*** What are you reading now? - Part 2

As always, the beginning of the year seems to be a busy time around here - not that we all do not read as much later in the year, but a lot of us seem to not be around as much. :)

It's the shortest month of the year. Does this mean you will read less books than in every other month?

So - what are you reading?

The last few weeks of January were rough and I didn't get much reading done, so I am still on The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. I love it and am thrilled to have found the movie on Netflix (I'll finish the book first.)

I'm still working on Les Mis but it's on the backburner at the moment, I'm currently focused on Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination and them.

I'm now getting towards the end of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean's anecdote-filled journey through the periodic table. Which is good, although he covers a lot of ground I was already familiar with. Next up will be 21st Century Dead, an anthology of zombie stories edited by Christopher Golden. I figured I should get that read before The Walking Dead comes back on, as I would not want to overdose on zombies.

I'm midway through A Fort of Nine Towers, Qais Akbar Omar's memoir of his childhood in Afghanistan, beginning with the Soviets leaving and the Mujahedin taking over. The writing is serviceable but the story is gripping.

I'm reading The Relic Master and enjoying it

I read and reviewed Barchester Towers and am happy to report that after feeling lukewarm about The Warden, I loved this novel. Onward with the Barsetshire series!

Finally recovering from a bout with the flu and feeling like reading again. Finishing City of Thorns and reading Outline by Rachel Cusk.

>7 rebeccanyc: Glad you enjoyed Barchester Towers. I liked The Warden so should really enjoy the series - when I manage to get started!

Right now I'm in the middle of Johannes Cabal, the necromancer by Jonathan Howard, The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse and The Queen's Man a mystery by Sharon Kay Penman. Enjoying the last mentioned more than the others.

I'm reading We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. I have been disappointed so far. The anachronisms for a book that is supposed to take place in 1976 (a teenager named Austen which would be more of a 1990s baby name and a cat named E.T. before that movie existed) are off-putting for me. More off-putting is the lack of consistency from the narrator. It's supposed to be the youngest son of the family. Then she seems to forget that for 50 pages while we have more of a third person omniscient narrator. Then he suddenly shows up again.

I will start The Poisoned crown on audio on Monday.
I'm undecided on what to start reading physically. I have this months RLBC to start, but that's a re-read and I didn't enjoy it enough to read it again last time. I then have 4 library books on the pile that ought to be read, but you know a book that ought to be read looses the attraction...
Still undecided.

Which would you pick:
The 100 year old man who climbed out of a window and disappeared
Kraken
The true deceiver
Candide
Enchanted April
or it's a random pick...

>11 Helenliz: I saw the movie the other day, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of A Window and Disappeared and thought it was very definitely odd (love off the wall movies) and funny. Would love to read the book.

I am reading The Enchanted April now and loving it.

Finished Traversée de la mangrove this afternoon - excellent, I'll try to post a review tomorrow.

I've still got a lot of Caribbean stuff on the TBR shelf (and more in the post) but for the moment I'm taking a break from that and dipping into the opening chapters of Meneer Beerta, the first part of J.J. Voskuil's 5000-page cycle Het bureau, which I've been meaning to read for about 20 years. Looks like fun, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to stick with it before I get distracted.

>11 Helenliz: I'd choose The Enchanted April but the others look good too!

Just started The Distance Between Us, a memoir by Reyna Grande. Also starting Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt which is so beautifully done and will probably keep me up far too late tonight when I should be reading my main print book (The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War).

Finished Alexandre Dumas's Le Meneur de Loups (The Wolf Leader) last night. Fun enough but definitely not the type of book I've come to expect from Dumas.

After finishing book 2 in the Martin Beck series, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, I have commenced book 3, The Man on the Balcony.

Struggling through V.. Probably I should slow down, but it doesn't feel like I can go much slower.

Also, I'm listening to In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson, a nice distraction for my commute.

>18 dchaikin: I enjoyed In a Sunburned Country and, as usual with him, parts of it are very funny.

The 100 Year Old Man book is hilarious (so is the movie). If you want humorous fluff, I would recommend that one.

I am in the middle of Goldfinch by Tartt and, because one can never had too many tomes on the go, also in the middle of War and Peace.

Just finished Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction, by Stephen Mumford. Review in my tread. A good introduction to philosophy itself.

Just started Stoner by John Williams. I've only read about 50 pages but it's really great and promising to be a very good book.

>22 OscarWilde87: You're in for a great read if you like Stoner even half as much as I did.

I've just finished A Fort of Nine Towers, Qais Akbar Omar's memoir of his childhood spent in Afghanistan beginning when the Soviets pulled out and ending when the American bombings began. It's serviceably written but the story is utterly compelling. His writing is unemotional, but the book would be unreadable otherwise.

And now I'm reading another less than cheerful book, The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard, about a Jewish boy living in Poland under German occupation.

I will soon be starting The Monikins by James Fenimore Cooper Proto science fiction/fantasy?

>23 RidgewayGirl: I sure hope so. So far I love it.

Starting The Moving Finger by Dame Agatha.

