessing

I'm delighted to have read my first book by Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter, and it won't be my last.

>89 rebeccanyc: I loved The Captain's Daughter. I had my first taste of Pushkin when reading The Queen of Spades, which is a delight and takes about 20 minutes to whip through. I'm looking forward to reading more by Pushkin in the future.

I've settled into the noir Canadian crime novel, Buffalo Jump by Howard Shrier.

I'm reading and enjoying The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.

Reading A Short History of Malaysia : Linking East and West by Virginia Matheson Hooker

Listening to A More Perfect Heaven : How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (Audio) by Dava Sobel, read by Suzanne Toren Fernandez

I just finished The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, which SassyLassy recommend after I read The Edge of the Storm, and found it compelling in many ways.

I've recently finished My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead and Heartstone by C.J. Sansom. I'm continuing on with A Distant Mirror by Tuchman and browsing through Jane Austen Cover to Cover which was an ER win (nickelini - I think you'd enjoy this one!).

I can't decide what to start next for fiction. I'll have a long traveling day for work on Tuesday, so I'm leaning towards just kindle books (probably The Secret Place by Tana French and Mapp and Lucia, but I'm really craving a real book in my hands so I might start one of those too (either The Stone Diaries or New York Trilogy).

Decisions, decisions . . .

My son had to choose a novel for his AP lit. class and chose The Stranger by Albert Camus. He insisted I read it as well. I started it yesterday and am already half-way through it. (It's a short book!)

I'm reading Doomsday Book by Connie Willis and The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt.

I am reading The Prussian Officer and other stories by D H Lawrence published in 1914

Still plugging away with Herodotus — now two-thirds of the way along — and alternating with Melville's Piazza Tales just for something a bit different.

I'm nearly finished with Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which recently won the Hugo award. And an excellent read it is, too. Next up after that is The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost, because who can resist a book with a title like that?

Just finished The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

>100 bragan: I found Sex Lives of Cannibals really interesting and a great read. Hope you like it!

I was on vacation, and didn't get much reading done (there was a super happy 15 month old around who was hamming it up for me, who could read when that was about?). Halfway through The Woman Who Would Be King and about a quarter through Doomsday Book.

>102 mabith: Just started it! I'm not too sure about the author's style so far, but it does look like it's going to be interesting.

I listened to it, with Simon Vance reading which emphasized the humor and probably helped obscure stylistic issues. The facts about life in those islands and daily existence so far removed from large cities was just fascinating. The mix of personal and journalistic worked really well for me in the end.

>104 mabith: Actually, I think it's mostly that his sense of humor takes a little adjusting to for me, but I don't expect it to be a big problem. And I do often like non-fiction that mixes personal and journalistic.

>104 mabith: Update: I am now a few chapters in, and finding it utterly delightful.

In two readings I am 112 pages into the 864 pages of The Goldfinch. It seems to be less interesting reading than I recall of Donna Tartt's other novels.

Robert

Started reading Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr

I've finished Buffalo Jump, a PI tale set in Toronto by Howard Shrier and have started on Endless Love by Scott Spencer.

I'm reading Black Beauty and Troubled Bones, the next book in the Crispin Guest series. It's rare for me to read two books at once, but I find myself doing it more and more lately.

Reading Asterios Polyp, a graphic novel by David Mazzucchelli, and I think I'm about to read Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, a novel about Malaysia.

Dan, I just saw the reference to Asterios Polyp on your thread and added it preemptively to my wishlist, but I'll be very interested to know your thoughts about it.

I am reading a lot of fluffy comfort stuff lately, mostly Georgette Heyer. In an attempt to go back to more serious reading, yesterday I bought two non fiction books, one about the Dreyfus affair which Proust keeps mentioning (the affair, not the book), and a biography of the prophet Muhammad. Both are in French. Um, and I also bought two Georgette Heyer just in case.

