*** What are you reading now? (Part 7)

Another 200 posts have gone by which hopefully means that another 200 books have been read by this group. Keep going everyone! Two more months left in 2015 and with the northern hemisphere heading into the winter months we should all have plenty of time to read read read! Or we can sit in jealousy at the southern hemisphere entering summer.

In any case, please share what you are reading!

I'm reading Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, which is a serious look at our courting behavior and how it has changed in the past few generations. Ansar writes in an engaging, funny style, but I'm learning stuff.

I'm also reading I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak for a book club meeting next week, and finishing up A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman from the last book club meeting. As you can see, the books chosen are all from the lighter/shorter side of the shelf, although I have tried. At least we have given up on charming stories involving recipes after a particularly bad book.

And I've started The Woman from Bratislava by Leif Davidson, because I wanted to read something Danish.

My library must have purchased lots of copies of Career of Evil, JK Rowling's newest addition to her mystery series. I was number 15 on the ebook waiting list 3 days ago and received notice that the ebook was ready for me yesterday! I'm excited to read it - the first 7 chapters have sucked me right in.

I'm still reading The Rival Queens in nonfiction and listening to The Art of Fielding. I'm also reading Cecilia slowly (two chapters a day) with a group read.

I'm back to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series again, with Hot Six. I needed a nice, fun palate cleanser after reading about horrible diseases for the past week.

In theory I'm reading a lot of books. In practice I've been concentrating my book reading on The Age of Wire and String, because it's special, and also because I'd like to finish a book. :-)

I finished Voices from Chernobyl. I read a few chapters at a time because that was all I seemed to be able to handle.

Today I started Home by Toni Morrison.

I'm listening to Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus. From the title, it could be anything, it might be a horror story about a bus that runs off route. So far it's very human and small scale.

I've recently finished two mysteries, The Perfidious Parrot, an Amsterdam detectives story by Janwillem van de Wetering and the latest Montalbano to be translated into English, A Beam of Light, by Andrea Camilleri. And I'm continuing to read the tome-like, non-series, Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right, and Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror, a recent NYRB collection of stories which I started on Halloween.

>7 Helenliz: I liked that one; it was a lot of fun. (They apparently made a movie out of it; the movie trailer is really funny.) Speaking of Steinbeck, I finished East of Eden last night. It makes it on to my list of favorite books of all time.

I started reading In the Mountains at work today.

I recently finished The Collector and The Expendable Man. Next up is Epitaph of a Small Winner (also known as The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas).

I finished Furiously Happy, which I enjoyed and will now be making the rounds at my work.

Starting The Double Life of Liliane. I am a big fan of I Married You for Happiness.

I finished The Shipping News yesterday, which I really loved - it ticked so many boxes in terms of the kind of writing I like.

On now to The House of Mirth, which I've had on order from the library for months. Hope it's worth the wait!

I managed to finish my book club read (Lamentation) which has whetted my appetite for more of the C J Sansom and makes me think I should read some of the numerous histories of the Tudor court and its members, but am now dithering. I feel I should go back to Trollope's Barchester Chronicles but with the Sansom interruption have lost the mood. The TBR is huge and I can't decide whether to go for fact or fiction. May tread water dipping into London City of Disappearances, an anthology of fact and fiction edited by Iain Sinclair.

Replay by Ken Grimwood

I finished In The Mountains this morning and started reading The Phantom of the Opera (a re-read for me) on my Kindle.

Finished The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789, by Robert Middlekauff. I post a review in my tread. Next in the reading list: Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, by Gordon S. Wood.

I'm going to start reading The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth at lunch today.

I finished Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror, which is an NYRB I began on Halloween, and I can conclusively report that cosmic horror isn't for me.

Full speed ahead with Trollope's He Knew He Was Right!

Finished The Wayward bus - excellent.
Started listening to I am half sick of shadows, which I see is yet another book that looked interesting on the library shelf and turns out to be the middle of a series. So far, so good.

I'm reading Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions by Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde. I'm not very far into it, but it seems interesting. So far, though, it's mostly just confirming the fact that I am mystified by magic tricks even after they've been explained to me.

As part of my reading from the Literary Centennials group I am being entranced by Aladore by Sir Henry John Newbold. It was published in 1914 and is a medieval fantasy novel

>19 Helenliz: Even when the plots get almost too silly I very much love that narrator. And I adore Flavia's sisters. Daffy and Pheelie (no idea how to spell either one as I've only listened to them.)

