What are you reading the week of July 31, 2010?

Featured author birthday this week:



J.K. Rowling, July 31, 1965.

In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. She told The Boston Globe that "I really don't know where the idea came from. It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head." When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. (Source: Wikipedia... I know, but it's easy.)

Other birthdays: Conrad Aiken, Herman Melville, James Baldwin, Isabel Allende, P.D. James, Leon Uris, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Guy de Maupassant, Wendell Berry, Janet Asimov, Alfred Lord Tennyson.

July 30th 1935 was also the day that Penguin published it's first paperbacks :)

I have just finished Excellent Women by Barbara Pym 10 minutes ago.

I am going to start The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman next.

>2 kiwiflowa: I loved Excellent Women. I read it earlier this year.

I just finished This book is overdue. A fun read, especially if you're a librarian.
I am almost finished with Nightwood. Have definitely been over my head with this one. Lots of close reading and then rereading it again. Hope everyone has had a marvelous week.

I am continuing in The Reformation but will probably divert into something easier when I get to a reasonable breaking point.

Robert

Still reading Rubicon. Despite it being by Tom Holland, I am not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I just don't like the Roman period, too much testosteron I think...

A very happy birthday to the magnificent Isabel Allende and to Percy Shelley, who must be turning in his grave to know he is now being overshadowed by "She Who Must Not be Named".

I finished The Body in the Library last night and am back to Robinson Bloody Crusoe. I'm not sure I can face more than 10-20 pages a day of this turgid volume so I'll have to pick up something else for in between but I'm not allowing myself to do that until I've ploughed through today's ration. Just another 180 pages or so to go.

I keep on with Buddenbrooks. It is slowly going though not uninteresting. I hope to finish it this weekend, but am not sure if this is really doable. some 160 pages to go.

I'm currently loving The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst. I'm also mildly enjoying the audio of Bloodroot by Amy Greene, what's saving this one is that wonderful Tennessee dialect.

Currently reading:

All the Pretty Horses
1001 Arabian Nights
Rousseau's Confessions
I Promessi Sposi
Le Morte d'Arthur
Cheaper by the Dozen
Thomas Jefferson

Find-it-later post

5, Divinenanny: Oh, I read Lord of the Dead by him and loved it, but never had a chance to read the others in the series because my library doesn't carry them. :(

I'm still reading The Road, I'll probably be finished with it later today.

>1 teelgee: Ah, Harry Potter. I didn't read any 'til I was an adult, but the series makes up some of my most memorable non-school reads as a college student. My 12-year-old sister just read the series for the first time, and the other day she was complaining that she had to stay inside from a really bad sunburn and now had nothing to read. She's been watching all the movie previews because she's not allowed to watch the PG-13 movies until her birthday.

As for what I'm reading now...
I just finished Shiver which was OK, but not my thing. I'm reading Northanger Abbey, and it's going much better than my earlier attempt when I was a teenager. (The humor and sarcasm went completely over my head last time.) Also still dipping into Essays of E.B. White, which I'm most likely going to finish during the week, as I've only got five or six left.

I'm reading Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters so far I'm loving it!

#3 Yes, Excellent Women was excellent, was it not? Finishing unpublished novel today, was dumped on me without a title. Perhaps my job as a critic is to supply one...

I'm reading The black swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and thoroughly enjoying it.

Okay, I can't take any more. From now on, every ten pages of Robinson Crusoe will be interspersed with a short story from Extremely Entertaining Short Stories by Stacy Aumonier.

>16 Booksloth: You can't abandon Robinson?

Beginning Faith Fox today, my first Jane Gardam since reading her fantastic Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat.

I finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy and posted a quick review. Not sure if I did the definition quote thing properly though...

I'll probably wait 'till tomorrow to start Dawn Song by Michael Marano.

#17 Abandon him? I'd like to drop a piano on him from a great height but no, set book for my MA course. Somehow I have to get through this. At least nothing else that follows can be half as bad. I hope.

I'm about halfway through The Amber Spyglass. School started Monday so my reading time is sadly decreased once again.

But now I'm beginning to see why it says this on the title page:
Random House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

I like it!

I'm not sure but wasn't Emily Brontë also born on the 30th of July?

Possibly, Porua, but this is for the week starting July 31. Missed it by a day!

I was reminded of it by kiwiflowa's mentioning the birth of the Penguin paperbacks. I should have remembered it last week as she is one of my favourite authors. Too late now, I guess.

Hopefully I'll finish Anna Karenina today. I'm not sure what's next on the list, but definitely something a bit lighter and shorter.

>20 Booksloth: As long as An American Tragedy by Dreiser isn't on the list, you should be in the clear.

#26 It isn't but I'll be sure to avoid it anyway - thanks for the warning.

I saw The Long Ships was reviewed on NPR and was interested in reading it. I will be anxious to hear what the LT verdict is on it.

