**What Are You Reading Now? -- December 2012

Next year lilisin takes over kicking off these threads. I should feel a touch of relief, but actually, I feel a little sad posting this last thread of the year...

Anyway, let us know how you are finishing your year. May books continue to work their unique magic on all of you.

Hi Dan, these threads have been great to catch up on what other people are reading.

I have started The Burnt Ones by Patrick White, which is a collection of his short stories.

I'm finishing Peter Pan and starting Paris to the Moon. Two older books that most people have probably forgotten about.

Time for the last challenge for the year if someone is interested: http://www.librarything.com/topic/145313 :)

On topic: I am reading The Grey King.

>3 Nickelini:
I LOVE Peter Pan :)

Nickelini, I really liked Paris to the Moon and I'll look forward to reading what you think.

Tonight I plan to finish Baudolino. I've spent the month with Umberto Eco and have just a few pages to go.

dchaikin - If you ever want them back, they're yours! ;)

I'm reading Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. A tome but a fun one!

Thanks for keeping these threads going all year, Dan. And thanks to lilisin for taking them on next year. It's a great way to keep up with what everyone is reading.

I just finished Baudolino by Eco and hope to finish Les Liaisons Dangereuses this weekend. I'm also starting a Tracy Chevalier novel called Remarkable Creatures.

Dan, if you feel a little sad posting the last thread of the year, you could volunteer for the bimonthly interesting article threads for 2013, the last "job" still unfilled!

My first book of December, which I finished this morning, was Bottomfeeder, by B.H. Fingerman, a vampire story with an entertainingly seedy atmosphere, but a somewhat disappointingly thin plot. I've now started The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales, an ER book I just got. So far, I'm really liking it.

Reading Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, Traversa A Solo Walk Across Africa, from the Skeleton Coast to the Indian Ocean by Fran Sandham & Open Door: A Poet Lore Anthology 1980 — 1986...making slow progress through OMF.

Also have the idea of catching up on the nine books I haven't reviewed yet and ending the year clean...it's a nice idea.

#6 - all yours lilisin...

for those who missed it, Rebecca kicked off Club Read 2013

Finished Kayak Morning yesterday.

I am in the middle of:
Safe as Houses and Mothers by Jennifer Gilmore.

Plan to read this month:
Interventions and Dear Life month others. I need to decide on an engrossing novel for during break.

I've just finished the harrowing The People of the Abyss by Jack London about the wretched poverty existing in London at the height of Britain's imperial power. Also, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach, and Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer. I'm about a hundred pages into The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell, not too impressed so far. Broch's philosophical novel The Spell is providing the balance.

I pulled out the Pearl rule and abandoned Paris to the Moon at page 50. It just wasn't doing anything for me. Now on to Away, by Jane Urhuhart, which has also been on Mnt TBR forever. It was recently nominated for Canada Reads 2013, so I'll get a jump on the contest.

I've just read and reviewed the The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge, a story told by the five men who died in the Scott expedition to the South Pole, and the misogynistic yet weirdly compelling Les Diaboliques by Barbey D'Aurevilly.

Like Bragan, I'm reading The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales, as well as The Queen of the South by Arturo Perez Reverte.

I've finished Baudolino by Umberto Eco, which was a wild ride of a tale, with a twist in it that threw me on my head.

Just finished the wonderfully complex Japanese Science Fiction novel Ten Billion Days and Hundred Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse.

The rest of the year I'm going to try to finish off some the non-fiction I have going, and plan out 2013 to the extent I plan things.

ETA: I also have to comment on The Druid's Son that I finished last month.

#17 - I've been trying to review that too...The Druid's Son.

I am alternating The Grey King (which so far is weaker than the previous ones but good in its own right), The Trinity Game (is there any of the Thrillers/Mystery authors that did not tackle a similar topic... although this one is not as cliched as most of them) and Largo Winch in comic form.

I have the last forty pages of the Norton Critical Edition of Frankenstein to finish, but I think it might be taking forever. I also have a stack of magazines that may not be contemporary when I get to them. There are three long books I would like to face and that are at hand or almost so: Infinite Jest for a group read starting with the new year, Les Miserables to prepare for the movie, and Our Mutual Friend to piggy back on the discussion in Le Salon. I'd like to start my three book reading of Faust sometime soon.

I am posting this to point the finger of blame right back at myself.

Robert

Robert - Where is the IJ group read? And that is not enough extra-long books...only four coming up.

Dan, you're a member here. The reading starts officially on January 1, 2013. You don't need to respond, but the RSVP thread is here.

Robert

Thanks!

>>IJ

I think half of the active members of Club Read have already signed up...