>21 baswood: Sounds intriguing!

At this moment I am reading Daughters of Earth by Judith Merril - published in 1968 when women sf writers were few in the galaxy. I've finished the first story, yes, dated but intriguing in its own way and very well-written. My how we have changed! Next is My Struggle Vol 1 of the controversial Karl Ove Knausgaard opus (I am loving it), and Jo Walton's essays on speculative fiction - mainly her rereads. I am listening to Gravity's Rainbow about 1/4 of the way up the trajectory . . . (the title refers to the arc of the V-2 rockets that the Germans hurled at Britain and especially London in ww2).

>22 sibylline: Loved My Struggle - glad you're enjoying it.

>12 AlisonY: I don't know your history of Edith Wharton, so I hope you're liking The House of Mirth. I read it the year after absolutely loving The Age of Innocence. HoM took me a lot longer to get into than AoI, and at the time I didn't think I liked it as much, but in retrospect, I think I actually liked it better. I certainly remember it, which is a good thing.

Over in my corner of the world on the Pacific Ocean, I've put aside Hard Times to read The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King for my book club.

I'm supposed to be reading Why Nations Fail for my bookclub, but have mostly given up on it. Instead I recently finished a comfort read (A dark Devotion) and am slowly progressing through Epitaph of a Small Winner, aka The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas.

I finished The Minor Prophets, which means that I have finished the OT. Felt the need to share that. I started in January of 2012.

I've finished The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood's newest. It's a dystopian novel with comedic elements. I read it much more quickly than I should have and am now feeling a little bereft. Is it, or is it not, a good thing that the Blue Man Group exists in the future, and has branched out into other colors?

I've started far too many books; A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, which is a charmingly told story about a bitter old widower forced to become part of his community by a pregnant Iranian and a homeless cat. Then there's The Fever by Megan Abbott, which is a twisted story about a group of high school girls who fall prey to a group illness or maybe a mania; The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes, which I picked up today and began on the train home, and The Woman from Bratislava by Leif Davidson, a Danish novel taking place just after the end of the Cold War.

I plan to start Slade House by David Mitchell and A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar soon.

I've finished The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone. So now I'm going back to the Mary Stuart biography that I set aside when the library book of Rival Queens arrived and needed to be read.

I'm also participating in a group read of Cecilia by Fanny Burney which is great so far, but I'm reading slowly.

I'll think I'll browse my shelves for some lighter fiction to complement the two slower books I'm reading.

>27 RidgewayGirl: I'm currently about halfway into Slade House. I'm enjoying it more than The Bone Clocks - this one is far less meandering.

>24 Nickelini: loving House of Mirth so far! Very busy at the moment so not getting much reading time, but really enjoying it. Very humorous.

I've just finished The Armageddon Rag by George R. R. Martin, an odd but mostly pretty cool novel about rock 'n' roll, the lost idealism of the sixties, and, possibly, the end of the world. I'm now reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, which is promising to be a fast but somewhat disturbing read. Next up is an ER book, In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donovan.

As much as I love Phantom of the Opera, I didn't seem to be in the mood for it so now I'm reading I Must Say: My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend by Martin Short.

I finished The Things We Keep and also read Little Victories. Now I'm starting The Japanese Lover.

I am still reading Cecilia by Fanny Burney, as part of a Virago group read. I am surprised at how readable it is, although having been written in 1782. I'm really enjoying it.

On my trip up to Massachusetts last Wednesday, I finished listening to Finn by Jon Clinch. On my way home yesterday, I started The Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason.

Adventures in Time and Space was an anthology of science fiction stories edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas and published in 1946.1 A Modern Library edition was issued in 1957.2 When it was re-released in 1975 by Ballantine Books, Analog book reviewer Lester del Rey referred to it as a book he often gave to people in order to turn them onto the genre. It is now once again out of print. The large (997 page) anthology collected numerous stories from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, which had originally appeared in pulp magazines (mostly Astounding Science Fiction) and are now regarded as classics of science fiction. According to Frederik Pohl, it was "A colossal achievement...the book that started the science-fiction publishing industry!"3 In 1954, Anthony Boucher described it as "the one anthology unarguably essential to every reader."4 In Astounding readers' surveys in both 1952 and 1956, it was rated the best science fiction book ever published. From Wiki

I have just got to read this next

I am reading The Lake House by Kate Morton - and am loving it! Morton describes the coziest scenery and she seems to tap into everything that I love. The mysteries that she creates always leave me wanting more - and this one has been no exception!