But while hunting for stuff to read on my iPad, I found An Invisible Orchard which I downloaded as a free e-book of the month from University of Chicago Press a while ago. I started reading a few pages and it seems delightful, so I think I'll keep reading it. I also tentatively read a few pages of Portrait of a Lady which has been sitting there for some time. Too soon yet to say if I will continue.

I am reading The Last Man by Mary Shelley and swallowing a lot of gothic/romantic writing.

>112 FlorenceArt: Flo - I like Asterio Polyp and there are a lot of nice things I can say about it, but just note they I'm reading it just because my concentration is iffy and graphic novels make easy reads. So, I'm not digging very deep. It's a curious story about a guy who was happy recently but has lost everything. And it looks into design and form and then into the roll of correctness in art and life. The graphics are striking and the reason I initially picked it up.

In the past couple of days I've finished The Violent Land by Jorge Amado and The Topless Tower by Silvina Ocampo and I enjoyed both of them.

I just finished two books that weren't particularly high priorities, but I just felt like it. Enjoyed them both: The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville and The Synthetic Man by Theodore Sturgeon. Very different from Herodotus, which I am still plugging away at.

I've just started Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be For Labor When It's Flat on Its Back, the older edition so it's a bit dated, but I'm enjoying his style so far. Also starting As I Lay Dying and Trouble-Twisters on audio.

I've recently finished Allison Hewitt is Trapped, a not-very-impressive zombie novel, and am now reading Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine by R. Barker Bausell, which is actually a really good, thorough explanation of how hard it is to separate real from false effects in determining if a medical treatment is effective, and how something can easily look like it truly, even obviously works, when in fact it's basically just a placebo.

I'm reading At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen.

I'll be interested in what you think of that, Kay. It's been on my TBR for a long time.

>118 bragan: Interested in your thoughts about Snake Oil Science! It's in my wishlist now.

>121 FlorenceArt: I'm about a third of the way through it, and based on that, I definitely recommend it.

I finished Black Beauty, so now will pay 100% attention to my library copy of Troubled Bones.

One more unscheduled read: Endymion, The Man in the Moon by John Lyly, a delightful Elizabethan comedy. Now it's back to Herodotus. No more fooling around!

I sped through The Earth Moved, which is a nice little popular science book about earthworms, and now I'm starting The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker and an ER, Dumbing Down America.

I just finished The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which I thought was brilliant. I'm going for a quick one next, so I chose Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin.

Just finished up Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr, which was really great. In anticipation of the new Vampire Chronicles book coming out this month, I am re-reading Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice.

Just starting Bible and Sword by Barbara Tuchman.

Flipped audio books. Finished Bonnie Prince Charlie by Carolly Erickson, and started The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (read by Karen Chilton)

And added a book to my currently reading stack - rereading When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant for my book club. This was my recommendation, hoping it works out. At least I'm really enjoying the re-read.

I'm about half way through The Goldfinch, so I guess I am reading it.

Robert

I'll be interested in hearing what you think about The Goldfinch, Robert. It's a book one either loves or is bored by.

I've finished At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen, which I enjoyed.

I was bored for the first 200 pages, but now I'm at my standard Donna Tartt level — pretty good but shy of very good.

Robert

I loved The Secret History but I couldn't finish The Little Friend. There was that feeling of dread that something horrible and avoidable is going to happen, I can't stand that. I bought The Goldfinch but am a bit reluctant to start reading it...

What I'm reading now (copied from my thread):

- Pascin by Johann Sfar. It took me a while to pick this up at the library, as I felt I wouldn't like it. It certainly don't like Pascin (whose name I found out is pronounced paskin). He reminds me a little of Serge Gainsbourg, who was a genius and a very disagreeable man. He also looks like him, especially in Sfar's drawings. I finished volume 3 and will probably read the rest, but slowly.
- Un peu de bois et d'acier, a wordless comic book about the life of a park bench. Nice drawings and lots of barely suggested stories. I like it.
- An Orchard Invisible, a delicious book about seeds, and pretty much any loosely related topic that occurs to the author as he rambles on. Well, not exactly, it's actually a pretty structured and very informative book, and a very agreeable read. But I'm getting impatient because I'd like to read The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus next, which I believe is considered the most authoritative book on the Dreyfus affair. And the reason for this is
- Le côté de Guermantes, where most of the book seems to be occupied by the description of a social gathering and where the affair is mentioned very often.
- The Portrait of a Lady, which I am enjoying but only a few pages at a time, so it will take some time to finish.

