What Else Are You Reading? - Part II

I decided that 250+ messages are too many to load, so I'm taking it upon myself to start over here.

I am reading The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir. It's yet another book about Anne Boleyn--maybe one too many for me.

Ok Cario, we've got that in writing! hehe

>3 tiffin:: tee hee!
I'm reading Runaway, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro. Quite good.

I am reading The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli, a really engrossing story about a woman photo-journalist covering the Vietnam War. Life keeps interrupting my reading time!

I waffled between The Elegance of the Hedgehog and The Children and had to choose the latter. I'm glad I did! I remember little snippets, but not enough. (For all I know, this is reprinted as a Virago, but I have an old hardback.)

6> Yes, it is a VMC as well. I received a copy last week.

Since I inadvertantly shipped my Albanian home, I've been reading Elsa Morante's La Storia. This should be a VMC.

Andrew, La Storia is, among her books, the one I liked the least. Now, if only some VERY enlightened publisher decided to commission a complete translation of Menzogna e sortilegio......sigh......

The Wedding by Dorothy West -- fascinating look at the privileged, but tiny, African-American community at Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s. It makes me want to go back and reread Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding and Carson McCuller's Member of the Wedding. It's illuminating how weddings bring out deep-seated cultural values and mores.

I am so glad you are reading this Jane. I loved this book which I read reluctantly as it was 'tainted' by Oprah. As I have said a number of times, it had me on the edge of my seat. Who would she marry? The white guy or the black guy? But more to the point, who SHOULD she marry. The guy I would have picked wins out in the end but I was so afraid she would choose differently.

oooh I didn't know it was an Oprah book! Glad I didnt know that at the time of reading....!!

Oprah (or Richard & Judy in the UK) have that effect on me too! I always peel off the label on front of the book - but now they've got so devious that it's actually printed on the cover, rather than just stuck on!

I'm about to start Let the Great World Spin.

11> It's a gorgeous book, romain -- such an interesting family.

>13 miss_read:: just finished that book, and really liked it.

I loved it as well when I read it.
In fact, I think I liked it so much that I ordered another copy as part of my "Secret Santa" gifting last year. Very good book.
I just finished Norwegian Wood & am now 1/3 of the way through A Separate Country. Norwegian Wood was an exquisite read. Beautiful & sad.
A Separate Country is good as well. Not as hypnotic as Norwegian Wood, but good.
belva

Alongside my Virago Frost in May read I have begun The Complete Julian of Norwich (Paraclete Giants)
by Father John Julian OJN as Sunday last was a day given to remembering this great lady.

I am reading Wish Her Safe at Home - an NYRB. It is gripping. Based on what I have read so far, I highly recommend it.

I am reading The Code of the Woosters by Wodehouse. Was reading it at a medical appointment today in the waiting room and of course was occasionally letting an audible snorfle escape. Slipped my shoes off while reading and when I got called for my turn, inadvertently put the right foot into the left shoe, and vice versa. Having JUST read: "I suppose a man who has been hit over the head with a picture of a girl chirruping to a pigeon and almost immediately afterwards enmeshed in a sheet can never really retain the cool, intelligent outlook.", I stood up to find my toes pointing at ten and two o'clock and a really odd feeling in both feet, so was instantly reduced to a giggling gelatinous state. Totally unable to retain the cool, intelligent outlook indeed!

I've had the Van Gulik Judge Dee mysteries on my shelves since the 80's. I finally read The Haunted Monastery Sunday and couldn't stop. I'm on my fourth now and plan to read the remaining eight and then put them on Paperbackswap. What fun they are and since Van Gulik was a noted Oriental scholar the books have the ring of authenticity.

I have to get rid of them because I need more room for VMCs and Persephones!

~ 20 Liz - life is tough :)) I know the feeling. At present I have embarassing piles everywhere. More seriously my VMCs are in danger of getting dusty :(

#20> Liz, aren't those books marvelous? I have quite a few (and NO, I won't get rid of them!), and I loved all those I have read so far.

20> My brother adores the Judge Dee mysteries! He is trying to collect them all; I think he is only missing one. Could you let me know when you post them on PBS?

I started reading Don't Cry by Mary Gaitskill last night. Not exactly an "upper" so far, but the writing is excellent.

21> Ditto. If anyone comes over, I just hope they don't look into my spare bedroom. I'm starting to wonder if I should be on that "Hoarders" series!

>9 aluvalibri: Paoloa, I will admit that I'm starting to get bored by every update to Useppe's "cute" vocabulary but aside from that I'm liking La Storia pretty well. I will keep an eye out for Menzogna e sortilegio, though.

Tiff - I am working my way through the entire oeuvre (sp?) and they never fail to make me laugh out loud. I particularly like the audios read by Jonathan Cecil. I heard that Wodehouse read some of his stories aloud on the BBC and he'd forgotten so much of his earlier stuff he kept snorting as he read and at one point said as an aside to someone in the studio "This is AWFULLY good!" I couldn't agree more - I don't remember the exact quote but the one that had me totally rolling in the aisles was the one about the person having the surprised look of someone who has just been struck in the back by an express train, while happily picking flowers on the down line. Or some such. Or the woman whose laugh was like a stampede of horses racing across a metal bridge. Or some such... Don't have the books to refer to unfortunately.

#24> Andrew, when you get to read it, let me know what you think of it.

I went back to reading The Children's Book, which I cannot praise highly enough. I am going at a snail pace, though, as it is so full of characters, events, and emotions that it has to be taken in small dosages, at least by me.

We have Wodehouse lines that we quote in appropriate situations - always guaranteed a laugh. I have to mention the "Wodehouse Playhouse" series featuring Sir Plum himself introducing them and Pauline Collins and John Alderton playing the leads. I think that they came from the Mulliner stories.
And I'm not a convicted Judge Dee fan, but I like the few I've read a lot. Meanwhile, just to be true to the thread, the main non-VMC's I'm reading are The Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs with Lucy and company on the 75 Challenge thread and my ER ARC, Chef which I had hoped would be better.

LizzieD;
The Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs is up next for me as soon as I finish A Separate Country. I hope you are enjoying "Bluebird". I love the title.
We have really been having some great group reads throughout L.T. this year. I am really enjoying/appreciating the reading I have done thus far into 2010.
Cannot wait for August to arrive though, I must say.
hugs,
belva

I just finished Wish Her Safe at Home - an absolutely awesome book.

romain - I love Jonathan's Cecil's readings of the P.G. Wodehouse books. He does all the voices so well. I really wanted to get the Folio edition of the Blandings Castle set; however, the only time Folio made a super offer with free books that I actually wanted was right before Christmas. I couldn't afford to shell out all that money up front. Since then, Blandings hasn't even been included in the rejoin offers.

Paola - The Children's Book is wonderful. Byatt does her homework. Her historical accuracy is impressive. It started me on a J. M. Barrie read. Read Barrie's The Little White Bird if you have any doubt about Barrie's proclivities for little boys. This book is positively creepy.

I'm reading The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. I'm wandering pretty far from Virago territory! After that, Wolf Hall appears to be next on my list. And it looks like I'll have to add Wish Her Safe at Home to the list, too.

I'm happy to be reading a Josephine Tey, my first, Brat Farrar. I can definitely use a book that is smart but mostly aiming to entertain me. We're in the home stretch with The Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs but I have no idea what NF I'll pick up next.....

I'm reading some trashy historical fiction: No Angel, by Penny Vincenzi. Incidentally, the main character, comes into contact with a to-be-Virago author: Maud Pember Reeves, author of Round About a Pound a Week, joining the Fabian Society.