Put down The Double Life of Liliane. Just wasn't working for me. Then picked up After You, which I whipped through. Looking forward to reading About Trees next.

I have three books going at the moment: The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić, who was recently chosen as the winner of the 2016 Neustadt International Prize for Literature; Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, the newest Nobel Prize in Literature laureate; and The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, which won this year's Wellcome Book Prize (for books about medicine, health or illness).

I'm in Venice with Peter Ackroyd.

After more than a month of reading, I've finally finished and reviewed He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope and enjoyed it as much for the subplots as for the main one.

I'm currently reading The War of the Saints by Jorge Amado and The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff whose previous biography of Cleopatra I loved.

Thoroughly enjoyed The House of Mirth. Now on to Swimming Home by Deborah Levy.

I stayed up way past my bedtime last night finishing The Japanese Lover and will start reading Pretty Girls today.

>38 kidzdoc: Voices was hard to read. I look forward to your response.

I think I'm reading Between the World and Me and LT member Rick Harsch's Kramberger with Monkey, a book he posted chapter by chapter on his blog (i have been reading his posts of the same on Goodreads).

But what is more significant is what I'm not reading - I posted above that I finished the OT. I also finished How to Read the Bible and the OT essays in The Literary Guide to the Bible. So, for the first time in four years there is nothing related to the bible in my currently reading pile. I feel like I'm entering a new era.

Having been slightly underwhelmed by Swimming Home, I am staying in the south of France for Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn.

>43 dchaikin: Congratulations on finishing your epic Bible read, but it would feel odd, sort of like something was missing to complete a project like that. Do you have any ideas what's next?

>43 dchaikin: Missed your earlier post on that Dan - congratulations on sticking to that big reading project.

Interested to hear if that significant bible reading has affected your religious views in any way.

>45 SassyLassy: Sassy - I do have plans...

>46 AlisonY: Alison, it has increased my appreciation of the authors, but has done nothing for me in any religious way.

Halfway through Blade Of Light, the most recently translated Inspector Montalbano. Starting to think about all those winter/Christmas books to be read (interestingly I've just accidentally typed that as 'dread') in December. Saw Sassy's post on the seasonal books thread. Will this be the year I read Dr Zhivago?

>48 Oandthegang: I'm doing similar, beginning to think about what to read for this year's Christmas chunkster. I get a nice long break over Christmas, so can spend the time to pay attention to a book that needs more concentration than a chapter a night, something that benefits from being read in hour long segments. In previous years I've read Brothers Karamazov, Bleak House and Tristram Shandy. As yet undecided about what to devote attention to this year.

I've finished and reviewed Jorge Amado's The War of the Saints, which was a lot of fun.

>48 Oandthegang: I really enjoyed Doctor Zhivago, and it's a good book to read when it's snowy outside!

I finally finished In a Different Key, which took me that long not because it was bad, but because it was pretty hefty, and I was busy and distracted. I am now reading something much lighter: Putting on the Ritz by Joe Keenan, which is marvelously witty and hilarious.

I've started the fourth book in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, which I successfully saved until I was actually in Naples, which is an utterly fantastic place - decaying and vibrant and friendly and chaotic - and I was so pleased to be riding the metro and the bus while reading it. (also I am entirely pleased with myself for traveling around Naples on public transportation like a boss (my children have told me that it's weird for me to use that expression)). Anyway, The Story of the Lost Child has begun very well.

I'm also reading The Woman from Bratislava, a post-Cold War thriller by Danish author, Leif Davidsen, Ruth Rendell's final crime novel, Dark Corners, and I recently finished Slade House by David Mitchell, a sort of ghost story that I seem to have liked more than many.

I'm flying through The Mare: A Novel by Mary Gaitskill. I love the way she writes. I love these characters. Wonderful.

>48 Oandthegang: Looks like this is the winter to read Dr Zhivago. I think you will get carried away in it. Turn the heat down for the full effect.

I've just started Voracious by Cara Nicoletti.

Just about to start Excellent Women by Barbara Pym.

I wasn't planning on it, but my aunt sent me her copy of The Paris Wife so I started that. So far so good.

I just started a novel I recently learned about -- The Camomile Lawn, by Mary Wesley. I think I'm going to like it.