All this interspersed with lots of Georgette Heyer.

I've just finished The Hidden Land by Pamela Dean, book two in a fantasy trilogy about which I am having annoyingly mixed feelings. And I'm now starting Lucky Us by Amy Bloom.

Finally finished The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. Now buried in The Red and the Black by Stendhal. I read it as a teenager but I am certain I didn't have a clue. This sentence I am certain I did not understand: Some hours later, when Julien emerged from Madame de Renal's room, one might have said, in the language of romance, that there was nothing left for him to wish. ;-)

Finished Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery and just starting Snow Falling On Cedars for my book club.

For some time, I've been reading In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means, edited by Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky, and I've finally finished and reviewed it. I've long been interested in translation, and this provided much food for thought.

I have reading ADD at the moment. Books in progress are Freakonomics, Troubled Bones and maybe, kind of The Canterbury Tales - TB features Chaucer and alludes to TCT quite heavily.

I'm halfway through Snow Falling on Cedars.

**Edit** Just saw I already posted that one, sorry!

I'm reading a Dutch police procedural from the 1980s called The Rattle-Rat by Janwillem van de Wetering. It's written in an odd style, but I'm beginning to enjoy it. The author is poking fun at the sexism of the time, which I like.

I'm also reading The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles, which is set in Brazil and I picked up because of a long ago recommendation from avaland. I'm only a few chapters in, but the beginning shows promise.

I finished Short Letter, Long Farewell by Peter Handke; I didn't warm to it while I was reading it but I find myself still thinking about it a day later.

I've started Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt. It's going well so far, but then I don't think I've ever disliked a book about ancient Rome.

I've finished A King's Ransom by Sharon Kay Penman and I've started The Waves by Virginia Woolf. I'm also determined to finish A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman this month and I'm reading Evelina by Fanny Burney on my kindle.

I'm half way through Life After Life, so I suspect I'm reading it despite not enjoying the first hundred pages or so very much. It is getting better. It may be delayed; I expect Ann Patchett's essays to be in today's mail.

Robert

I've been in a reading slump, but that may be over with Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick. I think this is a good book for anyone who is interested in North Korea. And I can't really imagine not being interested in North Korea, but I'm sure there are people who aren't. Anyway . . . yet again, when I'm in a reading slump, it's often non-fiction that rescues me. Funny that.

Joyce, I'm the same with non-fiction. Well, I'd always been a heavy non-fiction reader, then didn't read many new-to-me books for a couple years, then sort of forgot that non-fiction was my sweet spot. I felt so burnt out reading so much fiction that was often just mediocre I actually put a strict limit on how many books I read every month to ease the burn-out. Then suddenly I started reading a lot of non-fiction again and was much happier. For me it's generally easier to predict ahead of time whether I'll love a non-fiction book vs fiction (not foolproof, but it's a lot less subjective and of course there are fewer surprises).

I'm really enjoying The Seamstress, but my copy is a heavy hardcover and so stays home.

Out and about, I'm reading Dan Chaon's book of short stories, Stay Awake and What You See in the Dark by Manuel Munoz.

For me it's generally easier to predict ahead of time whether I'll love a non-fiction book vs fiction (not foolproof, but it's a lot less subjective and of course there are fewer surprises)

I would agree with that overall. It basically comes down to "Am I interested in this topic?" and then as long as the writer says something interesting about that topic, you're good to go. That said, I've been disappointed in too many non-fiction books this year. But Nothing to Envy is definitely good.

