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

It's the final push till the end of the year so tell everyone what you are reading! I purchased Ryu Murakami's From the Fatherland, with Love for a long flight and am quite excited as I haven't read a book in about two months.

What are you reading?

I'm reading two enjoyable books - The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton and Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, a collection of essays on a life filled with books by Anne Fadiman.

I think i'm reading Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

Just started a run of the Joe Ledger series. I read Patient Zero in October. Last night a finished the first four shorts in Joe Ledger Special Ops. Next is The Dragon Factory.

I'm reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, which is excellent, but difficult to read because of the subject matter. This is us, in 2014!

And I'm reading Er Ist Wieder Da (Look Who's Back) by Timur Vermes, in which Adolf Hitler wakes up in 2011. It's funny so far, and Vermes really has Hitler's speech patterns down so that he sounds like the guy in those old newsreels, even when complaining about his dry-cleaner.

>5 RidgewayGirl: "I'm reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander" - yay! Sorry, not a happy book, but glad you are reading it.

It's quite an education, Daniel. She writes well, which makes a difficult subject easier to read.

Here's an article related to the book, concerning the last election and Mississippi:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/10/mississippi_the...

Thanks for the link, Kay.

>7 RidgewayGirl: sad on many levels. Thanks for the link.

>2 japaul22:: I hope you enjoy Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader! One of my favorite collections about books and reading.

I am currently reading The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, the final book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Lena Dunham's Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned.

Only have a few more chapters left in Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America by Adam Cohen. I have borrowed my library's e-book The Moose That Roared about the creation of Bullwinkle & Rocky.

As I savor Oblomov usually deliberately and always slowly, I have also taken on America Again by Stephen Colbert of which I read about half last night. There are some tremendously clever lines in a kinda hamhanded narrative.

Robert

I've recently finished Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword and Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin, and am now reading Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes.

I finished a fun, satiric novella by Jorge Amado, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray

As I drove from MA to CT, I finished listening to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. I'll try to get my thoughts posted tomorrow.

Next, on my car ride, I started Macbeth: A Novel by A. J. Hartley and David Hewson. It came with a great recommendation by Deborah (Cariola). It is read by Alan Cumming, so you can guess how wonderful it is.

I finished Rabbit, Run yesterday and read all of Rabbit Redux today. They were both in their way amazing. Glad I read them.

I'm reading Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare and Felicia's Journey by William Trevor.

I finished reading The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell, and am about to begin Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale.

It looks like I'm reading The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro. Anyway, I opened it up today.

ps - touchstones seem fried...

I'm now reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

(And touchstones seem to be working OK now...)

I survived my journey down Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road and am much happier spending time with The Edwardians and Vita Sackville-West.

I'm into China Dolls now, by Lisa See, which is very good so far. Also re-reading Blade of Fortriu by Juliet Marillier.

I've finished Stendhal's The Red and the Black, which I admired but didn't like nearly as much as The Charterhouse of Parma.

I've just finished Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare and now I'm reading Doctor Zhivago and after seeing several intriguing reviews around here, I got Being Wrong from the library.

I acquired the Jane Gardam trilogy based on LibraryThing enthusiasm and started Old Filth last night prompted by @Sassylassy's finishing The Man in the Wooden Hat. Seventy some pages in, the writing seems congenial.

Robert

I recently finished Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, and am now reading The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us by James W. Pennebaker. Neither of which has impressed me as much as I'd hoped. Oh, well. Next up: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Flipped audio books - finished The Chinese in America : A Narrative History by Iris Chang, which was informative, but slow. Started A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, read by the author, which was on the Booker short list last year (?) and touches on the Japan Tsunami. So far it's good, but with a holiday next week and time off and no commute, it might be a while before I finish it.

As with Old Filth at 70 something pages into The Man in the Wooden Hat I'm finding the writing about as fluid as springtime runoff. There is a brief mention in the first book that Betty did not like Loss, and we learn, I think, in these first seventy pages why.

Robert

I've finished How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran's debut novel and am now reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. It is magnificent.