#32 How interesting, I missed that when I read No Angel - the Maud Pember Reeves is now available from Persephone though I have a Virago edition.

I'm reading Lucy Caldwell, Why They Were Missed about a girl growing up in Belfast with parents from different backgrounds. Something tragic just happened and I cried.

I swapped "Bluebird" out for Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and I am finding it wonderful. "Bluebird" is next.

>#31:
sibyx;
I found Brat Farrar to be a very interesting character study. I liked this one a lot. I hope you do as well.

#29> Mary, I love it love it love it and love it!
It is absolutely one of the best books I have ever read.
I had a feeling Barrie had a penchant for little boys, and now you confirm it.

Oddly, I was just discussing Barrie/little boys and Carroll/little girls with a group of friends the other day.

When Mark Twain was in his 70s, he started inviting young girls (12-15 years old) to stay at his house. He called them his "Angelfish." I blogged about it here.

I never knew that about Twain. Interesting story and excellent blog post! Thanks for that!

Very interesting blog post, Rob, thanks for pointing that out.

Very interesting, thanks, Rob. Sad about his one daughter with epilepsy, however.

My thanks too, Rob.
ETA that I was most struck by your comment that he chose the Angelfish in preference to the hard work of mending relationships with his own grown daughters. Sadly human.

Lovely poem, too, Rob.

Most interesting. Thanks for posting it.

I am on my way to a funeral in Chicago and am reading The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton. Riveting reading. Much better than a funeral.

P.S. And Paola, you will be delighted to hear that The Rehearsal is in the wicked but seductive Baron von Kindle's library.

Oh well, whatever floats your boat, as the saying goes.....

I've been trying to whittle down my TBR stacks, shelves, bags, and drawers by quickly reading some short works. In the past week I finished:

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, which I highly recommend.
The Duchess of Bloomsbury, which I didn't like (Helene seemed cranky and self-obsessed).
The Hearing Trumpet (feminist fantasy is not my cup of tea).
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, which was OK but rather repetitive and sometimes tedious.

Yesterday I started Every Man Dies Alone, which is quite wonderful so far.

Deb, I leafed through Every Man Dies Alone's pages a few days ago, as I was at B&N. It seems to be quite an impressive book, even though heartbreaking. I think I will get a copy soon, since also my son wants to read it.

Deborah, I'm halfway through In Other Rooms, Other Wonders and am loving it. He writes women's stories well, I think.

I'm also reading Ich bin dann mal weg about Hape Kerkeling's pilgrimage on the St Jakobsweg in Spain. He's a famous German comedian, and the book is very good, but I am sooooooooo slow.

I have finished up the Josephine Tey Brat Farrar -- loved it and I think I will try out, for something different, Lev Grossman's The Magicians.
The June monthly read is E.M. Braddon -- so I think I will try to get hold of Lady Audley's Secret. Which is the sort of book that might be a Virago?

>50 sibylline: Yes, Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd are both VMCs! I haven't decided yet which I'm reading next month.

Well, I guess my first task is to find one! Could take me the whole 11 days, on the other hand I didn't start the Tey until the middle of the month!

I love Josephine Tey!

I'm in bed with the flu today so have been getting lots of reading done. I've finished Let the Great World Spin and Kate Atkinson's Case Histories, and am nearly through Sue Miller's The Senator's Wife.

I'm sorry you don't feel well, but at least you can read! The worst is when one is too sick for that.....

I just started Every Man Dies Alone today. It is absolutely engrossing.

I'll be starting my Josephine Tey soon (after my current book), and then will be reading Lady Audley's Secret for the M.E. Braddon month!

Thanks, sibyx! Yes, there's nothing worse than not being able to read. I've also just finished Caro Fraser's A Little Learning. My head can't wrap itself around anything serious at the moment, so I'm enjoying all my charity shop fluff buys! Next up is The Interpretation of Murder.

I am reading High Rising by Angela Thirkell & it is wonderful. I think that all of her books should be Virago. Just lovely.

>#56;
Which Tey did you choose?
belva

58: I loved High Rising! The edition I have is dreadful, though, I'd love to see a proper copyeditor clean it up.

I'm reading some historical fiction right now: Legacy, by Susan Kay, a novel about Elizabeth I.

I'm slowly making my way through Olga Grushin's The Line (no touchstone) -- totally wonderful -- but excruciating in a very tender sort of way....

Angela Thirkell is indeed a wonder. I had a big stack of second-hand Thirkells a couple of Christmases ago from my husband - the best present under the tree by far that year!

>58 rainpebble:: Belva, I have A Shilling for Candles from my local library. I'll be starting it tomorrow.

60> The Line has been on my wish list for several months. I'll be looking forward to your comments.

I am so thrilled to have read my first Tey! That is the first 'never heard of her' LT revelation -- I don't count brand-new stuff -- Tey, I 'should' have noticed..... I haven't read any Braddon either, so I am very excited about the June read. It's not that often that I find new 'older' writers...... I know there's tons out there -- but mostly I find things randomly -- settling down in the stacks of a library and trying stuff out. But that doesn't always work either, or your eye just slithers over something over and over again....

Laura - Tey is as variable as any other author and a couple of her books are weak. Her absolute best - IMO - are Daughter of Time and The Franchise Affair. These are so good that her middling books are much more than middling. I finally found a copy of Miss Pym last year which I had never read and absolutely adored it.

In the meantime I am reading lighter stuff and I got an Earlene Fowler out of the library on audio. Just right for sitting in bed doing sudoku puzzles and listening at the same time. The series is set in San Luis O-whatsit in California which I have visited and the only complaint I have is that the heroine's husband reads like a Harlequin romance lover. Clearly the author is in love with this character and lays it on a bit thick.

HOWEVER.... Last night I put in the last disc and got ready to find out who-dun-it and the thing had a bloody great scratch right across it and wouldn't play at all. It was classic Hancock's Half Hour for all you older Brits. For Americans - a famous comedy show in which the star finds the last page of a murder mystery missing and has to work out for himself who-dun-it. So off to the library today for a paper copy! Thanks Lyzzy for the recommendation!

I agree with you, Barbara, about Daughter of Time which was also the first Tey I read. Overlooked The Franchise Affair somehow though.... *off to PBS..*

Must comment about San Luis Obispo! I live close to that bucolic town which nestles in a breathtaking mountain valley. I highly recommend a visit! The whole of the Central Coast is picture perfect and even better, not overpopulated or developed.

Hope you find out who-dun-it!

Thanks for the Tey recs!

Yesterday with great joy & quite gleefully I completed Angela Thirkell's High Rising. I am finding that I absolutely & whole heartedly enjoy her writing. There is a lot of humor in her books, a teense mystery, usually a mild love focus and a lot of living. Her books are always a comfy, cozy place for me to go. And I would have to rate every one I have read thus far at least a 4, if not a 5.
Last evening I began for my R/L B/C My Abandonment by Peter Rock. This is my first by him & it is very good thus far. (not very far into it, but it has me hooked)
I hope all of you are reading some really good stuff.
hugs all round,
belva

I finished My Abandonment by Peter Rock this afternoon while sitting in the dentist's office waiting for my husband. Again, another excellent book. This one is about the homeless, but not the typically thought of homeless; about a father & daughter & the system & personal fulfillment. I really liked it.
So moving on to my next read, (apparently my brain needs & requires a break from G/Rs), I grabbed Willa Cather's The Professor's House off my bookshelf and am finding it rather on the order of an Elizabeth von Arnim thus far, which is a good thing as I adore von Arnim. Has anyone else read this one? I am hoping it continues to be as good as it's beginning.
hugs,
belva

I am reading Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed, which has been on my tbr list for the last ten years. I am also reading Sheri Tepper's feminist fantasy Beauty, which started out strong but has progressively gone downhill. But then, I have only read to location 1978 (or 24 percent of the book), so perhaps there is hope. Incidentally, if there are any Persephone lovers here (and I am sure you are lurking, I have one comment and a question, I noticed that Dorothy Whipple's novel Greenbanks showed up in the 1934 issue of The New Republic as a really good book that practically no one has read. Has anyone here read it? Only seven LTers own it, but one person gave it four stars. I know Persephone has published other Whipple novels. And . . . for Viragos and Persephones looking for a light read to pass away a lazy summer afternoon, I recommend Bab: A Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rhinehart. It is amusing.