Nothing to Envy was so excellently done. It's a topic that could be mishandled quite easily yet still get loads of positive press just because it's about North Korea. I was very pleasantly surprised by how well Demick did with it.

I'm currently reading Moll Flanders, Return to Gone-Away, and Falco: The Official Companion. It was so neat reading Lindsey Davis' little blurbs on each Falco book (her researches, why she tackled this topic, etc...). Davis just seems like the most wonderful person, as well.

I'm reading The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemison, which so far is terrific. Just a really well-done fantasy novel with top-notch world-building.

(I have Nothing to Envy on the TBR shelves, by the way. I really must get to it sometime in the not-too-distant future.)

Took me 2 months, but I finally finished Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror! It was excellent even though I found a few parts kind of boring. Overall, it was great.

Lying in bed last night after finishing Life After Life and exhausting my interest in web sites I can tolerate on my tablet, I started This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, essays (periodical articles) by Ann Patchett. I am enjoying the collection, especially her descriptions of what it is to write and be a writer.

Robert

>152 japaul22: congrats
>153 Mr.Durick: glad you're enjoying. I found that essay on writing is fascinating

On audio I finished The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and read by Karen Chilton. And wow. I thought it would be sad and mildly interesting, but it's was a huge eye opener and a major book. And it has to be read to know how important it is. Reviews will be pressed to capture it. I've started The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt.

In text I finished Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, a novel about Tamil's in Malaysia. I'm just happy to be done with it. Next I plan to try Indonesian etc., a nonfiction travelogue by Elizabeth Pisani.

>154 dchaikin:

Elizabeth Pisani seems to be an interesting author. I will look foreward to your review of Indonesian etc.,.

I will be curious to see what you make of The swerve.

>154 dchaikin: I'm eager to read The New Jim Crow, but if you think it's good on audio, I'll try that. I'm always looking for good non-fiction to listen to.

>155 edwinbcn: that's nice to know. I'll report back about it.

>156 RidgewayGirl: The New Jim Crow is great on audio.

>154 dchaikin: I have been wanting to read The New Jim Crow too; am looking forward to what you have to say about it! Right now I'm reading Freakonomics. It is amusing and eye-opening.

I read The New Jim Crow in 2012 and it really changed my view and opened my eyes. It is definitely one of my all time most influential reads.

The New Jim Crow is definitely the most important book I've read in the last two years.

I've finished the audio version of The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell, and The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Next up, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett for audio, and Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope.

I can relate to Joyce's reading slump mentioned in >146 Nickelini: above. Since I finished The Red and the Black I started The Iliad but am having trouble settling into it. I went on line and read magazines all afternoon yesterday. This facility is provided by my local library. It's been ages since I just sat around browsing through ads and skipping through articles about nothing in particular. It was fun for a change.

I've been on a roll lately. Finished The Riddle of the Compass, Falco: The Official Companion, and Inside Out and Back Again today. All quite interesting, and the last was so vibrantly written, very successful at putting you IN Vietnam (it follows a 10 year old girl's life from the Tết before the fall of Saigon through their escape from the country, and beginning of a new life in the US, to the next Tết celebration).

Now I'm just beginning Dracula and should really get back to Dumbing Down America (it managed to completely turn me off and alienate me by about page five), which I need to review.

I've just finished Bricks And Mortar by Helen Ashton, immediately followed by Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford. I have a heap of books on the pile I should be moving on to, but have just had several people strongly recommend Hack Attack by Nick Davies as well as his earlier book Flat Earth News, so will be on the lookout for them.

I'm now reading One for the Books, a collection of book-related essays by Joe Queenan. Somehow, he manages to reflect a whole bunch of attitudes that irritate me while still being entertaining.

I just finished Freakonomics which was interesting and am going to start Superman versus The Ku Klux Klan, a story I never heard of until reading Freakonomics!

I went to bed shortly after I got home from a heavy dinner last night, looked a little bit on line, and then cracked open Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood. I was exhausted after the first few pages, from both circumstances and the book, and turned out the light a little after 9 pm. About 11 pm I was awake and opened it again. I read perhaps 60 pages and have enough momentum now to finish it.