I ended up being totally absorbed by In Times of Fading Light by Eugen Ruge, the story of four generations of a family in East Germany and after the fall of the Wall.

I'm re-reading Bad News by Donald E. Westlake. Well, I say re-reading, but I've only read it once and that was a decade ago, so I don't really remember anything about it.

I've temporarily set aside Doctor Zhivago and Being Wrong in favor of the more easily engaging Mapp and Lucia and In the Kingdom of Ice, a polar exploration book - I always am fascinated by these!

I'm reading London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets by Peter Ackroyd and The Fall by Albert Camus.

I finished Outsider in Amsterdam, the first of a series featuring two 1970s Amsterdam policemen, by Janwillem van de Wetering.

I'm now reading The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011. (Yes, I know, I'm a few years behind.) Next up is The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.

Just started Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.

Last night I read the first half of 100 Simple Things You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer's by Jean Carper. It is reasonable, well documented, and cogent. There are a lot of things in those 100, so I don't think it can be assimilated without taking notes. I do some of them already. Some of them are not applicable or I just won't do. And today I will be looking for a pill or two that she recommends.

Robert

Just finished Star Bright: a Christmas Story by Andrew Greeley

Starting One Plus One Jojo Moyes

I'm about to try to get into Maus - I and II and then maybe Metamaus, which I own. This is for my book club - well, Metamaus would be extra. And I'm going to try to read the September issue of Poetry ... Because I also need to read October, November and, soon enough, December.

I finished The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan which was excellent and a worthy winner of the Booker. I'm currently reading Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower, which is disappointing and I'm not sure why it was a National Book Award Finalist. Just a few chapters to go, though. And in between I read As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes, which was a great deal of fun.

I'm still reading er ist wieder da by Timur Vermes, although slowly because that's how I read German.

I recently finished The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West and The Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice, Janet Todd, ed. Now I'm on to the Booker-nominated novel Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff. For who don't follow Canadian politics, Igantieff was the leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Official Opposition, and ran for prime minister in 2011. All politics aside, it would have been fun to have a prime minster who was also a Booker Prize nominee. (Not bloody likely to happen while Stephen Harper is in power)

Just finished, When Paris Went Dark {Ronald C. Rosbottom} and The Demon's Brood: A History of the Plantagenet Dynasty {Desmond Seward}

Now reading The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by {Dan Jones}

I seem to be on a history binge at the moment.

I just read the first volume of the new Ms. Marvel series (with Pakistani American Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel) and it was just wonderful, both the writing and the art. If superhero comics had been like this when I was a kid I probably would have had more interest in them.

>41 Nickelini: I didn't know that there was a Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice. It is possible that I will read Pride and Prejudice again, and if I do I will likely pick up this volume to go with it. I did read The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen in my year of reading her novels and found it helpful. Thank you for mentioning this book.

Robert

#44 - Mr Durick -- Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice was just published in 2013, so quite fresh. I recommend it. I also recommend, since this is a reread, either of the recent annotated editions. There is the Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition, edited by Patricia Myer Spacks, which is a lush coffee table edition, and then there is the much more portable but still excellent The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, David Shapard editor.

I'm reading Prehistoric Times by Éric Chevillard.

>45 Nickelini: Thank you for the recommendations. I read the Norton Critical Editions of her novels. I have the latter annotated version, but I have no idea where. The lavish one seemed, when I hefted it in a book store, to be too heavy for me actually to read.

The Norton Critical Editions varied a whole lot in the quality of their supplementary materials, but I think none were bad.

Robert

The lavish one seemed, when I hefted it in a book store, to be too heavy for me actually to read

Indeed! I read that one only at the dining room table.

I'm reading several books:

1. The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction, which is a short introduction to the Gothic, in all its diversity, from the sack of Rome to popular culture. I've read more about the literary Gothic and architectural Gothic, and thought it would be interesting to broaden my view.

2. Hell to Pay by Garry Disher. Love this Australian crime writer and this is his latest, a standalone story. I'm really enjoying it.

3. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is his forthcoming novel, set in rural warren/village in Medieval (?) England, seemingly not what one would expect of Ishiguro, which is why it intrigues me (he mentions ogres on the first page!) Here's a quote from The Guardian: "I'd wanted for some time to write a novel about how societies remember and forget," the author said at the time. "I'd written about how individuals come to terms with uncomfortable memories. It occurred to me that the way an individual remembers and forgets is quite different to the way a society does. When is it better to just forget?"

Note: I'm also reading some poetry in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry (3rd ed) by the recently deceased poet Mark Strand.

I finished what will most likely be my favorite audio book of the year. Macbeth: A Novel by A. J. Hartley and David Hewson is an entertaining expanded retelling of the story of Macbeth. Alan Cumming's narration is brilliant, and takes full advantage of his lovely Scot's accent.

My next audio book is the brand new (released yesterday) 11th book in the Bryant and May Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery series, Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart by Christopher Fowler. I really enjoy these quirky stories which often have loads of trivia about London. My enjoyment may be related to the reader, Tim Goodman, who does a spot on rendering of the two elderly detectives.

I may be doing more audio books than print books this month, due to the craziness that always seems to happen around the holidays.

To stick with Colleen's audio book update, I've finished listening to Thank you, Jeeves, which was a fun theater-type recording with different actors for each character. It was also my first introduction to Wodehouse.

I'm now listening to The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It is working very well as an audio book and may end up being the first instance for me of a book that I suspect I liked better in this format than I would have if I'd read it.

>51 japaul22: nice to know about TRF in audio. I tried it in book form once, but only to sample a library copy. I never got back to it.

I've started the book of proverbs - the next book in the bible read group read. And I've started Maus I and the September issue of Poetry. I'm not good at starting books and this is a lot of starting...

>49 avaland: I think I have a Strand book - maybe it's time to try it.

》》49, 50

Thanks, Avaland and Colleen, for adding a few sentences , thus making this thread more interesting....

I've been reading Eknath Easwaran's translation of The Dhammapada, but it doesn't work well as sustained reading. So last night I added The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert into the mix. It is readable, but sometimes her work at construction is obvious. Our church book group will discuss it in January.

Robert

I just finished reading the fifth century Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius, which is surprisingly readable and provides a window on Medieval philosophy and literature by one of the most influential late Latin/early Medieval writers. The Dream of Scipio itself was from a mostly lost work by Cicero and was referred to in many works of Chaucer, especially the dream visions.

Somehow I have a copy of the Loeb Classical Library Reader, which includes short excerpts from 33 of the over 500 Greek and Latin classics Loeb has published. The Reader provides the original Greek or Latin and English translation on facing pages which is the usual Loeb modus operandi. I am trying to read one or two excerpts every now and then. It is an intriguing introduction to the Loeb Classical Library.

I am trying to decide what to read next. Too many choices at hand! Guess I'll just close my eyes and point . . .

49 -
I'm undecided on Kazuo Ishiguro. I've really enjoyed one book and then was incredibly bored with another, but the way you described his newest sounds interesting. I'll look forward to seeing your final thoughts.

Still working my way through the Joe Ledger books - reading Extinction Machine at the moment. I am impressed that I like these books as much as I do. There is a strong X-Files meets Dexter feel to this military science fiction series.

>52 dchaikin: Dan, he's not a favorite of mine, but there are collection of lines in his poems that I love.

>53 edwinbcn: You're welcome! :-)

>56 lilisin: It's oddly interesting, feels kind of light, perhaps like a parable or folk tale. I've been busy, so not much reading is getting done, but that's first impressions.

I finished In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette by Hampton Sides yesterday. I love reading about polar exploration, and this book was no exception. It was a fascinating page-turner.

I'm sticking with some lighter reading since my life is crazy right now and reading Mapp and Lucia and Birds of a Feather, the second book in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series.

Doctor Zhivago remains on the side for now, but I hope to get back to it within the next month.

I've just started American Rose: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee on audio and, in print, The Siege by Ismail Kadare.