(Mary, I have picked up and then reshelved The Betrothed for at least ten years. I'll be interested to hear whether I should pick it up and stick to it sometime soon. I am a true Sheri S. Tepper fan, but Beauty is not one of my favorites even though I think it came closer to winning an award than any other. There is one poignant moment way in the future that involves the last radish; I'm not sure whether it merits your reading the whole thing.)

Like, seriously? The last radish??

Mary, you are reading The Betrothed?????
I have mixed feelings about that book, which is mandatory reading in high school, in Italy. When I had to read it, I was 14, I hated it with a passion. Years later I picked it up and read bits and pieces, here and there, and could actually see the beauty in the writing and the historical importance of the novel.

So, Peggy, perhaps you should give it a try. I will be very interested in the opinion of both of you.

Paola,

The Betrothed is considered important in English literary studies because it both influenced and was influenced by English authors. Hence the reason I should have read it a long time ago.

>69 rainpebble:: Belva, I read The Professor's House, which was my first Cather. I liked it a lot.

>#75;
I am really enjoying it. I like the thought patterns we get to see in the characters. Kind of different. Cather is pretty awesome. Thanx for the get-back.
hugs,

Mary,
what you say is interesting indeed.
We were never taught that, and we have to read it because it is the most important Italian example of Romanticism.

Which English writers did it influence and by whom was it influenced?

I'm reading Touch Not the Cat and am loving it. And now every time I cuddle our cat, my husband shouts, "Touch not the cat!"

Oh, I have Touch Not the Cat in my TBR stack and now I'm moving it to the top!! Must admit the title drew my attention when I spotted it at a sale.

I am reading Charmed Circle by Susan Ertz. I know nothing about her, but the book is very good.

Rosemary Manning's The Chinese Garden (in a real nice, clean hardcover edition with a really nice dust jacket) just came yesterday from Amazon. It's fairly short, and I think I'll start it this evening or maybe after church tomorrow. A fellow "boarding school aficionado" on the Read YA Lit board suggested that if I love Frost in May then I should definitely check out The Chinese Garden.

Finished a re-read of The Great Gatsby last night and started Margaret Forster's biography Daphne du Maurier, which, so far, is very good.

Completely immersed in Cutting for Stone. Exquisite, compelling and devastating!

Last week on holiday I read Joseph O'Connor's amazing Ghost Light. It's gorgeous, stunning, sad, tragic, beautiful, poignant, etc. Seriously good stuff. Read it now. All of you. I mean it. Now.

And it's sent me into a tailspin of Synge-ophilia. I'm now reading John M. Synge: A Biography and have Playboy of the Western World lined up to re-read next.

I'm also dipping into Obstacles to Young Love (no touchstone) by David Nobbs. After seeing him speak at the Hay Festival yesterday, I fell just a little bit in love with him and had to buy the book. Which, I believe, is the whole point of the Hay Festival. :)

AH! Cate, I am glad you finally got to read it, and happy to see your comments.

I am finishing up an ARC for another book site: The Blind Contessa's New Machine. But I feel a hankering for Barbara Pym coming on.

I have an ARC on E.M. Forester to finish and other than that I am afraid my reading is the next round of dramaturgical reading which means reading about Richard Nixon and David Frost I am afraid. I will have to sneak in some fantastic British women as an antidote.

Over this long weekend (I'm off today) I've finished Mariner's Compass, a cosy by Earlene Fowler, and Modern Delight which was a nice little book of what delights various people. Still reading Aneurin Bevan by Michael Foot (Vol 2) and just started The Thrift Book by India Knight.

Just finished The Children's Book (for some kind of weird reason, touchstone shows a book by Orson Scott Card, and I cannot fix it, and the funny thing is that the title is not even the same), and it will take me a while to find something that can even come close to its 'wonderfulness' (that is IMHO). So, for the time being, I am enjoying the exploits of The Mysterious Mr. Quin, by the unequaled Agatha Christie.

Finished, and loved, Charmed Circle by Susan Ertz and now I am starting Touch Not the Cat, recommended in #78 by Helen. I've only just started, but I am already very intrigued.

I've made an interlibrary loan request for Ghost Light and may do the same for Cutting for Stone.

Following up on #80, I finished The Chinese Garden in just a day and I really liked it. I wouldn't say it's as good as Frost in May, but that's would be asking a little much. The one problem that I did have with The Chinese Garden, though, is the way Manning switches back and forth in her narrative voice, between Rachel's first-person narration and a third-person omniscient. It was a little surprising when she made this change from one chapter to another, but when she did it from one paragraph to another, maybe even more than once within a single chapter, it got to be a little much. Still, it's a very good read.

Has anyone else on this thread read The Chinese Garden? In addition to children's books, she seems to have written another adult book called The Shape of Innocence but it doesn't show up anywhere that I can see here on LibraryThing. Does anyone know anything about this one?

>77 aluvalibri:: Paola, there's a Virago mention of I promessi sposi. I can't remember if it was The Third Miss Symons or The Life and Death of Harriet Frean; it was the one about the Victorian spinster nobody liked. Harriet Frean, I think. Anyway, I had mixed feelings about the book, myself; I liked the secondary characters better than the protagonists. We had to read an extract in class in Bologna. Beforehand our teacher asked if anyone was familiar with the book. E lo sventurato rispose...

I've recently read What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe, and am now reading After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

Oh, I loved After You'd Gone. So sad, but beautifully written.

I'm enjoying some Ripping Yarns at the moment. I've re-read The Thirty-Nine Steps and now gone on to Greenmantle as well as some Dornford Yates adventures from the Chandos series. All good fun if I ignore the non-PC attitudes of the era.

I'm half way through Benny and Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti. I am enjoying it and would love to pass it on to anyone who who would like to read it. Let me know.

I just finished Every Man Dies Alone. Not sure what I will pick up next--definitely something a bit more upbeat.

Deborah (#96): Speaking of non-upbeat, I was thinking of you yesterday when, in The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, I read about the burning of Chambersburg in 1864 (the third time the Confederates raided the town).

Elaine, I'd love your copy of Benny & Shrimp. It sounds like the perfect summer read. On amazon, they mention another swedish novel, Astrid and Veronika which was quite enjoyable. Have you read it?

Now reading Howard's End is On the Landing, by Susan Hill; in it she mentions a book reprinted by Virago, The Rector's Daughter!

97> Yes, that is our claim to fame. We are the northernmost town that was burned by the Confederates when the citizens refused to pay ransom to save it. That is why Chambersburg doesn't look quite so old as the neighboring towns, like Shippensburg, although it was established in the 1740s. The only pre-1864 building still standing is the old jail, which includes an underground railroad hiding place.

Cate,

Please send me your address and I'll put Benny in the mail as soon as I finish reading it, probably by Friday.

Elaine

99 - Howard's End Is On the Landing is my next TBR - can't wait!

I'm still on Aneurin Bevan and a slightly boring book about sources of Indian rivers (it shouldn't be boring but is) as well as half way through Housebound which is a marvellous Persephone.

