WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 7

And time for the last(?) thread for this year.

How is everyone doing as 2020 is drawing to a close? Reading anything interesting?

My "not reading" period seems to be finally breaking up - I am reading And the Rest Is History by Jodi Taylor after 3 months of not reading. Will see if it is for good or I am still in a weird phase.

I just finished Bill Bryson's African Diary and I have one more story to go in An Amish Singing.

I am reading Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France by Caroline Moorhead

Just finished T Kingfisher's The Hollow Places - very weird. It's also by far the funniest horror story I've ever read (not that I read much horror) - as always, she has some _lovely_ bits of dialog. And now I want to read a story Lovecraft called the most terrifying thing he'd ever read...and I don't want to. Torn. (That's "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood). Ursula (aka Kingfisher) says that was the inspiration for The Hollow Places.

Tonight I will be finishing the last 20 pages of The River Between, my first book by Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Just finished the Hole by Hiroko Oyamada and I have no words to describe this enigmatic, surreal descent into a whole different kind of reality. It's amazing!

I finished An Amish Singing and I am now reading Murder at an Irish Christmas.

I finished listening to the recent Graham Swift novel Here we are today, and on paper I’ve just got to the end of Le Clézio’s The prospector (review still to come).

Still busy with Fifty-two stories by Chekhov, and I’ve belatedly remembered a book I put aside to read for Halloween, Spooks in your cupboard. On audio I’ve started Julian Barnes’s The only story.

Have finished The Fifth Element (crime novel) and have set aside the A Libertarian Walks into a Bear for a while....

But have somewhat randomly picked up a slim volume: Female Maturity from Jane Austen to Margaret Atwood by Michael Griffin, part of a tiny collection of books I picked up some time ago around the subject of the female bildungsroman in literature.

I'm reading Such a Fun Age for my book club

After finally finishing The Magic Mountain, I have gone through a couple of novellas: Too Loud a Solitude, The Driver's Seat, and Life of a Good-for-Nothing. I think I'll start The Unknown Soldier today.

cant concentrate enough to read, too much news happening. Soon, I hope to be back in the reading mode

>12 cindydavid4: My reading has also suffered this week, Cindy.

I just read How My Parents Learned to Eat which is a favorite picture book story about a sailor and his soon-to-be wife in Japan. They both wanted to go out to dinner together, but he was worried about using chopsticks and she was worried about using silverware. The story is humorous and touching and shows how two cultures came together.

My next book is The Two Gentlemen of Verona Shakespeare

I just finished Murder at an Irish Christmas which was the first one I read in the series by O'Connor.

I've been reading more crime novels lately. I'm currently reading Tana French's new one, The Searcher and finishing up Outsider in Amsterdam, the first installment in Janwillem van de Wetering's delightful series. I've been reading them as I find them.

I'm also reading Aimee Bender's The Butterfly Lampshade. I was impressed by a short story by her included in a horror anthology edited by Joyce Carol Oates. And I've started Figuring by Maria Popova.

I just finished Riva Lehrer's Golem Girl, which was just terrific. She's a visual artist who was born in the '50s with spina bifida, in a decidedly pre–disability rights era, and she weaves both of those—her life as a disabled (queer, opinionated, brilliant) woman and her art-making—deftly and intriguingly. Highly recommended.

>17 RidgewayGirl: I loved the van de Wetering series! I keep meaning to revisit them.

rereading Shadow of the Wind for a book group

I will be finishing Scandal by Shusaku Endo which has proven so different from the other books I've read by him; I feel like I'm reading a book by Kobo Abe and Ryu Murakami's love child. I don't quite know what to think of it and I have no idea as to what to expect from the ending. It's going to be a total surprise.

I finished Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow by Leon F. Litwack. It took me more than two weeks to read this horrifying, depressing, infuriating and absolutely essential history. Trouble in Mind is a follow-up to Litwack's Been in the Storm So Long, which I read earlier. The first book, Storm, covers the period from the days of slavery through the beginning of Reconstruction. Trouble in Mind covers the period from the end of Reconstruction, when the brief period of black enfranchisement ended as southern states moved to brutally and emphatically reassert White Supremacy throughout the American south, through what is known as the Great Migration, when blacks in great numbers moved north to fill factory jobs that came available during and just after World War I. The facts are much more appalling than I ever knew, I'm ashamed to say. You can find my full review on the book's workpage or on my personal CR thread.

Next up for me will be Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks by Horatio Alger. after Trouble in Mind's 500 pages, this will seem like a pamphlet. I've read some Alger short stories, but don't think I've ever read any of the longer works.

I just finished When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest for TravelKIT November. This children's story book tells about Jessie, who left her home country to move to America at the age of thirteen. Jessie works with her aunt, sewing beautiful lace and making dresses. Eventually she is able to send a ticket to her grandmother, who joins her in New York in time to attend Jessie's wedding to a shoe maker. The best part of this story is the description of Jessie's voyage across the sea and how she learns to get along in America. The colorful illustrations convey the life Jessie encounters in her new city.

I am am currently reading The Blended Quilt for NetGalley and also for AlphaKIT November.

>22 rocketjk: I read Ragged Dick for YA Literature Seminar in library school. I had not read it before then, but I liked it better than I thought I would.

>22 rocketjk: Any one Alger is quite fun - fluff, but fun. If you read more than one in close succession, the formula really shows. Of course, I do tend to read two or three at a time - until I can't tolerate the formula any more. I liked Ragged Dick, though - it may have been one of the first Algers I read.

>24 LadyoftheLodge: & >25 jjmcgaffey: Thanks for the encouragement, kids!

