What You're Reading the Week of 3 Mayl 2008

Still reading and enjoying Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as a Stage a slim book which seems to match what little is actually known about the man amidst a mountain of speculation. Just finished The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory which I also enjoyed after a slow start, now I have to go a look up some history to see if there is any relationship between the two - and who were the other three wives who don't appear in the book?

Waterstone's say that they've sent a replacement for my faulty A Florentine Death by Michele Giuttari but it hasn't yet arrived; this is the season of public holidays so it could yet take a while.

Today I am reading Love Child by Fran Cusworth (no touchstones) and listening to Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig, Another Country by James Baldwin and Lifes A Campaign by Chris Matthews

Last week I finished up City of dreams : a novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and early Manhattan by Beverly Swerling and have started Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I resisted reading this one for years because it didn't appeal to me and now that I am reading it I love it and am soooo glad I gave it a go.

#1: Greyhead:
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory has the story of two more of his wives, one of which was a cousin of Anne Boleyn hence the title.

I'm about halfway through Oscar and Lucinda and am really enjoying it. This is my second book by Peter Carey, the other being True History of the Kelly Gang. Both were Booker winners. He's becoming one of my favorite authors...

I have just finished Slipstream, the autobiography of the 20th century English author Elizabeth Jane Howard, which I enjoyed a lot considering I knew next to nothing about her, and had never read any of her fiction. I've now gone out and bought one of her novels, Light Years.

Now I'm starting on Children of the Arbat by Anatoli Rybakov, a massive novel set in Moscow in 1934, when Stalin's terror was really beginning to bite, and (so I gather) depicting its effects on a group of young Russian intellectuals. So far (50 pages in) it's very good.

I'm alternating between Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong, a memoir about her life as a nun, (I'm fascinated by stories about the religious life) and The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson, a much-hyped YA book that just came out.

My varied reading tastes make me laugh sometimes.

>7 Lindsayg: Lindsayg - Love to hear what you think about The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Mary Pearson will be visiting our store this month.

I am planning on re-reading Elinor Lipman's Then She Found Me in preparation for seeing the movie next weekend. Also finishing The Summer Book.

6: senjmito, Elizabeth Jane Howard is quite an accomplished novelist, but she was also the 3rd wife of British comic novelist Kingsley Amis from 1965 - 1983, and the very influential step-mother of Martin Amis.

Just pulled Fairyville by Emma Holly out of my unread stack. It is actually a new edition to my stack and I should make it wait its turn, but it is calling to me.

Halfway through Middlemarch which gets better and better. Also beginning Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, an environmental narrative.

I started Atonement by Ian McEwan yesterday. I'm not too sure how I feel about it. The writing is beautiful, but I'm not yet involved with anything that's going on.

#6, senjmito, I read Children of the Arbat many years ago; I don't remember it that well, but I do remember also thinking it was very good.

I am finishing up my unplanned excursion into the entire Deptford Trilogy, by Robertson Davies as I've almost finished World of Wonders, and expect to return to Middlemarch.

I finished up a Molly Gloss book yesterday, Wild Life, which was very enjoyable. Now reading The Gathering. And That Tolstoy Book, still.

#5 lindsacl - I enjoyed the movie version of Oscar and Lucinda; haven't read the book yet but I'm looking forward to that - I have a few Carey books on my list and sense that I'm going to like his writing.

Still working on The Battle for New York. I'm most of the way through it though, and should get to my next review book this week.

Just finished my Early Reviewer's edition of The Size of the World by Joan Silber, very disappointing. I have begun The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. I am also listening to the audiobook version of The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Still working (an appropriate word) my way through This is Your Brain on Music (I wish it had more about music!), but finally pulled Like Water for Chocolate from my TBRs.

Still Dawn by Tim Lebbon to be followed by his latest, Fallen.

Still working (!) on a few ~ Smilla's Sense of Snow, which I'm enjoying a lot but which has taken a back seat to LIFE in general and Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean, my Early Review book. Also trying to get through London, a biography (that's the one that's taking the most effort) and listening to The Good Guy by Koontz when I get a chance.

I just finished The Bronze Horseman, an excellent read, and am now about to begin something lighter, Highlander Unmasked by Monica McCarty.

Still working my way through the 4th movement of A Dance to the Music of Time - I'm about halfway through Temporary Kings, and then one more book left.