I'm reading The Master. Sadly, my literary education never ventured into Henry James territory so I had to do a bit of research to put the story in context. But now I'm finding the book quite wonderful!

#91> Andrew, sventurato indeed! I keep telling myself that I should re-read Manzoni, but I really do not feel like doing it. I guess it happens with stuff one HAD to read in HS.

>104 aluvalibri:: Yes, having to recap the plot of that book for the benefit of my fellow students was not fun since the only part I remembered with any clarity was Gertrude's story. Always did like a bad girl.

Recently finished White's Frost in May. While White writes well, I found the heavy dose of Roman Catholicism, the focus on breaking the girls' wills, and the enclosed, repressive atmosphere a bit much. I may have to go back and re-read Anne of Green Gables. The Secret Garden, Heidi or Eight Cousins as an antidote.

I'm reading The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis.

Is that a new Amis? I am a fan of his. Let me know what you think of it.

108> Yes, I think it's been out about 3-4 weeks. The critics are raving that "the old Martin Amis is back." I'm about 1/43 through it and am loving it so far. Very smart and funny. The protagonist is a 50-something man looking back on the late 1960s/early 1970s.

>#106:
janeajones;
I have to do that quite frequently as well. And my "go-to" book for calming the nerves after reading something that has set them asunder is and always has been Anne of Green Gables. There is just something about the characters that is so calming. Man, I ran from Crime and Punishment to the shelves to grab it!~! But it did the trick. I so trust L.M. Montgomery to be there faithfully for me every time I need her.
belva

Having completed John Adams, a very good book, BTW.............I am back into Wallace Stegner's Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs which is wonderful. I love how he writes; the words & phrasing he uses. I especially loved the piece he wrote about his mother.
I have read so many really good books this year. The people choosing books for the L.T. group reads are truly doing a wonderful job. I just don't have time to do all of them, but I am trying.
Can't wait for "ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST" this year in particular. It will be a nice mellow month for me and I have chosen some dandies.
So..............hugs to all. Hope all of you are well and reading good "stuff".
belva

In the midst of all my Frost/Nixon research I read Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore and Miss Buncle's Book both of which were splendid oh and The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns which was quite haunting.

I'll have to sneak in a Virago in August although I don't think I can make it an All Virago month.

Can't do an all Virago August either but will try to read a couple. Have an Early Reviewer to get out of the way for LT...something about the Duchess of Windsor being a spy for the allies, set up to take the Duke out of play as he was a Nazi sympathizer.

113> Same here--I committed to Orange July and also have an LTER book to review, but I will read at least one Virago in August. I'm thinking it will be Frost in May, which I should have read a long time ago.

Five minutes ago I finished Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand, a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve. I enjoyed it and found it thought-provoking in places although in other places I thought Belli employed a simplistic version of feminism. Right now I am in the mood for a Cassandra at the Weddingish sort of book, but none seems to be wandering my way. Perhaps it is just I, but everyone on LT (at least the LTers with whom I hang out) seems to be reading the same books. The old exciting days when I was adding hitherto unknown titles to my burgeoning wishlist are gone with the wind. Perhaps I am simply in an extra cranky mode. I feel a Mother Urania attitude coming on, one which can only be assuaged by a really good book. Viragos to the rescue please!!!

P.S. Did I mention that a mysterious stranger (of the feline persuasion), one E. Elderberry Esq. has taken up residence at the dacha.

I'm trying to read one VMC per month minimum, so I'll read one in August for sure -- possibly two if Orange July prevents me from reading one in July.

Reading The Little Stranger which is a Virago though sadly my edition isn't. Not generally a Sarah Waters fan, but this has my attention so far!

The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman arrived today and I just glanced in at the first page...sucked me right in.

I read Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne on the train coming back from Oxford yesterday. Big mistake! Do not read this book in public! I was crying like a baby by the end!

Now I've moved on to Bleak House.

I am reading no fiction at all at the moment but am deep into Eckhart Tolle. I am listening to him on audio - prissy little German accent - but my God it is all hitting the spot. I am doing summer school this year so the last week has been spent doing a month's yard work in 8 days, including me and the Dreadlocked Boy pressure washing the house. Up on 20 foot ladders, me in a shower cap (he had more pride, plus they don't make them big enough for Bob Marley hair) but we got it all done and the outside of the house looks great. But I will not be working August and hope to be back into Viragos by then.

I got a jump start on Orange July by starting The Lacuna over the weekend. Just over halfway through now and enjoying it.

>109 Cariola: That is good news! Did you read his auto bio? Every time I go to the dentist now I think of him.

>120 romain: When I broke my ankle some years ago, a friend gave me the Tolle audio and I lay on the couch listening. At first I thought WHO is this GUY? but then he made that little snuffly giggle and then I liked him better and then I started listening. I think he's for real. When I need a reminder I haul that CD out and listen to it.

I am reading The Aeneid, in the fabled Fagles translation (right fabled, it is a marvel) with a group although due to life I am falling further and further behind. I am also reading a bio of Shirley Jackson (should she be a Virago? I mean, you could argue she ,i>was one, certainly) called Private Demons. It is very solid and she was an interesting woman. I've gotten to where she is about to move with her young family to Bennington where her husband Stan Hyman has been hired as a prof.Finally I broke down and bought Louise Penny's Three Pines and am reading that. By a coincidence I am going up into Quebec, to my sister's in Montreal, today to attend an irish music party that is taking place in a little town not unlike Three Pines tomorrow....

Just reviewed autobiography of runner Kelly Holmes Black, White & Gold and Bee Rowlatt/May Witwit's Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad about an international friendship formed through email.

>122 sibylline: There's also a fabulous new translation (2008) of The Aeneid by Sarah Ruden, published by Yale University Press. This summer I've been meeting once a week with a favorite former student to read The Aeneid in the original Latin. That's really the only way to read it!

I just finished Random Harvest five minutes ago. What a lovely book. I actually think it was better than the Coleman/Garson film because Smithy and Paula were in their early twenties and Greer and Ronald had to be pushing forty. They were the right age for the late 1930's scenes, but not 1920. (Still, a good movie, though)

And talk about languishing in a shelf. This was my mother's copy, a wartime 1943 edition that was "produced to wartime standards to save precious natural resources." I wish I had the dust jacket...

I'm so glad you liked it Elaine. I said about a year ago on this site that it is the most romantic book I've ever read. Yes, hopelessly miscast with the dreadful Greer Garson but I saw the movie before reading the book so of course I had some idea of the plot. However the book is different enough to not be spoiled by having seen the film.

I'm really pleased to see others are reading Talking about Jane Austen - I wrote a review for a friend's website in January and so had the first copy on LT.

I'm reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver and the Orange New Writers' winner The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini.

I'll be reading The Lacuna for my book group's October meeting. For now, I'm making disappointingly slow progress with Bleak House and am also reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Romain, Eckhart Tolle is featured on CBC radio now and then. He's fun to listen to while driving a long distance.

Robert, I can't tell you how often I have wished I had Latin. Our high school's only Latin teacher had a breakdown one month into the course and they never replaced her. I would have loved to have read Virgil in the original.

Must add Random Harvest to my wishlist.

You know don't you Tiffin that our darling Peg was a Latin teacher who also taught incorrigibles - or was the breakdown nothing to do with the kids your lady had to teach? Funnily enough we had a Latin teacher who hanged herself. Not my teacher thank God because pressure of work was apparently part of her deal. But I did do 4 years of Latin and it has helped me enormously. Not! Well it sometimes helps me work out the meaning of things from the root word but... I also did 4 years of French which to this day I am too intimidated (or perhaps inhibited) to speak. I did Virgil at college level (in English) but I sat next to a young lady from Malaysia who was fluent in Latin and it was at least her 4th language.