Robert

Add me belatedly to the list of admirers of The New Jim Crow.

Oblomov in the Penguin edition appears to be denser on the page than any of the other novels I have read recently. Nevertheless I read a tenth of it last night. He is not as much like me as I had hoped, but he is admirable. He has not, in 48½ pages representing at least a couple of hours, yet gotten out of bed, despite consultation with his servant and with his callers.

Robert

I'm halfway through both Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness a medical memoir by Susannah Cahalan and The Getaway Car, a collection of non-fiction writing (unpublished bits and bobs, forwards and introductions to other books, etc...) by Donald E. Westlake.

I had no trouble identifying with Oblomov

I just finished The Iliad and am now going to indulge in rereading Homer's Daughter, which I first read too many moons ago to recall much about it. Having recently read both The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer I am prompted by how different the two epics are from each other and want to remind myself of the intriguing proposition that The Odyssey was actually not written by Homer at all but by his daughter! The idea of separate authorship was not unique to Robert Graves, but the daughter as author may be. I must investigate . . .

It took me a while, but I finally finished and reviewed The Complete Short Novels by Anton Chekhov, a wonderful volume.

I've just finished NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Next up: God's Problem by Bart D. Ehrman.

I've just started NOS4A2, as it was recommended as a really scary book. Usually, horror either falls flat for me or feels silly and overblown, so we'll see if Joe Hill lives up to the hype. I did like Heart-Shaped Box.

I'm also reading Back to the Coast, another Dutch crime novel.

>175 RidgewayGirl: I have to admit, I didn't find NOS4A2 as scary as I would have liked, myself. (And I liked Heart-Shaped Box, too.) But it's gotten a lot of good reviews, so hopefully it will work for you!

Finished Fool's Gold by Maro Douka, an autobiographical novel set during the Greek dictatorship of 1967-74. Now reading A Traveller's History of Greece.

I've recently finished reading Evelina by Frances Burney which was really interesting as an influence on Jane Austen and fun in it's own right. I also finished listening to the very silly early gothic novel The Castle of Otranto.

Now I'm reading an ER book, A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III which I'm really enjoying so far. For fiction, I'm about to start The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

I've started The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, which so far is almost exactly like the mini-series. It's a bit of a hard read right now, the constant high level of misogyny (while very realistic) is getting me down.

For a huge contrast I also started Parzival and the Stone from Heaven by Lindsay Clarke when I woke up early. It's not really my cup of tea, but it's a ROOT and not too long. I'm also having a re-read of Freddy and the Ignormous on audio, which is read extremely well. It's easy to forget just HOW good the Freddy books are, particularly before they all start being space-based (oh the 1950s...).

Meredith, I only saw the first episode of the mini-series, but it did follow the book closely. Thanks for reminding me to go find the rest of the series.

I am reading A brief Life by Juan Carlos Onetti

>180 RidgewayGirl: I found the mini-series really well-done and interesting. I was just looking for anything with Essie Davis in it, after loving her as Miss Fisher. I was iffy about the ending, but it does have a hard realism to it.

I just finished Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers, which I really enjoyed.

Now starting We That Were Young by Irene Rathbone for the Virago Great War Theme Read.

I've been reading it for more than a month, but I finally finished and reviewed the remarkable and complex News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso.

I've finished two audio books and started a third. I finished The Swerve : How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt, read by Edoardo Ballerini which I found good fun but mistitled. And then I finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, read by the author. The diary is semi-factual, moving and read terrifically - if you can get over the "juvenile" label and also give it someime. Now I'm listening to The Chinese in America : A Narrative History by Iris Chang, read by Jade Wu, a subject that interests me since so many of my coworkers were born in China (apparently an oddity of geophysics).

In text I just finished indonesia etc. by Elizabeth Pisani. The information is great, but the presentation is straightforward, maybe too straightforward. Next, for my book club, will be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm less excited for it then I feel I should be.