>26 rocketjk: I will be interested to know what you think of Ragged Dick. We also read Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens which I did not really care for--it seemed kind of weird.

ereading Shadow of the Windfor a book group and oh my Id forgotten how good this was. Also reading Franklin and Winston for a history book group, which will be lots of fun having read a few HF about them.

I finally finished a book in November, Hieroglyphics, which was very good. Now I am reading Miss Emily for my book club.

I have a few books going, but my main read is The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer. It's a NYRB (New York Review of Books) and I'm enjoying the physical aspects of this edition. They are a tactile pleasure to read.

I'm currently reading The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, the author of Station Eleven, which at the moment, I preferred over this new book.

I finished Nicole Krauss's To Be a Man, which was an excellent short story collection—not gimmicky but always surprising. Now my library hold of Diane Cook's The New Wilderness has come in, so that's next.

I finished The Blended Quilt and I am now reading One Charmed Christmas for NetGalley.

I finished Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks by Horatio Alger, Jr. It was interesting as an historical timepiece and a breezy story.

I've moved on to a baseball history, Bushville Wins by John Klima, about the 1957 season at the end of which the underdog Milwaukee Braves took the World Series from the New York Yankees.

Back to 1951 and I am reading Night Runners of Bengal by John Masters

I've finished re-reading The children's book, last but one (and definitely not least!) in my A S Byatt readthrough.

I've started Speak, memory, which looks as though it will be interesting. On audio, I'm about halfway through Mr Loverman, which I'm really enjoying. I think that means I'm going to have to read Girl, woman, other at some point...

I finished Miss Emily for my book club and have started Inheritors, recommended by Lisa.

I'm crawling through my reading at the moment. Internet Christmas shopping is taking up way too much time on many an evening, and my reading attention has been poor. That said, I'm currently in a total reading hangover and pining for Ebenezer from The Book of Ebenezer Le Page.

Next up I think I might pick up Desperate Characters by Paula Fox.

I'm ripping through The Ghost in the House which is the right book for the right time

A few of my recent book purchases have unintentionally been slim novels which actually feels quite refreshing and mentally achievable at this busy time of year. I finished Paula Fox's Desperate Characters and am moving on to A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler.

I'm still dawdling through Speak, memory, and I've got sidetracked into Reading like a writer which someone mentioned in the Questions thread...

On audio I'm about halfway through the odd but fascinating The book of eels. Hmmm — three non-fiction books: shouldn't there be some fiction in there somewhere as well??

>41 thorold: Reading Like a Writer made be frustrated at my own memory failings - I really wanted to soak up and remember so much of it. Will be interested to hear your perspective.

I just finished a really interesting book about the Electoral College system. Long-winded review on my thread. :-)

I also read two new mysteries - Tana French's The Searcher and JK Rowling's Troubled Blood. I loved both of them.

Now I'm getting on a Shirley Jackson kick. I randomly checked out Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life from the library - a new-ish biography - and now I'm reading one of her novels that I hadn't read yet, The Bird's Nest. I really love her writing.

I finished Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball by John Klima, a potentially excellent baseball history that was mostly ruined for me by the author's lazy use of cliche, word-salad adverbial mashups and speculation passed off as fact. I included a more in-depth review on my CR thread.

Now it's back to my friend Kim Nalley's suggested list of reading about the history of the Black experience in America and of racial issues throughout the country's history. Next up from that list is Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin.

I just finished A Heartfelt Christmas Promise which was a cute holiday read, although predictable. Probably reading Christmas Ever After next up.

I've recently finished a reread of Passing and accidentally sped-read Ru. I enjoyed Her Privates We and am almost finished with Tun-Huang.

Life is not very conducive to reading lately but I have just received the three books I ordered i(novels by Sparks, Murdoch & Richardson) so I may get the most of the discussion in Female Maturity from Jane Austen to Margaret Atwood mentioned in #9 above).

Otherwise I'm reading Women Rowing North(skimming some parts) by Mary Pipher.

Hoping to finish up a couple of collections before the end of the year.

Gaah, I've been really, really terrible lately at keeping up with any threads other than my own here. Including this one, so I have no idea what-all I've read since I last checked in here.

But, right now, I've just finished reading The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James, which was okay but not great, and am now reading an ER book, Space 2069. Which, despite being about a subject I'm always interested in, isn't impressing me too much so far. But I haven't read much of it yet, so we'll see.

I abandoned Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict, the book my book club will be discussing on Monday, and it made me so happy to do so.

With renewed strength, I'm reading Life Events by Karolina Waclawiak, which had a slow start, but is now fascinating. It's about a woman in a dying marriage who becomes a counselor helping people die. And I'm reading Wichita by Thad Ziolkowski, one of the books I picked up somewhere because it was published by Europa Editions. It's odd and interesting.

I'm also reading Figuring by Maria Popova, in which the author uses historical figures and events from their lives to draw connections and explore ideas. It's got my interest and I'm learning a lot, but it's beginning to feel a little shallow in its approach. Hopefully, she circles around to deeper dives into the ideas she introduces.

>50 RidgewayGirl: I was sooooo disappointed in that book! I wanted to read about her, she was such a boon to Churchill's success, but the first person narration made it sound like she was bragging half the time. I bailed early, Im afraid Still want to learn more; just saw Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill along with Eric Larson's new work the splendid and the vile might choose one of those to try next.

I did just finish Franklin and Winston which does touch on both Clementines and Eleanors partnerships with their husbands. I do want to read Martin Gilbert's bios on Churchill (he was my cousins husband, great man and great historian) Its on my list

Still reading Shadow of the Wind and have several other new books on my shelf but continue to be distracted (plus the weather here is gorgeous and just want to be outside!) Hope to get to Monogamy and A boy in the field shortly

Huh, my first post on Part 7. My big news is that I finished Dante! Also I finished Shakespeare’s Henry V (not a favorite) and Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading. Again this last is my current favorite. Nabokov does some new stuff, playing with the fabric of a novel’s reality, and he makes it kind of beautiful.