Someone on one of the threads, I forget who, was talking about Elizabeth Enright. I started reading her Merendy books via Open Library (if you don't know about it, it's here and well worth the discovery: https://openlibrary.org/) and have finished the first two books and now halfway through Then there were five (can't get the touchstone working). Loving it - what a bright iridescent childhood summer.

I finished The Three Evangelists, a pre-Adamsberg mystery by Fred Vargas.

Touchstones don't seem to be working!

I haven't done much reading in the past two days, and now I may pause the fourth book in the Forsyte Chronicles, The White Monkey, because Brooklyn just came in from the library. Touchstones and Search are not working, so will check back later.

>10 fuzzy_patters: You reminded me of some of the reasons I wasn't completely fond of We Were the Mulvaneys. It was the first Oates I'd read. After reading more by her and seeing what sort of author she is, I realized that she didn't actually like the Mulvaneys. That makes me remember the book in a nicer light.

Finally finished Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, which was a disappointment considering the rich material he drew from. Next up will be something from Helen Humphreys but I'm not sure what.

My copy of Fashion Victims arrived today. A few ClubReaders have recently raved about it. I can see why it's an expensive book -- lots of pictures and it has quality touches.

Just started The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell.

I'm still reading The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf's first novel, but I'm finding it sort of mundane, which is anything but how I've found her other novels. So I started something that I hoped would read fast and keep my interest, Wolf Winter, and I'm loving it and flying through it (thanks, Alison, for the review that pointed me to it!).

I finished Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim today at work and then walked next door to the library and picked up my copy of The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Crawled Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

>31 Nickelini: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! It is a beautiful book.

I'm halfway through The House on the Lagoon, one I'm reading for the Caribbean quarter in Reading Globally. It's interesting, and has a slightly unusual format. Lots of characters to get confused about, but thankfully there's a family tree.

I finished V. last night. I think, ultimately, I liked it quite a bit. At least I spent a lot of time I should have been sleeping awake thinking about it. Homers The Odyssey should be next.

>19 jnwelch: I was mainly listening to In a Sunburned Country just to have something during my commute, but it has grown on me more than I expected.

I finished and reviewed the intense and claustrophobic The Chase by Alejo Carpentier and the thoroughly creepy mystery The Water's Edge by Karin Fossum.

Started Queen of the Air: A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus. Interesting, though I feel like the author is speaking for people's inner feelings too much without telling me where this information comes from.

Finished the third book in the Martin Beck series, The man on the balcony. Before commencing the fourth, have started reading The shifting of the fire (1892) by Ford Maddox Hueffer (aka Ford Madox Ford).

I will be starting the Four gated City by Doris Lessing.

I'm reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen and Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving, in preparation for the Tournament of Books (the discussion is much more fun when I've read both books competing in a round). Neither is grabbing me yet, although The Sympathizer is more interesting.

I'm also reading Between the World and Me, which is so dense and full of things to think about that I'm reading it very slowly.

And...the touchstones aren't working again.

I've recently finished Mint Tea and Other Stories, The River Between, and A Dry White Season. I'm still meandering through Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel and Tom Jones on audio. I need to start a subway book, but haven't decided which....

I seem to be reading the same as >34 avidmom:, but on a 2 day delay. Wonder what I'll be reading next >;-)

I finished the Enchanted April last night and am about to start re-reading The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared which is this month's book group pick.

Just about to start listening to The poisoned crown due to a lack of AAA batteries. Been radio 4 in the morning and 2 in the evening for the last week. But I remembered to put batteries on the shopping list yesterday, so the audio book listening can recommence.

Finished Un lieu incertain - my first Fred Vargas, now I definitely want to go back and read the others - and still advancing slowly though Meneer Berta.
I'm also halfway through Hadriana dans tous mes rêves, which is turning out to be great fun.

I've finished Atonement and am left feeling a little frustrated and ambivalent by it. On now to Post Office by Charles Bukowski.

I've finished the underwhelming The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. Next up is Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski. I picked it randomly off the 1001 books to read before you die list and had never heard of it. I'm encouraged to see there are some very favorable reviews written by people in this group who I trust!

I'll also be reading the last in the Mapp and Lucia series, Trouble for Lucia, for something light.

I'm enjoying Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick.

I've started Capital by John Lanchester.

After a big struggle with A World of Love and The Unnamable it is about time I read something easy. This will be Cold Earth of which I read some interesting reviews - and recommendations - in this group.

>48 mabith: This morning I came across some bits from Capital that I had copied out into one of my journals, and it reminded me how much I liked that book. Hope you enjoy it too.

>50 Nickelini: Joyce, I'm definitely liking it so far! Though I had a total disconnect about the plot. I saw some adds for the BBC adaptation of it and decided I had no interest in it. Once I add a book to my to-read list I tend to start it without reminding myself what it's about.

I've finished We Were the Mulvaneys, and I'm now onto The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. Mulvaneys was okay albeit flawed. I'm excited about the Atwood.

Started re-reading The comedians last night. Last read ca. 1978, when it was quite a recent book...

