What are you reading the week of January 9, 2016?

Andrea Camilleri (born 6 September 1925) is an Italian writer.

Originally from Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Camilleri began studies at the Faculty of Literature in 1944, without concluding them, meanwhile publishing poems and short stories.

From 1948 to 1950 Camilleri studied stage and film direction at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts (Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica) and began to take on work as a director and screenwriter, directing especially plays by Pirandello and Beckett. His parents knew, and were, reportedly, "distant friends" of, Pirandello, as he tells in his essay on Pirandello Biography of the Changed Son. His most famous works, the Montalbano series, show many Pirandellian elements: for example, the wild olive tree that helps Montalbano think is on stage in his late work The Giants of the Mountain.

With RAI, Camilleri worked on several TV productions, such as Inspector Maigret with Gino Cervi. In 1977 he returned to the Academy of Dramatic Arts, holding the chair of Film Direction and occupying it for 20 years.

In 1978 Camilleri wrote his first novel Il Corso Delle Cose ("The Way Things Go"). This was followed by Un Filo di Fumo ("A Thread of Smoke") in 1980. Neither of these works enjoyed any significant amount of popularity.

In 1992, after a long pause of 12 years, Camilleri once more took up novel-writing. A new book, La Stagione della Caccia ("The Hunting Season") turned out to be a best-seller.

In 1994 Camilleri published the first in a long series of novels: La forma dell'Acqua (The Shape of Water) featured the character of Inspector Montalbano, a fractious Sicilian detective in the police force of Vigàta, an imaginary Sicilian town. The series is written in Italian but with a substantial sprinkling of Sicilian phrases and grammar. The name Montalbano is a homage to the Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán; the similarities between Montalban's Pepe Carvalho and Camilleri's fictional detective are remarkable. Both writers make great play of their protagonists' gastronomic preferences.

This feature provides an interesting quirk which has become something of a fad among his readership even in mainland Italy. The TV adaptation of Montalbano's adventures, starring Luca Zingaretti, further increased Camilleri's popularity to such a point that in 2003 Camilleri's home town, Porto Empedocle – on which Vigàta is modelled – took the extraordinary step of changing its official name to that of Porto Empedocle Vigàta, no doubt with an eye to capitalising on the tourism possibilities thrown up by the author's work. On his website, Camilleri refers to the engaging and multi-faceted character of Montalbano as a "serial killer of characters," meaning that he has developed a life of his own and demands great attention from his author, to the demise of other potential books and different personages. Camilleri added that he writes a Montalbano novel every so often just so that the character will be appeased and allow him to work on other stories.

In 2012, Camilleri's The Potter's Field (translated by Stephen Sartarelli) was announced as the winner of the 2012 Crime Writers' Association International Dagger. The announcement was made on 5 July 2012 at the awards ceremony held at One Birdcage Walk in London.

Camilleri now lives in Rome where he works as a TV and theatre director. About 10 million copies of his novels have been sold to date and are becoming increasingly popular in the UK (where BBC Four broadcast the Montalbano TV series from mid-2011), Australia and North America.

In addition to the degree of popularity brought him by the novels, in recent months Andrea Camilleri has become even more of a media icon thanks to the parodies aired on an RAI radio show, where popular comedian, TV host and impressionist Fiorello presents him as a raspy voiced, caustic character, madly in love with cigarettes and smoking, since in Italy, Camilleri is well known for being a heavy smoker of cigarettes.

I'm currently reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It preparation for starting Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth in a couple of weeks. Barth based the plot of his novel on the hero journey from Campbell's book.

I'm finally done with The Great Bridge and that's with skimming some of the more technical descriptions. Don't know why it went so slowly. I did enjoy it but not as much as I did The Wright Brothers

I finished Heart Earth and A Man Called Ove, both of which were wonderful reads.

I am reading Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie and I am listening to Wake by Anna Hope.

I'm reading Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. While reading does keep my anxiety at controllable levels, at the same time, I'm also feeling emotionally overwhelmed by heavier reads. I'm needing a light, silly read right now, and this is meeting that need. She's funny, and at the same time, I find myself nodding with her in agreement on some things. Other times, she makes me think, "Man, you really ARE out there." But, that's okay. We're all "out there" in some ways to some people.

#2> Wow, Fred. I haven't heard John Barth's name come up in quite a while. Back in grad school I took a course devoted to John Barth and John Hawkes. Giles Goat-Boy is a hoot.