Yesterday I finished two books, The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon, a superb story about a formerly illiterate farm girl with a bum leg in 1830s England who is sent by her hardhearted father to work as a maid for the local vicar. She learns to read and write there and experiences a different and more refined life than the one she had on the farm, but trouble does not escape from her.

I also read Tough Heaven: Poems of Pittsburgh by the recently deceased poet Jack Gilbert, which was doubly disappointing in that it contained only 22 short poems, most of which I didn't enjoy, and it cost $15.

Today I'm reading The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima, the 4th quarter mini-author in the Author Theme Reads group.

>25 kidzdoc:
And you have some interesting current reading going on there.

I finally posted my review of The Cage: the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers on my thread. I think there are three of us here at ClubRead who are reviewing this ER book.

In other reading, I'm trying to get the audio book of The Year of the Flood by Atwood transferred onto my iPhone.

It seems that December is starting out as a very productive reading month for me. I just zipped through Oliver Sacks' The Mind's Eye, which was interesting but not as much so as some of his earlier books, and have now started Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. I'm only one chapter into that, but so far it's lovely.

>26 edwinbcn: Thanks, Edwin.

I finished The Sound of the Waves yesterday, which was a pleasant but somewhat pedestrian adolescent love story set in a fishing village in postwar Japan. Today I'm reading Mo said she was quirky by James Kelman, which was selected as the 2012 Scottish Book of the Year last week.

LOVING Russo's Interventions!

>29 kidzdoc: Looking forward to hearing about the Kelman book. It's on my list for next year.

I finished and reviewed The Tunnel by the Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato. Then today I stumbled across an ebook of a monograph titled Quantum Mechanics and Literature: An Analysis of El Túnel by Ernesto Sábato. My knowledge of quantum physics is very limited, but it's only 25 pages so I'm going to give it a try.

I'm still reading stories from JCO's Black Dahlia and White Rose, and settling in nicely with One Day the Ice Will Reveal Its Dead (Wegener is back in Greenland with thoughts of Pangea in his head). I'm only reading at bedtime, so progress is slow.

I have been dipping into Patrick White: A Life all year by David Marr and so now I am going to get this biography read.

I seem actually to be reading Les Miserables. I have no idea whether I will finish it before the movie comes out.

Robert

I've been having some problems finishing books lately. My solution to that is to start new books which isn't helping. So currently reading -

The Petty Demon - Fyodor Sologub
Little Apple - Leo Perutz
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
The Whisperers - Orlando Figes
Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh - Mo Yan
Begin Again - Kenneth Silverman
Unclay - T.F. Powys

I'm holding my Breath (and incidentally missing my stop on the bus).

I charged my Kindle, which I asked a friend to buy for me in the US, for the first time this week, and enjoyed the reading of the first five chapters of Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You by Ray Bradbury.

I finished The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi today, which was a really smart take on near-future Thailand. I've started reading Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen, which written in the most mellifluous style. Also reading the last book of The Faerie Queene, and Edmund Spenser: A Life by Andrew Hadfield.

I'm reading La Nouvelle Héloïse from Jean Jacques Rousseau and at the same time I'm reading Gossip Girl from Cecile von Ziegesar.

wow Goldy hope you don't get yourself confused between those two books.

I'm reading The Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte and The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales. I'm also listening to Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson when I'm forced by circumstance to do housework.

Despite having seen so many versions of it, I've never actually read Pride and Prejudice. I'm almost done rectifying that oversight. Still making my way through Three Men in a Boat, largely because it isn't on "my" computer, so I've got spotty access to it. I've started La Révolte des accents, but put it aside in favor of Austen.

@ baswood: no, I like to read two books at the same time. La Nouvelle Héloïse is a book where I have to concentrate me, because it is in French and that doens't make it easier (I'm Belgian) and I like to change it with Gossip Girl because that is brainless and you don't need to think to much.

I'm reading The Robber Bride after seeing some great reviews for it this year. Enjoying it so far!

I've just finished and reviewed the fascinating Scandal by Shūsaku Endō , a look into the dark corners of the human psyche.

#45 I'm reading The Robber Bride after seeing some great reviews for it this year. Enjoying it so far!

Ah, my favourite Atwood!

I just finished Away by Jane Urquhart, which I thought was wonderful and wonder how I let it languish on my TBR pile for so many years. Now I'm starting The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan.

I just started A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness. It will probably take me through the month of December and possibly into January as it is a big book and I am a slow reader. I think I will like it.

>48 nightraine56:

I read it earlier this year and I really liked it. And the second one is also fun :)

I am reading My Bookstore, which is taking me down memory lane - revisiting book selling friends and authors I hosted over my 20 years a s bookseller. Two of the former Schwartz Bookshops (where I worked) stores are included - Boswell Book Company and Next Chapter Bookshop - although at this point, only one - Boswell - remains.