I'm also in the middle of A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, which is absolutely wonderful.

Still reading The Gun Runner's Daughter; I've just not felt like reading this last week. Now I also have my ER book, Best Girlfriends Getaways Worldwide to read and review, as well.

We finished reading The Giver, as a family, on Thursday, and will start reading A Wrinkle in Time tomorrow, probably.

Still in the same spot in Skeleton Crew and The Prince.

Don't know if I'll be any farther along on any of them by next week... may just have to copy and paste the same message on to next weeks. *sigh*

#21 jfetting: A Pale View of Hills is one of Ishiguro's books that you almost never hear of, yet it is, as you say, wonderful. Same is true of An Artist of the Floating World, which is my favorite of his books. Ishiguro is pretty much about moral choices. I prefer An Artist of the Floating World to Remains of the Day because of the way the moral choice is developed in the former. It's a powerful story.

I've started Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris . 60pgs in and I still find it interesting and funny .

The new Tin House came yesterday, and over the last few years it's become one of my very favorite things: a fat book of short stories, essays, poems, reviews, and interviews, published 4x a year, and I nearly always wind up reading it cover-to-cover. I especially like that they review books from the past, non-mainstream things you might have missed, and in this edition, a book they praise to the rooftops is G.B.Edwards' 1981 novel The Book of Ebenezer LePage, just recently reprinted by the New York Review of Books, along with its rather startling original introduction by John Fowles. Ebenezer LePage was published posthumously, Edwards spent the last half of his life writing his only work, and it is as wonderful a novel as I've ever read. Tin House loved it too.

Right now I'm reading:

Mary Shelley by Victoria Glendenning
Self-Help by Edward Docx (published in the U.S. as "Pravda"
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgewood

And, I just started Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin before the week is out. As something of a lapsed classicist, I have a particular weakness for re-tellings of classical stories. This also makes me think that I should re-read the Aeneid sometime soon.

I may also start re-reading either the Iliad or the Odyssey this week, inspired by my recent reading of Alberto Manguel's book about Homer and the reception of the Iliad and Odyssey in the 28 or so centuries since the poems came about.

I'm still making my way ever so slowly through one of the Librivox recordings of The Three Musketeers and I think I'll probably start Storm Over Morocco, since I absolutely devoured Someday My Prince Will Come last night and finished it far earlier than I had thought I would.

I'm reading Agatha Christie An Autobiography and Beowulf. Sometime this week I'll probably need something light and fluffy and will read Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason or Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, both by Helen Fielding.

Tomorrow night is bookclub to discuss The Glass Castle - can't wait!

About 40 pages into The Golden Apples short story collection by Eudora Welty. Very Southern. Don't have an opinion, yet.

Half way through another reading of Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Odyssey for a class.

As an aside, I tried to watch the 1954 movie Ulysses with Kirk Douglas. I loved it as a kid but I only made it about ten minutes this time around. As a friend of mine pointed out, you really do have to be a kid to love twinkies and it is a mistake to get one as an adult.

90% through The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel. It has been really hard for me to put this one down.

I finished Old Man's War and started The Ghost Brigades, both by John Scalzi. I really enjoyed the former. So much in fact, I rushed out and bought the latter as soon as I was done with it.

I'm halfway through Wuthering Heights, and I must admit it's way better than I expected.

Will be starting Saturday by Ian McEwan in an effort to tackle the 1001 list.

Half through Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. Developed a light complex since I found out he wrote it when he was my age, but well...

Just finished King Solomon's Mines which was not bad at all. Started The Lovely Bones yesterday and it's just amazing. The story is just so compelling. I think this one is going straight to my best-reads-in-2008-list.

Same as last week:

Novel: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - now about 2/3 of the way through
Audiobook: Boiling A Frog by Christopher Brookmyre
Short stories: Dr Mukti and other tales of woe by Will Self
Loo: The Word of Pod by Dave Podmore

Not quite 1/2 way through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I'm really enjoying it, though the footnotes are really hard to follow on audio...

Valis by Philip K. Dick (not sure if I like it or not)
Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien

I started both of these last week, but it's That Time in the semester, and I'm having trouble finishing anything fast. So I'm also rereading the Fruits Basket series to take short breaks while working on final projects. It also makes me feel like I've accomplished something, 'cause I've finished the first eight in the last week...