Otherwise I’m listening to The New Wilderness, reading another Shakespeare - Timon of Athens (it’s possible Shakespeare’s crew never performed it.), and i plan to start another Nabokov, The Gift.

I'm reading Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, the winner of this year's Booker Prize, along with Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture by Ed Morales. Both books are very good so far.

I am reading After London or Wild England by Richard Jeffries

Finished The New Wilderness, which I liked OK but not loved. Now reading Best American Comics 2019.

The Decameron Project Alan thaks for reminding me about this.

I've finished another Bolaño short story collection, El gaucho insufrible (amazing!) and Nabokov's Speak, memory (lovely, and full of interest, but very irritating). Still listening to The book of eels, and I've started Chekhov's Sakhalin Island.

>52 dchaikin: Congratulations on reaching the Dante finish line, Dan!

>52 dchaikin: Yey for Dante! :)

I had been reading books in my ongoing series (the top of my thread is updated) and I may get around to posting something about them. But I am back to reading (even if I am not posting about it) so at least this is something.

On the non-series stuff, I am working through The 20th century in poetry (more interesting than I expected) and The Art of the Tale: An International Anthology of Short Stories which is a bit annoying (too many US stories and the editors decided to order the stories by author name alphabetically)

I finished Have Yourself a Fudgy Little Christmas which is a cozy mystery set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Currently reading An Amish Christmas Wedding which includes four short stories.

I finished reading the memoir I Attacked Pearl Harbor last night and have now started The Invisible Man by HG Wells, my third book by the author. My November reading selections have been a bit all over the place this month but I'm settling nicely with the Wells.

Hi, everyone. My name is Salsa. I'm glad to join your community. I'm so happy to meet you all. Right now I have some collect novel. At present I have more than 15 novel, I bought some them at store. I usually group them according by siz. I put it in the desk draw er. I clean the cover with a brush. My favorite is the maze runner. What's your favorite?

>62 Salsabila.Maharani: Welcome to LibraryThing!

I finished Capital and Ideology, all 1200 pages of it, at last! It wasn't a difficult read, just a long one, partly because of the subject, partly because of all the hand-holding and recaps. Now reading something completely different: Poésie des troubadours, an anthology of medieval Occitan poetry (translated into modern French).

>62 Salsabila.Maharani: Hi and welcome. You will find we are a friendly group.

I just finished Kiki's Delivery Service - it's not quite the same story as the film (Miyazaki couldn't resist putting in a flying machine, among other things!) but very much the same style and a pleasant read. Currently reading The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute.

I just finished Inheritors, which was very good and am starting The Great Offshore Grounds and Ex Libris.

I'm reading The Cold Millions by Jess Walter, which is set during the labor movement in Spokane, WA during the beginning of the last century. It's excellent so far.

I'm also reading Figuring by Maria Popova, and now that I'm just enjoying the way the author describes events in people's lives and draws connections between people and ideas, I'm enjoying it more that when I was expecting something more substantial.

And I'm in the middle of the 1980s with a group of young men in Manchester for the weekend in Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan.

>65 jjmcgaffey: Oh do let me know how Chequer board is, its one of his I have not read but wanted to.'

Finished Mantel Pieces a collection of book reviews Hilary Mantel writes for the London Book Review.All well written, but it does help to have some knowledge of A Place of Greater Safety and her Wolf Hall trilogy. Those essays were very interesting as they dealt with one main character (Daltan) and two women with very interesting stories. But even without that knowledge, she has some interesting things to say about royalty, women, and illness (her own). Cant wait for more from her, but while we wait, these are worth nibbling

I am anxious to get to The Cold Millions; I've heard a lot of good things about it. I'll watch for your comments, Kay.

I finished Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin. This is a fascinating and comprehensive history of the Black Panther Party, which rose quickly to assume a place at the vanguard of the Revolutionary/New Left movement in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The authors provide a very readable and detailed account of the cultural/historic factors and personalities, both inside and outside the party itself, that created the Panthers' philosophy, quick rise, widespread influence, and steady disintegration. This book illuminates a crucial period in African American history and American history more generally. Highly recommended. I've written more on my own CR thread.

Next up for me will be the semi-classic (or classic?) British crime novel, The Crust on its Uppers by Derek Raymond.

>58 AlisonY: thanks! >59 AnnieMod: yes, yay!

>62 Salsabila.Maharani: welcome to LT and Club Read

Some Texas traveling has led me to try to read Roadside Geology of Texas cover to cover. Also have Timon of Athens going, a somewhat obscure Shakespeare; And I finally started Nabokov’s The Gift, which has made for really difficult reading so far. The first time I’ve felt that with him.

>71 dchaikin: Geniuely curious to see what you find in a roadside geology guide. Have a bunch myself of course but have never really used them as intended.

I've finished a biography of Shirley Jackson and one of her novels, The Bird's Nest.

Now I'm reading a biography of Andrew Jackson: American Lion (yes, I picked this and the Shirley Jackson biography up because they were next to each other on the library shelf in my 30 seconds of browsing). I've also started an nyrb book, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.

>72 stretch: I've read a lot of it here and there and it's both very good and surprising. Of course he keeps it simple. It doesn't tell you every outcrop at every mile marker, but just big picture stuff. It's embarrassing how surprised I am whenever I read a new section. Also, I finally figured out it's best if you read the entire section and not just the road you're traveling, as (1) explanations relevant to what you're seeing are scattered about. and (2) it does all congeal coherently as a whole.

