WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 7

Grab your drinks (tea counts; so does coffee) and come tell us what you are reading.

With the holidays coming up quickly, do you have any books you plan to read during the holidays? Do you make plans like that? Did you use to?

>1 AnnieMod: What holidays are coming up? (And how did I miss them?)

>2 Nickelini: Well, the local box stores here already have Thanksgiving AND Christmas stuff out so they must be coming up, right? :)

I finished Sigh for a Strange Land by Monica Stirling, a brief, somewhat hallucinatory about displacement and alienation published in 1958 in which we see the events of the Hungarian uprising through a strange but very human lens. I've posted a longer review on the book's work page and on my own CR thread.

I'm now already almost throught Tavis Smiley's biography, Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year, which I'm finding quite well done.

I've got a pile of books going -- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which everyone is familiar with; Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo, about a British biracial woman who, after her mother dies, decides to go find her father, who went back to his (fictional) country in Africa before she was born.

Then there's Three Women, non-fiction by Lisa Taddeo looking at the lives of three ordinary women and The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, which is not my usual thing, but a friend handed it to me.

I am finishing An Unexpected Amish Courtship and also reading The Fairacre Festival.

>2 Nickelini: I was wondering the same thing! I woke up from a long afternoon nap and thought that I had switched into Rip Van Winkle mode and slept until mid November.

>3 AnnieMod: Very true. If it was up to me Thanksgiving displays in store couldn't appear until All Saints' Day, and Christmas displays until Black Friday.

>7 kidzdoc: Right? Instead they seem to start earlier and earlier. The Christmas stuff was already on the shelves in one of the stores the week before Labor Day. At least the Easter stuff is already removed I guess.

At least i managed to wake up everyone opening the thread and people actually seem to read my silly intros. :)

>8 AnnieMod: Ha! Indeed we do.

Its always been bad, remember complaining about this in college, mid 70s. Loved Nordstroms for declaring they would not put up chirstmas decor until after thanksgiving.

Its not the decor or the speed up that bothers me as much as the early start to holiday music. Wouldn't mind so much but every store and restaurant play the same 15 or so songs by different artists ad nauseum. After halloween, I make sure I have my mp3 with me,

I can't remember the last time I even was in a big box store, other than Lowe's—and they're more seasonal than holidayish. I guess that's one good thing about not going anywhere anymore. And I am much too cranky for holiday-themed reading.

>5 RidgewayGirl: I like your pile! I'm trying to alternate one main book with catching up on periodicals... I worry that I'm going to forget what I'm reading if I have too many books going. But I just had a good book mail day yesterday, which included a gorgeous book from a friend that I can't keep my hands off of (the book, not the friend), Miroslav Sasek, about the illustrator, so all my monogamous book plans have gone out the window.

>8 AnnieMod: : )

Reading Measure for Measure and Petrarch and His World. Listening to The Sweetness of Water.

>3 AnnieMod: I already started shopping for xmas cards for library thing. Annie, I get you every year so I had you in mind.

>13 dianeham: See, the holidays ARE coming :)

Tim keeps saying that this should not be happening and yet, half my list is usually the same every year ;) If he finally fixes the selection, just ping me for address if you want - I always like to send/receive postcards ;)

Re. reading for the holidays--I usually switch to reading Christmas books on Black Friday. I read Skipping Christmas and A Christmas Carol every year. I also like A Christmas Memory although it makes me cry, and Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol. I usually read the Anne Perry Christmas offering too, and some short stories.

I am enjoying my autumn decorations, but was also appalled (although why I don't know, it should have been expected) to see Christmas decor at Hobby Lobby when I stopped in to buy autumn decorations.

>14 AnnieMod: I should have your address from previos cards you sent me but if I can’t find them, I will ping you.