I don't know if we were incorrigible or not but she did lose it in my class over homework not done. Poor Peg. Vis your Malaysian classmate: my mother was like that. She could read a Latin sentence with ease (and solve cryptic crosswords like a demon). I must be a foundling. However, my French was adequate enough to defend Lance Armstrong to a Frenchman in a sports shop in Paris, even if I do play fast and loose with genders. ;)

My own Latin is too poor to read without translating. I don't want you all to think that I'm somebody like Barbara's classmate or Tui's mother. On the other hand, The Aeneid is great and glorious in Latin even to a duffer like me. (And when I told my classes who didn't do homework, "You can't expect to learn Latin without working on it at home," they replied, "I'm not going to learn this stuff. I don't want to know this stuff. ----This class is ruining my self-esteem.") (I'm also impressed with your French good enough to argue with a native. My French professor would never even listen to me in language lab. I'd hear her click in, and she'd say, "You're drawling," and be gone.)

I snuck in a quick read of The Shadow of the Wind and I am re-reading The Moonstone since I'll be working on a production of it in the autumn. I need to do a re-read of The Master and Margarita for the same reason but I have just received so many lovely Viragos I must read at least one or two in August.

I said that I was going to read At Mrs Lippincote's, and I'm eager to get to it, but instead I'm concentrating on my ARC for the month, Percival's Planet and a huge biography of Shelley, Shelley: the Pursuit. The nice thing about retirement is that everything will still be here when I'm ready for it.

Well, I taught Latin too, many years ago, as Peggy knows. Alas, my Latin is now so rusty (and so is my Greek, which is actually even worse than my Latin) that I would not even attempt a reading without translating. Those languages must be practiced constantly, if one does not want to lose them. I lost them :-(

On Beauty by Zadie Smith and The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan. And I'm still deep in the middle of the wonderful Bleak House which I'm rationing to one chapter a day.

136: One chapter a day??? When i read Bleak House (about 8 years ago) I read it in just under a week, I enjoyed it so much! Might be time for a re-read sometime (though to me it's a wintertime book).

I am in the very right group! Bleak House is my very favorite Dickens who is my very most revered author. I've read it 3 times and hope to live long enough for at least 2 more rereadings!

I finished The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis this afternoon. Lucy, I know you're an Amis fan, but after reading this one, I guess I'm not. You can read my review here.

I'm working on Wolf Hall, which I'm really enjoying. Will be starting a new audiobook tomorrow--possibly jonessadie::Sadie Jones's Small Wars.

I am stuck, stuck stuck. I have started several books, all of which are good and which I know I will like when I am in a better frame of mind. But at the moment, I cannot find the book I need. I do not even know what it is. Even my old favorites are providing no comfort. Jane Austen has failed me!!!! I am distraught, distressed, and stressed.

Deb

I have never been a huge fan of Amis but loved (for some reason) Night Train. However in England we have something called Kingsley Amis Syndrome, which is where someone previously very liberal changes over time into a virtual fascist. Kingsley was a dirty young man (although Lucky Jim is both brilliant and brilliantly funny) and evolved into a dirty old man. Amis Jr started as a dirty young man and then seemed to get more intellectual over time. The reviews indicate he is back to the 'tits and arse' thing...?

Mary - I also am stuck! I am reduced to self help books and nonsense. I once went for several months reading magazines. It is what it is.

i have three VCM's started and they were very good, but I couldn't finish them right now. So back they went to the VMC shelf. I'll try them another time.

I just finished The Bolter by Frances Osborne, a Virago biography of Idina Sackville of Happy Valley infamy. I'll post a review on my livejournal.

Today I have to start Cutting For Stone because it is a library book and nonrenewable due to the long wait list.

141> I loved Lucky Jim but haven't read anything else by KA. The only other MA novel I've read, years ago, was Time's Arrow, which I recall as both shocking and funny (the bathroom scene lingers in my memory . . . imagine a world in which everything goes backwards!)

Overall, The Pregnant Widow was just boring rather than particularly sexy or shocking.

>136 miss_read:/37/38: I reread Bleak House a year or so ago as it is my favourite Dickens. Devoured and adored it, yet again.

I am reading a pet of a book: A House in Flanders by Michael Jenkins. It is No. 10 in the Slightly Foxed Editions, the loveliest size to hold with a blue ribbon place marker, with the line drawings done by Catherine Jenkins.

>137 Kasthu: Yes, Kasthu! One chapter a day! This way it'll last me months! :)

I've read a lot of Dickens over the years, but somehow never Bleak House. I'm finding it so much funnier than a lot of his others! I'm thoroughly enjoying it!

>143 Liz1564: Liz, I really loved The Bolter! I love a little scandal!

Mary, Mary, you sound quite contrary.
Whatever is pissing you off?
Close your eyes and wish Mary....
That you were a fairy
Who loved to read Asimov.

Sorry, that was the best I could do today. :-(

Just finished Iris Murdoch's The Unicorn and I think I'm going to get started on Rosemary Manning's autobiography A Corridor of Mirrors.

Just got back from a week's holiday; didn't get as much reading done as I'd hoped but did finish Iris Murdoch's The Philosopher's Pupil (man, I LOVE that book), a business biography called Jack, Celestine which was a lovely non-fiction about a village very like the one I was staying in, Narrow Dog to Carcassonne, which was hiliarious, and The Family Way which was a manipulative book like a Richard Curtis film but passed the time on the journey back. My reviews will be up here in due course (I have a day off today to get over the holiday!)

I am completely enthralled by Charlotte Bronte by Rebecca Fraser. It momentarily derailed me from My Brilliant Career which may continue as good follow-up/companion reading. Sometimes a little biography can help me out of a rut -- particularly one where the author doesn't feel the need to dramatize or overstate things -- just gives lots and lots of absorbing details. Maybe why I should spend so much of my life reading about someone else's living is suspect, BUT, I do find that when my life is feeling weird, sometimes I feel a little less alone by reading about how life was just as, if not more, weird for someone else, who then did the best they could in their particular circumstances.

Trying to make the touchstone work......argh...hmfff.....

I've just started a Georgette Heyer mystery, A Blunt Instrument. My first Heyer and the characters are quite entertaining!

#151> Funny you should say that because, actually, it is the very last one I read! Not bad, but others are better, in my opinion, for example The Unfinished Clue and Envious Casca, among others.

I'm doing a reread of The Master and Margarita since I am working on a theatrical version later this year. I also read A.A. Milne's mystery The Red House which was fun- a bit like Chesterton's The Man Who Knew too much oh and Murder on the Links because I am on a bit of a Poirot kick with the American release of the new BBC Mysteries with David Suchet.

I read The Red House last year and quite liked it. Up until then, I didn't know that A.A. Milne wrote 'grownup' books!

I just finished a disappointing Ruth Rendell - End in Tears. She's usually better than that. Now it's on to my much-anticipated re-read of Emma for next months' book club meeting!

>152 aluvalibri: Oh that is funny, I'll keep your suggestions in mind, there are so many Heyer's to choose from at my local bookshop I had no idea where to go next! Have you read any of her romance novels?

I'm reading The Bolter by Frances Osborne. Although a Virago it's not a VMC.

#155> Oh YES! Her romance novels are marvelous, I enjoyed all of those I have read. I have come to the conclusion that you can't go wrong with a Georgette Heyer, be it mystery or romance. Enjoy!

