What Are You Reading Now? - August 2010

Wow, I can't believe its August.

I've recently started A World Undone - a history of WW1. It is so far completely engrossing & I haven't even gotten to the commencement of hostilities yet!

Still picking my way through JCO's collection High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006, which I have to confess is really wearing on me. I liked the first few stories that I read but after a while these all start to seem the same to me & I can't tell if the general feeling of creepiness that each of them evokes in me is due to the author's writing style or just because I've read so many of them that I know that no matter how innocuous something seems, its all going to go to hell eventually, probably in some shocking act of violence that seems to come out of nowhere. One story that I recently did really enjoy was "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" which was simply terrifying near the end.

I've made a vow to work on my backlog of unread books and not buy anything new in August; I've also got a ton of ER books that I need to read and review - its amazing I haven't been fired from ER yet. :(

I'm currently reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, the winner of this year's Orange Prize for Fiction, which I hope to finish in the next day or two. I'm thoroughly enjoying Kingsolver's writing style, and especially her portrayal of the spirited and irrepressible Frida Kahlo.

I'm reading Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler, because there is nothing I love quite so much as overthinking my favorite TV shows. It's got some moderately interesting stuff in it, so far, but I can't help feeling bemused by the fact that the episode analysis posts by intelligent fans that I follow online generally seem to have much more depth, and more insights per unit time, than these academic essays.

Currently reading
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Beauties, Beasts, and Enchantments by Jack Zipes
among others

Up next:
probably A Death in the Family

I started off the month by reading The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. I was actually disappointed in it by the end. It was a good re-telling of the myth/fable with an interesting twist but then at the end shoved in some anti organized religion arguments which did not mesh well with the rest of the book and seemed to be very pointed at what was happening today but supposedly predicted back in biblical times?

I am now reading A Month in the Country by J.L.Carr

On break from The Reformation I am reading I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. I hope it goes quickly.

Robert

I am reading The Maias by Eca de Queiros. V. good so far.

Reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher, and loving every word.

Also reading Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, and dragging myself through it. I expected a lighthearted, fluffy memoir. That's the danger in judging a book by its movie trailer.

My boldly announced plan to start re-reading The Brothers Karamazov has been derailed by Wellington Public Library's reserves system, which has disgorged three books I had placed on reserve within a few days of each other.

The first, which I enjoyed, is Penelope Todd's writer's memoir Digging for Spain. Stories of how people became writers, or grew as writers, or survive as writers always interest me, and this is a good one.

The other two are on economics: Whoops! by John Lanchester, his account of the world financial crisis of 2008 et seq, and Prosperity Without Growth, by Tim Jackson.

To accommodate these, The Empress of Mars was returned to the library unread - I hope I'll get to it later - and Alyosha and his brothers will have to wait a little longer.

I'm enjoying the essays in Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs as well as reading The Broken Shore.

I'm eying Sunday's Silence and Wolf Hall as well.

>1 fannyprice: I found A World Undone to be an excellent history of World War I.

After a break I am on the home stretch to finish Christianity:The First Three Thousand Years. It's an excellent book but very long.

>10 RidgewayGirl: A friend who was reading Manhood for Amateurs pressed me to read its "The Loser's Club." Excellent! I had a similar childhood experience but my takeaway was opposite of Chabon's.

Recently finished The Breaking of Eggs (Stalinist deals with the fall of communism), The Disappearing Spoon (historical anecdotes involving scientists and the elements of the Periodic Table), and Packing for Mars (Mary Roach's look at space travel).

Next up: A Visit From the Goon Squad (linked stories).

Mawson: A Life by Philip Ayres (a biography of the Antarctic explorer)

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Climate Change Science and Policy edited by Stephen H. Schneider

>11 wildbill:: wildbill,

Does Christianity:The First Three Thousand Years deal with homosexuality in the history of the church? I just found out from Wikipedia that the author, Diarmaid MacCulloch, is a gay Christian. So I wonder how he would treat a subject that is personal.

I just finished Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. For my next read, I will read either The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig or Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway. Perhaps I will flip a coin.

Unfortunately, whichever I choose will probably be the last book that I read this summer. The high school where I teach resumes classes in a couple of weeks. During the school year, my reading is usually slow going and sporadic. It's sad to think that my reading will slow down soon.