I finished reading Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest late last night. I think this was the weakest book of the three and can't help wondering what the next book would have been if the author had been able to write it.

I started reading Children of God this morning and am still listening to Ghost Medicine in the car. I will be leaving on vacation tomorrow and will have a nice supply of recorded books with me. Am also taking Doomsday Book and Magicians with me. Also taking Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and hope to finish it. I have been carrying it around in my suitcase for six months so it is time to finish it.

I'm reading The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich.

I am still reading Weaver by Stephen Baxter. its alternate history, and part of the Time's Tapestry series. Its not bad, but it isn't grabbing me.

#19 Ape, I gave your review of The Road a thumbs up! A difficult book to describe, it seems to speak directly to one's emotions.

I am about to start Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles for the Reading Through Time Challenge which has The Civil War for August's theme. I am also reading Charity by Lesley Pearse, a long, juicy, 'women's' read that I am enjoying wallowing in.

I finished The Singer's Gun this morning - I really enjoyed this one, along with St. John Mandel's earlier work, Last Night in Montreal. The Singer's Gun has all the elements of a suspense thriller with the action kept to a minimum as the focus is on the characters, not the action.

I am looking forward to a week off from work so I can lose myself in books. Next up is the ER book The Book of Human Skin as it has been languishing on my book pile and I need to get it read and reviewed.

#12: Northanger Abbey was also better for me the second time around. Then again, I feel like most Jane Austen books get better on subsequent readings.

#28: Children of God just came in at the library so once I finish what I'm currently reading, that one will be next. After being blown away by The Sparrow I'm ready to go on a Mary Doria Russell binge.

As for what I'm reading this week:

Finishing up The Russian Debutante's Handbook which I started last week. Also working on The Journalist and the Murderer. Got to have some variety.

NocturnalBlue, all of Mary Doria Russell bears reading, but unless you are getting into Gertrude Bell or T.E. Lawrence, you needn't hurry to read Dreamers of the Day. Just last night, however, I was recalling how real the hero of A Thread of Grace was.

Robert

>26 Storeetllr:, 27 I'd take a rereading of An American Tragedy or Robinson Crusoe over McTeague any day. :)

>33 NocturnalBlue: Then again, I feel like most Jane Austen books get better on subsequent readings.

There's a lot of truth to that. I didn't finish Northanger Abbey the first time around, and I don't really remember how far I got, just that I was incredibly bored and didn't get it at all. I'd read Pride and Prejudice and Emma definitely - maybe Sense and Sensibility too, but I don't quite remember. I think I get it better now being an older reader and more familiar with the conventions of Gothic novels (even though I still haven't read The Mysteries of Udolpho).

>33 NocturnalBlue: If you're binging on Mary Doria Russell, don't miss A Thread of Grace; loved that book.

I'm listening to Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich on audiobook. Lorelia King is the narrator and I just love her interpretation of all the characters (especially Lulu) even when the book is kind of formulaic.

And I'm reading Spangle by Gary Jennings. Jennings writes historical fiction that is exhaustively researched. Spangle is a about a circus "family" traveling through the post civil war South and then on to Europe.

I'm reading:

Margaret Elphinstone, The Gathering Night ER book
Peter Lovesey, Upon a Dark Night
Linda Grant, The Clothes on Their Backs
Gabriella Ambrosio, Before We Say Goodbye to review for Waterstones website
Geraldine McCaughrean, Pull Out All the Stops! to review for www.thebookbag.co.uk

Started The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls,finished it this evening.

Just finished Little Bee by Chris Cleave and have reserved his first novel Incendiary at my local library.

Began The Whole World Over by Julia Glass yesterday night, have been enjoying her previous novel Three Junes on audiobook.

Finished Sunrise at Abadan a history of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran during World War II. A very good book about a little known aspect of the Second World War. The book poses a serious moral question. When is it defensible to invade a neutral country to benefit a larger war effort against thoroughly evil belligerent? There is little doubt that the supply route through the Persian Corridor contributed significantly to the defense of the USSR against the Nazi invasion. But there is also little doubt that the consequences of the invasions of Iraq and Iran have contributed to the instability in the Middle East today. There are no easy answers.

Just finished Killing of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, the story of the Czech parachutists who assassinated the number two man in the SS.

I'm about half way through The Hidden Brain - very nice read, informative without being too dense. I'm also trying to finish up a reread of Jane Eyre for my Book Club. It's been over 15 years and I don't quite remember all the details. She just met Mr. Rochester, but doesn't know it yet.

Not sure what I'm reading next. I'm leaning towards Present at at Hanging and Other Ghost Stories by Ambrose Bierce.

I just finished In Cold Blood, my first by Capote, and absolutely loved it. I don't read much true crime, but from what I have read, I can understand how this started it all. Even though I knew the story from the movies, it was still incredibly suspenseful and thought provoking. Really glad I decided to pick it up.

