*** August - What are you reading?

ForumClub Read 2013

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*** August - What are you reading?

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1lilisin
Jul. 31, 2013, 11:03 am

August! The last month before the -ber's come back. Makes me feel frigid and cold already. So enjoy the heat if you're up north and enjoy a good book. No haikus this time. August is for being lazy after all. (At least I think so.)

2RidgewayGirl
Aug. 1, 2013, 5:31 am

I'm reading This Must Be the Place by Anna Winger, which I chose because it was the only book on my shelf set in Germany that wasn't about WWII, Nazis, the Cold War or dead people. There are, apparently, no books about an English speaker settling down in some charming German backwater and telling us about the whimsical behavior of the natives.

3SassyLassy
Aug. 1, 2013, 8:02 am

>2 RidgewayGirl: RG, There are, apparently, no books about an English speaker settling down in some charming German backwater and telling us about the whimsical behavior of the natives. I like that.
You could try Elizabeth von Arnim, very Edwardian.

4baswood
Aug. 1, 2013, 5:20 pm

RidgewayGirl - Have you spotted a gap in the market?

5avidmom
Aug. 1, 2013, 8:53 pm

I'm reading (or trying to anyway - I'm in one of those odd places where focusing on anything takes a major effort) The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

6dchaikin
Bearbeitet: Aug. 2, 2013, 12:09 am

On an English antiquarian kick. Just finished The Trophies of Time : English Antiquarians of the Seventeenth Century by Graham Parry, which was ridiculously enjoyable considering the sometimes dry reading. I'm now reading William Stukeley : Science, Religion and Archaeology in Eighteenth-Century England by David Boyd Haycock, which serves as a continuation, but with a Isaac Newton added. The cool thing with Stukeley is that now I am somewhat familiar with this blitz of names in the chapter on his background.

Interesting book-buying note about the William Stukeley book. I've wanted it for a while, but didn't want to spend the $100 it sells for online (I recently found it for $67 on a print-on-demand). Well, I found it for free, online, the entire book. And that's how I'm reading it. (here: http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=135&name=33 )

7NanaCC
Aug. 2, 2013, 6:02 am

I'm headed to Cape Cod for two weeks, so August will be a month for light reading, I think.

I just started The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, and I have planned Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. Other than those two, my Kindle is full, so I guess it will depend upon what hits me when I'm ready. I have about 260 books loaded, so there is quite a variety to choose from.

8rebeccanyc
Aug. 2, 2013, 8:39 am

I'm still happily plugging away at Kristin Lavransdatter and expect to be doing so for the next several weeks. Reading some more transportable books too.

9Polaris-
Aug. 2, 2013, 7:52 pm

Listening to Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana on the way home from work at the moment. My first Greene since I was 18. Enjoying it so far - except for the awful modern Cuban jazz jingle (I mean plasticky sounding synthesiser latin jazz - NOT exactly Ibrahim Ferrer or Buena Vista Social Club sadly!!) between each and EVERY chapter. Why??!! Totally unnecessary and makes it feel like I'm listening to a Cuban special of the Dick Barton Radio Show or something... The person responsible at Clipper Audio should be sacked!

10bragan
Aug. 2, 2013, 8:10 pm

I'm reading Revenge of the Spellmans, book three in Lisa Lutz's light, fluffy, fun Spellmans series. I've been kind of stressed out lately, so it seemed like exactly what I needed.

And I am in the strange position of having absolutely no idea what I want to read when I finish that one. Usually I at least have a few possibilities in mind, but right now, I've got 676 books on the TBR Pile, and none of them is leaping out at me.

11Mr.Durick
Aug. 3, 2013, 5:03 pm

I've started The Mystery of Existence and suspect that I'll continue in it. But I also suspect that I'll pick up something else to read at the same time. Among other things, the Post Office expects to deliver The Decay of the Angel on Monday.

Robert

12SaintSunniva
Aug. 3, 2013, 5:22 pm

>9 Polaris-: The person responsible at Clipper Audio should be sacked!

I had a dramatized recording of the New Testament that had the most dreadful "original soundtrack" I have ever heard.