I am reading L'Écume des Jours by Boris Vian

and I am about to start my next Shakespeare Richard III

after you read that, read Sharon Kay Penman's book sunne in splendor or josephine tey daughter of time which gives a more nuanced look at the king and his life and crimes. Shakespeare was a Tudor propoganist and while I loved the play, appreciate a different perspective on him

now reading pride and prometheus No its not one of those austen zombie or vampire books. Its about Mary Bennett and Victor Frankenstein, and its really intersting!

Finished The Chequer Board - not bad, but not one of the great Shutes. It's a trifle pointless, though interesting. Also read Daughter of Necessity by Marie Brennan - a short story (I hadn't realized that until I started - ebooks can be deceptive) about Penelope (Odysseus' wife). Nice twist(s). And I started Why Knot? - non-fiction about knots, written by a high-wire walker. He's very chatty - should be interesting.

>68 cindydavid4: Good but not great. Worth reading, if you come across it, but I doubt I'll bother to reread.

>72 stretch: I have several roadside geology books; a couple times I've actually taken one out on a road it describes and looked for what it says, but more often I just read them. They're fascinating, to me - a good way to connect geology and normal life. "So when they built this road cut, they cut through 11 million years of time - that white band at the bottom is the sand from a shallow sea, then a narrow layer of ash from volcanos..."

>78 jjmcgaffey: I think The Chequer Board must have been meant as a warm-up for Shute’s attempt to move from thrillers to serious novels, it’s kind of neither one thing nor the other, isn’t it? “Pointless” is probably fair!

I finished The book of eels, which was fun, and taught me one or two things I didn’t know about eels and will probably never need to know. Also just finished Sakhalin Island - review still to come.

I’ve started listening to Bagels, bumf and buses, which seems to have exhausted all three of those topics already in the first couple of chapters. The rest will be a surprise, I expect...

Also started Turgenev’s A sportsman’s notebook. Mentioned in every book about Russia I’ve read in the last couple of months, so I felt I should read it at last. But they also invariably mention the adventure stories of Mayne Reid, as read by every educated Russian boy of the late 19th century. I’m not sure if I want to read those as well...

>77 cindydavid4: Cindy, I enjoyed Pride and Prometheus.

On my husband's recommendation I have started Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts. The author is a favorite of both of us; each of us reading approximately half of his books but not the same books. I have been starting and abandoning too many books lately due to distractions and was looking for something that really might grab my attention. He mentioned this one.

Just finished An Amish Christmas Wedding by various authors. I will probably read a mystery novel next, maybe short stories by Agatha Christie.

How do you cover a spoiler? (looked all through the site and couldn't find this) thanks

<spoiler>Text here</spoiler>
Will produce
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thx!

>80 avaland: I really did enjoy it. Like the other Mary Bennet books I read, her character is so much more complex. But poor kitty! My one disappointment was how I thought it would end thought Mary would turn in to Mary Wollencraft and be the writer of Frankenstien That does sorta happen in Mary B she becomes an author. But thought my ending would have worked better!

Since I've had such a good reading year I have decided to close off my year with a Japanese language only reading month. I haven't read anything in Japanese all year as I wanted to keep up my reading pace but now I really want to go into the new year with a good reading pace in Japanese.

I'm warming up with the easy to read 静かな雨 which is just one of those feel-good boy likes girl, girl is in accident and loses her short term memory, boy helps her create a new life, type story. Nothing literary and nothing that needs to get translated into any other language but easy to read which will help me transition into some more difficult books.

>84 cindydavid4: Glad you liked it.

----

Have finished Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing As We Age and A Libertarian Walks into a Bear The Utopian Plot to Liberate am American Town (And Some Bears)(reviews on our thread)

I'm continuing with the Adam Roberts novel; however, the latest Rebus novel, A Song For Dark Times, arrived yesterday and is whispering sweet nothings in my ear....

I finished The Crust on Its Uppers by Derk Raymond. Published in 1962, The Crust on Its Uppers is a sly takedown of the British upper class disguised as a noir caper novel. The protagonist a young man with the advantages of that upper class background and education, has become disillusioned with what he sees of the rot, the lack of joi de vivre and purpose, of that class, and has submerged himself instead in the South London grime scene of con men, sharks and shady players. Dark bars, drugs, booze and dodgy business dealings fuel the scene. The first half of this relatively short novel is more of a character/class study than anything else, with the caper part of the proceedings not really getting going until about the midway point. You'll find more on my personal CR thread, but the bottom line is that I found this to be an enjoyable reading experience and an interesting sort of time travel.

Next up for me will be James Weldon Johnson's classic, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.

I've finished The Cold Millions by Jess Walter which was fantastic and so well done.

I'm currently reading These Women by Ivy Pochoda, which is likewise excellent - concerning a serial killer preying on sex workers, so no one cares that much about it, except for one disgraced officer. There were so many solid books published this year that aren't receiving the attention they deserve.

I'm also reading a novel set during a pandemic called Death is a Welcome Guest by Louise Welsh. Interesting to see how her vision of a worldwide plague differs and agrees with what we're living through.

I've finished Bagels, bumf and buses — nicely done, but not meant for people who already know something about the history of English words — and A sportsman's notebook, which I enjoyed enormously.

I've started another of my pile of Seven Seas Books, Bread and a stone by Alvah Bessie, and I'm also reading the third of Henry Havard's travel books about the Netherlands, La Hollande pittoresque: le coeur du pays.

>89 thorold: one of my fav books about the English language is Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, informative, interesting and rather funny. Im remembering he does talk about American English but not sure.