Now on my third and most likely last Bill Bryson book, A Walk in the Woods. I only have lukewarm feelings about Bryson but this has been recommended to me so many times by different people that I feel like I should give it a shot. Here's hoping it gets me laughing!

>35 bell7: Then McTeague must be a terrible terrible novel, and I thank God and all the Saints that I was never forced to read it or I might never have picked up another book again in my entire life. As it was, An American Tragedy, which I was forced to read in high school (but which I could not finish and thus didn't get a very good grade on my paper), put me off classics for at least 25 years.

I'm reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. She's one of my favorite authors.

#46 Loved An American Tragedy at mmm... 15 or 16, but never became a confirmed Dreiser fan. What would have killed reading for me would have been Wings of a Dove at an early age. Liked Portrait of a Lady well enough, but Wings is written in the most congested, subjective style, you really had to be in James' head to get more than half the gist. Still, glad you're with us...for you to have given up books would have been the real American tragedy.

Booksloth: there was an excellent Classics Illustrated comic of Robinson...oh well, just a thought.

I am in the midst of two fantastic books: one is The Weather Fifteen Years Ago and a place of meadows and tall trees. Both are perfect weekend reads.

Amy
www.theblacksheepdances.com

#39 Cindysprocket...

What did you think of The Glass Castle?

Hello all, again. I am still reading The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, Sweetsmoke by David Fuller, and waiting on Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters from the library. I should be expecting Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern any day now. Really looking forward to something funny.

Just finished Buddenbrooks. It was quite good. I like these extended family stories and towards the end it really was interesting with all the problems Thomas had and how he bothered his son towards something he really didn't fit. I found this figure of Thomas Buddenbrook the most interesting one and also the most improtant one in some sense, although Hanno as well had an important role to play.

#50 madphill

I read it in less then 24 hours. Does anything more need to be said. ;-)

#48 et al - Know what? I am sooooo tempted to get that comic version. Until now I really thought things could get no worse than Heart of Darkness which was the bane of my life during my BA days. I've often found that studying a book I started off disliking actually helped me to understand it and there were a few I became rather fond of but it's not going to happen here.

#41 And from the ridiculous to the sublime . . . I always love to hear about other people who enjoyed that book, it's a real gem. I also read that one first then followed it up with Incendiary - usually that is a sure way to be disappointed as it often turns out that the author just hadn't hit his stride with the earlier work. Not the case here at all: Incendiary is every bit as good as Little Bee/The Other Hand. And if you love it, there's also a pretty good film version starring Ewan McGregor. You do need to be willing to accept a few changes in the story though. Look forward to hearing what you thought of it.

ETA - I give in. I've found a decent study guide and abandoned Crusoe for now. Plenty of time to come back to him later, I guess. Moving on to Don Juan - phew!

Finished reading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

I am still reading Snagged by Carol Higgins Clark

I started You're Not You. It is my local library book club's choice for the month.

>Cindy- You'll have to try Half Broke Horses next! I really enjoyed that one too!

Ummm, just finished the carbon diaries by saci lloyd and i'm going to read the cherub series by robert muchamore again because i'm werid like that. lol :P i'm annoyed i've reserved 5 books and i'm waiting.........

Struggling through Darwin: the life of a tormented evolutionist, a biography by Adrian Desmond. The part where he went around the world on the Beagle was fun, but now Darwin is spending 20 years holed up in his house in the country, thinking out the theory of evolution by natural selection and whining about his tummyaches. Not as interesting as it sounds.

I'm reading Conversation in The Cathedral. I'm enjoying it but it's style of writing looses me now and then. Also reading In Europe: Travels through the Twentieth Century. Since both are tombs I'll be on these two for a while.

I finished Anna Karenina this morning and I'm not quite sure what to go on to next. Definitely in need of something a bit fluffier after that, fabulous as it was. My TBR section of my library is worryingly vast, and I'm having problems deciding.

I haven't posted here in "forever"......probably 2 months. But I'm still here - reading away. Am currently reading Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier and Transformation by Bill Phillips. For work I'm reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick M. Lencioni which is really very good.
Next up on my list is Water for Elephants, mostly because they are filming some scenes for the movie in my fair city this weekend!

#60 Surely tombs are fairly quick to read? Just a quick inscription on the brass plaque? Sorry;-)

Finished Amy Bloom's early short story colleciton, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You and still reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

As today is a study day, I've got another canto of Don Juan under my belt and am now moving on to Foe.

Your English course sounds very similar to mine, Booksloth. I remember Foe as odd but interesting, not to mention blessedly short after the horrors of Robinson Crusoe. Hopefully you'll enjoy it more than its inspiration.

have started Crimes by Moonlight headlined and edited by Charlaine Harris... read the first two stories; found the first by Ms. Harris to be very weak, but the second by William Kent Krueger was outstanding (and very creepy). Will also finish She by H. Rider Haggard but after that, I'm not sure what I'll try... maybe something science fictiony

#67 Certainly a big improvement already!