It was SO bad, so annoying, it made me hate the whole thing. I finally got rid of it, the set of CDs, I mean. There were also some strange things, like where an OT passage was quoted "...the voice of the turtle dove is heard in the land," except the speaker left off DOVE.

"...the voice of the turtle..." I could not stop pondering it.

One book I am reading at present is The Terrorists of Irustan. And for my IRL book clubs, I've just finished The Brothers Karamazov and The Ear of the Heart.

13SaintSunniva
Aug. 3, 2013, 5:26 pm

>2 RidgewayGirl: RidgewayGirl ...some charming German backwater.

Thanks for mentioning this book which I'd never heard of! I was in Germany 2 years ago, and managed to only be in backwaters, to my great enjoyment.

I hope they have it at the library.

14Polaris-
Aug. 4, 2013, 11:56 am

>12 SaintSunniva:

"...the voice of the turtle..." That would have kept me pondering as well! Very often the best soundtrack should surely be no soundtrack...

15dchaikin
Aug. 4, 2013, 12:13 pm

Puts a new twist on discworld.

16fuzzy_patters
Aug. 4, 2013, 12:30 pm

I'm reading The Trial of Dr. Kate by Michael E. Glasscock III, which I received through Early Reviewers. I am also rereading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway because I am helping my school's academic decathlon team, and this is the decathlon novel this year.

17rebeccanyc
Aug. 4, 2013, 1:12 pm

I've recently finished and reviewed two nonfiction books: Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier, about our economic and technological future in the era of the "fake free" and "Siren Servers," and Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker, about five young women who were lost even before they turned to prostitution and were murdered and dumped along a lonely Long Island road by a serial killer.

18Polaris-
Aug. 4, 2013, 3:40 pm

Just starting some much needed short stories by Larry Brown - Facing the Music. This was his first published work (1988).

19baswood
Aug. 4, 2013, 5:36 pm

I am back with H G Wells and have started The Sleeper Awakes

20StevenTX
Aug. 5, 2013, 10:57 am

I finished The Sailor from Gibraltar by Marguerite Duras yesterday and have started The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier.

21rebeccanyc
Aug. 5, 2013, 11:02 am

The Lost Steps is one of my favorite books.

22SassyLassy
Aug. 5, 2013, 11:08 am

Chiming in for The Lost Steps too. I'm currently trying to decide among several contenders for which book to concentrate on.

23RidgewayGirl
Aug. 6, 2013, 9:45 am

Spent the weekend in a charming, German backwater, except that it was obsessed with the Nibelungen saga, which is utterly lacking in charm.

I'm reading Enlightened Sexism, which is interesting in a grim way, and Border Songs by Jim Lynch, which is just a lot of fun so far.

24bragan
Bearbeitet: Aug. 6, 2013, 8:13 pm

Well, I broke my "I don't know what to read next!" logjam by settling for something short and light with The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash. I've now moved on to The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin, which was been sitting on my TBR pile for years and years and years. I wish I could say it was well worth the wait, but, while readable, it's very far from Le Guin's best. Next up is Machine of Death, "a collection of stories about people who know how they will die." It's an intriguing premise, and I've encountered one or two of the stories included before in podcast form and liked them, so I'm looking forward to it.

25KimB
Aug. 7, 2013, 3:32 am

I'm reading local authors.
Recently finished Unwritten Histories, an entertaining, sometimes humorous and usually ironic, fictional treatment of some iconic moments in Australian history.

Now reading Campaign Ruby written by the daughter of our current Australian Prime Minister (an election has been announced so the PM might change soonish). It seems to be a light humorous read, in a Bridget Jones sort of way.

26dchaikin
Aug. 9, 2013, 1:26 am

Just finished Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader which was as good as advertised, but somehow much better than I expected.

27steffiindrajana
Aug. 9, 2013, 10:40 pm

just finished Princess Diaries Forever Princess by Meg Cabot . I'm starting to read the princess diaries series since my teen age and now i'm almost 25. It's sad but somehow i felt mia growing up with me. And i love the ending of this book, mia and michael together (again).