>25 LouisBranning:: Louis -

I have Ebenezer in my NYRB collection. Bought it because so many of my co-workers loved it (the same ones who introduced me to Stoner). Now I will move it up my Mount TBR.

Just started Book 8 of Middlemarch so I expect to finish that and Split this week. After that, something fluffy probably. My brain needs a break.

Still reading The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton.

Don't know what I'm going to read next. Any suggestions from my TBR tagged books?

From your TBR list: Hunt for Red October, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, or, because I'm reading Agatha Christie An Autobiography any of her books.

IMHO.

I am almost done with The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and I can't believe I have waited this long to read this spectacular book.

After finishing Atwood, I will start Chris Bohjalian's new book, Skeletons at the Feast.

#1 GreyHead - about the wives of Henry beyond Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon, you might want to read The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser. I thought it was a concise look at the different women who married this mercurial prince.

#40 sanja - you've several of my favorite books on your tbr list, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (admittedly a major commitment) and Love in the Time of Cholera. Either of those I recommend.

I am currenly reading Living Among Headstones which is a non-fiction memoir about a woman who takes over the family cemetary. Very interesting so far.

Still reading Kristin Lavransdatter, and the thing is, I do like it, but it's finals. Luckily, my thesis defense is on Monday, and after that I will be completely done with undergrad and free to read all summer, except, of course, when I manage to find a job.

Not sure what I'll move onto next, probably Heretic by Bernard Cornwell - it's been calling to me.

Reading Hollander's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy for my blog on Dante.

Finished Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. Good, not great. This was my first book by him and I think I expected more.

I am now dutifully finishing Pullman's trilogy with The Amber Spyglass, but I am slogging a bit. IMO, these novels lack the magic and sense of reality of Harry Potter and certainly cannot touch The Lord of the Rings.

i just finished reading The vanishing act of Esme Lennox, it was really good, has anyone else read this??

I'm currently reading The History by Herodotus. I have to say, I picked it up begrudgingly because it is a borrowed book which I hope to return soon, but I'm finding it quite enjoyable. It takes a while to get used to the writing style, but once I did, I've found myself entranced.

42: mrstreme, "spectacular" is exactly the word I'd use to describe Atwood's classic, and please let me know how you like the Bohjalian book too.

Over in "Book Talk" I've just posted the National Book Critics Circle's Spring 2008 Good Reads list, the NBCC's alternative to the various best seller lists, and they're recommending some truly exceptional fiction

I'm now reading The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory. I'll be interested to see how it is, I've read so many mixed reviews of it.

Re-read Then She Found Me in preparation to see the movie next weekend.

Now it is onto Laughing Without an Accent as the author is visiting our store next week. I loved Funny in Farsi. I will also return to The Summer Book as I promised a review for our newsletter.

I finished The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington and also read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. I have just started The Widow's War by Sally Gunning.

I'm in the middle of Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs, The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes and Small World by Tabitha King. I'm in a lull. I can't seem to get in the reading mode. I have been stuggling to finish these 3 for several weeks!

I'm in the middle of Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs, The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes and Small World by Tabitha King. I'm in a lull. I can't seem to get in the reading mode. I have been stuggling to finish these 3 for several weeks!

Finished The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen last night, and started What the Dickens: The Story of A Rogue Tooth Fairy by Gregory Maguire last night.

Am 3/4 of the way into The Lady Elizabeth, Alison Wier's latest fictional work. Weir has written several non-fiction works on the monarchs of the Tudor era, so I am interested to see how much of this fictionalized account of the young life of Queen Elizabeth I the author truly believes. But totally true or not, this is a very compelling read.

I am now reading Internet riches- my early review book.

I finished The Battle for New York last night (a little earlier than I might have had there not been that outage). Got started on my Early Reviewer book, Deep Ancestry.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Oscar and Lucinda, but was fortunate enough to pick up Jhumpa Lahiri's latest, Unaccustomed Earth, at the library last weekend. It's now my lunchtime read. And oooh, lunch was very nice today.

I'm reading The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey which I highly recommend. And also have started Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire in prepartion for seeing the show in June.

>57 jfslone: jfslone I thought What the Dickens: The Story of A Rogue Tooth Fairy looked good so that's a book I plan to read sometime.