I recently finished two quick reads: Eudora Welty's The Ponder Heart -- one of her lesser works imo -- and Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head which I, perhaps perversely, found wickedly funny. I'm also working my way through Selma Lagerlof's The Saga of Gosta Berling

I've just finished the biography of James-Lees Milne. The author was the editor of James' later diaries and a very intimate friend. For those trying to make a connection with VMC's, James was the biographer of Harold Nicholson, as well as one of his lovers. His wife was the lover of Vita Sackville-West which must have made for interesting small talk at Sissinghurst. When both affairs died, the two couples remained affectionate friends.

James is probably most remembered for his work with the National Trust and his early diaries are fascinating accounts of how the NT acquired many of the great houses, including Vita's childhood home, Knole. He paints amusing pictures of owners trying to foist off damp Victorian piles because Dickens may have stayed there, or at least passed by.

He had a charming, if cutting, wit.

I think that one is going on my TBR listing Liz1564. Must read it.
I am reading Home by Marilynne Robinson today so that I can get one in for Orange July.
Then when I finish that one I will be right back on The Lost Traveler by Antonia White for ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST. LOVE IT!~!

I'm now enjoying From New Jerusalem to New Labour which is an essay on each postwar Prime Minister by a different writer (I'm up to Callaghan) and the wonderful Family Britain which is the next in the marvellous Kynaston series on postwar Britain. Didn't mean to be reading 2 books about the same time period but not all of the first one covers the same ground as the second, and the Kynaston is practically a week by week account of the time, using Mass Observation and other diaries as well as other sources.

I've been reading a couple of historical novels for children written by Geraldine McCaughrean, set in 1890s Oklahoma, Stop the Train and Pull Out All the Stops. The second is a review copy, and could be read alone but I really enjoyed the first few pages and remembered I had another book by her on my shelves of children's books (as opposed to picture books that belong to my children - we don't have any shelves left for those!). I was delighted to find it was Stop the Train.

The characters include a girl called Cissy and her family who are storekeepers, her friend Habbakuk (known as Kookie for short), a lively woman called Loucien who briefly fills a vacancy for a school teacher despite her lack of any training or qualifications in this area. In the first book settlers are founding a new town but the railway company wanted the land and try to strangle it at birth. In the second one, the kids are sent out of town to avoid illness to stay with their former teacher, and end up in a theatre company travelling on a riverboat.

They are published by OUP who published lots of classic children's books and children's historical novels when I was a child (and when my mum was), for example Rosemary Sutcliff. Though these appeared in the 21st century, they are in that tradition. They are older children's books rather than YA, I think, but there is a lot for more mature readers to enjoy too.

I've been derailed from both the political thought of John C. Calhoun and Barbara Pym's Jane and Prudence by Sheri Holman's marvelous novel The Mammoth Cheese, which I picked up from a remainders table at the college bookstore for 40¢. I'm loving it!

I'm delighted, Rob! I thought *MC* was wonderful, but have heard only "ho hum" from other readers here.

Oh - pretty sure I loved it too!

I just finished Home (gasp, choke, sob, hiccup) by Marilynne Robinson and it was beyond, way beyond wonderful. I cried through the last probable eighth of the book. I knew how it would end, but so badly did not want it to end like that. I think it is possible that every family has one of this sort belonging to it and so most of us are really going to identify with this one. I am currently in the midst of building a pedestal for Ms. Robinson. I have loved excessively each of her books.
Heavy sigh; back to ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST.

Just finished The reluctant mullah which I heartily recommend!

>166 rainpebble:: so true, Belva! Such a lovely book.

Holiday has ben great for reading so far. Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse was not really to my taste as I am not really into the ghost genre.

Also finished Deborah Cadbury's book The Lost King of France which was wonderful and a complete contrast to the Kate Mosse audio debacle! We had the audio on as we journeyed - a bad choice but my Keith liked it!

Am now reading a wonderful book set in this part of France - related to the Spanish civil war and WW2 resistance in this region. Love and War in The Pyrenees am captivated. The author, Rosemary Bailey lives not far from here and found a cache of letters in her old monastery home related to this story. In addition, and also within the book is reference to a memorial about twenty minutes from here. My imagination has always been fired by a roadside memorial to an American soldier which we pass each time we come to Rennes les Bains. Between Limoux and Couiza in the foothills of the Pyrenees it is a poignant reminder of the price paid so relatively recently for peace in Europe.

Belva - I've read the other two and have been avoiding this one because I know it will kill me. But excuse me - isn't this All Virago/All August and aren't you the instigator of that??!!

Yes, (hangs head in shame) but I wanted to kick out at least one for Orange July. And wouldn't you know I had set aside the last day of July to read it and Roger (the hubby) got really, really ill. And so the monkey wrench was thrown. But he is much better now and that set-back is behind us, but it did put me to reading Home in August which I have firmly set aside annually for Viragos.
Please forgive. (tongue in cheek)
luvs n hugs,
P.S. It will kill you. But you will die, oh so beautifully.
belva

I've been reading Little Dorrit on and off for months now. Dickens is not my favorite Victorian, but I "ve set myself the goal of reading his major works, so I slog on with Little Doormat.

Little Doormat (giggle giggle)

I've just finished Bleak House and it was fantastic!

I've also recently read A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (great), Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk (undecided) and The Whole Day Through by Patrick Gale (disappointing).

Now I'm starting on Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton which, so far, is wonderful.

>172 Leseratte2:: the BBC dramatization was fabulous!!
>173 miss_read:: Cry the Beloved Country is one of my all time favorites!

Ah, Cry the Beloved Country is one of my favorite books of all time as well. And I weep every time I read it. This book made me so hungry to know more about Africa and all it's different ethnicities, the different social mores, all different countries, the food, the very fabric of the lives of the people of Africa. This is a book that I would like to encourage every literate person to read.

Hmmmmm, why did I come here. I got so excited over that one book that I have forgotten. When I was younger this was funny, but at nearly 63..................not so much.

Okay........went back up to the heading. LOL!~!
What else am I reading? Nothing but Viragos this month. Didn't even read my R/L bookclub book.

I just finished Forever Amber, light reading (even though over 600 pages) and quite entertaining. Now I am on to Charlie Chan and the Chinese Parrot, which is quite good (if abundantly politically incorrect).

I just read The Vera Wright Trilogy by Elizabeth Jolley, in a reprinted one volume omnibus edition. A woman looks back on her life as a nurse and then an unmarried, working single mother in the early 20th century, and her explorations of her sexuality.

They're also reprinting The Sugar Mother but I discovered a reasonably priced secondhand Virago Modern Classics edition, which arrived yesterday. It's interesting to see some recurring themes on the back cover. I also want to read or reread the Jolley books I already have (I discovered her on library shelves in my early 20s and read whatever was around to read then).

I'm still loving Family Britain 1951-1957 but I was so tired last night I picked up a Three Investigators omnibus for an easy read... and fell asleep!

>174 lauralkeet: & 175 Cry, the Beloved Country was amazing. I've been researching South Africa ever since. And I gave it 5 stars, which is a rarity for me; only a handful of books get that rating. It was just beautiful.

Now I'm about to start The Lacuna.

So nice to know that Cry, the Beloved Country gave that same hunger I have to someone else. Fascinating; Africa. And definitely a 5 star book.
:-)
belva

I've also been trying to search for the place written inside my copy. Acacia Farm, Braederstroom, Hartbeespoort, Gauteng - but no luck. I don't suppose it exists anymore, though my copy isn't very old (1988).

I'm reading a v interesting book about Hermaphrodites, as you do. It's amazing the books we buy at the library...

At the moment I'm reading various things, but the most interesting to people here apart from One Fine Day would probably be Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains and D E Stevenson, Mrs Tim of the Regiment reprinted last year by Bloomsbury. This afternoon I finished Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (a Persephone).