I am reading and have nearly finished Under the Net which was Iris Murdoch's first novel. It was a book club choice and it has proved to be an excellent one.

I am reading and have nearly finished Under the Net which was Iris Murdoch's first novel. It was a book club choice and it has proved to be an excellent one.

Oh good! I picked up a nice copy of that from a sale table and I didn't really know much about it. Haven't been able to fit Murdoch into my reading yet, but I plan to in 2015.

I started Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, the winner of this year's National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and I'm enjoying it so far.

When I last posted here I was unsure what to read next — as if I didn't have any choices!!! But my recent reading has been pretty heavy and I wanted a change of pace. And the obvious choice was sitting right there in front of me! Still on the subject of the dream of Scipio, I have begun Iain Pears' novel The Dream of Scipio, which seems to concern an entirely different dream, but if not now, then when?

I am back with H G Wells and have just downloaded The War in the Air on my kindle.

I have returned to The Financier which I had difficulty reading earlier this year, as I am not so interested in the story, being about the highs and lows of the financial world, however, very relevant in today's world. Theodore Dreiser has a belaboured prose style, which slows down reading. The novel becomes more interesting after the event of the burning of Chicago which sets the main drama, the rise & fall of Frank Cowperwood in progress.

I am reading The Financier (1912) in preparation for the second volume of Dreiser's trilogy, volume two being The Titan, which was published in 1914 and is read this year in the Literary Centennial group (and there reviewed by Baswood).

At the same time, I am reading The City of Spades by Colin MacInnes, also for the Literary Centennial group. The author, MacInnes was born in 1914. The City of Spades (1957) is a novel set in the milieu of former colonials, particularly Africans from Nigeria and Gambia living in London. The novel resembles Samuel Selvon's The lonely Londoners (1956), which was written and published at about the same time, and is set in the milieu of West Indians.

I'm currently reading Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. It's not at all what I thought - much lighter and more yay-Google than I'd expected. We'll see where it goes.

>49 avaland: - Ishiguro's own thoughts on The Buried Giant have me hooked and wishing I didn't have to wait until next spring for it to be published.

>67 ljbwell: I found Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore not as much fun or as intriguing as I'd hoped it would be. It all felt very simple. But it's got a strong following and I may have been in a critical mood while reading it. I'm interesting in finding out what you think of it when you've finished it.

I've just finished Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming, which was a curiously affecting book.

I finished The Chouans by Balzac, which combines history, romance, and melodrama in a story of a 1799 royalist rebellion in Brittany against the post-revolutionary French republic, and Tumbleweed by Janwillem van de Wetering, the second in the Grijpstra/de Gier series about policemen in Amsterdam.

>68 RidgewayGirl: : Exactly. I get the feeling that, when all is said and done, there might be mention of The Da Vinci Code in my comments. On the other hand, I'm only 1/3 through, so things could turn around.

Maus II

And, thanks to my library's vagaries of give and take, i have a second audiobook going - Little Failure - a memoir on growing up as a Russian Jew in Russia and then later the US. Gary Shteyngart was seven when his family immigrated to the US.

>71 dchaikin: I'll be interested in what you think of the Shteyngart. I was so disappointed by The Russian Debutante's Handbook (and excerpts from Absurdistan in the New Yorker) that I've avoided him ever since.

>72 rebeccanyc: Rebecca - Reading Little Failure might nudge me to read his fiction, but the idea of the absurd doesn't attract my reading. I want peace, not confusion.

Little Failure is nice and informative - maybe the word is charming? It's interesting to me that he is writing about his still living family members who he knew would read this. I chose it because I saw it was available on audio and I saw it on the NPR best books of 2014 list.

I'm reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley which has really grabbed me. I'm only 60 pages in and already expect to love it.

On my way to work & back, this morning, I started and finished reading The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured About Around New York, a hilarious novella by J. P. Donleavy, about a middle-aged woman who loses everything after her divorce, describing he descent into the gutter....

I've just finished Eight Little Piggies, a collection of Stephen Jay Gould's essays on evolution. As I wrote in my review, I don't know quite what it is about Gould, but somehow I always feel smarter after reading him.