I've finished and reviewed The Quiet American; complex but brief, it explores betrayal and the need to take a side.

I've just finished the excellent debut nonfiction book by Janice Hadlow, A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III. It's an ER book that won't come out til mid-november, but I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the era.

I just downloaded Olive Kitteridge to my Kindle. HBO is showing it as a mini-series tonight and tomorrow, starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Bill Murray. I'll record the mini-series, so that I can read the book first.

I'm nearing the end of A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain, which is mostly good, though the author sometimes inserts his opinion of modern life in an annoying (to me) way. I believe there were some criticisms of it presented in Girl Trouble as well. I'm halfway through A Vicarage Family, Noel Streatfeild's memoir of her childhood.

Stretching myself a bit thin, I'm starting Jo's Boys as my kitchen audiobook, and a second print book, Shadowfell: The Caller, the last in Juliet Marillier's latest fantasy trilogy.

I am taking a break from my spate of ancient Greek classics (while I wait for an annotated edition of Plato's Republic to show up on my doorstep) and am finally getting to The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Shulz which several of you have recommended. The abrupt switch from Homer to Shulz caused me to have to read the first story twice because I had no idea what I had just read after the first attempt!

I'm feeding my inner history nerd by reading Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America by Adam Cohen. We have DVR'd the entire Ken Burns PBS documentary, "The Roosevelts" which we try to watch as a family every weekend and have just gotten to the point where FDR is elected president. (The documentary is awesome; we're just having a hard time getting everyone together at once!) Figured it would be perfect time to read this particular book.

I've finished and reviewed Six Drawing Lessons, a collection of the six lectures artist William Kentridge gave at Harvard about his work, philosophy, and a whole range of other topics.

I liked NOS4A2 by Joe Hill; it didn't give me chills but it did strengthen my natural animosity toward Christmas Carols played anytime other than in December.

I've started David Mitchell's newest novel, The Bone Clocks and am finishing up a few other books.

I've recently finished the disappointing Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason, and am now reading Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey, which I think has been sitting on my TBR shelves since approximately the dawn of time.

>194 bragan: That was a touchstone book in my younger intellectual development. I would be afraid to read it now though.

ETA - that being Desery Solitaire and not the Mason book.

>195 dchaikin: I find myself taking a slightly jaded attitude towards some of Abbey's more idealistic ramblings. which I might not have had if I'd read it twenty years or so ago when I first picked up my copy, but it's still very good.

Just started Palmetto Moon by Kim Boykin. Charleston SC in 1947.
and another -
Purple Heart by Paricia McCormick. Wounded soldier in Iraq has some connection to an Iraqi boy.

I was tempted to Pearl-rule Three Day Road at page 50, but I soldiered on, and it got a lot better. Not loving it yet, but I can see why so many readers rave about it.

I'm coming to the end of The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane, and well into The Caller by Juliet Marillier.

I'm reading Paul Auster's New York Trilogy and The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton.

I'm reading The Children Act by Ian McEwan and The Inevitable City: The Resurgence of New Orleans and the Future of Urban America by Scott Cowen.

I just finished, Rabbit,Run by {John Updike.} The first in a tetralogy. Tomorrow I will start, Rabbit Redux the 2nd and published in this same volume. Updike... no matter the squeamishness of many, is a great American novelist.

I've started Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War by Virginia Nicholson (women in Britain, that is). It's well done so far.

>202 mhmr: I agree mhmr the Rabbit novels are excellent.

I am going to start Cities in Flight some mid 20th century science fiction.

I just finished Dreaming and Storytelling, am working through Death in Venice and Other Stories.

Coincidentally, Suzanne, I just finished Mann's last (and unfinished) novel, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man.

I have just finished the very good Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson. My book group seems to be on a numerological kick at the moment - having recently read The First Man by Albert Camus, we'll be reading The Third Man by Graham Greene, then watching a movie called "The Fourth Man" starring Jeroen Krabbe. Where will it end?!