Currently, The Portable Greek Historians, Peaceful Places: New York City, House by Tracy Kidder, and Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil.

4 - I LOVE A Death in the Family!

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wildbill, I am now reading MacCulloch's The Reformation. It is not only long, but it is dense. I am going to take away from my reading a lot less than he presented. I have felt a need to take a few breaks in the course of reading the book too. I have Christianity: the first three thousand years on my waiting-for-the-paperback wishlist. Can I expect a similar challenge with it?

booksontrial, I didn't know that MacCulloch was homosexual. The issue comes up briefly in The Reformation a few times. It is treated with a very even hand.

Robert

16 - good to hear! My dad loves it too, and has been urging it on me for quite some time.

btw, thank you to those of you who also mention the author of the book you are reading. I find it horribly distracting to have to click into a touchstone to find the author and most of the time I just skip it.

I'm reading Nikolski by Quebeçois author Nicholas Dickner (this is for the adventurous reader challenge this month). I will be finishing The Shallows by Nicolas Carr shortly, and oh, there are several other books calling to me.

And, of course, touchstones are not always guaranteed to send you to the author intended!

Mainly reading Within a Budding Grove by Proust. As a side-read I've been reading History of Korea by Woo-keun Han. It's a terrible "side" read as it's not that easy to work through, but quite fascinating - for, among other reasons, as a alternate history of China. My poem-a-day is a journal: San Pedro River Review : Spring 2010.

All of this left me wanting this weekend and my eye started wondering. I ended up getting into a literature text book: Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense by Laurence Perrine & Thomas R. Arp - which led me to two short stories (to compare "Escape" and "Interpretive" fiction):
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell (1924), which I'd read before in high school. Fun but...
"The Child by Tiger" by Thomas Wolfe (1937), which was brilliant - a dark, violent and pyschological take on the effects of southern racism. It quotes Blake's Poem "The Tiger" extensively.

sorry, that was kind of long, and unreadable...

Just started City Of The Sharp-Nosed Fish (how can you pass up a title like that), about daily life in ancient Egypt, and how we have come to know more about it because of a haul of half-a-million scraps of papyrus, preserved by the dry desert air.

Issues 1 and 2 of "Bull Spec" a new magazine of ..speculative fiction, an ongoing graphic novella, poetry, book & movie reviews, gaming etc. that a local guy in Durham has bravely started up. The first issue was a bit weak, but the 2nd is much improved. He was interviewed along w/ local SF writer Jonathan Kessel on a local NPR show a couple of weeks back.

I did like the review extolling the virtues of the windup girl in the first issue - but more because I shared the reviewer's opinions rather than because of the quality of the writing. But it's a nice looking glossy mag, the 2nd issue defn. showed promise and the publisher, editor, owner was nice enough to, evidently, hand deliver a copy of issue 1 to Patty's office last week when we couldn't find the earlier issue in local outlets.

http://www.bullspec.com/

Very interesting, Bob, thanks for the link.

I have finished Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway. I will start Stefan Zweig's The Post Office Girl this afternoon.

Away for the week-end and so brought along Faithful Place, the new Tana French novel. It's exactly right for vacation reading so far.

I could barely put down The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore and have reviewed it, as well as Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini, which I also finished, on my reading thread and on the book page.

Currently reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and Maps of Time by David Christian

Now reading The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar, set during the Renaissance period, about an alchemist-philosopher whose genius and ways of thinking tested the limits of the old order -- an excellent read! Also started Herta Muller's The Land of Green Plums -- the symbolism requires some effort.

>18 Mr.Durick:: Mr.Durick,

Thanks for the feedback. I added Reformation to my To Read list based on your review. Have you read other books that cover the same subject and period in history? I gather from your review that the book is quite definitive, but want to get a different perspective if possible.

It may be that the answer to your question depends on the definition of 'definitive.' But in general a single comprehensive work like this cannot be as definitive as a specialized work. So, for example, Out of the Flames has much more detail and almost as much authority on the subject of Michael Servetus. Yet Michael Servetus is mentioned here.