I'm making my way through Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes which is taking me longer than I expected. I'm finding it very hard to get into. I read the short story back in 8th grade and I think I enjoyed that much better.

Finished Gil's All Fright Diner at lunch today (very entertaining); I'm also reading Old Man's War after reading The Ghost Brigades over the weekend.

> heatherlynn85

I just finished Flowers for Algernon last month and I adored it! It's one of my best reads of 2008. But then again, I went into the story completely blank. Maybe it's better to read when you don't know the story?

Sadly, I finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides - I wish it could have gone on and on. This is one of the rare books where I can't stop thinking about the characters.

Now I'm trying to wrap up Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by JD Crossan.

This weekend I finished The Red and the Black, and now I'm ready to start Oliver Twist. I'm also still working through a collection of Emerson's Essays, Faith of the Fallen, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I've just started Henry Green's Nothing. He's been on my to read list for a terribly long time and I'm hoping I won't be disappointed. Has anyone any HG experience or recommendations?

Finished The Parasites, by Daphne du Maurier. Am now reading Dutch Shea Jr., by John Gregory Dunne.

# 68 abealy, I haven't read Nothing, so I don't know what you are in for there, but I have read Loving, Living, Party Going (three different books, put into 1 volume for handy reading). I liked, not loved, two out of the three (Loving and Party Going), so Green is batting .667 here. I found the juxtaposition of upper and working class life and values interesting. It's pretty clear where Green's sympathies lie. He's not hard to read, although when he writes in dialect it was a little tricky for me, since I'm not up on my working-class 1920's British slang.

68, 70: I've read all of Henry Green's novels and Nothing is pretty good, but Loving is considered his masterpiece, and was included on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list. I can also recommend Green's memoir Pack My Bag, as well as Jeremy Treglown's wonderful 2000 biography Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green.

Finished Death Qualified by Kate Wilhelm and am halfway through Blind Alley by Iris Johansen...

I am reading The Wrong Man byJames Neff. This is about Dr. Sam Sheppard who was accused and served time for killing his wife Marilyn. I still believe he was guilty.
This crime happened before I was born, but I remember hearing about it when I was growing up.

Finished The Love Child and I Am Legend - what a great story - and now reading The Handmaid's Tale.

First, a question... How can I get the titles to show up in blue? Thanks.

I am almost finished with "Olive Kitteridge", by Elizabeth Strout. I really liked this book.

Am also reading "Bonk", which is Mary Roach's new one. She has written "Stiff" and Spook". This one is about sex.

Because I am crazy, I'm also listening to a couple. One is Joseph Wambaugh's "Hollywood Station". The other is "The Last Girls", by Lee Smith.

Is anyone here familiar with Playaways? My local library just started offering them. They are about the size of a thick credit card and each one contains an audiobook. You just plug headphones in the Playaway and listen. They're fun and portable! You can also buy them, but they get pricier than I can afford.

I'm reading The Gathering by Anne Enright. Not enjoying it a lot. Not understanding how it's prize winning material. A bit weary of reading so much about specific male body parts (can I say 'penis' on this message board??). I'd probably quit this one if it wasn't part of the Booker reading challenge. That's 250 pages of my life I'll never get back.

nrtmn - did you see on the What did You Bring Home thread my explanation of the touchstones? You should know, they don't always work; in fact, the author ones work maybe half the time.

At the moment I'm reading The Woman in White. So far I'm really enjoying it.

jfetting & louisbranning, many thanks for the information about Henry Green. I intend to move right on to Loving.

I had started Amber in the Over World Saturday night but then had the flu Sunday and Monday and wasn't able to read at all. I may start with it again tomorrow.

I stayed up very late finishing The Widow's War by Sally Gunning. What an unexpectedly good piece of historical fiction. I have moved on to a very light read, Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark.

I am still reading Middlemarch, listening to The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri in my car and just started The Road. I also just picked up another one from the library Unaccustomed Earth which I need to start and finish quickly as it has an early due date back - it's in high demand. I also am about half way through The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, which I have put on hold till I can get through all the library books. I think I might need to quit work!

Audio = A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg. My first from him. He's using science fiction as a vehicle to express some ideas about a man going up against the strictures of his society. Not action-packed, but interesting and thought provoking.