I'm now reading When Breath Becomes Air by the neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, an autobiographical memoir written just before his death from cancer at the age of 35, as his career was just beginning.

>54 kidzdoc: That's next on my TBR pile. I hope you like it!

Finished Post Office which I found entertaining, and now on to A Room With a View I think.

>55 MsNick: I did like When Breath Becomes Air. Do be sure that you have at least one box of facial tissues handy when you read it, though.

>57 kidzdoc: Yes, When Breath Becomes Air was very good, but painful. The tissues are probably a good idea.

For my own part, I've been enjoying a lovely little flurry of reading lately, although I fear I may be coming out of it now. But in the last few days I've read: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which lived up to the hype; Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, which I am almost embarrassed to have enjoyed as much as I did; and Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith, the third book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which continues to be very pleasant.

And I'm now reading Palimpsest: A History of the Written Word by Matthew Battles. Which isn't quite what I was expecting, being more poetic than informative, but it is interesting.

>57 kidzdoc: Thanks for the advice. I'm a BIG crier.Glad you liked it.

>58 bragan: Now I know to double up on the hankies!

Since I'm now over half way through, I guess I really am reading The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition by Charles Rowan Beye - a series of critical essays from 1966. They are heavily focused on thinking through Homer from the standpoint of oral poetry, as opposed to anything written. They have me thinking about Homer, which is where my mind wants me to be.

Finished The Comedians and Nina Bawden's Walking naked yesterday: have now picked Compère General Soleil off the pile of Caribbean books I ordered last month in a flurry of keenness. Seems to be a sort of Haitian Berlin Alexanderplatz, if the first 50 pages are anything to go by.

>56 AlisonY: I wonder if those two books have ever been mentioned in the same sentence before?

I'm liking the YA novel Jackaby, recommended by our daughter.

My quest to read as many of the Morning News Tournament of Books contestants before the competition kicks off on March 8th, I'm finding that my reading has taken a distinctly testosterone-fueled turn. I've finished The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, am forcing myself to persevere with John Irving's Avenue of Mysteries and have begun The Sellout by Paul Beatty.

I'm also reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which is requiring my full attention and much consideration.

I've finished The White Monkey, fourth book in the Forsyte Chronicles. I'm still loving this saga.

Two library loans have come in, so before I continue with the fifth book, I will be reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, and Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.

I've been procrastinating starting the Odyssey (Robert Fagles translation). So, I'm not actually reading it yet. But maybe tomorrow.

Finished Compère Général Soleil and started L'homme aux cercles bleus, the first of the Fred Vargas novels about Commisaire Adamsberg.

I finished listening to The Poisoned Crown by Maurice Druon this week. I now have Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens to listen to. All 22 CDs of it. That's going to be the next few week's commuting taken care of then...

Still reading The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared for this month's book club read. It's not improving any on a second reading.

I've become distracted by The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber.

I am more than half-way through The 100 Year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared which I am liking just as much (or more) than the movie. Up next is a piece of very short nonfiction Mad Women by Jane Maas which is a nice companion to my "Madmen" addiction.

I finished Massacre River which combines poetic language with horrific atrocity.

>68 RidgewayGirl: I've just started Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. I suspect it'll be some time before I finish, but I've heard good things.

I'm reading Winterdance, about Gary Paulsen getting ready for and running the Iditarod.

I am reading Nuns behaving badly and wondering whether I would be better off watching the film Nude Nuns with Big Guns

I usually only have one book going at a time, but I've put down The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014 in order to read Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life for my book group, and am just starting Intuition by Allegra Goodman as an audiobook while I knit with my daughter.

As a follow up to my last post, I am now actually reading The Odyssey. I read book one today.

And I joined audible.com yesterday and started my first audible book today - The Story of America by Jill Lepore. Wrong touchstone - the title is not friendly to LT touchstones.

Reading The Red Storm now - which had some consistency issues but is pretty enjoyable so far.

Finished L'homme aux cercles bleus and am trying to resist the temptation to go straight on with another Fred Vargas. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the poetry-sequence The Arrivants and I've still got Meneer Beerta on the go somewhere, so it's clearly time to start something else new!

I'm reading A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullen -- the book on which the movie Mr. Holmes was based -- and can't quite make up my mind what I think of it, even though I'm almost done. I definitely want to see the movie, though. (I missed it while it was in the theaters.)

Next up is an ER book: Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, which I'm hoping is not going to be too self-help-y.

I'm also intermittently skimming through Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher.

Winterdance was excellent. Just started Heap House.

Almost done with and quite enjoying Vanity Fair.

I've started Wreck and Order after having read the heartbreaking When Breath Becomes Air.

I finished reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, which I really enjoyed. I'm now starting Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.

For my audiobook, I finished The Secret River by Kate Grenville. Simon Vance's narration was excellent. My next audiobook is The Constant Gardener by John LeCarre.

Finally back in circulation and reading Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore.

I am reading Mist or Niebla by Miguel Unamuno another book published in 1914.

>71 ljbwell: I'm deep into the final chapters of The Book of Strange New Things and it feels like it might be my first five star read of the year. I now want to reread The Crimson Petal and the White.