Was never one for reading 'classics' but I am trying to expand my reading education a little, so I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte yesterday. I quite liked it! It was a little overly religious I thought, but the dark twists and turns of the plot kept me happy in spite of that.

I am going to attempt Wuthering Heights today

Currently reading Wieland in short spurts, finding it difficult to stay focused. It's not bad, but I don't think I'm really in the mood for that sort of Radcliffe-like Gothic tale. Also, reading through the second volume of Julio Cortazar's collected short stories, currently on All the Fires the Fire. These are less overtly fantastic than his earlier tales, yet retain a certain ambiguous sense that things are not as they seem.

In terms of non-fiction, I've been reading Blink, which is pretty enjoyable and interesting. Though it's been somewhat superseded by Joshi's treatment of same, I'm enjoying L. Sprague de Camp's Lovecraft: A Biography.

I've got Stephen King's On Writing for my audiobook commute. Liking this one as well.

I finished and reviewed Karen Connelly's Burmese Lessons which was an ER book.

Now I'm reading the very intriguing Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

The Rebel Princess by Judith Koll Healey

I am reading The Ask by Sam Lipsyte. Not sure if I like it or not. Repeats absurd situations and characters in the life of one person. Can I skip to the end? I probably will continue.

#61 Ygraine, quick browse of your TBR list makes me jealous, both because you have all these books and haven't read them (my childhood fantasy after reading a great book was to have selective amnesia so I could re-experience it ad infinitum). Back to your list: Rice's Interview with a Vampire arguably the springboard for today's vampire craze, is fluff on steroids and will suck you in. If you're feeling more literary, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow or French Lieutenant's Woman are mysteries that won't leave you feeling guilty; finally, for your medievalist/celtic jones, who could go wrong with Once and Future King? Can we trade memories?

I'm reading The grass is singing and although the story is terrible, it's very well written and grips me completely.

Last night I finished part two of The Reformation and turned to I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. Other people, among them the New York Times, like her a lot more than I do so far.

Robert

Reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo finally. :)

#65 Porua: How do you like The Name of the Rose. I think it was quite interesting and definitely a good mystery but quite unlikely sometimes.

After having finished Buddenbrooks today I was so encouraged to read another books. I chose another Miss Marple Mystery: The Moving Finger. I really really liked that book although Miss Marple was getting onto the stage a bit late for my favour. Nevertheless the mystery was not easy to solve (In fact I hadn't had a clue until the very end) and I liked the characters who told the story. He was quite unlikely und unusual.

I finished my reread of Michael Herr's Dispatches and then I read Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk.
Now I'm reading Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic and Donald Hall's memoir Unpacking the Boxes.

Molly- I've heard very good things about Union Atlantic. Make sure you let us know what you think!

Still reading Company of Liars and almost to the end of Hattie Big Sky.

Yesterday I finished up the audio of Montana 1948. I first read the book about 15 years ago and highly recommend Beau Bridges mesmerizing audio edition.

Currently I'm reading Justin Cronin's The Passage.

Just pray you don't have to read anything by James Fennimore Cooper. Read one of his Deerslayer series for a book group. Spare me !!!!

Above message #84 was meant for Bookslouth.....who is slogging through the Robinson classic.

Last night I finished The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. Better than the vast majority of her recent work, even better than The White Queen, which I also thought was better than most of her stuff recently. I'm now reading Simply From Scratch, the debut novel by Alicia Bessette. It is good, but some of the slang is odd.

Mark, you are always doing that to me. LOL You would not believe the list I have for the library, because of your recommendations. Just don't stop.

Reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Cindy- I have not read The Namesake, it's waiting in the stacks but I absolutely loved her other two books! And yes, I will never stop!

De boeken der kleine zielen, Louis Couperus

jaapberk, by putting brackets around the title and double brackets around the author you can make a link to the page for each: De boeken der kleine zielen by Louis Couperus. Then readers of your post can see more about what it is you are reading.

If you knew all that, I hope you are okay with my explaining it anyway.

Robert

Just started Dancing With Death by Reg McKay

I plan to finish Brisingr today. Then I must find a trashy spy novel to read on holiday.

Just took delivery of Obscene in the Extreme which I've been wanting to read for ages and I can't wait any longer; that brings the current reading pile to Foe, Don Juan, Extremely Interesting Short Stories (by Stacy Aumonier - which, for some reason, touchstones brings up as 'Spam') and Obscene in the Extreme. Very unusual for me to read more than one at a time.

# 79 Still too early to say anything about The Name of the Rose as I’m within the first 100 or so pages. So far I’m enjoying it. But it is definitely not an easy book to read.

The Moving Finger was definitely very intriguing. My only grouse with it was the incredibly late entry of Miss Marple. I couldn’t guess who the culprit was either. The criminal wasn’t the usual Christie type.