>90 cindydavid4: Yes, I enjoyed Mother tongue too, astonishing to realise it's thirty years old by now. He has a chapter on "old world/new world" and another on International English in Asia and elsewhere. Of course he does the "two nations divided by a common language" thing in several of his other books as well.

But I've got a whole shelf of books like that! David Crystal's The stories of English is my current favourite, a nice compromise between popular and academic, and Robert Burchfield's The English language is a handy compact "all you need to know" for students.

>91 thorold: noting these. Like >90 cindydavid4: I really enjoyed Mother Tongue, one of my favorite Brysons - but it was years ago I read it. (For perspective on where I was coming from, he was first to enlighten me that the word "English" derived from the word "Anglo", as in "Anglo-Saxon".)

And Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue is fascinating - he uses some of the structures of English to posit that it's not just Germanic and Romantic, but draws on Celtic languages as well (which makes a lot of sense). And he's a really good writer.

I need to get around to reading the Bryson - I've had it on my shelf for years.

Finished Roadside Geology of Texas and started Willa Cathers Sapphira and the Slave Girl - an uncomfortable but curious attempt at a nonjudgmental dive into American slavery. I mean the author is laying out the complexity as she saw it, but has no obvious editorial comment. There is no condemnation! (so far.) It's standard Cather prose with a tension that comes only and entirely from what we personally know about slavery coming in (in my case, it leaves me feeling I know very little). This was Cather's last novel.

>92 dchaikin: he was first to enlighten me that the word "English" derived from the word "Anglo", as in "Anglo-Saxon"

Ha, know the feeling

>93 jjmcgaffey: Magnificent Bastard tongue sounds like something I need to read, thanks for the heads up

Ok, don't know where I found this title but a few places mentioned it. The Most Fun We Ever Had But after five minutes, not only did I not care one iota for these people, but I certainly don't want to spend time reading about their woes, their sex lives, how they treat their kids, how they treat each other. Probably my quickest DNF of the year

I should have seen the blurb comparing it with Frazen who I hate and anne tyler, whose early books I loved but she hasn't written anything decent in years.

Ok just spent to much of a post on this subject.
Now what should I read next? Havent finished the Decamoron Project or Ancient Stones, those should wash away the grudge

>91 thorold: But I've got a whole shelf of books like that!

You too? :) I love books about linguistics - both proper scholarly ones and the ones for the wider public. And there are a lot of them out there about English (being in English and all... easier than writing a book in English about the peculiarities in the French dialects) ;)

>94 dchaikin: So did you enjoy the Roadside Geology, despite not being able to go look at the actual rocks/land?

>97 jjmcgaffey: I actually enjoyed Roadside a lot partially because I _have_ seen so much of what he covers. It would have felt more abstract otherwise, but still have been interesting because there were so many surprises. I’m not ready to read all the others i have. (This is the only one i’ve read cover to cover)

I finished Best American Comics 2019, which promises to push me down a lot of good paths as far as the source material it was pulled from, and also Muriel Spark's The Girls of Slender Means, which was really just strange and fun and a remarkable feat of story structure. Now I'm square in the middle of The Eighth Detective and still not sure what to think about it, which I'm guessing is the point.

My next book is for the unread pile on my bookshelves: The Island of Sheep John Buchan

>100 baswood: Have fun! I enjoyed this series, as whacky as it is. This was an enjoyable entry.

I read Sailor's Night Before Christmas which is a fun take-off on the Night Before Christmas. The colorful illustrations are a suitable accompaniment for the story, which features Santa as an Old Salt who arrives in a tugboat pulled by seahorses. I have a collection of take-offs on the Night Before Christmas, and it was a good opportunity to get the books out and read this favorite and off-beat Christmas story.

I am now finishing the last few chapters of An Irish Country Christmas by Alice Taylor. I have read this book in the past, and I am reluctant to see it end. I loved it just as much this time as the last times I read it.

I've started The Far Country by Nevil Shute. So far it's a bit of a slog - still setting up the characters and situation. We'll see if it turns into one of those that sweep me up and stay in the mind forever, or merely a good story.

I finished my first Japanese book of the year 静かな雨 and I'm now reading 夏と花火と私の死体 as I continue my Japanese December.

My reading has slowed right down to a trickle as life's busy at the moment. I'm in the early stages of The Bluest Eye. I can't decide if it's working for me yet or not - it's a very different style of writing to Beloved which I hugely enjoyed.

I'd been slowly working through Sister Outsider and finally finished it. Party Going was an odd, maybe enjoyable read, but The Silence of the Girls was better. And Ice...was unique. Next up is Autumn.

I finished Bread and a stone (OK, but depressing), and La Hollande pittoresque: le coeur du pays (fun, 1870s style!).

I’m about halfway through a Pérez-Reverte swashbuckler from the TBR shelf, El caballero del jubon amarillo, and I’ve started listening to The noise of time. Not sure what’s next after that, probably back to the Russians.

I've finished Safe Conduct by Boris Pasternak, and have started Âme brisée, by Mizubayashi Akira.

>105 AlisonY: they are quite different. Hoping Bluest Eye ends up working for you.

I finished James Weldon Johnson's classic, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. For anyone interested, my comments are posted on my own CR thread.

I'm now reading The Pittsburgh Pirates by Frederick G. Lieb. This is an interesting (for baseball fans) history of the team first published in 1948 written by a sportswriter who was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Classic science fiction for me next The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

>111 baswood:
Oh nice! First time or reread? I found it fun

I just started Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Olafsdottir and plan to tackle the 58 page Enya: a Treatise on Unguilty Pleasures by musical genius Chilly Gonzales (I think he trademarked that)

I am currently reading An Amish Cookie Club Courtship and Always a Guest.