I wanted to recommend The Vera Wright Trilogy by Elizabeth Jolley - in a lovely reprint by Persea books - I've reviewed it at the Bookbag and put a link on the book's page here. It's about a young woman working as a nurse and becoming a working single mother in 40s/50s Britain, and emigrating to Australia some years later, and is apparently partially autobiographical. It's a great read.

Persea apparently plans to reprint some of her other work, including The Sugar Mother which I just bought online in a VMC edition.

Jolley's

The Vera Wright trilogy sounds lovely and right up my alley. It has immediately gone onto my wish list. Do you know if it comes in the omnibus form?
thanx,

Reading the NYRB Classic The Long Ships, which is utterly fantastic.

I just started The Children's Book and feel as if I must be the last person in the world to read it!

#186> I hope you like it, I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!

Just finished The Lassa Ward by Ross Donaldson a memoir of a young dedicated medical student working in Sierra Leone in amongst the rebels and the troubles in neighbouring Liberia. Highly recommended four star read.

I'm reading The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf. It's a lot of fun, so far

>#186: I haven't read it yet, but then again, I haven't even read Possession yet.

184: Yes, the Persea reprint is the omnibus form.

186: I've just started reading The Children's Book too.

Rob - I think you would love Possession :)

I totally agree with you, Julie.
Possession and The Children's Book are two of my favourite books ever.

I am reading Detection Unlimited, another delightful Inspector Hemingway mystery by Georgette Heyer.

I'm reading by An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson. It's extremely well-written and a lot of fun to read, but pretty light. Really, I'm just putting off tackling Old Glory for my book club.

Helen - that book Old Glory came out yonks ago and was given to me at the time. I love travel books but was totally defeated by it. I don't remember why but I do know I was BORED STIFF by it.

I still have to go back and finish Little Doormat. :( After that I think I will reward myself with a Persephone. :)

I've been wandering through the French countryside with Gertrude Stein in Wars I Have Seen waiting and hoping for the Americans to invade and end the war.

#196 - Oh dear, I wish you hadn't said that! I had the feeling that I wouldn't do well with it, but I'm trying to be optimistic. It sits on my bookshelf and taunts me every time I walk past it: READ ME. YOU MUST READ ME. READ ME NOW.

But I don't want to.

Let's see . . . I'm listening to Miss Buncle Married on audio, I'm rereading Zeitoun with my students, and on my nightstand are Wolf Hall, Radiant Daughter, and The Sirens Sang of Murder, all of which I've been picking away at. Not that they aren't good, I'm just finding myself easily sidetracted these days.

I have been trying to finish some things, so I'm diligently reading very few for me. Tomorrow should see the end of Earth Abides and I hope to get through Trespass quickly. (I like it; it's not a Tremain masterwork, but so far, so good.) Then in the doorstop department I have War and Peace hanging around and have just begun 2666. (I'm liking that too so far. I guess 100 pages isn't really enough to make a judgment on.) Mary Shelley gets opened from time to time as does Quite Ugly One Morning which I'm sticking with even though the first chapter is probably the grossest thing I've ever read. And that's really all!

I am mostly reading dramaturgical research but I am sneaking in a book that some here might like The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green who was a popular mystery writer before Conan Doyle. The language can get a tad flowery at times but I am enjoying it.

I've read it Maren... years ago. I am currently listening to Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe and reading a Virago which I will list when I have finished it.

@#201:
LizzyD; When I read 2666 (I think it was a group read last year), it took me a bit to get into it but when I did, I could hardly put it down. I found it fascinating and know that I will one day read it again. I hope you truly do enjoy it once you get well into it. It is rather a door-stopper, eh?
hugs,
belva

I'm reading PRODIGAL SUMMER by Barbara Kingsolver and ARMAGEDDON IN RETROSPECT by Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm reading The Blind Side of The Heart by Julia Franck.

I'm reading a very not-Virago-esque book at the moment: Mini Shopaholic. Definitely some candy for the brain.

@#205:
wordswordswords; very interesting, the combined reading of books by Kingsolver and Vonnegut. Must be......................

I'm reading Miss McKirdy's Daughters Will Now Dance the Highland Fling by Barbara Kinghorn which is rather Virago-esque. Wasn't sure how far I'd make it because I was hoping for lots of dancing details of which there aren't many descriptions, but I've started reading it at bedtime and then find it hard to put down and go to sleep. A friend gave it to me recently because I am a Highland dancer and a booklover.

I am reading a J.L. Carr, "Harpole & Foxberrow" in a lovely Quince Tree Press edition. It is convulsing me with silent laughter at its very English wry, dry, pawkish humour. I have decided to try to find everything J.L. Carr wrote.

Touchstones not working

I've just started Laura Wilson, A Capital Crime, a historical crime novel set just after WWII, quite interesting after reading quite a lot of fiction written by women in this period (1930-1950).

I am reading the introduction of Russian and Polish Women's Fiction, a collection of stories which I picked up at a used bookstore.
It is very interesting as it talks about the condition of women in Russia through different periods of time, which appears to have been far worse than in other countries.

I just finished Trespass which I didn't find very Rose Tremainish at all - and I love, adore, and generally bow down to Rose Tremain. Oh well.

Tui - I've read A Season in Sinji and A Month in the Country. The first I don't remember a word of but the second is lovely. I own the NYRB edition.

213> Hmmm, then I don't recommend The Way I Found Her, which is also not very Rose Tremainish; more like early Ian McEwan. Maybe I'll skip Trespass, or at least wait for a swap copy.

I'm still struggling through Little Dorrit. It's painfully slow going, especially because Little Doormat says things like: "If you loved anyone, you would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose and forget yourself in your devotion to him."
Insert barf emoticon here.

I just finished the audiobook of Miss Buncle Married, which was enjoyable but nowhere near as good as the first book in the series.

In spite of my fears, I'm finding that I actually love Old Glory. Who knew!?

Well my copy is long gone Helen so I'll never know :)

Andrew - remember that Dickens wrote serializations and got paid by the word which is why his heroines always say "My dearest, dearest, dear".

It's not the wordiness I mind, it's the sentiment. "I am nothing without my husband. I live only through/for him." While I realize that this was part of the Victorian mindset, it still makes me gag. One of the main reasons I'm not a Dickens fan. It seems like all his heroines are like this.

I'm reading David Foster Wallace -- starting with short stories in the collection Oblivion. I am stunned, frankly. You hear the word genius bandied about -- but he is the real thing.

But Virago it is distinctly not!

I just finished A Capital Crime. Its US title is Austerity (wrongly linked on here with An Empty Death which I think has a different US title. Excellent stuff, hope to write a more detailed review when I've caught up with reviews I owe for books (3 Bookbag, 1 LTER, one other to be read as well), and possibly reviews for books borrowed from the library. It's a 3rd in series book, the first is Stratton's War aka An Imperfect Spy.

I also finished A Way Through the Woods by Katharine McMahon, who writes historical novels which concern themselves with the issues facing women in the past. I think this might have been her first novel, it's good but not as good as the much more recent Confinement. I've seen a couple of very positive reviews on The Crimson Rooms too.

I'm reading Len Goodman's autobiography Better Late Than Never which is appropriate as Stictly Come Dancing has just started its new series here in the UK. I admit, I did promote it up the book pile a little. But only a little; I couldn't face reading Mrs Thatcher's diaries while laid up with a bad cold!!

I started a new audiobook, Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds, and also my ER book, Serious Men by Manu Joseph.