I've now started Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch, the first sequel to his urban fantasy novel Midnight Riot (aka Rivers of London). I liked the setting, the magical system, and the main character of the first novel, but had some issues with the plot and the pacing. I'm hoping this one will be an improvement for me, but right now I"m only one chapter in and am mostly just wishing I remembered more of what happened in the first one.

Just finished The Eyre Affair, the first book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. It was so much fun! I'm getting the next book in the series from the library tomorrow.

Just started Bad Feminist, the essay collection by Roxane Gay and a re-read of The Westing Game.

I just finished reading Ryu Murakami's From the Fatherland, with Love and boy was that a fun read! The Japanese government was just ripped apart!

Meredith, I'm looking forward to finding out what you think about Bad Feminist. I keep running into it.

I'm continuing with er is wieder da (Look Who's Back) by Timur Vermes, which is slow going only because of my German skills. The parts written with a Berliner accent require me to speak them aloud inside my head. In the book, Hitler has woken up in 2011 and has now gotten a job on a comedy variety television show. Everyone is surprised that he never, ever breaks out of what they think is the character he is playing. They keep bringing up "Messed Ekting" and wondering if he needs to go so far as to be a vegetarian. There's a darker thread running underneath the humor and I'm interested to see where it all goes.

On the lighter side, I'm also reading The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan.

My "to read" list tells me I am going to be reading A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing next.

> 77 - Definitely a fun series. Reminds me that I need to hunt down the most recent one.

> 80 - I'm really curious about Look Who's Back. The summary sounds like it could be scathing dark humor/satire, or that it could fall on the wrong side of a very fine line.

I've just started William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine. So far, so good, but early days.

I finished reading the quirky and entertaining Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler, Narrated by Tim Goodman. Body snatchers, murders, missing ravens from the Tower of London - perfectly peculiar crimes for the unit to solve.

I am about to start listening to My Antonia by Willa Cather, Narrated by Jeff Cummings , with an introduction by Ken Burns. This will be my first time reading this book which is highly regarded.

ETA: to correct narrator's name on My Antonia.

Continuing with my dreams and "pagan influences" themes, I found a twofer in The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears, a fascinatingly complex novel which could be described as literary, historical and philosophical. It also seems to follow in the tradition of A.S. Byatt's Possession and John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman in that it relates events from — in this case— three different time periods. I have been sitting around here all day trying to figure out how I am going to review it.

I've abandoned The Buried Giant by Ishiguro. I did 50 pages before doing so. Life is too short. It might just be me. I'm usually up for something that reads like a folktale, but with all the talk about forgetting and remembering, it felt like I was in a medieval dementia ward (or maybe the dragon was the last straw and perhaps it's the elderly man calling his wife "Princess" all the time....). I'm sure someone else is going to find this "brilliant" and "mesmerizing."

Now reading The God of Chance by Danish author Kirsten Thorup.

85 -
Sounds then like I won't be attempted by Ishiguro again anytime soon. Eh, it's not a huge loss for me.

There are two books I want to finish before the end of the year and then I'll feel a sense of completion for my reading in 2014. First up is the Republic of Plato and then it's on to The Landmark Thucydides. Hoping this isn't too ambitious since it took me three months -- with interruptions to be sure -- to get through The Landmark Herodotus. In this case I only have Christmas to contend with!

I have started Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. I trust his research and am surprised by the character of L. Ron Hubbard.

Robert

Robert, I'm listening to Going Clear intermittently and, yeah, L. Ron does not sound like anyone you'd want within a three block radius of anyone you cared about.

The kinds of things I thought I had seen over the past fifty years or so were much more benign. For example he was a science fiction writer first of all. In a bar, almost on a lark, he had suggested that he might invent a religion. As dianetics and scientology caught on others co-opted them and were the real profiteers as he was shuffled aside. Et cetera. All were part truths. He was a real danger, and I'm now only two hundred pages into it.

Robert

I'm struggling with two books right now. One is an Early Reviewers win, The World Before Us that just isn't working that well (I think there's some sort of group of spirits/ghosts that's narrating).