Finished The Eighth Detective, which was strange and fun. Now I have two library holds that came in at the same time, The Best American Short Stories 2020 and Urban Legends: The South Bronx in Representation and Ruin. Those should make for an interesting contrast to each other.

>112 Nickelini: It was a first time read for me

My final Shakespeare read for the year is up next - Titus Andronicus

I finished Sonallah Ibrahim's Ice and the Stray dog cabaret anthology yesterday, and I've launched into Angus Wilson's Collected stories. The TBR pile is shrinking visibly (under 90 books left, for the first time in years), but that won't last. There's already at least one unopened Amazon parcel under my miniature tree (I'm trusting that it contains books, not cheese).

>115 baswood: After that you should be better equipped than any of us to recite the whole of Michael Flanders's "Greensleeves monologue" understanding all the references! Or at least to get hold of a butt of sack...

>115 baswood: need to catch up on your thread. Curious what you will make of
that parade of body parts.

>116 thorold: Michael Flanders's "Greensleeves monologue" - ok. What is this?

>117 dchaikin: See here: http://www.beachmedia.com/gorbuduc.shtml

Or listen to one of the Flanders and Swann records. I think he does it on several. It’s a long-winded joke full of bad puns about renaissance theatre. Including “tight as Andronicus” as a simile for drunkenness.

>118 thorold: this will require a little focused time. Thanks!

I finished Amish Cookie Club Courtship and also A Child's Christmas in Wales. Now I am reading Christmas in Evergreen: Tidings of Joy which is a book based on the Hallmark movie release (fun story but reads a lot like a script).

I just started Old Baggage, and I already love Mattie.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January Liking it much better than the book we were to read for a book group starless sea. I loved Night Circus but I was so disappointed in this one.

I finished the interesting baseball history, The Pittsburgh Pirates by Frederick G. Lieb, first published in 1948. You'll find my comments on my own CR thread.

And now, from the "They Can't All Be Classics" Department, I'm reading Fun and Deadly Games, the third book in an obscure noir/pulp series featuring military undercover crime investigator Giff Speer. The series was written by Don Tracy. This third entry in the series was published in 1968.

I finished 夏と花火と私の死体 (Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse) this past weekend, and have now started 万引き家族 (Shoplifters), which was a movie that did well at Cannes and that I've been wanting to watch but was waiting until I read this. (Although a friend told me this was written based off the movie and not vice versa. Oh well.)

I finished The Bluest Eye, and am on to Robin Jenkins' The Pearl-Fishers.

I’ve just finished The collected stories of Angus Wilson and started a Thomas Bernhard novel I found lurking on the TBR, Korrektur.

I finished Fun and Deadly Games by Don Tracy. It only took me one rainy Sunday afternoon and evening to make my way through this enjoyable mystery. This is the third book in Don Tracy's Giff Speer mystery series, published in 1968. All in all, I call this a fun, fuzzily plausible (but anyway, who looks too hard at these things?) mystery. You'll find a bit more on my own CR thread.

Sometimes books jump off my shelf at me more at less at random. My next book is sort of like that, as I'll be reading What I Think, a collection of speeches and articles written by Adlai Stevenson and published in 1955, between his two losses to Eisenhower in the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956.

I just finished A Christmas Carol Murder and today I received a beautiful Penguin hardcover edition of Louisa May Alcott Christmas Stories, so that is likely on my list.

I'm currently reading Early Riser by Jasper Fforde. Which is a very weird book, but then, I kind of expect that from Jasper Fforde.

>129 bragan: I love Fforde. I've got Early Riser on my short TBR list.

>130 rocketjk: I'm enjoying it so far!

I recently finished Enya: a treatise on unguilty pleasures (Chilly Gonzales) and Turn of the Key (Ruth Ware), which were both good, fun reads. Now starting Taaqtumi which is an anthology of Arctic horror stories by indigenous authors

Finished Adam Roberts' amusing science fiction, Yellow Blue Tibia and now have picked up Muriel Sparks' Robinson (as part of a reading project)

Next is another book from 1951 - The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat

I am in full "read your series" mode so finished The 39 Clues Part 2: Cahills vs. Vespers (one never grows up if they can still enjoy this kind of books, right) and now making my way through Jesse Stone after a few distractions - after reading the last Parker book, now making my way through Michael Brandman's entries and he may be getting Parker's style even better than the Spenser's continuations do (and they are good). But then not much of a surprise - Brandman worked with Parker on creating the TV series based on the books series.

I bailed quickly on Ten Thousand Doors of January Starts out promising, this girl finds a magical door but its destroyed and she spends many pages with not much happening. A reviewer said it should have been called Ten Thousand Diaries of a Teenage Drama Queen. Pretty accurate, if you asked me. But I am in the minority coz apparently it garnered over a thousand 5 star reviews. Think I need to move away from fantasy for a bit - perhaps The Office of Historical Corrections will do the trick

Finished Robinson by Muriel Spark, now have picked up Julian Castro's autobiography, An Unlikely Journey. Still dipping in Atwood's poetry in Dearly: New Poems from time to time.

Thanks to my secret santa Tiff a life of timothy findley arrived! Have been a fan of his books forever, and am really looking forward to reading this!

I am reading A Christmas Resolution by Anne Perry.

Taking Thomas Bernhard’s Korrektur slowly (because it deserves it) I fitted in another Léo Malet story and Tommy Wieringa’s novella De dood van Murat Idrissi.

I’m now reading Boris Vian’s L’automne à Pékin, which turns out to have nothing to do with either of those things. And I had time to fit in a seasonal bauble this morning, The indisputable existence of Santa Claus: the mathematics of Christmas.