Oh no - a massive box of books just arrived. I'm going to have to have a re-think here.

#79 Porua
Yes, I agree. It kind of disturbed me that Miss Marple showed so late and that she still then was having not much of a role. And I had Megan in mind as the Poison Pen for a long time, but then I thought that would be too unfair but I had no other guess and was really caught by surprise with the actual culprit.

started Sense and Sensibility today. Not very much into it right now but I think the style is rather odd. I have read Pride and Prejudice before (in german translation) and found that better though it's not that Austen is a bad writer. But yet I have not got used to this style.

I just finished the short story collection entitled Drown by Junot Diaz. I continue reading Cloud Atlas and will start listening to Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

#97 Miss Marple does appear late in The Moving Finger. But her appearance makes a difference for me at least. It manages to add a calming to the rather disturbing town of Lymstock. One is never quite sure what lurks beneath that town's benign surface!

Jane Austen is one of my favourite authors. I prefer Pride and Prejudice to Sense and Sensibility though.

I finished A Killer Plot by Ellery Adams. A very well written cozy mystery.

I just started Demon Princess: Reign Check by Michelle Rowen. The second in the Demon Princess series. So far a lot of fun.

#97 I find that Jane Austen gets better upon subsequent rereads. That's at least in part b/c her style does take getting used to.

#99 I'm actually more partial to Sense and Sensibility than Pride and Prejudice, though the reason has much to do with the books themselves. Rather, I'm grateful that the sequels, prequels, midquels, POV retellings, modern retellings, and zombified mashups for Sense and Sensibility are kept to a minimum and don't overrun the bookstores like kudzu the way that ones for Pride and Prejudice do. Not really fair, but there you have it.

I finished up The Journalist and the Murderer and am still working on Russian Debutante's Handbook. I've also started The Child in Time and finally have Children of God on deck.

I often have to be in the 'Jane Austen' mood to enjoy her books. Sometimes they feel delightful and sometimes they feel like shes just prattling on and I want to chuck her own book at her. Guess I'm very changeable.

Today I was attempting Wuthering Heights but realized my to-do list was running through my head and not the book, so I got to chapter three and was completely lost. Am going to try again later when I've gotten some stuff done and my mind will let me enjoy it.

Wuthering Heights at the beginning is hard to figure out. Because it starts in the middle. After a few chapters it will go back to when Heathcliff and Catherine are children and the beginning of the story...

I'm currently reading The Passage by Justin Cronin and so far it's fantastic.

103, kiwiflowa, oh good! I felt like I had really missed something. Guess thats normal when a book doesn't start at the beginning lol

104, Teresa40, Ahh I want to read that! So many people have told me its great.

I'm about a third of the way through The Girls and loving it. I've listened to only 1 of the CD's of The God of Animals so far because I'm driving little, but it's a great story about a horse ranch in trouble.

>106 Citizenjoyce: - I read The God of Animals not too long ago and loved it!

I've just started Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA. Something else for us to worry about, I suppose. My mother contracted it while in the hospital for a hip replacement via a catheter. Scary stuff.

Finished Simply From Scratch by Alicia Bessette today. After a slightly uncertain beginning, I ended up really enjoying it, it had a lot of heart.

Now I'm reading 29: A Novel by Adena Halpern. It has a very chatty tone, I'm suspending judgement right now.

Just finished reading A Walk in the Woods for August book club.

I'm reading The Book of Right and Wrong and The Shallows What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

Nice to see someone else read The Sparrow besides me . . .

#102 Wuthering Heights is one of my favourites. Re-read and reviewed it a while ago and it is as good as ever. kiwiflowa is right. The book does start in the middle. So maybe you'll like it after a while. As a major classic buff I’d say that most works of classic literature do take a little while to get into. But once you do it is very rewarding. :-)

I'm reading The Harrowing which was a recommendation from an LT member. It is building the spooky tension quite nicely.

#112, Porua I started to read it last night when I was relaxed and could pay attention and I loved it right away! I am really enjoying it.

I still haven't found the right time to read Wuthering Heights. Hearing the favorable comments has gotten me more interested.

I just finished The Windup Girl, which had good ideas and an intriguing central character in Emiko, but didn't quite pull together for me into a great book.

Also finished Buddha for Beginners, which I found quite "enlightening" (well, at least I learned a lot).

Not sure what to read next.

Just started 33 AD. Really enjoying it so far.

I finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle yesterday afternoon. Murakami never fails.

Just started Anna Karenina for the first time, and I'm not going to lie, it is a little daunting...I have plenty of time, so it shouldn't be a problem, though.

I also started Parzival (a german medieval epic) yesterday night, because it came to my mind that I still have a reading list to finish before my very final exams... So now I am a bit under pressure and not quite sure if I can/will go on with Sense and Sensibility. But I found out what Austen's style reminds me off: a report. I will get used to it.