I've finished The Sellout by Paul Beatty. I hated this book for the first third of it, but by the final third I was enjoying it, although that headlong rush of manic erudition and humor with a joyful intent to offend is not really my preferred style. It felt similar in many ways to the half of Infinite Jest I managed to read, with tennis and drug addiction replaced with segregation, Los Angeles and farming.

>83 theaelizabet: >84 baswood: I loved both of those - hope you enjoy them!

Finished The arrivants , which wasn't as heavy going as I feared it might be, and started another French policier by an author new to me, Total Khéops by Jean-Claude Izzo.

I've started reading And After Many Days, a debut novel by the Nigerian author Jowhor Ile that I won from the LT Early Reviewers program. It's set in Port Harcourt in 1995, in an upper middle class family whose oldest son has disappeared under mysterious circumstances during student protests in the city. It's received good reviews on LT and elsewhere.

I'm well into Sanditon and Other Stories, which is an Everyman's Library collection of Jane Austen's minor works. I bought this only to read Lady Susan, but it tempted the completist in me, so I'm reading it all and am shocked to say that it's mostly fabulous. I'll finish it in the next week and review on my thread. Those Jane Austen fans who consider themselves purists will get the vapours reading this (fanning self quickly, lest I faint). Drunkenness! Adultery! This is not the Austen of polite tea parties and ugly dresses!

Reading J.G. Farrell's Troubles. Now if I could just catch up with my reviews...

I am reading Stay by Jennifer Michael Hecht. So far, in the first 160 pages or so, it is more polemic than argument. I am also dipping into The Ethics of Suicide, a useful compilation.

I have on the side to get back to The Dollmaker, and I have to read All the Light We Cannot See by early April.

Robert

finished my paper book. not my choice to read the 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared and it didn't improve on a second acquaintance.
Now reading Equal Rites as part 3 of my Discworld series re-read. Much better >:-)

I finished Have Mercy on Us All, the next Adamsberg mystery by Fred Vargas -- at the end, I couldn't put it down.

Starting Evicted by Matthew Desmond.

Having finished the slight and bittersweet Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, I've picked up Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, which is not sweet at all.

Almost done with Fallen Dragon which is very good so far.

I feel I'm getting deeper in the Homeric obsession. I read Homer (Past Masters), an short book by Jasper Griffin from 1980. And today I started Homer's Readers : A Historical Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey, a history of reading Homer by Howard W. Clarke from 1981.

Still reading The Odyssey, which is so far much more pleasant than the Iliad. Unfortunately, since I simply like it and don't feel the need to figure anything out, I'm thinking about it less.

I'm now reading China Miéville 's Railsea, and I'm not positive yet, but it may very well be my new favorite China Miéville novel. Can't believe it took me this long to get around to reading it.

Having felt like I've been reading A Room with a View forever (for all the wrong reasons), I'm delighted to move on to Basic Bech. Approaching this with some trepidation - I hope this series doesn't fall short of the Rabbit novels which I loved.

I have just finished reading The Death of Bunny Munro and I'm thinking about reading Gray Mountain next because of a review that I read around here.

>97 bragan: I'm eager to hear your thoughts about Railsea. I want to read it because of the Moby Dick connection.

Finished Total Khéops with the realisation that I'm going to have to read the next two in that series as well (at least Izzo is no longer with us, so it's a finite problem...).
Back to Fred Vargas now, I think, with L'homme à l'envers (still some way to go there before I catch up with Rebecca).

>100 RidgewayGirl: So far I'm loving it, and it's doing some wonderfully meta things with the Moby-Dick stuff.

>101 thorold: You're gaining on me, Mark.

And I finished and reviewed The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol in which the supernatural vies with the surreal, and humor with tragedy.

Traveling so catching up with my kindle reading - just finished The Robespierre Serial which ended up better than expected (despite its issues). And I am catching up with reviews and my thread :)

Next is Billingham's In the Dark on the kindle

I have just finished The Reign of Elizabeth in the Oxford History of England series and my next book is - Neils Klim's journey under the ground by Ludvig Holberg. It is 18th century proto science fiction

I'm just finishing up Creativity Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull, one of the founders and leaders of Pixar. It's really been a great read, far better than I'd been expecting, honestly. It's more about how to run a creative company than about Pixar's history specifically. The tone is honest, proud of their successes but honest about their struggles and mistakes.

I've finished Railsea am now reading The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison, which is impressing me greatly.

Finished L'homme à l'envers, and have had my arm twisted to continue the French crime theme with a blast from the thirties, Un crime by Georges Bernanos.

I finally finished the audiobook of The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach which I think was really good (maybe? - I'm on the fence between raving about it or thinking it was completely overdone and implausible).

I'm now reading Between the World and Me, Harriet Hume, and doing a big push to finish the Beethoven biography I started ages ago. Probably 2 more weeks on that one.

I think on audio I'll start I know Why the Caged Bird Sings read by Maya Angelou (thanks for the rec, Meredith!).