28baswood
Aug. 10, 2013, 2:23 pm

I have just started Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais in the penguin classics series. I think this may take me some time.

29dchaikin
Aug. 11, 2013, 3:39 am

Finished William Stukeley...which was based on a PhD dissertation and it shows...although the writing wasn't that bad, it's just that..well, I'll need to review it. I might pick up The Clockwork Universe next. There is a library copy in the house.

30rebeccanyc
Aug. 11, 2013, 8:05 am

I just finished and reviewed the wonderful Dersu the Trapper by V. K. Arseniev, a tale of exploration, adventure, natural history, anthropology, and two remarkable men.

31avaland
Aug. 13, 2013, 7:14 am

I'm reading yet another Peter Robinson crime novel, but also The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett. And I hope to finish I Still Believe Anita Hill now that I've found the book again :-)

32Senserial
Aug. 13, 2013, 7:24 am

I am currently reading A Storm of Swords by one of my favourite authors George R. R. Martin.

33bragan
Aug. 13, 2013, 6:44 pm

I recently read Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf, and followed that up with a brief visit to my childhood with Ellen Raskin's Figgs & Phantoms. I'm now reading Shada, the novel version of Douglas Adams' "lost" Doctor Who episode, written by Gareth Roberts. So far, it's a lot of fun.

34RidgewayGirl
Aug. 14, 2013, 4:02 am

I left the house yesterday without a book, but fortune smiled and we walked past Word's Worth, an English language bookstore in the Maxvorstadt, where I obtained Sorry by Gail Jones, which I am now reading, along with the books left at home; The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, which is much more readable than I'd anticipated, and A Hell of a Woman, which is an anthology of female-centered noir stories edited by Megan Abbott. It's an unusually strong collection.

35dmsteyn
Aug. 14, 2013, 11:56 am

Haven't been active on the forum for a while, but I have been reading. I'm busy with The Sickness Unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard, which is fascinating, despite some obscure passages. Also reading The Collected Poems by Mervyn Peake, one of my favourite authors. His poetry is probably not as strong as his prose, or as well known as his art, but it's quite enjoyable and accessible.

36Nickelini
Aug. 14, 2013, 12:38 pm

I'm slowly making my way through Night and Day by Virginia Woolf, strolling through The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud, and whipping through Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.

37avidmom
Aug. 14, 2013, 12:58 pm

Finished Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth last night. Now I'm trying to choose between a library book my son brought home, The Book of Lost Things and my own copy of Douglass and Lincoln by Paul Kendrick and/or listening to The Garden of the Evening Mists which is all ready to go on my mp3 player.

38NanaCC
Bearbeitet: Aug. 15, 2013, 6:21 am

Just finished Edith Wharton's wonderful The Custom of the Country. Next up Full House by M. J. Farrell (Molly Keane).

Edited to add that next up is Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. My daughter and daughter-in-law have just finished it, and are dying to talk about it.

39rebeccanyc
Aug. 15, 2013, 7:49 am

After almost a month of being entranced by medieval Norway, I've finally finished the wonderful Kristin Lavransdatter.

40lilisin
Aug. 15, 2013, 4:14 pm

Was on vacation for three weeks and didn't read anything for a while until Le vicomte de Bragelonne came into my hands and I couldn't stop reading. First volume (900 pages) read in 7 days. Read half of Volume 2 on the plane ride back. After this, only one more volume to go. Hoping I stay on this record reading time spree. I do love Dumas.

41SaintSunniva
Aug. 17, 2013, 12:05 am

Wasn't there a movie made about him, Dersu? I never thought to see if there was a book, too.

42edwinbcn
Aug. 17, 2013, 7:18 am

As my mother sent me 75 kilos of books in five big boxes in April, and my visit to Amsterdam in July, I am now mainly reading a lot of Dutch literature.

I am still working on reviewing a backlog of books, read since May. I am about 35 books behind my current reading.

I just finished reading VSV, of Daden van onbaatzuchtigheid by Leon de Winter.