My experience has been with books with significantly broader focus, like histories of Europe, or narrower focus, like histories of the early settlements in Massachusetts, Henry VIII, Louis XIV, Luther, Calvin and others. This is the first comprehensive book I have read with just this scope, the setting for the reformation, the reformation, and the consequences of the reformation.

Oxford has an encyclopedia of the Reformation in four fat volumes which I would expect to be more comprehensive, but even without seeing it I would bet that MacCulloch's book is better reading.

Robert

I'm reading It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet by James Herriot. Definitely not something I'd choose for myself, I got it as a charity book present from a friend and it came up as the next book from my lucky dip bag. It's OK but really just a series of amusing anecdotes about Herriot's early career as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s. Unfortunately I can only stand so many stories about bovine prolapses and horses teeth so I'm getting a bit bored. At least it will be off my TBR list and onto the give away pile.

I finished (and reviewed on my thread and on the book page) the impressive and compelling The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and the stunning A Visit from the Goon Squad by the very talented Jennifer Egan.

Thanks for writing that review of A Visit from the Goon Squad - I enjoy novels about music and musicians, but good ones are hard to find, so I will look out for that one.

It is about a lot more than music and musicians, but most of the main characters are involved with music -- punk rock to be specific, so the genre is one I was pretty unfamiliar with, except as a phenomenon.

I really need to stop buying books at airports just because I'm tired and can't bear to read what I've got with me; they're rarely things I would read otherwise and are invariably disappointing. The latest one I've given up on is Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier.

Am doing much better with The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (bought in a proper bookshop rather than an airport newspaper shop, you see) - Australian novel about the fall-out after a man slaps a naughty child (not his own) at a barbeque, seen from multiple viewpoints. I'm really enjoying it so far.

>36 rebeccanyc:, rebeccanyc: As the book goes until about 2020, I guess that proves that the old saying is true: "Punk's not dead"!

>30 deebee1: deebee1, when I started the Muller I was constantly trying to figure out the symbolism (what do the teeth, buttons...etc mean!?!?!) but really I think the trick is to relax with the imagery and read it like a language.

I have finished the excellent short fiction collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson and the equally excellent novel,The Broken Shore by Australian author Peter Temple (both reviewed on my thread or the book's page), I've started Truth also by Peter Temple. (fussy touchstones!)

Both of the aforementioned titles will definitely be on my favorites list at the end of the year.

rachbxl, awhile back Night Train to Lisbon got plenty of good attention on LibraryThing inducing me to buy a copy, and I intend to get to it. I wonder what it was that put you off of it.

Robert

I finished and reviewed A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch. It's a perfectly nice way to spend an afternoon.

I've just read two books for Lois's Adventurous Reader challenge (books we'd never heard of by authors we'd never heard of) and reviewed both of them on my thread and on the book page. Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson is a haunting novella bout a couple who hide a Jewish man in Nazi-occupied Holland and Purge by Sofi Oksanen is an ambitious but ultimately disappointing novel about Estonia from its wartime days (first the Nazis, then the Soviets) to the immediate post-Soviet period.

Having finished my own "adventurous reader" book, I'm now reading Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell. (I was hoping to finishing it at work tonight, but, alas, actual work intervened.)

I am starting The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson and am also reading Powering the Future: A Scientist's Guide to Energy Independence by Daniel Botkin.

I finished Chef by Jaspreet Singh yesterday, an LT Early Reviewer novel set in modern day Kashmir, which was a major disappointment. I'm currently reading Touch by Adania Shibli, a novella about a girl growing up in Palestine that akeela reviewed for Belletrista early this year; Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman, which is based on several lectures that the author gave at Yale on the cultural significance of translation; and The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, a novel about friendship among three older men in London that is on this year's Booker Prize longlist.

>40 Mr.Durick: Mr Durick, re Night Train to Lisbon - it's only fair to make clear that I've been in a reading slump for a couple of months now, and things I'd normally like haven't been grabbing me. Don't know whether I'd feel differently about this one if I came back in a while, but I doubt I will - so far (about 100 pages) it just feels a bit too much like a fairy story for grown-ups, chicken soup for the soul kind of thing. Nothing wrong with that, I know, but not for me.

The good news (book slump-wise) is that I'm still enjoying The Slap AND today I've read the first 100 pages of Radwa Ashour's new novel Specters, due out in October (I'm reviewing it for Belletrista). So far it's wonderful.