It is the season after all so I decided to start The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries which had been on my shelves since 2016 (and every year I forget about it until it is well into January and I decide to leave it for next year...). I had read a lot of the stories inside but they are still fun to reread. I doubt that I will finish it before the end of the year (I am rationing) so I may start the thread next year with it but... at least I remembered to pick it up this year.

Outside of it - next books in my long crime series... :)

My next book is one from the shelves - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

I'm reading Ma Rainey's Black Bottom before I watch the film. I am so happy to see another Wilson play on film.

I'm itching to read All That Remains: A Life in Death which is a recent purchase. However, reading about death in Christmas week doesn't quite seem fitting with the ho, ho, ho season, so I think I'm going to start Bad Dirt, a collection of stories by Annie Proulx instead.

I finished A Christmas Resolution and also Old Christmas by Washington Irving. I am currently reading The Coffee Corner by Amy Clipston, along with other assorted Christmas novels and collections of stories.

Still have the autobiography ongoing, but also read Ragnar Jonasson's White Out yesterday and read Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls today.

Touchstones don't seem to be working

I'm putting 万引き家族 (Shoplifters - which became the movie that got success in Cannes) to the side (not that I was getting very far with it) because yesterday I found X'mas Stories: 一年でいちばん奇跡が起きる日, a Christmas stories anthology by Japanese authors so I thought it'd be a great seasonal read and an interesting look at a Japanese literary interpretation of Christmas. I technically have the reading level to read this in time for Christmas on Friday but we'll see where my motivation/laziness falls. :)

Yesterday I finished Taaqtumi: Arctic Horror Stories, and now I just finished Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Olafsdottir, which I loved. I am now starting Last Vanities, by Fleur Jaeggy (originally published in Italian as Paura del Cielo, which is not the same thing.

I finished What I Think by Adlai Stevenson, a collection of speeches and print articles delivered/written by Stevenson between his two runs for president in 1952 and 1956, both of which he lost to Dwight Eisenhower. Stevenson was an intellectual and a proud liberal, the former quality perhaps serving as an impediment to winning over the American electorate. His writing was certainly thought-provoking and offers a very interesting window into Democratic thought circa 1955. I've written more about this collection on my own CR thread.

Next up for me will be another book from my friend Kim Nalley's list of important books about African-American history and race relations in the US, Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis.

I've just started The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. So far, I've read the first short story, and I'm enjoying it.

Finished the 6th, and sadly the final installment, of Ragnar Jonasson's Ari Thor Arason series, Winterkill.

I finished L’automne à Pékin (fun!) and read Rosamond Lehmann's 1920s Girton novel Dusty Answer, which was a kind of tie-in with my earlier A S Byatt binge.

Now busy with Black and British, trying to widen that gap on the TBR shelf before I unpack all my Christmas parcels...

>153 thorold: Will be interested in your thoughts on Black and British....

>153 thorold: What Alison said. I had intended to read Black and British this year, but I'll definitely do so in 2021.

Now reading Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grøndahl.

More Elizabethan love sonnets for me by Barnabe Barnes Parthenophil and Parthenophe

I'm reading Cold Earth. I've liked the other books by Sarah Moss that I've read.

I finished Zola's La Bête Humaine (brutal and brilliant). I'm planning to finish up two more books before the end of the year. One is The Forgotten Kingdom, which is a fun, escapist historical fiction series that follows twins Lailoken (who will later be "Merlin") and Langoureth in 500s Britain. And the other a Persephone title, A Fortnight in September about a family vacation.

>154 AlisonY: >155 kidzdoc: Just finished Black and British — I posted my review. I had some doubts when I started reading it — "forgotten history" is a contradiction in terms, after all, but I suppose you have to allow for some hype when TV gets involved. And it is a really excellent book, putting a lot of what seemed like random fragments of history into a meaningful context. I think you'll like it, Darryl.

Anyway, it's Christmas Eve, it's getting dark here, so I think I'm allowed to pull up a large, comfortable piece of cake, put on some appropriate music, and start opening book-parcels. :-)

>160 thorold: Happy Christmas eve. Christmas comes a night earlier on the continent than in the UK. Thank goodness for a Brexit deal as I was getting worried that tariffs might be placed on book buying from England.

I completed my chronological read-through of A S Byatt's fiction (fittingly) with the end of the world in Ragnarok: the end of the gods — which might have been even more apocalyptic if she'd known about Trump and Brexit when she wrote it.

I made a start on my Christmas pile by reading The Moth and the Mountain, because who doesn't like a book about a thirties eccentric who suddenly decides to fly to India and climb Everest, fuelled only by willpower and Quaker Oats...?

Now busy with Is that a fish in your ear?.

>162 thorold: Oh I want to read that book! At first I thought of Douglas Adams in his wonderful Babelfish in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy but it looks much more complex than that. Let me know what you think about it.

About halfway through Addie Leroux and while I like the writing, finding it repetitios as she goes through her very long life. There is another book about a young girl who for some reason is instantly forgettable The Sudden Apperance of Hope. I like the way that characters life was written (granted the latter dealt with this curse for a year or two. The former lived through 400 years) Ill finish it tho I do suspect I know where this leads.

I hope you all had a nice Christmas. Today I'm hoping to start Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane. I love the mountains, and really missed seeing them on holiday this year, so I'm hoping to be transported there as an armchair traveller.

I finished another book from my friend Kim Nalley's list of important reading about African-American history and race relations in the US, Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis. My full review is on my own CR thread.

And now, for something completely different, I'm reading and enjoying Jasper Fforde's latest, Early Riser.

>162 thorold: I think you book-bulleted me with The Moth and the Mountain. It's too weird to miss.

ETA _And_ Is That a Fish in Your Ear?. I love words and etymology; this looks like it touches a lot of my interests.