Lunch read = The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. Slow start. Narrator is a very immature 28 and so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to bond with her. I have wanted to smack her a couple of times already.

Regular read = The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller. I've always liked Miller's work and this is no exception. She has an uncanny ability to present fictional lives as deeply and with as many facets as real lives. Keeps one from making too many assumptions about real situations.

touchstones bollocksed up as usual.

Wow, I had a complete nescience of Henry Green. All this talk about his work was the impetus for ordering Loving, Living, Party Going from my local library. Thanks to those who mentioned his work.

Halfway through The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon. Quite a few jaw dropping moments. I mean that literally.

> 76: teelgee ... um, you just did :-)

Chapter 5 of Robert McCammon's Speaks the Nightbird. Long chapters but a very good book.

Just finished Look Me in the Eye, a memoir by Augusten Burroughs's Aspergian brother, John Elder Robison. I found it shrug-worthy. Have just delved into Martha Grimes's newest, Dakota. Tried to get into Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford, but wasn't up to locating the plot in Gaskell's 19th-century prose. (PBS version starring Dame Judi Dench coming soon.) Looking forward to my Strand Bookstore mail-order to arrive, which will contain Dead Boys by Richard Lange and Trailers, a GN by Chris Kneece.

Started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver yesterday and I am loving it so far. Also reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy which I am finding kind of a slow read, but definitely not something I want to give up on.

My commute (audio)book this week is Duma Key - got good reviews even from some friends who are not King fans and it has been very engaging so far. I'm also struggling through A Dog Among Diplomats, so I can post my review. I am definitel not enjoying this as much as some of the other readers.

I am unintentionally on a King family/horror story binge, as my other current read is 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill. I've only read the first few stories, but they are weird and scary and disturbing and compelling. Perfect bedtime reading. :)

After some dithering around, I finished Atonement this morning. I've now started Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. It's fun so far, but is not, perhaps, the best follow-up to Atonement.

#83 And thank you, SeanLong, for "nescience ", my new word of the day!

I just finished A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It wasn't as good as the first three books in the series, but still better than a lot of books out there.

My thanks to philosojerk for mentioning this series in this thread a few months ago - I'm definitely hooked and am anxiously anticipating #5, hopefully before the end of the year.

To clear my mind of A Song of Ice and Fire's blood, guts and politics, I've just started Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog by Ted Kerasote.

Edited to add a space.

I had endless trouble picking up a new book after Jerramy Fine's Someday My Prince Will Come. Nothing I was picking up was holding my attention. I decided I needed a 'fun' reread. Looking at my shelves, I grabbed The Historian on accident (I was reaching for The Other Boleyn Girl and they are next to each other, because my shelves need to be reorganized).

I decided to stick with The Historian because I do enjoy it, even if it isn't 'fun' (not in the way I was thinking, anyway). Well, then I decided if I was going to read that, I'd might as well read Vlad the Impaler at the same time, since I've already got it. This turned into a theme-read and I'm planning to stop at Half Price Books tonight to pick up Dracula too. So now I'm doing a Dracula Theme Read. This is what happens when I go for a 'fun' book.

Reading The Queen's Bastard currently-if you like Jaqueline Carey (which I do) you will probably like this. Also Power,Faith and Fantasy about American involvement in the Middle East for the past 300 years. Very interesting. Sorry Touchstone didnt work for that one!

Okay, Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark amounted to a nice afternoon read, particularly because of it dealing with the interesting topic of "twin talk". Now I am starting My Antonia by Willa Cather.

> 76 teelgee,
Yes, I saw your explanation. Thanks. Also, I agree about The Gathering. I didn't understand what the big deal about it was either. I found it to be mostly slow and dull.

I'm almost finished with The Basque History of the World. I've enjoyed it overall, although there are some aspects of it I found a bit disappointing. I'll save the details until I'm all the way through, though.

Over the weekend at the beach, I read Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun. For some reason, I find his books ideal for beach reading. I also started on Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride, and I finished Clan Novel: Anthology edited by Stewart Wieck last Thursday.

I finished The Gun Runner's Daughter... which absolutely stunk. Started my ER book, Best Girlfriends Getaways Worldwide which is really great so far. I figured it'd be a boring travel guide, but it's really cool. Now if I only had the money to visit all the fantastic places in it!

