Group Reading Log: October 2010

Started Room by Emma Donoghue last night, and am already about 1/3 of the way through it. Once you get into the swing of the writing (it's narrated by a five year old boy), it's quite gripping.

I'm enjoying The Fry Chronicles very much.

my wife has been eyeing off "Richard Castle's" Heat Wave since it arrived a couple of weeks ago and since it wouldn't be right to allow her to read any book before me I'm starting it tonight :)

Have just finished the HUGE tome The Passage by Justin Cronin. After (for me) a slow and tedious start I really enjoyed the second part - lots of loose threads that will obviously revealed elsewhere in the proposed trilogy.

I hope the Richard Castle novel is fun! I like the TV show, and I *love* that they've published books under his name. :)

I've heard various things about The Passage. I'll probably get around to reading it at some stage!

Room is completely compelling, and a very easy read. Will be finishing it tonight. But I do have to say it's suffering in comparison to my previous reads: The Earth Hums in B Flat was a much better use of a young narrator who misunderstands what is happening; and Boyhood was a much truthier (damn you, Stephen Colbert) depiction of childhood and its emotions. But the plot suckers you in on this one, and it's certainly easy on the eyes, so to speak.

Whizzed through Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - very happy with the end of the trilogy. Now reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Hm, I thought I wrote an entry here last night! I must've gotten distracted and forgotten to actually click Submit. Oh well.

I finished Room and found the second half less compelling. It's still an interesting read, but I'm one of the few who is not raving about it. I just got a bit restless with the second half. Shame, because the first half was edge-of-your-seat reading.

Then slowly worked my way through A Clockwork Orange. A very difficult read, I think I'm glad I've read it. (Like I *think* I'm glad I've seen the movie adaptation, if only because I have a very good excuse to not sit through it again.)

And am now reading Lovesong for book group, and also picked up Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway as it (and the next two) are due back at the library this weekend.

I'm reading Tutankhamun Uncovered by Michael J. Marfleet which is very long and rather boring so I have diversified and read The God of the Hive by Laurie R King and at the moment am reading The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz.

It is a quick and easy read, after which I will go back to Howard Carter and his tomb in all its unnecessary detail. Want to know exactly how to mummify a corpse? This is the book for you ...

Hm, I must admit, there's a part of me saying "yes!" to your final question, pinkozcat. :) But only a small part, the rest of me knows what you mean.

Raced through Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway and Lucifer: Children and Monsters, and am now reading Lucifer: Dalliance with the Damned.

Lucifer is of course the Devil, but this takes off from his role in the Sandman series. While not written by Gaiman, it has a lot of Gaiman-ness to it, and I'm enjoying them very much.

The opening story of the third book concerns Lilith, the mother of the Lilim and Adam's first wife. (She was a bit bolshy, to say the least, so ditched him and went off and had little demon babies.) Now, I know this is established legend, but I got down and dusted off my copy of the Bible and double-checked, and it's definitely not in Genesis. Anyone know where these legends come from, if they're not in the King James bible?? Should I be looking into Jewish legends? Or are they taken from some non-monotheistic religion (although it's hard to think which one).

ETA: Damnit, I should have just gone to Wikipedia straight away. :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith

I think that you will find Lilith in the Apocrapha but don't quote me on that.

Thanks, pink, I'll check that out. I also scanned the beginning of Genesis this afternoon, and there's no Lucifer being thrown down into Hell. But that is surely part of the Christian Old Testament as well?? I'm all confused, but will see if I can find a copy of the Apocrawhatsit. (That's extra to the Bible, right?)

It's about now that I regret my lack of religious education. But not the Sunday morning sleep-ins. :)

It is some of the bits which they left out. it is probably online - try google.

Try googling 'Lilith + Adam' and you might get the story without having to read through everything else.

Ahah, a couple of the Literary Snobs here reckon it's Milton's Paradise Lost that really codified Lucifer's fall from grace. It'll be on my shelves (for reference only, I can't see myself really reading a 1000 page poem!!!) sometime rsn.

Finished off Lucifer: A Dalliance with the Damned, Lucifer: The Divine Comedy, and Lucifer: Inferno. Good stuff, on a par with the Sandman series (although I really MUST re-read those!). Have the next two in the series requested as interlibrary loans.

And Alex Miller's Lovesong, one of the Miles Franklin shortlisted books for 2010 (anyone else want to join in the bookrings? Includes Jasper Jones, one of my favourite books of recent times - see http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/tqd for some out of date details (whoops)). I've only read one of Miller's books before, Landscape of Farewell and while it was *good*, it didn't completely grab me. This one I enjoyed more, although afterwards I did pick it apart a bit (same quibbles as with his previous book: the motivations of the characters don't always convince me). But while reading it, I was absorbed.