I finished and reviewed Flaw by Magdalena Tulli, a writer who I have previously loved. Like all of them, it is a complex, allegorical, poetic, and somewhat metafictional novel. I didn't like it as much as the others, but it might have been my mood.

Waiting for 1 December, when I shall start Dr Zhivago. (I see the movie is currently on rerelease!)

I just finished reading an ARC of The Flood Girls and I'm about to start Ella Minnow Pea.

Finished Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. Now on to The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook which I'm looking forward to.

My reading the last 2 weeks had been... non-existent is probably the correct term. I had been having issues settling with any book - even the ones that usually help me get out from the funky zone.

Whatever it is, it seems to have passed now so I am making some progress with The Golem of Hollywood which is a strange book for both Kellerman guys involved. I hope they manage to bring it together. However if you are a fan of either of them and expect a book in the vein of their own works, you will be disappointed.

I've just started reading The Last Summer of the Camperdowns by Elizabeth Kelly.

I (finally) finished Pantagruel and am about to start La fin de l'homme rouge (The End of the Red Man), the latest book by Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievitch published in France.

I've finished the excellent The Fever by Megan Abbott (one of my favorite authors), and am now reading Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt, which is very clever. Thinking of reading Fallout by Sadie Jones next, because I loved The Uninvited Guests, or Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

Couldn't find Camomile Lawn last night, so I started Smilla's Sense of Snow.

>67 Nickelini: Good book to start in winter.

Finally getting back to Birds of a Lesser Paradise.

Fell off these threads for a while.

I've got Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris and A Corner of White (YA fantasy) going on audio, and my print book now is Wrapped in Rainbows, a biography of Zora Neale Hurston.

Hopefully I'll be reading The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin soon for a book club.

I am reading The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance by John Hale

Really enjoyed The Aftermath. Now on to The Anchoress, which sounds fascinating. It's a debut novel, so I hope it doesn't disappoint.

I've just finished a reread of Jane Austen's Persuasion, one of my favorites. I'm continuing on with a group read of Cecilia by Fanny Burney. I'm not as enamored of it as I was of her Evelina, but the tutored read is helping me appreciate it.

I've also started Kent Harfuf's Plainsong which has gotten wonderful reviews around here and I've been sort of saving. I hope I enjoy it as much as I think I will - sometimes high expectations backfire!

Within a month I have to have read The Boys in the Boat; I've read the five page introduction. I have promised the book group that I won't enjoy it.

I have had three Times Literary Supplements in the last two days of mail. Today's mail also had a New York Review of Books in it. I had been stacking these up and reading books instead. In recent months I have decided that I should actually look at the periodicals.

Robert

I've finished reading UnderMajorDomo Minor by Patrick deWitt. It's witty and clever, as one would expect from the author of The Sisters Brothers, but there was nothing more to it than wit and cleverness and I was left cold.

I'm currently reading Fallout by Sadie Jones, which is about young people in the London theater world in the early 1970's. It is utterly fantastic so far.

I've finished and reviewed Amsterdam Cops, a collection of stories by Janwillem van de Wetering, which I didn't enjoy as much as the novels, and the novella The Discovery of America by the Turks by Jorge Amado, a delightful sex farce. I've also abandoned The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff, for reasons which I explain on my thread.

Finished Avenue of Spies, which was pretty meh, padded out, and included some incorrect information.

Starting Dr. Mutter's Marvels now.

I've finished The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford which was like a lovely glass of fizzy champagne.

I jumped right into the new John Irving, Avenue of Mysteries. With the exception of the much beloved Prayer for Owen Meany, I'm generally an Irving fan. When I read the description of this one, it didn't really appeal to me and started it solely because of my enthusiasm for his previous work. A chapter in, though, I'm finding myself drawn into the story already. Hopefully that continues!

>77 mabith: I am excited to learn of Dr. Mutter's Marvels and eager to hear how you find it.

>79 nancyewhite: I liked it quite a bit. It maybe goes off-course in some places, spending more time on some of Mutter's co-workers and then his students (though that was much more relevant), than some readers would want, but I found it all interesting and enjoyable. Early medicine is pretty horrifically fascinating, but Mutter was somewhat exceptional in how he treated patients. I've had a chronic illness for the last ten years and frankly Mutter was a much better doctor (at least in terms of bedside manner and empathy) than many I've seen. In that sense it was just a little depressing.

I've started Welcome to Night Vale, with only cursory knowledge of the podcast it's based on, but even 40 minutes in it's great fun.