Foe was interesting and a lot more fun than Crusoe. Especially interesting was the way the protagonist keeps saying how dull Crusoe's story really is: I couldn't agree more!

Taking a break between study books with Girl in a Swing.

Was on a long car trip and forgot my books (AAGH!!) and stopped at a wonderful Goodwill bookstore/cafe in Macon, GA, to stock up. I've finished Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip and am now finally reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I also picked up a copy of A Talent for War, The Outsiders (haven't read that in years and can't wait to re-visit it!), 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Chasing Harry Winston. How's that for a mix? :-)

Just catching up here after coming back from vacation late Sunday. My two cents on the American Tragedy/McTeague/James conversation:

I read both Dreiser and James (along with Edith Wharton and Mark Twain) for my very first MA grad school lit class. The class was called "Highbrows and Lowbrows," with Wharton and James the "highbrows" and Twain and Dreiser the "lowbrows." I very much enjoyed Dreiser, including An American Tragedy. I very much hated James, including everything longer than The Turn of the Screw, although I understood his place in the progression of character and POV presentation.

I have read McTeague on my own and liked it a lot.

Never read Robinson Crusoe, though.

Along with James, my mosted hated "classic" writer is D.H. Lawrence. As with James, I can enjoy his short stories, but his novels drive me wild with revulsion.

It's to each his/her own, definitely, of course. There are people in this world who don't like Joseph Conrad, who is, in my firmament, just about the brightest star in the heavens. C'est la vie!

While on vacation I finished The Dutch Blue Error, the second installment of William Tapply's Brady Coyne mystery series (enjoyable), and read Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (wonderful).

I finished up A month in the Country last night. A short classic about healing post WW1.

I am now starting Moo by Jane Smiley

I love Henry James! and I hate Joseph Conrad's books! So I'd be just the opposite of you rocketjk except that everything by D.H. Lawrence also fills me with revulsion.

I've finally finished with Darwin and am now reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Pretty pictures!

#121, 123: How can you people hate D.H. Lawrence? Did they force you to read his poetry? Novels like The Rainbow and Women in Love were the firsts breaths of fresh air out of the Edwardian era.

#115, have you tried Perfume by Patrick Suskind? Infinitely better than the movie with Dustin Hoffman.

#119 Booksloth, let me know what you think of Girl in a Swing. I learned a lot about fine china, but the ending was all muddled. The movie was better (bad omen for any book) but I love Meg Tilly. Then, again, someone coming off of Robinson Crusoe is probably disinclined to be critical, so do your best.

#123> That's funny. Shows you how different taste can be.

#124> Lawrence's novels may have been the first breaths of fresh air out of the Edwardian era, but I was not reading them then. To me he came across as pompous, way too impressed with himself. I had to read Sons and Lovers and Women in Love in college. Neither would I have come close to finishing had there not been a grade involved. I actually liked his poetry better, and there are a few short stories I've read I thought were quite good.

As the Hawaiian cannibal said to his child, "One man's meat is another man's poi, son."

#122 Both of those are among my favorite books!

#125, good joke; I hadn't heard that one; and quite true, of course.

I started Ernest Hemingway's Across the River and into the Trees yesterday, and I am already 76 pages into it. It's a real page turner and is vintage Hemingway.

I finished the lovely, sentimental The Girls and now am going in a completely opposite direction reading The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. I loved his Dark Materials trilogy which I read someone said was not atheistic but rather just anti Catholic. Maybe this book will clarify his stance.

I managed to finish The Black Hills by Dan Simmons over the weekend - it really was a huge disappointment. I thought I would whizz through Play Dead by Harlan Coben but thanks to it being a over 500 pages b really badly written, and c having had the entire story divulged by a spoiler review on Librarything, I am battling to get through it. Only another 100 pages left and then I'll get on to something decent!
I have been given Anatomy of Murder by Imogen Robertson, Cure by Robin Cook and The Inspector and Silence by Hakan Nesser and am looking forward to reading them.

I finished the excellent The Welsh Girl and started on the young adult fiction romp The death defying Pepper Roux.

I finished the audio of Bloodroot. It was so-so! I also finished The Nobodies Album, the latest by Caroyln Parkhurst and I loved it. I started The Passage, which everyone seems to be reading and also just eased into The Uncommon Reader, which is lovely.

Last night I started What Remains of Heaven by Candice Proctor, writing as C. S. Harris, and got hooked right away. I'm reading this, the fifth installment in the St. Cyr historical mystery series, before I leave for vacation, notwithstanding the other four books I have going, so I can read the unproofed galley of the sixth in the series, which I've got on my new eReader, while I'm away.

> #133 - I read Where Serpents Sleep before I realized that it was book 4 in the St. Cyr series. I am now going to work my way through the rest of the books in proper order. Good to hear that book 5 was good and that there is a sixth one in the wings! LT has turned me into quite a serial junkie - pun intended!