Am now juggling Not Untrue and Not Unkind (shortlisted for last year's Booker!) and Remake by Connie Willis.

I have given up on Tutankhamun Uncovered. It became altogether too absurd.

See my review:

http://www.librarything.com/work/10513489

and DON'T BUY THE BOOK.

I'm not sure what I will read next. I have a couple of real books and three e-books all awaiting my attention. Watch this space ...

Sounds tragically ghastly. Thanks for the warning!

I finished Remake, and I did enjoy it. A good satire of modern Hollywood.

Will now concentrate on Not Untrue and Not Unkind which has been sadly neglected due to lack of sleep. (*yawn* and TGIF.)

I'm reading another e-book, A Plague of Heretics by Bernard Knight and really enjoying it. It is one of those medieval mysteries where the investigators have to use their brains rather than relying on fingerprints and DNA.

I gathered from the blurb at the beginning that it is one of a series so I'll be searching out the rest of them at some stage.

Have been away and not done too much reading but I've been listening to Mark Tully's India .... (very interesting) ... Also I've only just started We Need to talk about Kevin .... which is for bookclub. (I am not too sure about it yet ..... on p80 and will see how it goes.... )

I am interested to read Remake. There's not much of Connie Willis's writing I've not liked.
I've just got around to reading Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro. I don't generally like short stories, but these reflective pieces are just so good, and self-contained that I do find them satisfying. (That's what I generally don't like about short stories is that I want more.)
We Need to Talk About Kevin has to rate as one of the most disturbing books I've read in the past few years. So disturbing that I've not been able to discuss it. Ever.

#18> livrecache, I'll grab your address and pop Remake in the post. I was just going to put it in the Oz VBB again anyhow, may as well cut out the middle man. :)

And agreed, I refuse to talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin either. Fingers in the ears, lalalalalala, I'm not listening.

Well, Not Untrue and Not Unkind took an age and a half. It's one of the Booker bookrings, and was perfectly good, but lacked some background info (too much assumption that I knew about African geography and wars of the 1990s, not to mention journalism and newspaper offices). And the timeline was not clear, it wasn't until 2/3s of the way through that I suddenly worked out which decade we were in. But it was interesting, and had a rich vein of cynicism that half appalled me, and half amused me.

Moving on to The Private Lives of Pippa Lee which I got from jeniwren through the Oz VBB and she sends out great books, which then fester on my shelves for far too long. Well, not this time! Turned up the other day, and I'm reading it now!

I have decided to read 30 pgs a day of We Need to Talk about Kevin ..... it is like doing some sort of penance ..... I've even skipped some days ..... now on p150 .... Our meeting is on the 3rd............ I have looked at the questions at the back of the book to try and boost up some enthusiasm .... (sigh!)

Those Lucifer books look interesting. Do you need to have read Sandman to 'get' them?

I have finished reading Encyclopedia of the Unexplained: Magic, Occultism and Parapsychology edited by Richard Cavendish. This is no mere collection of information for the lay reader, but a comprehensive encyclopaedia of knowledge relating to magic, occultism and parapsychology. It is set up, like any other encyclopaedia, with subjects in alphabetical order and cross-referenced with other relevant entries. This is definitely not a cover-to-cover kind of book, but one to have sitting on the shelf to reference when reading other books on the subjects covered.

My only complaint is that, being published in 1974, much of the information is rather dated. While this book is still useful to some extent, I would recommend sourcing more recent volumes if you have more than a passing fancy.

I am currently reading The Wild, Unwilling Wife by Barbara Cartland, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.

#20 Wow, Carole, our reactions to We Need to Talk About Kevin are quite different. I don't think I missed a word; I couldn't. I found it gripping. Totally gripping. But I can't talk about it!
I've finished Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro (NOT John Connolly), which I recommend, although I do think you need to be over a certain age and in a particular head space to see where he's coming from. In fact, that is a bit of an indictment. If it's good, it should have a more broad-ranging appeal.
But I've found recently that in reading books such as Breath by Tim Winton that it is writers coming to terms with their mortality/their no longer being young (that's probably more accurate) that underpins their work. That works for me as a reader in the same age bracket, but I don't think it's a valid literary device. Device is perhaps the wrong word. Definitely in fact, but I don't want to think about what something pertaining to my own life means, and find that's how I connect with the writing. That's very restrictive for a writer.

livrecache, I think We need to Talk About Kevin is an excellent book for it has got my attention to the point that it has been emotionally overwhelming for me to read .....I find it extremely disturbing. Perhaps reading it in stages isn't a good thing, for it is dragging on... leaving me time to process the content. At the same time, it is a page turner for the 30 pages are over in a flash ........ and then I deliberately put it aside. Having said that, I have now got to the stage where I need to finish it ..... but feel sick about the whole thing.
To change the subject, I was on star-light's book-ring last year and loved reading The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng, who was originally from Malaysia. While in recently in Penang, I came across an interesting article in a magazine http://www.penangeconomicmonthly.com/selected/may10/PEM_MAY_2010_penang%20fictio... with rather negative comments about the book and also Tash Aw's Map of the Invisible World ... which I do want to read.... (I read Harmony Silk Factory last year and loved it. Oh dear ... so many books to read .... and not enough time!!