I'm reading a freebie for Kindle titled Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia which is kind of a Cliff-note type book on Russian history.

Finished The Odyssey today. No clue what to say about it yet.

Finished Billingham's In the Dark on my flight yesterday (and reviewed it).

And started Kellerman's Breakdown on paper and Jemisin's The Fifth Season on the kindle.

>111 dchaikin: Looking forward to when you do! But no pressure :)

>111 dchaikin: Looking forward to it!

Finished The Satanic Verses and am deep into The Long Ships

>113 ChocolateMuse:/>114 theaelizabet: thanks guys. (encouragement from both a goddess and a muse - this might just be a really good day. )

>115 ELiz_M: "Deep" being the operative word if you've got there by falling out of a plane. :-)

I finished Un crime this morning, and will probably devote the coming wet weekend to more French crime. Unless I have a different idea before then...

>117 thorold: Or been kidnapped and taken by sea to far away foreign lands ;)

Finished the audiobook The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. Amazing work! By far the longest audiobook I've listen. I posted a brief review in my thread. Start to listen Hannah Arendt: A Life in Dark Times, by Anne C Heller.

Evicted was terrific, a game-changer. Now I'm reading Pax and liking it very much.

Despite the lack of wet weather, I still finished another crime novel, my first Léo Malet, Le soleil naît derrière le Louvre. Fun!
Back to Fred Vargas now...

I've just finished Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich, a disappointingly subpar installment of (or maybe supplement to) a generally fun, if rather brainless, series. And I'm now reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith, which I'm enjoying.

Just finished the wonderful Troubles by J.G. Farrell and have begun both A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (for book group) and SPQR by Mary Beard.

I am reading The Gray Cloth, Paul Scheerbart described as a novel on glass architecture. Interesting for me as it was published in Germany in 1914.

Two weekends visiting grandchildren have given me enough car time to finish listening to The Constant Gardener by John LeCarre. My next audiobook is Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley, the fifth book in the Flavia de Luce series.

I've had very little reading time this week, so I am still reading Brooklyn. I'm hoping to finish before I head to Florida for vacation on Thursday.

A lot of reading in the evenings here - finished Flipped for Murder which was an ok cozy mystery and The Bookseller which was a nice mystery set in Paris.

Next is Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen - late in the series and I had never read a book by her so will see how that works out

I finally found the time to sit down and read Brooklyn which I really enjoyed.

I'm now ready to start the fifth book in the Forsyte Chronicles, The Silver Spoon By John Galsworthy. I'm leaving for a two week vacation on Thursday, so trying to line up a few books. I have my audio books ready to listen to while I walk, and hope to finish the fifth and sixth books in Galsworthy's series. I'll take a break before reading the final trilogy. My Kindle is loaded with lots of good books, so I'm all set to read whatevr strikes my fancy.

Very slowly working through Homer's Readers. On audio I listened to a Great Courses lecture on th Iliad, which was decent. Now I have started Being Mortal. I also picked up the February issue of Poetry Magazine.

Just starting a number of things now. The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart for the Reading Globally Caribbean quarter, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende for my book club, and Only for a Fortnight: My Life in a Locked Ward by Sue Read.

I'm in the middle of three books; The Story of My Teeth by Mexican author Valeria Luiselli is a wild ride, as is Fran Ross's Oreo. These are the last two books I plan to read for the Tournament of Books. I like inventive wordplay, but I'm discovering that no matter how bizarrely they veer off the usual paths, too many in a row and they all begin to feel too similar.

And I'm reading The News from Paraguay, Lily Tuck's fictional imagining of Eliza Lynch's experiences in Paraguay. Lynch was a real historical character, an Irish courtesan who took up with Franco, then son of the Paraguayan leader, who took her to Paraguay and built her things. It's such a weird and colorful story that Tuck is downplaying much of it, to keep it believable.

Time to crack open another book and this time it is Briefing for a descent into Hell by Doris Lessing

Finished L'affaire N'Gustro (very late-60s, stylish but a bit nasty), so I'll allow myself another Vargas. Un peu plus loin sur la droite seems to be next.

I just finished and reviewed Augustus by John Williams, which tells an exciting story, with insights into the nature of power and family and the choices power and family create for people.

I've finished several books lately - the audiobook of I know why the caged bird sings read by the author, Maya Angelou, the biography of Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph that I've been reading for 3 months, and Harriet Hume by Rebecca West which I found too odd to enjoy.

Now I'm finishing up Between the World and Me which I'm finding challenging and I've started Stoner by John Williams which is as fantastic as everyone here said.

Just got Here With Me Now from Amazon which was recommended by a friend. Couldn't put it down last night until I remembered I was losing an hour today. :-/

Feeling cranky on this chilly, rainy Sunday afternoon. I've put aside Behind the Beautiful Forevers for now and am enjoying Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen. It's probably the most intellectual memoir by a rock star ever written, or at least the most original. Just finished Exercises in Style, the 1954 French classic by Raymond Queneau -- talk about original.