I'm also reading Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. The writing grabbed me right away and is sparse and beautiful, but half way in, the characters are revealing themselves to be so damaged and/or despicable that I'm having a hard time reading more than a little at a time.

I wasn't planning on it, but maybe I need to start a third book to provide a break.

I've just started The Chosen by Chaim Potok, and well captivated by The Siege by Ismail Kadare.

>80 RidgewayGirl: Bad Feminist was good, though her personal relationship to feminism (she calls herself 'bad' in comparison to the weird, warped, narrow feminism that the anti-feminist media generally preach) wasn't something I could relate to at all. The less personal aspects of the book were more relevant and interesting to me. There were a few language issues and her section on trigger warnings seemed oddly closed to parts of reality. I'll have the full review in my thread soon.

I've finished I Cannot Tell a Lie, Exactly, a book of short stories by Mary Ladd Gavell, that I picked up because Cariola had liked it some time ago. It was fantastic, a five-star read for me and one I'll want to read again.

I've also finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I had a copy only because I like Alexie's adult books, and I don't usually read YA, but with kids of that age I thought I should see if it was something my son would like. I do think he would like it quite a bit, as it was both humorous and heart-breaking. And also there are drawings throughout.

I'm now reading In Matto's Realm, a mystery novel by Friedrich Glauser first published in 1936, and I'm continuing with er ist wieder da by Timur Vermes.

>89 RidgewayGirl: LOL! (and I agree)

I have just started reading Shakespeare's Restless World. An Unexpected History in Twenty Objects.

In 2010, MacGregor published A History of the World in 100 Objects, which did not really register with me, but the description of 20 objects, some archaeological, dug up in or near Elizabethan theatres provides a glimpse into the everyday life of British people between the 1580s to 1620s. All objects and their stories are related to various Shakespeare plays, often giving a very new cue or view on key passages, or pasages often overlooked in the plays.

I spent about 40 minutes reading, over a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and found it very engaging, and full of snippets of interesting information. A light and informative read.

First published in 2013; paperback in 2014.

>92 mabith: The Chosen - the movie is a defining part of my childhood. I enjoyed the book a lot too, when i read it several yeara ago.

Just finished an ER book, Keep Out of Reach of Children: Reye’s Syndrome, Aspirin, and the Politics of Public Health by Mark A. Largent. Interesting subject matter, at least to me, but the writing was a bit meh. And I've now started All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I'm feeling a bit dubious about whether I'll end up liking it as much as I did No Country for Old Men or The Road, but I'm still only about 20 pages in, so we'll see.

MetaMaus - an interview of Art Spiegelman with lots of sketches...but it's much better than it sounds.

Poetry October 2014 - I just finished the September issue. Loved the podcast, which is available for free online.

And the other stuff...Proverbs, Little Failure on audio, and A Tale for the Time Being, which, for the time being, I'm not actually listening too...

Poquette reminded me that I had The Portrait in my to-read list. I started it a few weeks ago but didn't like the premise (two bitter old "friends" meeting again, as told by the monologue addressed by one to the other). But this time I went further than a few pages, and I'm in now. Interrupting my reading every time a painter or painting is mentioned to look it up on Wikipedia. The book is about art and the art world, which concerns me directly.

I finished A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley which I had conflicting feelings about - loved the writing but didn't like the unrelenting misery and miscommunication.

Now I'm trying to get through A World Before Us, an ER book that I'm not impressed with thus far.

I've also started In the Heart of the Sea, the nonfiction account of the whaleship Essex which I'm excited about reading.

I've also started In the Heart of the Sea, the nonfiction account of the whaleship Essex which I'm excited about reading. Then on to read Moby-Dick?

>101 baswood: Barry, I read Moby Dick a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to learning more about the true story behind it.