I'm almost a third of the way through Chance by Joseph Conrad. I can understand why it's not considered among his greatest works, as so far it is almost entirely exposition. However, it is still Conrad, and it is filled with the sort of language and turns of phrase that make me love Conrad's writing. Plus, there is a lot of Conrad's sly wit as well.

Still working on NOS4A2 and The Gospel of Loki.

>2 fredbacon: Fred: Big props for your choice of the newest Author of the Week. I love the Camilleri's Montalbano series--I've read through the 14th installment and I'm purposely slowing down so that I don't run out too soon. At 90, Camilleri can't have too many more new books left and so I want to make the experience last!

Right now, I'm about to start Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann, another one of my favorite authors.

#5 Steph310: That's on my list. Let us know how it is.

Officially quit In The Unlikely Event and started Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. Funny, readable and entertaining.

Just finished How to Raise an Adult, all about avoiding "helicopter parenting". Apparently there are parents who accompany their newly minted college graduates to job interviews! Hard to imagine anyone hiring these kids.

Just finished The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman and moving the focus to Signs of Life by Anna Raverat and Last Interview: John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff and listening to Magician by Raymond Feist.

Has anyone been to see the movie of The Light Between Oceans? How does it compare with the book?

Finished The Gospel of Loki. Didn't really care for it.

Started Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb.

>6 rocketjk: I read The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor a couple of decades ago and really loved it. I bought Giles Goat-Boy after that, but it has been sitting on my TBR pile ever since. Last month I decided to start the year with it. It's 700+ pages, so it's probably going to take me a two or three weeks to read. (Actually, I did begin it once, but something interfered with my continuing it. I do remember it being funny. I seem to recall that there was a character who was a Mathematical Proctologist who wrote a book titled The Riddle of the Sphincter. It was a wonderful send up of the academic world.)

I started reading Prophet's Prey by Sam Brower about the FLDS in Utah/Texas/Arizona. Mormon fundamentalism is a subject that fascinates me. This book, however, is excrutiatingly boring. I haven't read all day because I don't want to read THAT. Time to abandon it and start on something new, probably The Passage by Justin Cronin.

>1 fredbacon: Thank you for the Camilleri bio, Fred. I love the Montalbano series and have a copy of The Hunting Season around here somewhere.

I finished This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! and thought it was a very enjoyable read.

Today I started Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe, the second book in Sandra Gulland's Josephine Bonaparte trilogy.

On audio, I'm having fun with Gumption.

>coppers I read the first of the Josephine Bonaparte trilogy and quite enjoyed it. Been thinking I should get the second. I'll look forward to hearing how you like it.

>16 snash: I read the first book two years ago and loved it. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to get to this one!

Still working on War and Peace.

I am currently about two thirds of the way through If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino which I am loving. Very playful, very clever bit of metafiction about the experience of you trying to read Italo Calvino's novel If on a winter's night a traveler and failing, instead starting and putting down a dozen other books for various reasons. Calvino is great, jumping between different literary styles and analyzing (just a bit) how they operate and the impressions that language can generate in the reader. Really neat, though fans of plot and characters might hate it!

Just finished Greg Iles: The Black Cross and started Wild geese by Martha Ostenso

I finished Mary Rakow's This Is Why I Came which I found very moving. Rakow's writing is quite beautiful and her notes led me to other writers as well as works of art and music.

Now I'm reading Julia Blackburn's With Billie, a biography of Billie Holiday.

I finished Wherever There Is Light, a captivating love story between a Jewish bootlegger and an artist Black girl through WWII and beyond. Their pasts as well as their different races make being together difficult.

I finished War and Peace, and have started an ER book, Bryant & May and the Burning Man.

Depraved Heart - Patricia Cornwell. It has been a while since I have read a Scarpetta Novel - I hope this is more of her old style. :)
The last couple I started just did not grab me.

Finishing Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini
Alternates between the Civil War era and the present day.

Finished NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Started The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg.

I'm in a rereading phase and am working on Inferno: A Poet's Novel by Eileen Myles. It was Valencia before that, and I now realize that I somehow chose two memoir-novels that take place when the author was 25. I feel both old and tired.

Finished Modern Romance today, a well-researched and entertaining look at dating, cheating and romance in today's modern world of online dating and smartphone technology.

Next, I will start either Margaret Atwood's most recent book The Heart Goes Last or the nonfiction Daughters of the Samurai.

The new thread is up over here.