I am reading The Elizabethan Renaissance; The cultural achievement, A L Rowse

Finished another Fred Vargas and the first of the Dutch Grijpstra and de Gier crime series over the weekend, now reading the next Vargas on my pile, Sans feu ni lieu.

I'm reading an ER book: Death Rays and the Popular Media, 1876-1939: A Study of Directed Energy Weapons in Fact, Fiction and Film by William J. Fanning Jr. Which is one of those books that takes an interesting subject and tells me far, far more than I ever actually wanted to know about it.

I've started the second in PKD's Valis trilogy, The Divine Invasion, and I'm a ways into All the Light We Cannot See.

Reading Even Dogs in the Wild on paper - the new Rebus/Fox by Rankin and so far, not bad. On the kindle, halfway through Luna: New Moon and so far, very good (not for the squeamish and prudish though).

In the meantime, finished Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen (I want to read more of these), had a bit of a detour through some Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason (middle of the series - and I want to read a lot more of these), Kurland's Too Soon Dead (which was not that bad but missed the mark on its time and era descriptions - and with it being the mid-thirties, I am not sure how he managed to miss it...) and Jemisin's The Fifth Season which was very good but is essentially the buildup to the real story and had a bit of a trouble with having its own story. Still working on reviews on most of these (and a lot of the earlier ones - but getting there) :)

I'm about 2/3 of the way through He Wanted the Moon by Mimi Baird. It is largely the memoirs of her father, Dr. Perry Baird, and his struggle with mental illness. So far, it has been a quick read. He was a good writer, but it hasn't been that enlightening for me. I was already aware of how poorly they treated the mentally ill in the 1940s.

I've just finished the excellent Stoner by John Williams - thanks to so many of you for recommending it! Review to come in the next couple days. Now I'm reading The Worst Hard Time about the 1930s dust bowl.

I finished The Silver Spoon, fifth book in The Forsyte Chronicles, which I really enjoyed. I'm about to start the sixth book, Swan Song.

Finished reading a genre book, end of the world type stuff, which was entertaining but ended up being quite anticlimactic. Although, I don't tend to read genre books, nor end of the world type books, so I'm not sure if this is what I should have expected or not. The book is いつか海に行ったね (I Went to the Ocean Once) by 久美沙織 (Kumi, Saori). Will write my thoughts about it over on my thread in a bit.

I feel a bit emptied, as if from a minor breakup. I just closed the cover of the last book of the Neapolitan Novels of Elena Ferrante. Except for the first, My Brilliant Friend, which I read late last year, I managed to race through The Story of A New Name (Book 2), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Book 3), and The Story of the Lost Child (Book 4) reading each twice in succession in the last 3 weeks. It's remarkable how Ferrante was able to keep the rollercoaster going for 1,680 pages and make you feel sorry at the end that the ride was over. I'd say this enigmatic author can now add me to her multitude of admirers.

I finished Mad Women by Jane Maas today at work. It was a fun read and was a great companion to go along with my "Mad Men" obsession. Now I'm moving on to Double Indemnity by James Cain. My son had to read this short book for his English class and wanted me to read it. It's incredibly short (I think a little over 100 pages).

>146 deebee1: I am dreading finishing The Story of the Lost Child so much!

>148 RidgewayGirl: I felt the same way... Did you know that a TV series based on the novels is in the works? Read it somewhere recently. The author herself (or is it himself?) seems to be closely involved. Not sure I like the idea though.

>149 deebee1: Yes! And if it's filmed in Naples, I will not care if it's terrible, I will still watch it.

>150 RidgewayGirl: Here it is...

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2016/feb/09/neopolitan-no...

If it's the same company which produced Gomorrah (I read the book, saw the film, and followed the TV series -- the screen adaptations were very good), then the Ferrante novels' adaptation promises to be good.

I have finished my latest book(s) at long last: a collection of two Updike quasi-novels: Basic Bech: Bech: A Book, Bech is Back. Partly plodded through as I'm busy with work, and partly because it didn't wasn't page turning.

On now to Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski - another Persephone Classic, which I seem to usually enjoy. Fingers crossed.

I've finished The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie, which was utterly delightful and odd.

I'm still reading The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck, and I've begun Girl at War by Sara Novic.

I'm fully absorbed in The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard, which is in some ways a pity, since I feel I should be focusing on my much slimmer 'serious read', Remembering Babylon by David Malouf. Both are brilliant in their own way.

I have just finished Gray Mountain and will be starting Mr. Mercedes today or tomorrow.

Finished the next Vargas on my list, Sans feu ni lieu, and started (with misgivings only marginally outweighed by curiosity) J'irai cracher sur vos tombes.

I am reading I,Robot by Isaac Asimov

>157 baswood: Condolences!

I'm reading The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente, which promises to be as charming and lovely as the rest of the series, if I can just manage to find more than a few minutes at a time to spend reading it. (This has not been a good week for reading for me, alas.)

I finished Swan Song, the third book in the second trilogy of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Chronicles. I think this is my favorite of the six books I've read of the Chronicles so far. Before I begin the third and final trilogy, I will change pace by reading Louise Penny's The Beautiful Mystery.