I continue to read The March by E.L. Doctorow which takes the reader along on Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas at the end of the Civil War. It's excellent, but too intense to read straight through.

I'm also reading The Wave by Susan Casey, about rogue waves and the people who study or surf them.

rachbxl, thank you. Your take on Night Train to Lisbon could be congruent with what many said about it, that it contains considerable philosophical reflection. One person's philosophy can be another person's cliché. I guess I'll see for myself someday.

Robert

I forgot to add another read I've finally reviewed: Home, Away by LT author Jeff Gillenkirk. It's in my thread...post #64.

Halfway through Peter Temple's Truth and I must say that Melbourne sounds like it's gone to hell in a handbasket. While a very good police procedural, I'm still curious why this won the Miles Franklin Award...but I hold off on any speculation until I finish.

i'm in ancient epic mode. On the train I'm reading The Odyssey (Robert Fagles' translation) at I am half way through William Buck's retelling of Ramayana but I have taken a break to read Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi.

In weird state of mind reading wise (and LT wise). I finished History of Korea and then looked for another book to read along with Proust - scanned through all these wonderful fiction books and memoirs and non-fiction books I've itching to get to...and then picked up something else - The River of Lost Footsteps : Histories of Burma by Thant Myint-U. Apparently I'm on a histories-of-obscure-countries trend. Burma, by the way, has an absolutely fascinating history. (for other things I'm reading, see post 22)

#52 - The Glass Palace is a terrific historical novel set largely in Burma.
Reading.
For All the tea in China - history.
Sea of Poppies historical novel of the triangular Asian trade Indian opium/Chinese tea/English industrialism.
Paper Cities urban fictions/fantasies ed. Ekaterina Sedia
----
Read - bit of comments on my thread:

Blackout WWII/Time Travel, better than average Connie Willis

Marcelo in the Real World. i liked the curious incident..this is much better.

The Seville Communion good, reasonably contemporary (1995) mystery/thriller set in Seville and the Vatican. Rivalries w/in the church are far more plausible than silly Brownian conspiracy crap.

Point omega pompous crap, but short - delillo has an highly overrated sense of his intellectual capabilities.

larklight v. good steampunk for kids 9-13(?)

Bob - The Glass Palace is on my wishlist - based on your recommendation back in January. :)

>47 RidgewayGirl:. Everyone has said nothing but good things about The March, I really need to move that up in my pile.

Just finished The Slap and now starting In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut.

Just finished The Post Office Girl and read the first chapter of O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. After reading the first chapter, I have found Cather to be brilliant at portraying the desolation of the 1880s American west. Its vastness and somberness was intimidating, and I would not want to have lived there and then.

I read and reviewed three books yesterday: Touch by Adania Shibli, a novella about a young Palestinian girl (4 stars); Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman (4-1/2 stars); and A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton by John McPhee (4 stars).

Today I'll resume reading The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, a newly published novel about three male friends, two of them Jewish, in London that is on this year's Booker Prize longlist and received glowing reviews in the UK press this weekend.

I'm just about to start The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone - it's an LT Early Reviewer book. I don't think I've read a story set in the stone age before, I'm curious to see how she approaches the character's use of language.

Finished and reviewed (on my thread and on the book page) the delightful The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson and am now zipping through the satirical The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer, who I heard interviewed on WNYC, the NPR station in New York.

Since my last post I've read and reviewed three books: Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan by Donald Keene (4 stars); The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (4-1/2 stars and awfully close to 5 stars); and Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers (3-1/2 stars).

I'm currently reading The Seine Was Red: Paris, October 1961 by Leïla Sebbar, which I'll review for the next issue of Belletrista. After that I'll probably read The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers.

Finished Ghosh's terrific sea of poppies set largely on ship in 1830s India just before the start of the opium wars. Attempted a synopsis, which was a fool's errand.

Also the white cat v. good, rather grim YA fantasy.

For all the tea in China - very easy to read history of the opium/tea trade twixt India/China/Britain - fit perfectly as background for "The Sea of Poppies." The w/ all the little digs the author made about various European countries other than Britain, i was surprised to find she was American. ("the English the English the English are best/i wouldn't take tuppence for all of the rest" flanders & swann)

I've just finished and reviewed (on my thread and on the book page) the very disturbing The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford.