Picked up Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay again and fell right back into the story. Am finding it just as wonderful now, six months after I put it down "for a few days" to read something had to go back to the library. Also listening to The Good Guy by Dean Koontz on audio.

hemlock--gave my daughter the Widow's war; she raved about it.

Sewing -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Putting my feet up -- Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean. It's hard to read because I want to go to these places so badly.

Bedtime -- Lord Brocktree and, when I'm finished, on to Taggerung and the rest of the Redwall books I've not yet read.

Yesterday I started & Finished Through a Glass, Darkly by Jostein Gaarder
A nice quick read, about Cecelia a very ill young girl & the conversations she has with her Angel, Ariel.

Now I'm on to The Story of Lucy Galt by William Trevor

Finished Small Wars Permitting by Christina Lamb and really enjoyed it, if it's possible to enjoy grim foreign correspondent tales. Am more than halfway through The Emperor's Children and can't wait to find out what happens (but don't want to give anything away).

It's so great to be racing through books after 6 weeks of the American civil war! I've stalled on Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson somewhere around page 600...I have to get back to it, otherwise I'll forget all the military details.

I've neglected to mention that I finished Peter Matthiessen's epic novel Shadow Country last weekend, but admit I was a little exhausted after 900 pages of Matthiessen's one-volume revision of his 3 Watson novels, and while I thought the first 650 pages were absolutely superlative, I started getting a little impatient with it during the last 200 pages, and was ready for it to be over before it actually was. Nevertheless, it's by any measure one of the finer things I've read this year, and though it's certainly not a book for everyone due to its length, it again very clearly confirms Matthiessen as a master of modern American fiction.

Since Shadow Country, I've been reading the new Tin House which I've mightily enjoyed and am nearly done with, and I'm also nearly finished with Colin Harrison's 2004 novel The Havana Room, which I'll have a lot more to say about later, but it's just been mind-blowingly great so far.

>92 Talbin: Talbin

I'm glad that you enjoyed them so much! (Muahahaha, another reader brought to the dark side...) Still waiting on Dances with Dragons...

I'm finishing up Marjorie Rowling's Daily Life in Medieval Times, a decent overview book of the period. Next I'll start Richard Barber's Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe, as I continue through a list of medieval history books.

>105 philosojerk: And somehow I influenced yet another reader - Joycepa - who just finished A Feast for Crows. I just hope Dances with Dragons comes out yet this year - I'll have to plan my re-read around its publication!

This is what's great about LT - wonderful book recommendations. Thanks, philosojerk!

#105, 107: Ditto! Yet another addict weighs in. :-)

#106, ljochsner:

You might want to check out The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd if you are reading about medieval Europe. I thought it was one of the best biographies I have ever read. It puts More's life squarely in the context of late medieval England and was hard to put down.

I just finished Life As We Knew It and I have started Portnoy's Complaint.

>109 Smiley:
I'm glad to hear it. I bought a copy a few books ago, and hope to read it (fairly) soon.

I finished God Emperor of Dune last night, and this morning started The Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhees.

about half way through Gravity's Rainbow.

had to take a break, so im reading The Beach by Alex Garland now, so far its been difficult to put down

Finished Blind Alley by Iris Johansen and have started Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain...

I 'm reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton because I've long heard about it being a young adult favorite but never read it.

Ahhh... SqueakyChu! That's my 15-year-old's favorite book... right now, anyway... :-D

--> 116

I read recently somewhere (can't remember where offhand) that the favorite book of elementary school kids is Charlotte's Web, the favorite of middle school kids is The Outsiders, and the favorite of high schoolers is To Kill a Mockingbird. I've read all but The Outsiders. I wanted to see what I'd been missing (...for the past 40 years or so)! :D

SqueakyChu, Mockingbird was her fav until she read Outsiders. Now, she reads it about once a week, and watches the movie at least once a week. Obsessive, much?

Now reading American Gods in my quest to read all of Gaiman's novels.

Having finished Old Man's War and another book, This Rough Magic over the past couple of days, I'm moved on to Summerland. I've become a Michael Chabon addict thanks to reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union last month.

>118 thekoolaidmom: When I was 3 and my sister was 13 she watched the Outsiders (the movie) at least once a week also. She trained me, her baby sister, to pick out the cast members in pictures and say, "That's Matt Dillon, he's a babe." He was her favorite.