I just began The Lace Reader for my R/L B/C next Tuesday. I have been reading so slowly as of late that I do hope I finish it in time. Seems good thus far, but like I said, I have just begun.

One of the boxes that came off the moving van from storage yesterday is labelled. "My Virago Books" and it made me so happy to see it!

Yay! Sib. But only one box of Virago books?

I gave my less favorite ones away a long time ago -- before I knew I was supposed to keep them no matter what! I feel fairly stupid about it now, however I still have quite a few. I already had a box or two of them here -- most of them have always been here since I mostly read them in the 80's when I was living in Vermont all the time.

I also got rid of a dozen or so I thought I would never re-read and have had to buy them again. Given that all my books look like new I am still a little sick to replace them with beat up copies, but needs must I guess.

#226, 229 I blame it on the foolishness of youth (and a husband nagging about too many books) but I did the same and some of the Viragos I gave away seem to be impossible to find now. However I do now have lots of my family trained to buy any VMC they see in Charity Shops, book sales, jumble sales etc so I do hope to replace them (and extend my collection).

Too many books? I don't understand that concept. Not enough shelf-space, perhaps, but "too many books"?

Yes, Andrew, I totally agree with you.

When I was married to the 'despicable one', he once had the nerve to tell me I should get rid of my books because they only were an incumbrance and a waste of space (at the time I had about a tenth of the amount I have now).
Not one of the reasons for my divorce, but, in retrospect, it should have been.

I'm halfway through Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.

I've read a couple of her other works and liked them but I have mixed feelings about this one.

About Dickens: I'm a fan of Bleak House too and am thinking about rereading it. I recently saw a BBC production of Little Dorrit. I thought parts of it were flawed in comparison with the book but the young woman playing Amy Dorrit was just perfect, IMO.

I'm reading Mr. Fox by Barbara Comyns, and I cannot tell you what this writer means to me, she's like a dear old friend I've been searching for all my life.

I just finished the very wonderful The Lace Reader for my R/L B/C on Tuesday and have now begun the also very wonderful The Hours. I am loving this one.
"She straightens her shoulders as she stands at the corner of Eighth Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the light. There she is, thinks Willie Bass, who passes her some mornings just about here. The old beauty, the old hippie, hair still log and defiantly gray, out on her morning rounds in jeans and a man's cotton shirt, some sort of ethnic slippers (India? Central America?) on her feet. She still has a certain sexiness, a certain bohemian, good-witch sort of charm; and yet this morning she makes a tragic sight, standing so straight in her big shirt and exotic shoes, resisting the pull of gravity, a female mammoth already up to its knees in the tar, taking a rest between efforts, standing bulky and proud, almost nonchalant, pretending to contemplate the tender grasses waiting on the far bank when it is beginning to know for certain that it will remain here, trapped and alone, after dark, when the jackals come out. She waits patiently for the light. She must have been spectacular twenty-five years ago; men must have died happy in her arms. Willie Bass is proud of his ability to discern the history of a face; to understand that those who are now old were once young. The light changes and he walks on."
Ah yes, I am enjoying this one.
hugs,

#235 - The Hours is absolutely gorgeous!

I just finished Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore and really really really loved it. Now I'm starting on Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad for one of my book groups. I'm a bit dubious though I'm not sure why, but am willing to give it a go.

Because the title is such a rip off of Reading Lolita in Tehran?

Did you like Reading Lolita in Tehran, Barbara? I was somewhat disappointed by it.

235, 236> Not sure if I mentioned it here on another VMC thread, but I am teaching an Honors section of Intro to Lit next semester, subtitled "from Classic to Contemporary." We'll be reading pairs of works, one a classic, one more recent. One pairing is Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours. I love them both!

>237 romain: I thought it was an intentional rip-off. If it isn't, then I'm mighty peeved.

236-240: I really liked both Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad (which I read first, and wrote a review for the Bookbag - there's a link on the book's page here) and Reading Lolita in Tehran. There isn't as much about Jane Austen as the title might imply in the first book, which is an exchange of emails, the raison d'etre of this as a book is explained in its course.

234: errata, is Mr Fox your first Comyns or have you read the VMC ones already?

I'm reading several books - some crime fiction, a chicklit novel for review but am also rereading some children's classics such as A Little Princess and Ballet Shoes and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the US. I like variety!

Me too Andrew. I tried it first in book form and then in audio but never got past the first 50 pages. I did LOVE The Bookseller of Kabul however which is a Virago - loosely connected I guess as it is also about books and women and the Middle East.

The enormous pile of partially-read books on my bedside table just fell on top of me and killed me, and I am posting this comment from the afterlife, where I'm happy to report that I have not been condemned to eternal flames for failing to finish reading Douglas Brinkley's massive and peculiarly written The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.

Rob, how lovely to know that you're going to be able to rest in peace! (What a way to go!)

#241 - That's good to hear, elkiedee! I've started Talking about Jane Austen and am actually enjoying it so far. I'll wait to have a look at your review when I'm finished.

# elkiedee Mr. Fox is my third Comyns, the first was Our spoons came from Woolworths then The vet's daughter a lovely old green virago and I have another 4 waiting for me 3 of which are viragos (not too sure about my grammar there).

Just finished, on my Kindle, Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates. I'm a sucker for schoolgirl stories (although here they aren't girls but college freshmen) and that probably inclined me in this novel's favor. but Amazon reader reviews are mixed, I think because its ultimate conclusion doesn't meet expectations (raised by the title) of a study of interracial relationships between the two "main" characters. It's in fact a study of white liberal guilt from the 60s and 70s and the focus is far more on the "white girl" Genna Meade and her family rather than the "black girl" Minette Swift, and the latter's family moreover is practically ignored.

Myself, I loved it, but readers should be aware that the title is perhaps a bit misleading.

I was interested to learn today that Persephone plan to reprint Miss Buncle Married in 2011.

When I leave here, I'm going to finish 2666. What a book this is!!! I have no idea what he was doing, but I read the greater part of it eagerly. This is a time when I need somebody smarter to tell me what or how to think!
Then I am going to be FREE to devote myself to Dervish House and maybe The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, which I put on my Kindle with my birthday $, and a few more little mopping-up things before October is out. YAY!
(Touchstones! *HWL* wouldn't load until I started the second "the" with a capital T. Good grief!)

Well, I've been rereading Zeitoun with another of my classes, listening to the audiobook of Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds, and reading Serious Men by Manu Joseph, an LT ER book.

Loved 2666 when I read it. Surprised me that
I did. I didn't anticipate my reaction to be so positive.

Years and years ago a friend told me that his mother - who read Viragos - was very partial to Elizabeth Goudge. I tried Green Dolphin Country but didn't enjoy it and then I read The Middle Window and didn't like that either.

So there I was today choosing audio books in my local library. I get a who dun it and I get The Good Soldier and I find an Elizabeth Goudge I've never heard of and I think I'll give her one more chance. I go home and clean the grout in my shower. And as I clean I listen to this dreadful book by Goudge which is so rotten it rivals something by Nicholas Sparks and the denouement is so screamingly obvious after about 15 minutes that I move to the latter half of the last disc just to confirm my educated guess. And I look at the cover and of course it was by Eileen Goudge rather than Elizabeth Goudge.

Fortunately I did not waste more than an hour of my life on it and can now get back to the Persephone I am currently reading and move on to The Good Soldier which makes every Best of list but is written by the man who supposedly seduced and abandoned Jean Rhys in Paris in the twenties.

I fell in love with Elizabeth Goudge back when I was in the 6th or 7th grade and read her Child of the Sea about Lucy Walter and Prince Charles II. I still read that one every few years. I really enjoy her writings. (Eileen; not so much)

Come over HERE for the next incarnation!