Finished Pars vite et reviens tard, checked myself carefully for fleabites, and since I've been neglecting my pile of Caribbean books a bit lately, I decided to move on to The dragon can't dance.

I am reading another collection of short stories by Doris Lessing The story of a Non-Marrying man they were published int 1972.

Little Boy Lost hit the spot. On now to Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

I've finished Girl at War, Sara Novic's novel about a girl growing up in Croatia during the Yugoslav War. The subject matter was fascinating, but it wasn't very well written. I'm now reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond as well as Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski.

I finished my last two Inspector Sejer mysteries,Bad Intentions and The Caller.

I'm nearing the ends of Bolivar: American Liberator and The Bridge of Beyond.

Just finished the fantastic The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber and picked up Jonas Hassen Khemiri's Allt jag inte minns. Outside Sweden, I think he's most known for Montecore, which is a favorite of mine in Swedish, so I'm really looking forward to this one.

I finished Double Indemnity this morning and will get to reading The Art of Racing in the Rain before it's due back at the library.

Finished the audiobook Hannah Arendt: A Life In Dark Times, by Anne C. Heller. Review in my tread. Next: The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama.

Trying desperately to finish more than one book this month. My current two are both for the Reading Globally Caribbean Quarter: Texaco and a book about buccaneers.

I've finished the delightful Doctor Thorne by Trollope and two more Inspector Sejer mysteries, Bad Intentions and The Caller.

Finished an ER book, Running with Rhinos: Stories from a Radical Conservationist by Ed Warner. Moderately interesting author, very interesting work, so-so writing. I've now started Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam, a novel about Bangladeshi immigrants in New York.

I am reading All Quiet on the Western Front. it is a book off my shelf I am feeling righteous.

I started the children's book Salt by Helen Frost, but quickly gave it up. It's set up as verse but really it's just chopped up prose. I knew it was going to annoy me so I set the book aside instead, which I generally find very hard to do.

Now I'm into A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves, and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy that I got as an ER, A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, and Shadows of the Workhouse. All women's bios and memoirs this week!

Just finished Players First: Coaching From the Inside Out, by John Calipari and Michael Sokolove. Review in my thread. Good book, bad emphasis.

Finished Sous les vents de Neptune, started Solibo magnifique - possibly the last gasp of the Caribbean thread?

I've just started reading Kitchens of the Great Midwest: A Novel by J. Ryan Stradal. So far, so good.

>173 baswood: One of the best books on WWI I guess. Ah, with Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks that is. Looking forward to your thoughts.

I finished Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín, which I loved, and am now reading Crossfire, a Japanese thriller by Miyuki Miyabe, which I enjoy so far.

Having finished He Wanted the Moon, I'm on to East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

I've finished The Worst Hard Time, a nonfiction book about the 1930s Dust Bowl that I really enjoyed. It led me back to Willa Cather and I've started O, Pioneers.

I've also just finished a rather obscure book (to Americans anyway) by the Finnish author Marja-Liisa Vartio called The Parson's Widow.

Now I'm almost done by the compulsively readable Circling the Sun - historical fiction/romance about Beryl Markham. I read Markham's autobiography, West With the Night years ago and was fascinated by her life. I think it will lead me to read Out of Africa next since Isak Denison was friends with Markham.

It's fun when books lead to others!

Sorry to hear you gave up on Salt. I really like Helen Frost's novels in verse, although I haven't read Salt yet. Maybe it's an acquired taste? She almost always uses the form of her poetry to express more about the characters. I always look for her author's note before I start reading so I can appreciate what she is trying to accomplish.

>181 PeggyDean: Peggy, the poetry just didn't work, particularly for one character. The divisions between the sentences were totally arbitrary, and it would not have changed the book to just have them be short paragraphs instead. I was disappointed, and maybe on another day I could have ignored that issue, but poetry is more than just short lines and stanzas, and the format was adding absolutely nothing. Verse children's novels/memoirs have become such a trend, starting in the late 90s or so, and because of that I think authors need to be extra careful with it and considerate of what poetry is. I also have a very hard time putting down books, so I'm trying to follow my instincts there rather than feeling annoyed at the time spent once I reach the end.

I'm trying to make my way through The Outsider (the 2nd half of Richard Wright: Later Works) which is interesting, but I'm really not in the mindset for it now, but it has to go back to the uni library in a few days, bah. Thinking of grabbing a quick thriller to read for a mini-break.

Back at Zola and reading the third book in his suggested reading order: Money. It's a real page turner. For some reason the touchstones are taking me to Huckleberry Finn, somewhat the exact opposite of Saccard, without offering me Zola's work. L'Argent works.

Reading Mythology by Edith Hamilton, from 1942. I'm enjoying it. Next will be Gravity's Rainbow, which I might start on April 1 (??)

Listening to The Story of America by Jill Lepore. As it's a series of essays, I set it asside several times for library audio books with due dates. I just listened about Dickens in America and I'm getting a new perspective on Poe now. But so far the best essay was on Thomas Paine...author of Common Sense.