>78 nancyewhite: I read a lot of Mitford (Nancy) as a teenager because my mother also was reading her, and it hasn't occurred to me to read her since, although I loved her then.

I recently started Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I have not read a Fantasy novel in more than fifteen years and figured it was time to give it another try. I was looking for a single volume fantasy and discovered this first novel by Sanderson. I am four chapters into the 591 page tome and have been quickly captivated. Will it be the last book of 2015 or the first completed in 2016 remains to be seen.

>82 brodiew2:
Brandon:).

Thanks, AnnieMod. :-)

I recently finished my latest ER book, The Myths that Stole Christmas by David Kyle Johnson, which featured a lot fascinating information about the history of Christmas and some variably convincing arguments about how we ought treat it now. And now I'm nearly done with The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley, which, while I suspect it's objectively not quite as good as its predecessor, Parnassus on Wheels, is still charming my book-loving soul.

Next up is Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin's South America by Eric Simons.

I'm currently listening to William Shakespeare's Star Wars which is such a hoot! I'm glad I got the audio of it!

I am now reading Landlocked by Doris Lessing. It is the fourth book in her semi autobiographical children of Violence series.

I seem to have been reading My Century for about that long. There is nothing wrong with the book, it is actually really interesting. I am wondering what the holdup is.

I finished the audio book The Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason. John Lee's narration was very good.

My next audio book is The Pyramid and Four Other Kurt Wallender Mysteries by Henning Mankell. These are short stories that Mankell wrote to give the reader the early Kurt Wallender.

I've finished Fallout by Sadie Jones, which had me so involved that I may need a few days before starting another book. I hate book hangovers.

I have Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, also known as the Bloggess, and will see how that tides me over.

>92 RidgewayGirl:

>93 AlisonY: That is exactly what happened!

I'm excited to start reading The Vegetarian by Han Kang, my latest ER win.

I am reading Angel Island by Inez Haynes Gillmore. It is a fantasy novel published in 1914

I'm getting stuck in to Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore, which has been on my to-read list for ages.

Nearing the end of a Zora Neale Hurston bio, Wrapped in Rainbows, which has been really good. She was an amazing woman.

I recently finished The Returned by Jason Mott, which I apparently went into with entirely the wrong expectations, and found very disappointing. And I'm now reading The Devil & Sherlock Holmes by David Grann, which is fantastic -- easily some of the best non-fiction writing I've read all year.

Next up, I think, will be more Janet Evanovich. One day, I will make it through all those Stephanie Plum novels.

I'm reading Transit by Anna Seghers which I remember Rebecca reading and loving (right?) and I've been sucked in right away. I'm also considering finally reading the massive Beethoven biography that came out this year. I think I'll try the first chapter and see because it's over a thousand dense pages and I'm not sure I have the mental fortitude! If I don't commit to that I'll probably read a few more short books off the shelf to close out the year.

I'm reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which I had intended to read at the start of this year. Given how beautifully written and wonderful it is (so far) I wonder why I put it off for so long.

I'm also reading The Clarinet Polka by Keith Maillard, which is set in a dying steel town in West Virginia in 1969. The author writes about polka music with such love and detail that he tricked me into listening to some of it.

>99 japaul22: That was an excellent book that does take you right in. I think your post links to a different book.
Could you give more info on the Beethoven biography? I have an older massive one and am wondering if it needs company.

>101 SassyLassy: thanks for catching that incorrect touchstone! I'm bad about double checking those.

The Beethoven book is Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford. Swafford has written biographies on Brahms and Charles Ives as well. I have not started reading it yet, but in glancing through it I believe it is an exhaustive look at Beethoven's life, his music, and the times he lived in. I suspect he wrote it to try to be the new definitive biography.

>99 japaul22: I did love Transit; thanks for remembering.

I've finished The Girl with the Golden Eyes and Other Stories by Balzac, and wonder why I don't ever remember that I prefer his novels to his stories. And now I'm reading The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel and am enjoying it although, like Balzac, I prefer her novels.

I am reading The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari - It's the penguin classic edition which is a selection translated by George Bull.

I really enjoyed The Anchoress, which was a fascinating and well written piece of medieval fiction.

I need some comfort reading now to get me through the next busy week, so I'm taking on my first Anne Tyler - Ladder of Years.