Finished Peter L'Official's Urban Legends: The South Bronx in Representation and Ruin, which was interesting, incomplete, and a bit on the dry side—I liked the intersection of urban studies and art criticism, but it was a bit of a slog too. Long version on my thread, if anyone finds that description enticing, heh.

And for my last book of the year, my library hold of The Best American Short Stories 2020 just came in, so maybe that's a good way to finish up this lousy year—the best of the past 12 months.

Am about halfway through Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life. I came across the book while looking at something else, thought it right up my alley, so ordered a used copy from Amazon. After doing so it occurred to me that it sounded a bit familiar and, sure enough, there was an older edition on the shelf, and yes, I clearly had read it well before the days of LT. I thought it well-deserving of a re-read because of the many related things I have read since....

After the epiphany, the order, of course, was canceled.

I'll have to look at the short story collection. I'm reading Square Haunting and am just starting Louise Penny's latest.

I finished Jingle All the Way which I read for NetGalley--a take it or leave it disjointed story, for which the title had little to do with the story. I am now reading Twice as Nice which is a book of two short stories and also The Mischief of the Mistletoe which is part of the Pink Carnation series and one that has been on my TBR list for a couple of years.

I've read quite a few contemporary books during my stay-at-home holidays:
Winter - fun read, especially in close proximity to the earlier Autumn. It includes a fantastic plot synopsis for Cymbeline and now I want to read that.
Christmas Days was delightful, but I won't be trying any of the losey-goosey recipes.
The Christmas Oratorio was not what I expected, good but I would have liked it better at a different time.
Winter Grave is a fine mystery; I appreciated that even though it revolves around missing children it is not pedophiles or serial killers; instead it is a more realistic, less salacious tragedy.
Red Light Winter is almost as brutal as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and a little more...squalid.
The Sunlight Pilgrims was quite promising and had some lovely descriptions, but it sort of petered out.

I am reading The Conformist by Alberto Moravia - published in 1951 of course.

I'm reading Chasing Space by Leland Melvin. Not my favorite astronaut memoir, so far, but still well worth reading, and the author is one of those people who really makes you feel like you have accomplished nothing with your life.

The Office of Historical Connections is a very interesting collection of short stories, about half way through and thus far enjoying it.

Finally finished The Far Country by Nevil Shute; good, not great. Slice-of-life and romance, no big crises, but nice people to read about.

I enjoyed Is That a Fish in Your Ear? very much, really witty and engaging and a lot of interesting stuff about language and translation.
I followed that with a reasonably-satisfying Swedish crime story, A nearly normal family, and I'm now giving the new Christmas books a chance to recover while I read a Pérez-Reverte from further down the pile, El maestro de esgrima.

I’m finishing the year with Starve Acre, which so far is excellent. My current non-fiction book is KitchenWise and is about the “whys” of cooking. It’s written by a bio-chemist

>176 thorold: Is That a Fish in Your Ear? is one of those books on my TBR shelves that I am constantly telling myself I should read Real Soon Now and then somehow never quite manage to get to. Maybe I should actually get to it in 2021.

I finished Twice as Nice Amish stories and also still reading The Mischief of the Mistletoe in the Pink Carnation historical mystery series. Also still reading some Christmas stories, at least for now.

I finished Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane. I'll start something else before the year's out, but I won't finish before the end of the year, so I'll save that for our 2021 thread.

I finished The Far Country and almost immediately started Ruined City - I'm on a Shute kick. Also finished Why Knot? - interesting, though some failures of formatting in the ebook made it difficult in parts. And I need to reread it with some cord in hand to try all those knots and decide which I'm going to learn...

I enjoyed El maestro de esgrima, but of course couldn't leave it there with more than 24 hours of 2020 still to run, so I picked up the shortest thing on the TBR, L'Événement by Annie Ernaux, which is only 130 rather small pages, and finished that before breakfast.

I'll follow Alison's example and list the book I just started on the new thread, since it belongs to the "small countries" theme of RG.

I finished The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig, started Fishing for Trouble by Elizabeth Logan. I will probably have to dig up the rest of the Pink Carnation historical mystery novels, now that I got a taste with the Mischief novel.

Finished the excellent Starve Acre and the dark short story collection Last Vanities and have started The Essex Serpent, which opens on New Year's Eve. Fitting.

>181 jjmcgaffey: I looked up Why Knot and ordered it for my husband. He served in the USCG and the USN. He is currently a vice commander in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. One of the things he does when there are no covid restrictions is that he goes to the Coast Guard base, here in Cape May, and teaches recruits how to knot and throw lines. You said you read the ebook. The hardback came with some string for following along. He loves the book. Thanks.

Good! Yes, this is one of the books I suspect is _much_ better in physical copy.

Just finished Swedish suspence novel The Gilded Cage and not sure what to move on to next. I have a few things started.

LOL didn't realize this was an old thread. OOps.

Hello All,

I’m struggling to find the place I need to be. I’m trying to identify the origins of a book I own. It’s a Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J.M. BARRIE illustrated by ARHTUR RACKHAM and I have a few questions about it. Could anyone point me in the direction of a thread/person that can help me please? I can find green leather copies of them in numbers but I have a very dark navy blue leather version and I don’t understand why it’s different and I can’t find the answer anywhere myself, I can’t even find a picture of one for reference. I can provide pictures if it helps anyone. Is there anyone that can help me?

Thanks

Tod

>189 TodBailey1990: Who's the publisher, can you tell? There are groups that specialize in certain publishers, so that might help. This thread is very old and not particularly appropriate for your search...but I don't know quite where you should be posting. Maybe in Name That Book, though that's usually when someone needs a title, not publishing info...