Lindsayg My daughter's favorites are Pony Boy and Johnny. And her and my youngest play "boyfriends" and fight over them.

Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje and the Alchemist.

Eagerly awaiting my amazon order to read The River Why over the weekend.

I've abandoned A Dog Among Diplomats and picked up Shadow of the Wind again. I'm just hoping that I haven't lost too much of the thread of the story!

I’m reading Dermot Bolger’s 1990 novel set in the Dublin of the 1980s, The Journey Home, which caused a big stir in Ireland at the time for touching on issues that had rarely been touched on in Irish fiction at the time, such as heroin addiction and political corruption. It’s been recently published in the U.S. by the University of Texas Press. So far I’ve been quite absorbed in the story that teeters between third and first person narratives and gives a hint of something heinous that has happened. It’s a nice change just for the fact that the book eschews the staples of most Irish literary novels.

I'm reading The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander. This is a well-written historical fiction book that depicts the growing discontent of the Russian peasants and the revolutionaries that were compelled to act on the poverty and plight of the poor in reaction to the oppulance of the tsar and those who ruled.

Alexander has a knack for depicting the Russian people and the culture.

I'm more or less finished with Deep Ancestry. It's been long enough since I read anything Tudor, and since Smiley clearly has a high opinion of Peter Ackroyd's The Life of Thomas More (#109), I put my copy of it in my bag to start on today.

Well - I won't have much to add to this topic for a long, long time -- unless I write the same message week after week -- I just started A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. I do believe this will be the longest book I've ever read at ~ 1400 pages!

I finished The Amber Spyglass -- I was underwhelmed by the trilogy as a whole.

I finished The Gathering last night (whew) and started on Small Island by Andrea Levy.

Reading How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish. I'm practicing the ideas on my 3-yr-old... sometimes they even work.

Last week I finished A Delightful Compendium of Consolation by Burton L. Visotzky, an early reviewer book. I found it fascinating from a historical perspective.

I also read The Fraternity of Oblivion, poetry by Larry D. Thomas

128: jhowell, Seth's A Suitable Boy is a wonderful reading experience, and I envy anyone who's just starting it.

I was trying so so hard, but am still only to page 170 in This is Your Brain on Music. Finally decided that it's because the book is written like a report, with absolutely no narrative drive. I will return for the information in the remaining 100 pages ... but for now it's back on my shelf in exchange (finally!) for Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, which makes a nice little breeze as the pages turn themselves.

#110> DeAnnaW, I'll be curious to know what you think of Portnoy's Complaint. I remember all the controversy that book kicked up when it was first published, although I was only 14 at the time. I have since become a huge Roth fan and, in fact, I grew up in the Weequahic neighborhood of Newark the Portnoy's Complaint describes (although about 15 years later). At any rate, to me PC is very funny, and a pretty canny satire all in all.

Last night I finished The Basque History of the World, which overall I liked quite a lot. I'm not sure how to link to invidivual reviews, but you can find my review of the book, if you're interested, on the book's LT page, of course.

After a bit of time with my "between book" anthologies and such, I'll be reading The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes, which I bought in a used book store yesterday, because I only have about 1,500 books in my house waiting to be read. I don't know much about this book. I'd never heard of it when I pulled it off the shelf, but it looks very interesting, a novel about England in the first half of the 20th century. I'd be interested in any feedback/knowledge about this work or author that anybody here might have!

I just finished SKeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian. Awesome, awesome read. Historical fiction about the end of WWII. Now reading The House at Riverton.

I finished The Brothers Torres last night, and this afternoon I think I'll start Virtual Light by William Gibson.

I'm reading The Last Wife Of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson and although I'm only a couple of chapters in I'm enjoying it so far.

#131 -- thanks for the encouragement! (It's killing my wrists already though.)

Almost finished Tigana ~ it is sooooo good! ~ and already started House of Spirits by Allende, which was sitting on a shelf in the nonfiction section at the library last night, calling attention to itself in the most blatant fashion. I couldn't help but notice, so I picked it up and took it home with me, where it seduced me from page 1. :) I didn't expect to laugh out loud (while reading about Uncle Marcos.

Edited to correct name of uncle.