>104 baswood: While looking up facts while reading The Lives of the Artists I came upon this: The Ugly Renaissance: Sex Greed and Depravity in an age of Beauty; I couldn't resist.

>106 baswood: : )

I'm reading A Visit from the Goon Squad. I keep nixing my audio books, so no update there.

I finished four quick books this month:
No Country for Old Men
God help the Child
Kramberger with Monkey by LT's Rick Harsch
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

I'm reading a Kindle book, Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus by Lois Tverberg which is really interesting.

>108 avidmom: I really enjoyed A Visit from the Goon Squad when I read it a few years ago; I'll be interested in your thoughts about it.

Not sure I'm going to be able to stick Ladder of Years - I feel an abort potentially coming on.

>109 rebeccanyc: - it's fun stuff. I'm not fully mentally there for it (mind on Homer), and yet it's still keeping my interest. There is so much going on.

Ladder of Years is aborted - the style of writing just wasn't for me. Going to try The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky instead.

Good for you Alison. I recently abandoned an audio book half way through because it just wasn't working for me (All the Light We Cannot See). It felt great!

I'm reading Penhallow, one of Georgette Heyer's mysteries.

I'm halfway through The Second Empress by Michelle Moran, light historical fiction about Napoleon's second wife, and I'm a ways into the annual holiday reread of Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.

I really need to start The Uprooted for my bookclub, but last minute crafting is getting in the way.

Finally finished Birds of a Lesser Paradise, which I enjoyed.

Going to start The Sellout.

I finished A Visit from the Goon Squad. I have in mind to read The War That Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander next.

>117 dchaikin: I absolutely loved The War That Killed Achilles, and hope you enjoy it too. Alexander is one of my favorite non-fiction writers.

>118 mabith: ooh, that is really encouraging. I don't know anything about the book of the author. I picked up seven books at the library on Homer (plus two translations of the Iliad - Latimer & Stephen Mitchell...but I already own Fagles). That one just kind of stood out as the most interesting.

Finished Fledgling by Octavia Butler.
Now into a quick, light holiday read, Starry Night by Debbie Macomber.

I've just had a nice little flurry of reading, finishing Size Matters Not by Warwick Davis, which was unexpectedly delightful; How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, a well-written but odd kids' novel by Sara Nickerson; and The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, which didn't do all that much for me.

Next up: Little Bee by Chris Cleave.

I've just finished The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, a collection of stories by Hilary Mantel who, as many of you know, is one of my favorite writers. As with the Balzac stories I read before this, I prefer her novels, but the stories were absorbing, thought-provoking, and often disturbing.

Good milestone! What about the New Testament?

Added two new books in my reading experience:
(1) John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, and;
(2) Marcelo Godoy, A Casa da Vovó.
The last one is about a recent period in brazilian history, in with political desagreements were solved with violence instead of reasoning.

Reading Stop Press by Michael Innes and will start Wings of Fire by Charles Todd a bit later today.

I'm reading Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner and I've started a massive, new Beethoven biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford. It's over a thousand pages so I'll be reading it well into the new year.

>123 MarcusBastos: Marcus - I might just take that on in 2017.

Currently reading Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt and absolutely loving it. I love non-fiction with humor.

>128 mabith: Sounds interesting! I once read a book on ancient Egypt written by an author of period mysteries, and was not very impressed with his objectivity. But this could be different.

I'm nearly halfway through Vauxhall by Gabriel Gbadamosi, a coming of age novel about a boy of Nigerian and Irish descent who lives with his parents and siblings in a poor neighborhood in South London in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Gbadamosi's father was Nigerian and his mother was Irish, so there are some autobiographical elements to this story. I'm enjoying it so far, and I'll finish it by this afternoon.

I recently finished moving to a new apartment (well, except for the unpacking), so I hope to return to contributing more.

I have been reading a lot of comfort novels and have recently finished Death and the Penguin - quirky, fun not-quite-a-mystery, Stolen Lives - action packed and too much of a distraction from packing, When Books Went to War & Still Life - great audiobooks for packing/unpacking boxes, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - a wonderful plane book, except the parts that had me fighting tears, because who wants to be stuck next to the crying grown woman?, and finally, The Back Room, moved up my tbr list thanks to reviews by kidzdoc and DieF, and an excellent vacation book -- it needs to be read in large chunks due to the amorphous structure.