For the Monthly Author Group, I am currently reading We were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates, among several other books.

43rebeccanyc
Aug. 17, 2013, 7:36 am

#41 Yes, there is movie by Kurosawa (using Russian actors) called "Dersu Uzala," which I saw some years ago. It is an excellent movie, but as I noted in my review I'm glad I saw it first because the book, on which it is based, is much richer and deeper.

44Polaris-
Bearbeitet: Aug. 17, 2013, 7:52 am

Following up the excellent Facing the Music collection with Larry Brown: A Writer's Life.

Also have started re-reading Simon Schama's A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World, 3000 B.C. - 1603 A.D.

45rebeccanyc
Aug. 17, 2013, 2:13 pm

I've read and reviewed Robertson Davies's next to last novel, Murther & Walking Spirits; it isn't up to his earlier work, but mostly shows off Davies' marvelous story-telling skills and allows him to explore many of his favorite themes.

46rebeccanyc
Aug. 18, 2013, 1:01 pm

And now I've read an reviewed Xala by Sembène Ousmane, a bleak and satiric look at post-colonial Senegal.

47StevenTX
Aug. 18, 2013, 2:30 pm

My latest book finished is The Ladies' Paradise by Émile Zola. Now I know what I'm up against every time my wife goes to the department store.

48dchaikin
Aug. 18, 2013, 3:17 pm

Just finished and loved The Clockwork Universe on Newton (and Kepler, and Galileo, and, especially, Leibniz). Thanks Anniemod for inspiring me to read this.

49bragan
Aug. 19, 2013, 10:41 am

I recently finished Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe by Greg Epstein, which was worth reading, and have now started one of my ER wins, Fiend by Peter Stenson, about meth addicts trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. So far, it's surprisingly good.

50RidgewayGirl
Aug. 19, 2013, 3:15 pm

Having finished A Hell of a Woman, which is a collection of female-centered noir short stories edited by Megan Abbott, I'm now reading The Portrait of a Lady, which is turning into a page-turner, something I didn't expect.

I'm also reading In Europe by Geert Mak, which someone here read last year, but I can't remember who pointed it out to me.

51zenomax
Aug. 20, 2013, 2:37 am

Holiday reading has been Memoirs of Hadrian and Red or Dead, two very different works, but with some curious similarities.

52rebeccanyc
Aug. 21, 2013, 5:29 pm

And now I've finished and reviewed Andrea Barrett's latest collection of stories, Archangel: Fiction, which as usual portrays characters who are involved in various kinds of scientific activity.

53rebeccanyc
Aug. 22, 2013, 6:06 pm

And today I finished Memoirs of a Porcupine, by Alain Mabanckou, a fable about a porcupine who becomes the harmful double of a man.

54kidzdoc
Aug. 22, 2013, 6:36 pm

Last night I finished The Return by the Haitian author Dany Laferrière, an award winning book of poetry and prose about his life as a political exile in Montreal, the death of his father, who was also a political exile, in Brooklyn, and his return home after living abroad for 33 years.

Today I've started reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which was chosen for this year's Booker Prize longlist, which is a mystery set in a gold mining town in the South Island of New Zealand in 1866. It's over 800 pages long, so I won't finish it before the weekend at the earliest.

55dmsteyn
Aug. 23, 2013, 9:43 am

I finished The Sickness unto Death by Kierkegaard a few days ago, but the review took a bit longer, perhaps because I haven't written one in a while, perhaps because of the subject matter.

I'll begin reading The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by George Meredith soon. Not a particularly popular author nowadays, but I've read good things about his novels.

56dchaikin
Aug. 23, 2013, 10:34 pm

Reading The Road from the Past: Traveling Through History in France by Ina Caro (wife of LBJ biographer Robert Caro). It's good enough to get me thinking about how I might read about French history, if I were to do that.

57rebeccanyc
Aug. 24, 2013, 7:24 am

Oh, I have that book too, but I've never read it. I'll be interested in more of your thoughts as you finish it, Dan.