I just started Jamrach's Menagerie . I finished Out of Oz today.

I am in Dresden-land with Cold Days.

I'm reading Going to the Dogs: The Story of a Moralist by Erich Kästner.

I'm early in Zone One by Colson Whitehead. I'm not a reader of zombies or post-apocalypse but am a Whitehead enthusiast.

I have just started reading Affinity by Sarah Waters.

I've finished Going to the Dogs: The Story of a Moralist (not recommended), and I'm now reading Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker, another book I received as part of my NYRB Book Club subscription.

I finished the fabulous One Day the Ice will Reveal All Its Dead and I continue to pick away at the stories of Black Dahlia and White Rose by Oates. I've also picked up Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell, a novel expansion of one of her short stories from her terrific collection American Salvage (which I really enjoyed).

Finished The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan and now I've picked up The Romantic by Barbara Gowdy. Still listening to Year of the Flood on audiobook.

I'm reading Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre, a true story about a British double agent in WWII that I probably would have thought a bit far-fetched if it were fiction.

Loved Agent Zigzag!

Back to Dear Life. Good, but looking forward to the last 4 pieces, as I hear they are the best.

I've finished and reviewed another novel by Shūsaku Endō, the moving When I Whistle.

Reading Dear Life and My Heart is an Idiot

I finished Agent Zigzag and am now reading John Scalzi's The Android's Dream, which so far is very silly, but I think in a good way.

Taking a light read on with The children Of Captain Grant

I am reading Charles Dickens's Hard Times.

I'm reading Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh, a collection of short stories by Mo Yan.

I finished reading The Spell by Hermann Broch, also J.G. Farrell's The Singapore Grip which I thought was the weakest of his Empire trilogy. Current reads are In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin, and Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire.

I have started The Twyborn Affair by Patrick White

I just finished and reviewed the thoroughly fun Jack Sheppard.

Great review, Rebecca! It's on my tbr pile, still to be read.

Just read and reviewed the short Snark by David Denby, and now I'm on to another short one, The Boy at the Hogarth Press, by Richard Kennedy. I'm reading a few short ones to line up something longer and juicier for the days through Christmas (I've tried this with mixed results over previous years).

My last book finished and reviewed was Scandal by Shûsaku Endô.

I have four books in progress that I'd like to finish by year's end:

The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
The Isles: A History by Norman Davies
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi

I just finished SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable by Bruce M. Hood, which was flawed, but nevertheless very interesting. I've now started another SF novel, The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid by Rebecca Ore. Next up: Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times by Geoffry Nunberg. Which might or might not take me to the end of the year.

I'm still working through the stories of Black Dahlia and White Rose but am also reading Stars of the Long Night by Nigerian author Tanure Ojaide. So far, it's pretty good.

Finally finished Our Mutual Friend, my first Dickens. Now on to something else...but what?

Our Mutual Friend is a ..... long.... choice for a first Dickens!

I'm reading Dickens too, but this one is a reread for me. I have an annotated edition of A Christmas Carol. We've seen so many different versions of it on TV this year that I thought it was time for a review of what came from the novel, and where the film was taking liberalities (to use a Dickensish word).

I read V Is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton, more or less because I've been reading her alphabet series since she started in the early 80s.

>77 Nickelini: - Joyce, I'm also reading A Christmas Carol, but I haven't seen any movies about it in a while (I was worried that the Jim Carrey one would merely be a vehicle for Mr Carrey).

Just finished the excellent biography, Edmund Spenser: A Life by Andrew Hadfield.

#79 - I wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, and I didn't find Jim Carrey as overpowering as I expected either. It was on TV, so it cost me nothing but time. Colin Firth plays the nephew, and I found those bits enjoyable.

What a good idea to read A Christmas Carol. I should read it with the kids tonight.

#77 yes, long. I enjoyed the reading of it, but still, there was a lot of it to read.

psst - Bas started a few year in review threads:
**2012 A reading year(Best reads and stats)
My Favourite Threads (For Americans, there should be a {Sic} after 'u' infected favourite)

I have for no good reason not read much in the past couple of months. I have set out to read a few things but not gotten all the way through much. I go over LibraryThing threads way too much; I play Mahjong Titans on my laptop a little too much; and I spend way too much time playing Bejewelled on my Nook Color. I could condense that and still get most of the satisfaction I look for from doing those things; I think that I will have to force myself.

So, I have started The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt, but barely. It is for discussion in the church book group on the first Wednesday of January. I should be able to do that.