I have like, 15 books checked out that I need to read in less than three weeks...which happen to be my last weeks of high school for EVER, so i'm panicking here...
um...
I JUST finished Sunshine by Robin McKinley like, last night and I'm currently reading (like at this moment, my nose is in): 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson, Song of Solomon (AGAIN!!!) by Toni Morrison, Chocolat by Joanne Harris, and I'll be starting The Host by Stephenie Meyer tomorrow.

I'm gonna have a busy weekend...

I just finished The Constant Princess which was much better than I thought it would be. Next on my list, a lighthearted Scottish romance, Loving the Highlander.

# 119: judy

Hope you're enjoying American Gods!

Last month I raved about Colin Harrison's new novel The Finder, even added it to my Favorite Novels of the year list, and have only just finished his 2004 novel The Havana Room, which I think might be an even better book, no less than a model of pure storytelling genius that's as entertaining as anything I've read this year. Unfortunately Harrison's books are labeled "thrillers", a pejorative that unfairly groups his work with a rather lackluster genre I usually avoid, and does no justice at all to what Harrison actually writes, great "novels" first and foremost, and The Havana Room is a brilliant example.

Right now I'm a hundred pages into Steven Millhauser's wonderful new book of stories Dangerous Laughter and enjoying it all to the max so far, but it's such a little short thing that I'll likely be through with it tomorrow, when I'll plunge head-first into Rick Perlstein's 880-page whopper Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, one I can't wait to get to.

I just finished reading Living Among Headstones a non-fiction memoir written by a woman who inherits a country cemetary - a good book but so horribly full of grammatical and spelling errors as well as misprints that it was really distracting.

I have just started Strangs as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake (strange name) which is set in West Virginia. I have only read the first chapter but it is pretty good so far.

curiously enough, the touchstones aren't loading right - strange, huh?

I've just started Sorted by Jeff Gulvin - finding it heavy going at the moment. I like his style of writing but the content is just too dark and dismal for me. I shall persevere for a few more chapters.

144> might be that you've misspelled the title?

I'm putting aside Amber in the Over World for the moment to start my Go Review That Book! book, Immortals: The Calling by Jennifer Ashley.

Just finished My Antonia by Willa Cather. What a lovely book! I lived in the Midwest until the age of 23, and really appreciated the manner in which Cather captured the subtle, yet powerful, beauty of the land.

I am about to start reading Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee.

#148 Elizabeth Costello was an interesting read.

I'm currently reading Storm Rising by Mercedes Lackey and just finished Blood Sugar by Nicole Blackman.

#148 hemlokgang: Willa cather is one of my favorite novelists. I loved My Antonia and One of Ours but my favorite still is Death Comes for the Archbishop.

I agree about the way she writes about the land. I lived in Nebraska for nearly 10 years, and she hits the mark for me.

Thanks for the comments. I loved Death Comes for the Archbishop as well.

#149- Interesting is putting it mildly regarding Elizabeth Costello. Simple plot, but philosophy which requires intense attentiveness while reading!

hemlokgang & joycepa:

also wonderful: O Pioneers! Once again the frontier life of the Midwest and her simple but elegant writing.

#153 orangeena: Thanks for reminding me. I don't have that one. Just prods me to get more of her books.

And yes, that's another great way of describing her writing. You're never really conscious of it, because it's never intrusive or obvious but it's very sophisticated writing that just looks simple.

Back to Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee. Well, I can honestly said that I read it, and I think I understood some of it, but it was, frankly, more than I could completely fathom.

I jsut started Mao II by Don DeLillo

For years I’ve meaning to read the work of Irish writer Dermot Bolger, whose books has been criminally neglected by US publishers. Fortunately the University of Texas Press has recently come to the rescue by publishing his 1990 novel, The Journey Home, and after finishing it last night I only wish that I had come to his work sooner. The book is a beautiful, devastating account of the price of social and economic progress that calls to mind the work of Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle, although Doyle’s work is more relaxed, and lacks the reckless intensity of Bolger’s writing. The setting is 1980's Dublin, but it’s a timeless piece of literature that I’m sure will hold up for years to come. The best novel of Dublin since Joyce.

Now debating on which book to read first - Stephen Millhauser's Dangerous Laughter or Rick Bragg's last of his trilogy of memoirs, the recently published The Prince of Frogtown (And I love that cover).

Sweet and Low. It's very interesting so far.

Also a ton of others that I keep stopping and starting, but that's the main focus right now.