Finally in an effort to stay contemporary, I'm reading Poetry magazine's March issue.

In a fit of indecision, I have begun several books at once.

I'm almost finished the weird and complex A Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski, who creates a foreboding atmosphere in 1934 Breslau, then located on the eastern edge of Germany.

And I've begun My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, Negroland by Margo Jefferson, Evicted by Matthew Desmond, Tempesttost by Robertson Davies and A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah. I'll see what settles out.

>185 dchaikin: and >186 RidgewayGirl: I love Jill Lepore and Robertson Davies

I've finished Come to Me, the first collection of stories by Amy Bloom, which despite my being one of her fans has languished on my TBR since 1994, and a Three Evangelists mystery by Fred Vargas, Dog Will Have His Day.

I am reading Innocent: her fancy and his fact by Marie Corelli. Its another book published in 1914.

Finished listening The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama. Interesting book about the formation of our political institutions. Review in my thread. Looking forward to Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy, by the same author.

Thanks for explaining your viewpoint. I wonder if you have any examples of kid's or teen books in verse that you have liked. I agree that this trend is growing. I liked Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and I have enjoyed several of the books in verse by Margarita Engle. I started following her work with Poet Slave of Cuba and have read most of her Cuba books, including her memoir Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings.

>184 SassyLassy:

Glad you are enjoying L'argent. It'll probably be the next Zola I read once my parents bring in a large chunk of my TBR left behind in the states when they come to visit me.

I am reading London Falling. It is almost funny to read the first 100 pages or so, knowing that it is a paranormal/urban mystery and having the detectives and everyone else in the book thinking it is not. And thinking on how you would see certain things if you are reading a straight mystery. Very well done by Cornell.

Meanwhile had been catching up on my reviews -- if you had been looking at my thread, you probably saw a lot of activity the last days. 8 more to go and I will be at current :)

>189 MarcusBastos:
One of my favorite books from 5 years or so ago. I have the second one sitting on my nightstand, waiting for me to get around to it. :)

Love, love, LOVED Tess of the d'Urbervilles. On now to The Housekeeper + the Professor.

Finished Solibo magnifique and Les Années, so I've probably earned another crime story - Dans les bois éternels seems to be next on the pile of Vargas. And March has been an almost all-French month so far, so it doesn't seem the moment to change...

>193 AlisonY: I loved Tess, too.

All the Light We Cannot See was good, and now I'm starting Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer and A Manual for Cleaning Women.

>187 rebeccanyc: I loved Come to Me. Which has made me reluctant to read more by Amy Bloom in case it's not as good.

Start reading Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. A sport book for leisure time.

I've started Let's Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. I loved her second book, Furiously Happy.

(I know we need a new thread but with the end of the month so close, I would rather stay in this one for a few more days) :)

I'm back after two weeks' vacation in Florida and finished three books in the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache series - The Beautiful Mystery, How the Light Gets In, and The Long Way Home. I was planning to start the third trilogy of the Forsyte Chronicles, but Brown Girl Dreaming was ready for my Kindle at the library, so I'm starting that one tonight.

I'm floundering around starting and stopping several things but Fingersmith by Sarah Waters seems to have caught.

I have just finished Mr. Mercedes and You are Dead by Peter James.

Just finished Know the Mother, a book of short but powerful vignettes by Desiree Copper. Some of the facts were only glanced at and it made for a really interesting read that I didn't want to put down.

Still working of A Very Dangerous Woman and just started China in Ten Words.

I'm reading too many books at once, the result of having a scattered mind. Mainly, I've just finished the decidedly weird Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski, and begun the instantly gripping The Passenger by Lisa Lutz.

I'm also reading Negroland by Margo Jefferson and Evicted by Matthew Desmond for non-fiction, The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies and A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah for fiction.

Finished a couple of French novels over Easter, Les Années by Annie Ernaux and Pas pleurer by Lydie Salvayre. Both excellent.
Started the next in my rapidly-diminishing pile of Fred Vargas, Dans les bois éternels.

I've just finished A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century by Joseph Charyn and SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (I love Mary Beard) and I've started Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War by Adam Hochschild.

I am reading Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition It is an account of Cabeza de Vaca's journey from the Gulf of Mexico across Florida and over to the Pacific Ocean in 1527 (yes 1527). He ended up in Mexico City.

>204 RidgewayGirl: I'm reading too many at once too, and none of them part of my 'theme'. I'm reading Remembering Babylon by David Malouf and should have finished it by now, only I haven't. I'm also reading The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamieson as well as Marking Time, book 2 of the Cazalet chronicles. Plus I'm reading my next Josephine Tey online for sanity checks while at work, To Love and Be Wise.

I've read a bunch of short stuff in the last few days: Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe, Doctor Who: Beautiful Chaos by Gary Russell, and The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac.

And now I've started The Shadowed Sun by N. K. Jemison, the sequel to her excellent fantasy novel The Killing Moon. This one's going to take me longer.

And time for a new thread. Breadcrumbs under this post.

How was "SPQR"? I'm planning to read this book.