Robert

I finally dug into Building Stories while things were quiet around here this Christmas Eve aft.

Merry Christmas everyone! Early this morning I finished This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz, and I'm currently 1/4 of the way through The Land at the End of the World by António Lobo Antunes, which I'll finish later today.

Following Rebecca, I have started reading Jack Sheppard, but probably won't be able to finish it before the end of the year.

In preparation for the year-long author Emile Zola, of whom I have never read anything, for the Author Theme Reads group, I am now reading The Cambridge companion to Emile Zola.

I am in the middle of Building Stories and Dear Life. But I might put those two aside to spend the afternoon with Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.

I've started The Damned, which was a Club Read recommendation, as I realized I have to read it when I can read at home, since the cover (see below) is unsuitable for subway reading!

I am currently reading The Gift of Acabar - a little book I found hidden on my bookshelf here. It's an odd little parable with all the symbols of Christmas in it - transposed in a unique and creative way. Should finish it soon.

I just finished King Leopold's Ghost and am in the middle of The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. I think I'll start Heart of Darkness next to supplement the Congo reading.

I breezed through a humorous volume called How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You shortly before Christmas, and am now reading The Annotated Peter Pan: The Centennial Edition. I hadn't read Peter Pan since I was a little kid, so it's proving interesting.

Vacations and travels help reading :)

Finished Cold Days (Butcher pulled the "kill your hero but let him be still alive" stint and it actually worked - I was not fan of last year's book but this one is Dresden back to form), Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (which annoyed me more than anything else), Dead End in Norvelt (which was good) and Breaking Stalin's Nose (good for the most part although some elements were exaggerated to the point where they went into the grotesque - mainly the narrators choice of seeing things (or not))...

Reading Silver on the Tree and The Stranger You Seek just now - which might end up being the last two books for this year (although with that weekend at the end of the year, maybe not)...

I have just time to read Patrick White's last novel before the end of the year. It is a bit of luck that Memoirs of Many in One is by far his shortest at just 192 pages.

I put down Hard Times for a bit, but I will probably finish it eventually. I received a Nook as a Christmas gift and purchased Sea of Poppies as my first ebook for it. I am about 180 pages into that book now.

Finished Silver on the Tree last night and really love the whole sequence. Will post more about it later.

Started The Neutronium Alchemist which short of a miracle will keep me busy at least until the New year's eve...

I've read and reviewed The Damned by J.-K. Huysmans, a strange book about the darker angles of spiritualism in 1890s Paris and 15th century France.

Just finished Traversa by Fran Sandham, a journal about walking across Africa.

I'm reading Casino Royale, my first foray into reading a James Bond book, and rereading Anna Karenina, a favorite of mine that I received in a beautiful Folio Society edition for Christmas.

Just finished The Alchemaster's Apprentice and, in what I am guessing will finish out 2012 and start 2013, have decided to try Icelandic crime. Happy times ahead!

Going to finish the year the way I started it: with Steinbeck! Started the short novel The Pearl and hope to start and finish Sweet Thursday soon.

I've read and reviewed Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Round House, a compulsively readable coming of age story with crime, injustice, and revenge thrown in.

I seem to be reading Miami by Joan Didion, and I seem to be on a non-fiction kick. Next in mind is the new-ish biography of David Foster Wallace and then the new-ish biography of Steve Jobs...but that's for 2013.

I seem to be having a nice little burst of reading going on as the year ends. I've just finished National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West, and The 1983 Annual World's Best SF, and am now on Penn Jillette's God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales. Next up is Jim Butcher's latest Dresden Files novel, Cold Days, which should take me into next year.

I've been in a book slump but recently finished The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman and Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Will probably be finishing a number of books that I wanted to finish this month next year.

I finished my 2012 reading year on a strong note with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

I also have a strong book to finish with, the poetic I Could Read The Sky in which an Irishman, now a lonely alcoholic living in Kentish Town, looks back over his childhood in Ireland and his life working as a labourer in England.

I wish that I Could Read the Sky were available in a paperback new from Barny Noble.

Robert

My last book of the year! I just finished and reviewed The Stammering Century by Gilbert Seldes, a strange book about strange people in a strange time -- who might not be so different from us or our time.

I also finished the year strongly, as I finished my 21st book of the month last night: Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics by David Grossman, a short but superb and beautifully written collection of essays about literature, the art of writing, the experience of everyday Israelis in a state of perpetual siege (along with their even more besieged Palestinian neighbors), and the failure of politicians on both sides of the conflict to expend the same effort and dedication to peace as they do to retaliating against the other side. It's one of the best collections of essays I've read this year, and it was a great book to close the year with.

The new January 2013 thread is here. Happy New Year!