58bragan
Bearbeitet: Aug. 25, 2013, 9:20 am

I've finished another ER book, Breakpoint: Why the Web will Implode, Search will be Obsolete, and Everything Else you Need to Know about Technology is in Your Brain by Jeff Stibel, which was much less sensational than the subtitle suggests. Now I'm reading Blood Lite, an anthology of humorous horror stories, because apparently there are strict limits to how much serious stuff my brain can absorb this month.

(ETA: Hmm, the touchstone stubbornly keeps refusing to work for Breakpoint with the subtitle...)

59kidzdoc
Aug. 25, 2013, 11:29 am

This morning I finished The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which is a intricately woven and very impressive novel set in a New Zealand gold mining town in the mid-1860s. It was longlisted for this year's Booker Prize, and at the moment it's my favorite of the seven titles I've read so far.

I'll probably start Unexploded by Alison MacLeod later today; it's also on this year's Booker Prize longlist.

60rebeccanyc
Aug. 25, 2013, 1:19 pm

I've now finished and reviewd The Bottom of the Jar by Abdellatif Laâbi, the delightful story of a young boy growing up in Fez in the 1950s, and I also finished Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, which was like eating a big bowl of candy.

61baswood
Aug. 26, 2013, 5:28 am

I have finished Gargantua and Pantagruel A French 16th century bawdy, satirical, philosophical, fantasy that is a unique reading experience. I have nearly finished She by H Rider Haggard and have started The Cambridge Companion to English literature 1500-1600

62ljbwell
Aug. 26, 2013, 6:23 am

It was a painfully slow start to the month (reading just stalled when I started a new job). That said, I just picked up and happily am about 1/3 into The Gardener from Ochakov by Andrey Kurkov.

63lilisin
Bearbeitet: Aug. 26, 2013, 4:38 pm

Just finished reading volume 2 of Dumas' Le vicomte de Bragelonne. One more volume left which will lead to the famous man in the iron mask and the conclusion of the d'Artagnan series. (Although I'll have to go back and read Vingt ans apres which I skipped only due to the third book in the series being more readily available.)

64NanaCC
Aug. 26, 2013, 9:42 pm

Just finished Full House by Molly Keane/M.J. Farrell. I had picked up Marilyn by Gloria Steinem as a Kindle Deal a few weeks ago, and have decided to give that one a try based upon Gerard's review.

65rebeccanyc
Aug. 27, 2013, 9:00 am

I could hardly put down the compelling and beautifully written Morality Play by Barry Unsworth, which I've now read and reviewed.

66avidmom
Aug. 27, 2013, 6:57 pm

I am reading Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life by Nick Vucijic. Started it a short while ago and am almost finished; a very easy, easy read.

67NanaCC
Aug. 29, 2013, 9:36 pm

I finished Marilyn by Gloria Steinem today. I've decided to dig into No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Avidmom seems to lead me into these huge heavy books by Goodwin. The fact that they happen to be good is a plus. :). And I think I may be able to count it as exercise.

68dchaikin
Aug. 29, 2013, 11:31 pm

Slowing making my way through Science Deified & Science Defied : The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture, From the Bronze Age to the Beginnings of the Modern Era, ca. 3500 B.C. to ca. A.D. 1640 by Richard Olson. Also listening to Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.

69rebeccanyc
Aug. 30, 2013, 8:18 am

I just finished and reviewed the heartbreakingly beautiful tale of four generations of Guadeloupean women, The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart.

70bragan
Aug. 30, 2013, 10:48 am

I've recently read The Avengers: The Inside Story by Patrick Macnee, which was not bad. (I love The Avengers! It's so very 60s, and yet it holds up so very well.) I'm now slogging through Stephen Baxter's Ring, which is doing an excellent job of reminding me why I need to stop reading Stephen Baxter.

71Senserial
Sept. 1, 2013, 4:24 am

I just started The lady in the Palazzo by Marlena de Blasi. I haven't read the previous books by this author.

72SaintSunniva
Okt. 7, 2013, 10:55 am

I'm reading The Scarlet Letter but have come to a stop halfway through...and I'm thinking I might try an audio version. Recommendations for narrator?