I've been reading the ER book No Place for Heroes by Colombian author Laura Restrepo.

I'm enjoying Killer Instinct by Zoe Sharp, the first in a series. Can't remember whether I found out about it here on LT or read about it somewhere, but so far it'sv very good.

Also reading The Vorkosigan Companion which, as someone here said, is only for fans of the series by Lois McMaster Bujold.

#114 That's good to know, dancingstarfish. :-)

29: A Novel was okay, interesting, but not fantastic. Now reading Everything Is Going to Be Great by Rachel Shukert. Her writing reminds me a bit of David Sedaris when he's talking about traveling or living abroad.

I have just arrived at part three of Middlesex. The book is reading much faster than I had anticipated, and I can't believe I didn't read this one sooner!

Thanks to teelgee for pointing out what wasn't obvious to me, so now re-posting under the current thread:

Finished, loved and recommend The Book of Human Skin, the gothic historical fiction by Michelle Lovric. As it was an ER book, review has been posted on the book page here: http://www.librarything.com/work/9589982/reviews/62904275

Next up, for my Reading Through Time Group August theme read is The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning.

Finished The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag, the second Flavia de Luce mystery (loved it) and began Little Bee, which is starting out very well.

Have read 4 of the 5 books I mentioned when I first posted on this thread.

Am still reading Geraldine McCaughrean's Pull Out All the Stops!. It looks great but I realised after starting it that I had another book by her, and when I dug it out it turned out to be none other than Stop the Train, featuring some of the same characters. So I read that, finished this evening.

I am also reading

Helen Dunmore, The Siege
Historical novel set in Russia, 1941 - I want to read The Betrayal, a follow up to this which is on the Booker longlist, and have got it out of the library but will need to read and return promptly, I'm sure.

Ruth Adam, I'm Not Complaining
Virago Modern Classic reprint, novel about a teacher in the 1930s, pretty good read so far

Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoir about a women's literature class in Iran in the 1990s

Joan Aiken, A Small Pinch of Weather
A collection of children's stories about magic - a reread of a childhood favourite

ed Neal Pollack, Chicago Noir

Elizabeth Cambridge, Hostages to Fortune
Persephone reprint of 1940s novel

David Roberts, Sweet Sorrow
historical crime novel set in England just before the outbreak of WWII, the 10th and apparently final novel in the series.

I finished You're Not You and really enjoyed it. Up next is Red Hook Road.

I'll repost from the Happy Heathens site, a little fuller review is on the book's page:

I just finished The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. I read somewhere on LT that His Dark Materials series wasn't atheistic but just anti catholic. Two thirds of the way through this book I thought maybe that was right. Jesus and Christ are twin boys born to an innocent and easily confused young wife Mary who was tricked into bed by a local boy who said he was an angel. Jesus is healthy and lovable from birth, Christ is sickly and kind of a mamma's boy (this is not his usual feminist writing). Jesus gets into trouble with boyish pranks while he's growing up, and Christ has to get him out of it -- by performing miracles. Or by the end of the book one thinks perhaps those miracles didn't happen as first described but were tales concocted by Christ. As they grow, Jesus becomes so charismatic crowds of people are drawn to him. The loaves and fishes tale is shown to be less a miracle and more that Jesus was able to feed a large group of people by convincing members of the crowd to share what they had with others. He "heals" people by giving them hope and a new sense of self worth. Christ is only a little jealous, but wants to support Jesus in his preaching by maybe starting a church. He goes through the whole system of hierarchy explaining how it could bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth. Jesus wants nothing to do with it.
As Jesus goes preaching around the area, Christ begins to become his chronicler, writing down his sayings even though he makes god and salvation seem contradictory and arbitrary. At some point Christ is confronted by a stranger (whom you might think of as the devil, but he says he isn't, and since Pullman is an atheist I can only think this stranger is a farsighted entrepreneur). The stranger tells him that there is a truth that goes beyond time, that is the handmaid of posterity rather than its governor. Meaning, as you write down what Jesus says, feel free to edit it so that it makes sense of the larger picture, the worship that we want to bring about in the church we can create. Christ is a good editor.

In the Garden of Gethsemane finally the atheism becomes clear. Jesus is praying but doesn't know if there's anyone out there to pray to. He says, "I can imagine some smartarse of a priest in years to come pulling the wool over his poor followers' eyes, 'God's great absence is, of course, the very sign of his presence' or some such drivel...The priest is worse than the fool in the psalm who at least is an honest man. When the fool prays to god and gets no answer, he decides that God's great absence means he's not bloody well there."

Jesus then goes on to describe accurately all the evils that could be perpetuated by a church and asks god "And where will you be? Will you strike these blaspheming serpents...To ask the question and wait for the answer is to know there will be no answer."

Then there's a rather expected description of the resurrection and its consequences. It doesn't leave much doubt that Pullman isn't just anti church.