In the last couple of days I finished two very different nonfiction books and have now reviewed them. The Nazis Next Door tells the story of how the US recruited scientists and spies from the Nazis and their collaborators and how some of them were eventually tracked down and prosecuted thanks to the persistence or reporters and the Justice Department's Nazi unit; written by a journalist, it is a very readable and important book, providing much food for thought. A Book of Silence is the story of a quest by the author to have much more silence in her life as well as an examination of the meaning of silence, told through the author's own experiences as well as through a diverse set of literary works, close observation of the natural world, psychology, neurobiology, and religion.

I finished reading Selected poems by Dylan Thomas and am now half-way through reading A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, both readings for the Literary Centennials Group, 1914 and 1814, respectively.

I read the first forty or fifty pages of Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion by René Guénon last night, but I'm not entirely convinced today that I am reading it. Maybe.

Robert

I've just started Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, an anthology of Bradbury-inspired stories by a surprising number of big-name authors. Although maybe it shouldn't be surprising; Bradbury was a highly inspirational writer.

I've started West of Kabul, East of New York, Tamim Ansary's memoir.

I'm reading In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, about a Chicago family who moves to Berlin in 1933, when the father becomes the ambassador to Germany. What has struck me thus far is how many people just dismissed the stories coming out of Germany as exaggerations or made up. The worst culprits seem to be American tourists who, having not seen any violence or hostility in the tourist areas, are content to go home declaring it all untrue. A lot of that is due to the anti-Semitism that pervades American society, but it's still shocking how people can refuse to see or believe something.

I'm reading War of the Worlds and so far I'm not amused, but not so unamused as to chuck it.

Just reviewed Without You, There is No Us, which was one of the best books I've read this year.

Just finished reading Plato's Republic, which was much more enjoyable than I expected. Now its on to Thucydides which I hope to finish before the end of the year.

I finished A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, and am now reading To build a fire and other stories by Jack London for the Monthly Author Group.

Just starting How to Be A Victorian by Ruth Goodman, which is great so far, and I've had difficulty putting it down. Also started Safekeeping by Karen Hesse, who was a favorite author when I was a kid. This is a dystopian venture from her, which I'm not super keen on, but I do try to keep up with her books.

Maybe it's the season (although it's been really warm in Texas this winter) but I felt like picking up my first Dickens since high school so I'm currently reading Great Expectations. I actually have no expectations going into this so I can just sit and enjoy it for now.

I've started listening to All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior, about what children do to their parents. The introduction was terrific and tells me that parents are unhappier than childless couples, and describes the trials of parenting as high risk high reward.

That means I finished A Tale for the Time Being, which I was mixed on. I like how it left me thinking about the Japan Tsunami even thought it barely talks about it.

I've finished and reviewed the wonderful The Human Factor by Graham Greene, ostensibly a spy novel but really an exploration of the meaning of loyalty, moral choices, and love. I've also finished two more of the Amsterdam-based detective novels by Janwillem van de Wetering, The Corpse on the Dike and Death of a Hawker.

I have started The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. I am only about 30 pages into it, and it seems to be slow going. I want, in ten days if I can and in seventeen days otherwise, to finish it and two other books. We'll see.

Robert

I finished The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, which was interesting but also felt kind of scattered and random. Just starting I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak since I've only been meaning to read it for 11 years...

I'm reading Beyond Belief: My Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill and a little paperback version of the original Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

>117 mabith: Looking forward to your opinion on the Zusak book!

Having recently finished and admiring Going Clear I'll be looking forward to your response to Beyond Belief.

Robert

I'm re-reading A Clash of Kings, the second book in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. After that, I've got Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev lined up.

Someone remind me next December to just read one book at a time! I'm supposedly reading three books right now: Lila, The Romanov Sisters and Doctor Zhivago. However, I only have time to read a few pages a day because this time of year is crazy, so I feel like I'm making zero progress at all splitting my time between these books. But I like them all and don't want to give one up. Ah!

I just finished the lovely A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I had seen the movies several times but never read the book. Even though written for children, I think it can be appreciated by an adult. I also finished listening to Willa Cather's My Antonia. This was another first time read of a book I should have read years ago.