I've finished The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone - 3 stars, review to follow.

Next up: Cry Wolf by Aileen La Tourette. 30 pages in and I'm really struggling with it.

I've been reading like crazy lately. I'm currently on Ring for Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. It was definitely time for some more Wodehouse in my life.

General Notice: I recently complained that an ARC I received, very late, from smaller publisher Chin Music Press, was in poor condition when I got it. I went on to review Home, Away in terms I hope we can all agree were very favorable, because the book is an important corrective to the one-sided presentations of family dramas now available. I liked the book, and I hope many of us here on LT will give it a chance.

What I didn't expect was the response to my mild bleat of dissatisfaction at the condition issue the book sent to me had...a publicist contacted me here, saying how sorry they were that my copy wasn't pristine, and they'd be sending me another copy of the book that *was* pristine for my library.

**!**

I emailed them, suggesting that they keep the book as I wasn't likely to re-read such an emotionally charged book again; the publicist responded IMMEDIATELY that she'd already sent the book out (!!) and should feel free to share it onwards.

This level of attentiveness cannot be overpraised. Please, bookaholics assembled here, go shopping and supoort a press that deserves support for its brave aesthetic choices and its high-caliber people skills.

I just finished March by Geraldine Brooks and it gave me quite a bit to think about. I'm still working my way through E.L. Doctorow's The March and, having acquired a few books yesterday, will have to pick one to read. I'm leaning towards The Night Watch by Sarah Waters or Old City Hall by Canadian author Robert Rotenberg.

>64 charbutton: charbutton,

How odd, I started reading Cry Wolf a few weeks ago and had the same experience. I have two problems with the novel: (a) the assumptions with which the original M-others use to shape the new society and the narrator's attitude toward the remaining population. It is, in its way, very paternalistic for a feminist science fiction novel.

I read two books yesterday, and reviewed both of them today: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (4-1/2 stars), and Wild Grass, a collection of prose poems by Lu Xun (3-1/2 stars).

Today I'll start reading The Company of Heaven: Stories from haiti, an LT Early Reviewer book by Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell.

>68 urania1:, that's reassuring. I thought I must be really missing the point. I agree about the narrator's attitude. Her sense of superiority is really disconcerting.

I've settled down with The Quarry by Damon Galgut.

This weekend I read Fallen by Lauren Kate. A Paranormal YA fiction. About fallen angels, and an immortal teen love (remind anyone of Twilight?). Angels are supposed to be the next big thing for YA after vampires. I think it was a great idea, could have been a real winner, but poorly executed.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia is up next!

Struggling through my August challenge books: Crude World and House. Almost finished the Herodotus portions of Portable Greek Historians. Started my ER book The Barefoot Book and my brand spaking new Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And working through several fantasy anthologies - The Queen in Winter, Powers of Detection, and To Weave a Web of Magic.

I'm still reading Dreams of Speaking by Gail Jones.

Okay, so I finally wrote a review of Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife that I read for the "H" challenge in the TIOLI thread. It's in my thread...post #180.

STRONG caution is given to my believing friends...much to offend you in this review. Don't seek it out if you don't expect to be hurt at some level.

62: bobmcconnaughey Attempted a synopsis, which was a fool's errand.

:) I had the same problem. Shortly after I read it I came across a review that highlighted the theme of slavery, especially coolies - which first made me think "but that was only one small aspect!"

I finished Quarry by Damon Galgut this morning and have since begun Wildfire Season by Canadian author Andrew Pyper. I'm also looking at Purge by Sofi Oksanen and Dark Summit by Nick Heil.

I am reading Gyula Krudy's collection of short stories, Life Is a Dream, and also The Three Fates by Linda Le for the Adventurous Reader challenge.

When I could not local promptly my Gail Jones' novel, I picked up Karin Alvtegan's Missing (no touchstone). Akeela has done a great review of this author's newest translation (in the forthcoming Belletrista) and it reminded me that I had seen a couple of the author's books at the bookstore...

I finished a book set in another country...New Zealand...called How to Watch a Bird by Steve Braunias, a columnist in their national Sunday paper's magazine. It's a sparkly, fun look at the birders of the country. The book is distributed in the USA, so it can be had!