>129 FlorenceArt: Florence, I think Mertz is being fair in this book. She's constantly bringing up lack of concrete knowledge and putting a lot of evidence behind the things where she disagrees with commonly held beliefs (many of which were formed more out of racism or preconceived notions than lots of specific evidence). And she did get an Egyptology PhD long before she started writing mysteries.

>131 ELiz_M: - i loved The Absolutely True Diary... It's terrific on audio where Alexie reads it himself.

I'm STILL working my way through Smilla's Sense of Snow. Parts of it are extremely interesting, and equal parts are a slog. If I don't finish it in a day or two I'm putting it aside and reading something fun over Christmas.

I will finish The Clarinet Polka by Keith Maillard tonight. I really will. It has taken me a long time to read this book; it's dense with history, so although it is very readable, it's not something that can be rushed.

I'm also reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which is beautifully written. It's also going slowly, as I enjoy each paragraph.

And so for variety's sake, I'm reading Stephen King's new book of short stories, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams.

>134 Nickelini: I read Smila's Sense of Snow at the start of the year and felt frustrated by it. I loved the first 200 pages and then found it went adrift and never really recovered.

>136 AlisonY: Re: Smilla's Sense of Snow - yes, frustrating is a good way to describe it. In the comments on the internet, it appears many people are like you and liked the first half and not the second. For me though, it's been the same the whole way -- some parts are fascinating, and then the next moment, I have no idea what is going on or why I should care. I opened to a page last night where Smilla says something like "I was the only person who didn't understand what was going on." Yep, that's me.

>134 Nickelini: >136 AlisonY: >137 Nickelini: I felt much the same way you did, Alison, with Smila's Sense of Snow but I'm not sure if I loved it a full 200 pages (I read it many years ago, pre-LT).

Currently I'm reading the following books:

Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
This is about how the media has been controlled to serve the agenda of certain powerful interest groups

Debt: The First 5000 years by David Graeber
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years
This is about understanding the true nature of debt through historical analysis

One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-nation-under-god-kevin-m-kruse/1120177220?ea...

This is about the evangelical christian revolution that really started with Eisenhower in the United States.

>139 Tehdo: I'd be interested in finding out what you think about Manufacturing Consent. I've been meaning to read this for a very long time.

I'm reading charity girl by Georgette Heyer, this is one of her romances.
Next up will be Anna Karenina, this year's Christmas Chunky.

I am almost done with Marie-Antoinette but in no way done with reading about the French revolution. I just bought another big history book about the period, which I hope will be clearer than the previous one. I also have the Louis XVI biography to read, I'm not sure yet in what order I will do them.

I finished Vauxhall by Gabriel Gbadamosi early this morning. Rachael (FlossieT) was right; it was a disappointing read, with little there there.

Next up will be African Titanics by Abu Bakr Khaal, which is a novella about a group of Africans attempting to migrate by sea, told from their standpoint. I'm also reading, and greatly enjoying, the poetry collection How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes, which was shortlisted for this year's National Book Award for Poetry.

I'm starting Slade House by David Mitchell at lunch.

I've got too many ongoing books and not enough time....

Famous Art Works and How They Got that Way by John Nici (2015, art history/popular culture). Such a gret read...

Like Family by Paolo Giordano (novel, 2015, T 2015 Italian), a soft and thoughtful novel I've been reading a little at a time.

Closed for Winter by Jorn Lier Holst (crime novel, Norwegian), 3rd of 4 crime novels by Holst in English. I started with the 4th, then went looking for the others. This is the 2nd chronologically.

The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States by Ira Berlin (2015, history). Tough subject, so I've been reading a few pages every now and again.

>145 avaland: I wishlisted Famous Works of Art and How they Got that Way, this is a question that interests me.

Starting Marrow Island. Lucky for me, a publishing friend sent me an ARC. I LOVED Glaciers.

Hijacking this thread for a second (as it's the one most people read) to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Hope Santa brings you all lots of great reads for 2016.

The kids and I have just checked him out on the NORAD Santa tracker and he's very busy in China at the moment, but I'm sure I saw a few books for Club Readers on his sleigh.

Added two others books in my reading list:

O Mínimo que Você Precisa Saber para não Ser um Idiota, by Olavo de Carvalho, and;

Lições de Filosofia Primeira, by José Arthur Giannotti.

First is a collection of small texts, made available in newspapers and magazines, about culture, politics and education. The second is a work about logic and metaphysics in ancient philosophy.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas. >:-D

Today I finished The War That Killed Achilles, which was work. I'm planning on reading Kindred by Octavia Butler next for online group's science fiction theme. I probably should actually read it, since I nominated it (on a bit of whim...).