I just started listening to Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker. So far the reader has a really pleasant voice, so it should be enjoyable to listen while I finish up last minute Christmas preparations. I chose an Agatha Christie to read in bed. I've never read A Murder is Announced, so it should make for a nice light read for the next few days.

I just finished The War of the Worlds, and as anyone who knows me would predict, I didn't like it. Still, glad I read it and it did have things to teach me, so that's all good. Not sure what I'm going to start next.

I read a couple of chapters of The New Jim Crow last night and was pretty disturbed by it. For relief I picked up The Martian by Andy Weir. I didn't know the direction the story would take; it was different than I sort of expected but intriguing anyway. I read a little over 250 pages of it and would have finished it, but it was already an hour after I usually turn out the light.

I hope to get back to both tonight.

Robert

Just finished The Bloody Chamber, a short story collection by Angela Carter that takes classic fairytales and other supernatural literary figures and makes them even more macabre and disturbing. Very interesting and beautiful stories.

I also finished Lost in a Good Book, the second Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde. There was a lot going on in this book, and I found the idea of book-jumping very fascinating. So many literary references!

I was very excited to receive my SantaThing books today: The Empire Striketh Back (The Empire Strikes Back brilliantly written in Shakespearean iambic pentameter) and A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. These books will definitely kick off my 2015 reading!

I recently finished The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer, which was good, although it did not remotely convince me that the 14th century is somewhere I want to visit. I prefer to stick to time periods with indoor plumbing. I'm now reading Mr g: A Novel About the Creation by Alan Lightman, which is slightly less interesting than I would have expected a novel about the creation of the universe to be.

Next up after that is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, because it was one of my SantaThing books from last year, and I'm embarrassed that it's taken me until this Christmas to get to it, especially as it really was a good choice on my Santa's part.

The first thirty or so pages of Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo are written well enough, but so far there is nothing especially revealing or entertaining about it. Because of the high regard in which it is held generally and because of the competent writing I expect to keep at it.

Robert

Finished MetaMaus. Next book is planned - The Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy's first novel, from 1965.

By the way, to the parents among us, I'm really enjoying All Joy and No Fun. Recommended on audio, as the author, Jennifer Senior, is a public speaker and reads terrifically.

Have finished Peter May's The Blackhouse, set on Scotland's Isle of Lewis, and is part police procedural, part man-returns-home-to-face-his-past. I enjoyed this very much. Have picked up The Unquiet Dead by Uzma Zehanat Khan, another crime novel, but this one by a first time author. The debut has been getting a fair bit of attention because one of the detectives is a 2nd generation Canadian Muslim.

I also hope to finish the other two I'm toying with before the end of the year.

Just might squeeze in another H G Wells novel before the end of the year: Ann Veronica

After squeezing in a reread of Hogfather for Christmas, I've started Winter Holiday, the fourth in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books, and it will probably be the last new-to-me book that I finish this year.

I've also started The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa, which seems like it will be an excellent read, though I'm not far in yet.

I'm enjoying some light holiday reading with Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell.

I've started A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks and am enjoying it thus far.

Finished The Portrait, which was a disappointment, and started the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses des jésuites de Chine (Edifying and Curious Letters from Jesuits in China).

I seem to be reading Billionaires' Ball, but the first thirty or forty pages seem to be going over old ground but not so well that I would understand them without knowing the story already.

Robert

I finished Beyond Belief: My Secret LIfe Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill. Right now I am reading a Christian/self-help book by Joyce Meyers titled You Can Begin Again: No Matter What, It's Never Too Late.

I'm mostly reading mysteries, but I've reviewed Victor Serge's Midnight in the Century, focusing on imprisoned and internally deported dissidents in the early 1930s in the Soviet Union.

Next read for me is A Ripple from the Storm by Doris Lessing.

Finished Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron
Started Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, first heard about on LT. It grabbed me in immediately.

Just under the wire I managed to finish The Landmark Thucydides. What a terrific read to conclude a year of outstanding books! Unfortunately I won't get my review done this year but it will be one of my first posts in Club Read 2015.

2015 thread is up and running. See everyone there!
http://www.librarything.com/topic/185353