Finally finished Parrot and Olivier in America. It is very well written but the character Olivier is just a bit too pompous - as he is meant to be.
Whipped through Child 44 a great crime thriller - longlisted for the booker in 2008.
Also have enjoyed By Grand central station I sat down and wept amazing poetic prose.
Trying to decide which bookring to pick up next, maybe The Siege of Krishnapur.
>12 wookiebender: WB I might have to look into those MF bookrings!

#21> You don't need to have read the Sandman series to "get" Lucifer, although they are similar in style and content (so if you know you don't like Sandman, don't waste your time!). Most of Lucifer's back story in Sandman is covered, but basically he ditched being the ruler of Hell, had his wings chopped off (by Morpheus, aka Sandman), and is currently running a piano bar in LA. It feels as if it started straight from where he left Sandman. (I haven't read all of Sandman, and don't remember Lucifer from the ones I have read, so I think you'll be right. :)

We've gotten the first five from the local library. The next two are inter-library loans...

#24> KimB, please join in! We've got all the books, apart from the Brian Castro one. (He seems a rather experimental/dense writer, I don't think any of us are too keen for that one. How shallow we are!)

Jasper Jones was a great read, I did enjoy Lovesong, and I've got The Book of Emmett on Mt TBR.

I am enjoying The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and have also picked up The Poet (recommended by SherlockFan at the Sydney (un)Convention BBQ on Friday night) as my downstairs read. Good gripping thriller, so far.

#24 I whipped through Child44 too, Kim. I thought it was great as a crime thriller, but it surprised me that it got on the Booker list.

Meant to finsh my entry before I posted . . .

#25 I agree with SherlockFan that The Poet is a really good thriller. And the follow up is equally good – The Narrows. Once I discovered Michael Connolly, I went back to reading that genre – one that I thought that I'd done with.
Now that I've admitted that, I have to say that I'm reading the Dexter series (the first of which is Darkly Dreaming Dexter). That came as a result of the TV series, which I loved. I'm not liking the novels as much, but that often happens when you have preconceived ideas about characterisation and the plotline.

(edited for the typos I noticed)

I preferred Dexter on TV to the Dexter books. It was just rather creepy being in his head in a book. From memory, it's not first person, but it's all from his point of view. Seeing it on TV reduced that creepiness, as we were out of his head. I was also a little worried that the second book was falling into cliche: Dexter kills a bad guy, Dexter says something funny-because-it's-true about the state of humanity, repeat ad infinitum. But I haven't read further, maybe that was just me.

I'm kind of enjoying The Poet. The paedophiliac is creeping me out, I wish he wasn't there in the plot. (Not sure how he's fitting into the plot yet either, and that's creeping me out more, the knowledge that the murder investigation will coincide with paedophiliacs at some stage.)

In between, I finished The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and thought it was *marvellous*. And started and finished Travels with Herodotus (due back at the library) which had a great start, but towards the end it pretty much just trailed off into a retelling of Herodotus' Histories, so less exciting there. Still worth a read though, if only to have the story of 300 reduced to a couple of paragraphs. :)

I have finished reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. This book came highly recommended and I was not disappointed. Catch-22 is weird, mixed up, irrational and bewildering, but totally sane. Some parts provoked thought, some parts provoked confusion, some parts provoked laughter, all parts were entertaining. I absolutely recommend it.

I am still reading The Wild, Unwilling Wife, Jude the Obscure and The Gone-Away World.

I have finished The Wild, Unwilling Wife by Barbara Cartland. This is a short, light read and is good for when you don't really want to think too much. It is not explicit, so if you read romances for titillation you will be disappointed. This is an old-fashioned romance that leaves the sexual stuff to the imagination. This was an easy and enjoyable read.

I am still reading The Gone-Away World and Jude the Obscure.

I am reading romance too Over the moon an anthology of paranormal romance by Angela Knight et al. Am not reading it for titillation - but there is lot of hand fanning going on in some of the romantic scenes - not Barbara Cartland at all!!