>80 richardderus:, richardderus: It's good to hear that you could get that in the US. Awa Press here in Wellington have released a whole series of these "How To..." essays in book form, and it would be interesting to know whether more are available in the US.

I can recommend How To Catch A Cricket Match by Harry Ricketts, best known internationally for his biography of Rudyard Kipling - I'm sure a US readership would find it highly educational, and it would be the perfect companion volume to Joseph O'Neill's Netherland :-)

>81 timjones: Tim, I don't think I'll be reading that one. Cricket is just slightly less boring than watching a paint-drying contest using the color beige. But "The Ginger Series" has some interesting looking titles: How to Look at a Painting, f/ex. I'm glad I can get them here!

I enjoyed some Club Read-inspired reading: Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman (discovered on Mr.Durick's thread) and The Geometry of Pasta by book designer Caz Hildebrand and chef Jacob Kenedy (via wandering_star).

I reviewed a library sale find, Hons and Rebels, in my thread... post #96.

Very, very good stuff! Was it someone here who got onto the Mitford Girls kick?

Read Mockingjay which is pretty terrific YA dystopia. The levels of moral complexity of the main characters is fascinating. Also Bangkok Haunts - not as good as the terrific Bangkok 8 but much better than the 2nd in the series. Halfway through Arctic Chill - another bleak and cold Icelandic mystery/police procedural in an excellent series.

I reviewed To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf in my thread...post #97.

Very close to a perfect reading experience. Woolf's own favorite of her books, and the bestseller of them all for many years. Luscious!

I've just finished and reviewed (on my thread and on the book page) my last Adventurous Read: the intense and convoluted The Three Fates by Linda Lê.

Now I'm continuing with my next tome and next "Evils of the 20th Century" read, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock. Of course, I hope to mix it up with some shorter and more upbeat books.

I am currently reading The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor. He combines riffs on The Mahabharata and novel titles by writers of novels about India to recount a thinly disguised portrait of Ghandi. This book is both funny and sad. Thus far I would give it 5/5 stars/

Finished Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris three weeks ago, but had a hard time producing a decent review (posted here). Continuing on to his The Man who Laughs.

For non-fiction, reading Thus spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche and On Christian Teaching by St. Augustine as counterpoints.

I'm reading Purge by Sofi Oksanen, set in Estonia and excellent so far and a dark police procedural, Black Fly Season by Giles Blunt.

85. I'm always up for "another bleak and cold Icelandic mystery/police procedural", unfortunately link goes to Groovy Tube Books about animals. ;-(
Also no Arctic Chill on search. Just curious. Sounds interesting.

Arctic Chill, a particularly fussy touchstone.

Robert

Thanks. I liked Jar City. I'll check out the rest of
Indridason.

#88 - I love The Great Indian Novel - hope you enjoy the rest of it as much!

Reviewed The Quickening. In the next couple days I should post a review for Le Clézio's The Prospector - assuming I like what I have written so far.

Also, finished River of Lost Footsteps. I've picked up Tinkers, the 2010 Pulitzer fiction winner, and Fidel, an Early Reviewer, by Argentinian author Néstor Kohan, with illustrations on every page by Nahuel Scherma. (It's advertised as a graphic novel, but the words exist outside the illustrations). I'm really enjoying Tinkers. Fidel is...it's like how I picture angry communists writing in like 1913 or maybe 1933; it's just so openly biased that I'm not sure it has any value or that I'll read much of it.

Also, for poetry I'm now reading a 2004 winter edition of the Sulphur River Literary Review, edited by James Michael Robbins.

Dan, what did you think of River of Lost Footsteps? I've had that on the TBR since I read The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly but it hasn't worked its way up to the top yet.

Rebecca - I had The Lizard Cage in mind while reading. I highly recommend it. For what I was looking for, it did everything right, mixing ancient myth and ancient, modern and personal history. If your main interest is in modern Burma, there is a lot there. If your main interest in it's history, there's enough there the get you very interested - Burma was kind of a maritime crossroads, getting influences from China, Portugal, Mughal India, south India, Japan, the Netherlands, etc.... all at the same time.

Thanks, Dan. That sounds like a great mixture. I guess I'll have to fit it in somehow!