I finished The Liar's Wife: Four Novellas by Mary Gordon, an author I was reading for the first time.

>152 rebeccanyc:

I read that last year and enjoyed it. I've also read The Other Side and The Rest of Life by her.

>153 alphaorder: I'm not sure that I'll read anything more by her, but thanks for the recommendations. I enjoyed the novellas, but too many books, too little time!

I'm finishing up Silence by Shusaku Endo and Freddy and the Popinjay by Walter R. Brooks. Talk about a mismatched set.

I've just finished and reviewed Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein, and am about 3/4 of the way through the latest novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora - an outgrowth of his series of novels about the habitation of the solar system that tells the story of a generation starship sent to colonise the Tau Ceti system - an old science fiction trope, but handled with Kim Stanley Robinson's usual close attention to both the practicalities and the politics of such endeavours.

I've recently finished Mission to Mars by Michael Collins, which would have been well worth reading if I'd picked it up 25 years ago when it was first published, but is entirely too dated by now. And I'm now reading The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan, book thee in her YA zombie series. Which is OK, but I think I was already getting tired of this series partway through book two.

I am reading The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George and A Christmas Carol on my Kindle.

>158 avidmom: I've started The Little Paris Bookshop as well - it's my real life book club's January book.

I'm also reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and it's so beautifully written that it's slow going as I pause to reread paragraphs.

And I'm reading Here's Looking at You by Mhairi McFarlane. I have an inexplicable weakness for novels based on the works of Jane Austen, set in modern times. This one's connections to Pride and Prejudice are slender, with a single scene mirroring events in the book, but it's lightly handled and surprisingly well written. I'm enjoying it.

>159 RidgewayGirl: I have an inexplicable weakness for novels based on the works of Jane Austen, set in modern times.

I used to think there was nothing worse, but I've come around and am developing a slight addiction to them.

Finished The Wine of Solitude with a sigh of relief - not one of my most memorable reads of the year. Pondering now whether to see the year out with Wolf Winter or a bit of comfort reading with The Enchanted April...

I sped through Crocodile on the Sandbank, the first in a historical mystery which I absolutely loved even if it was quite predictable. Now I've started Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing.

I just finished a thriller that I hadn't heard of before based upon my daughter's recommendation. It is called The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson. A page turner that kept me up a couple of nights.

I'm going to try to finish out the year with The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys.

I'm reading the book for next month's meeting of my real life book club, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, and it's far too self-consciously charming and heart-warming for me to like it at all. Also, the central character is dreadful. Still, I persevere.

As counter-points, I'm reading Åsne Seierstad's One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway, and The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck.

I recently finished Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which I found superlatively good; brilliantly written and deeply moving.

I'm 2 parts (of 8) into Anna Karenina. It's surprisingly readable. I was worried it would be a massive ensemble piece and I'd struggle to keep track of people, but, so far at least, each chapter usually only concerns a handful of people, so it's not like I have a cast of thousands to pay attention to at any one time.

I'm ending 2015 with My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove Knausgaard, which should be the first book I finish in the new year. It's excellent so far.

I'm finishing up Lamentation, the most recent in the Matthew Shardlake mystery series set in Tudor England. I'm also finding Beethoven: Triumph and Anguish surprisingly readable.

>165 Helenliz: I had similar worries when I read Anna Karenina (early this year?), and the same surprised impression. Very readable, indeed.

>165 Helenliz: >168 ursula: I love Anna Karenina and had a very different reaction to Anna, in particular when I read it in my 40s as compared to my teens.

I just finished and reviewed the utterly delightful Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado, one of my favorite authors, and this turned out to be one of my favorite books by him. This will be my last book of the year. I'm reading the massive -- and bloated -- Just One Evil Act, the most recent Lynley/Havers mystery by Elizabeth George and I've started Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire series with The Warden.

>169 rebeccanyc: I wish I could claim to be reading it for the first time in my teens. Alas and alack, first visit is in my 40s. I imagine I'd have been a bit more judgmental, I seem to have mellowed with age.

Finished Kindred which was harmless but forgettable. So I've started V. by Thomas Pynchon - and the first 16 pages were terrific - on down and out naval veterans in the 1950's. Reminds me a bit of Suttree, which McCarthy began writing right about the time V was published.