This is an interesting book, part of the Myths Series, which I didn't even realized existed. Lots of myths rewritten, by Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Alexander McCall Smith and others, though I note no one has yet been willing to risk a fatwa by rewriting the myth of Mohammad.

Just started The Lightning Thief after seeing the film. Great so far!

http://www.librarything.com/work/173670/book/63111728

Thanks Joyce for posting your review. Today I'll write mine. I knew about the myth series and have them on my wishlist (and I actually own The Penelopiad) but haven't got round to reading them. I will read The Penelopiad to help me read and understand The Odyssey... so many projects so little time!

I've finished and reviewed Child 44, a grim, grisly, exciting thriller that kept me awake several nights. And not just reading it. *shiver*

Picked up The Housekeeper and the Professor today and so far am loving it. Still finishing up Jamaica Inn.

I finished Paul is Undead by Alan Goldsher which was hilarious on audio and am now beginning to listen to The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova on audio.

I just finished Everything is Going to be Great, which I loved, and am now starting on another Harper Perennial book: Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne. Listening to How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson on audio.

For weeks now, I've been reading Hillary Clinton's autobiography. And each night, I fall in love with her again :) She does have an engaging writing style, and her life, the cornerstones of her career are truely historic. I guess since the Gilmore Girls' motivational letter episode it has become rather kitschy to even mention her name publically, nevertheless, she's an exceptional woman and I love her to death....

edited to terminate type-o...I found it, I keep it.

I am on a mystery kick.

Gideon's Wrath by J.J.Marric
Gideon's Art by J.J. Marric
Now reading The Bishop at the Lake by Andrew M. Greeley.

I started Await Your Reply, but was distracted by The Forgotten Garden. I'm back to work, so my reading time has decreased significantly, and I'm not sure I'll get back to Await Your Reply this week.

Tonight I read a little more from Julius Caesar by Phillip Freeman, ending through sheer exhaustion just after Caesar, Pompey and Marcus Crassus formed their first triumvirate. Pretty good.

I am reading Anatomy of Murder by Imogen Robertson: it is the second in a series and I did not read the first. I am not finding it a page turner but then I've read only 40 pages or so. I finished Play Dead - and urge Harlan Coben fans not to read it!

Finished the enigmatically complex The Name of the Rose. My review is here,

http://www.librarything.com/review/62889634

I haven't posted in a while due to travelling so much for work....

Have recently gotten onto a Lisa Jackson reading kick and am loving it. In the past 2 weeks I've read, Left to Die, Chosen to Die and Absolute Fear.

I've gotten a little out of order with the books, but have been able to get the series listing off her website so I can start at the beginning... I just can't stand jumping around.

Happy reading!

I reviewed a medieval English mystery, The Unquiet Bones, on my thread...post #212.

Next up is Savage Moon by Chris Simms

Do you have an opinion on whether I should read the White Queen first or does it matter? thanks

Finished By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber. Cotton candy for the brain, that was. Next up is The Pyramid by Henning Mankell.

I finished and thoroughly enjoyed Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I continue reading the amazing Cloud Atlas and I am about to start listening to Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan.

I read and reviewed the brilliant Cloud Atlas. Now I'm reading Louise Penny's A Rule Against Murder.

I continue to read Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern, Sweetsmoke by David Fuller and Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? by Michael Shermer.

I just finished Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway and will begin The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig later today.

Last night I started Diz: The Story of Dizzy Dean and Baseball During the Great Depression by Robert Gregory.

I have one more chapter to read in The Reformation, and I have started Chef. I have taken breaks in my reading of The Reformation, but I think I will be finishing it very soon before I am very far into Chef.

Robert

I read The Name of Rose a good 20 years ago during a very difficult time, yet loved it. I don't re-read often, but that's one I've been itching to re-read lately. I should add it to my pile for 2011.

Finished The Bishop at the Lake and started Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls.

Starting The Day the Falls Stood Still. . .then maybe Eat,Pray,Love. . .

> Cindy- Boy, you do take my suggestions seriously! Ha ha! Hope you enjoy Half Broke, I sure did!

#124 sholofsky - I finished Girl in a Swing - what a strange book. Unlike other readers, I didn't find the ending particularly odd, just everything else that went before. It's a very atmospheric work though I'm not entirely sure exactly what happens; then again, I do love a book that says too little rather than too much and leaves me with unanswered questions. It's a sure sign I'm going to have to read it again some day.

When I was very much younger I fell for Adams's work and loved Watership Down, Shardik (probably my favourite) and The Plague Dogs but then abandoned him for other writers. Now I'm beginning to wonder if I should try more of his books. Anything you would particularly recommend?

Moving on now to something quite different: Living Dolls, by Natasha Walter. I've been looking forward to this one for quite a while now.

Seemed a shame to let teelgee have all the fun, so I put up this week's thread.