So at a certain part in Matrix, Marie is watching death take two of her nuns, one a young welsh princess named Gwladys who was sent as punishment for her insurrectionary family, "for if she was not given to god, she would have bred great intellilgent Welsh nobles who would also inevitably chafe against the English Crown". I nodded, knowing exactly who this was. The story of that royal family of Wales was told by Sharon Kay Penman in her welsh trilogy. very sad story, but still, fun to see that Groff knew the history, and used it in this book.

And I am enjoying this book so much!

My wife and I decided for a mini-vacation this weekend and traveled the 60 miles or so to the Mendocino County coast, bringing Rosie the German shepherd along, for a few days at a nice, dog-friendly inn. Yesterday I finished Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year by Tavis Smiley, which I found very sad but quite well done. I'll put up a bit more of a review on my CR thread upon my return.

I'm now reading Shelby Foote's short Civil War novel, originally published in the mid-50s, Shiloh. So far it's very well written. Cheers!

I'm still in belated-summer-holiday mood, haven't even got to the falling-leaves-and-pumpkins stage yet. I'm just back from a week's sailing in Greece, during which I didn't find a lot of time for reading. That left me about halfway through Dona Flor and her two husbands, and I'm also reading A L Morton's A people's history of England.

But somehow the last week has left me itching to re-read The Odyssey, so I may jump ship from one or both of those...

I'm reading Lauren Groff's latest, Matrix; I really love the time period.

very interesting article with her from Shondaland about the writing of the book. https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a37518972/lauren-groff-reimagines-a-med...

I have three books 'on the go' at the moment:

1985 by Anthony Burgess
The four sided triangle by William F Temple
Un roman russe by Emmanuel Carrère

Finished Measure for Measure, and picked up Ada by Nabokov today.

Finished Mr. Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Those who found some of her full-length novels hard-going might like this novella. Mr. Fortune is a rather sweet and gentle missionary who elects to bring Christianity to a tiny Polynesian island. He offers the inhabitants paradise, but they already seem to have achieved it. The story has interesting allegorical flourishes and owes quite a lot to Pilgrim's Progress in a scrambled up way. But it is neither dogmatic nor didactic. The writing style is especially interesting, full of jarring dual metaphors that underscore the ambiguities of Mr. Fortune's circumstances. Example: "Mr. Fortune sat on the best mats, flushed with praise and wearing as many garlands as a May Queen or a coffin."

Now on Sylvia Moreno Garcia's Certain Dark Things. Various species of vampires run the Mexican drug cartels in a near-future that's not too far off the present day, except the cops are a bit more corrupt, more people are living in economically precarious circumstances, education is worse, and mysterious diseases are cropping up and making people sick. Humans are pitted against the vamps, the vamps are fighting each other, and Domingo, a young and naive human scavenger in Mexico City, volunteers to become the Renfield of a vamp on the lam.

>19 thorold: I'm still in belated-summer-holiday mood, haven't even got to the falling-leaves-and-pumpkins stage yet.

Oh, me too! September in Vancouver is very much a late summer sllliiidde into autumn. For example, yesterday I spent the day in Victoria, BC with my daughter and we started with lunch outside on a flower-festooned patio in the sunshine, followed by some shopping (https://www.munrobooks.com/, of course), and then a stroll on the beach, followed by a driving back to her place to get her bathing suit and going to a close beach for a swim (not me, her!). But in the evening, it clouded over, and we walked through the very cool natural forest garden at the University of Victoria and then crossing campus at dusk, crushing fallen oak leaves in the chilly air to catch the movie being shown on campus (Ammorite, with Kate Winslet & Saoirse Ronan). A bit of summer, and a good hit of autumn all in one day. That's September to me. Not even thinking of pumpkins, and certainly not Christmas trees.

ETA: This is supposed to be what I'm reading so . . . The Last September, by Elizabeth Bowen. . . . which I'm making progress through and I will finish, but why? Also loving my read-on-work-breaks book, All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. So good.

I very much enjoyed Jon McGregor's Lean Fall Stand - one of those books that you don't have to concentrate too hard on and is just an enjoyable page-turner.

Next up I'll be starting The Maiden Dinosaur by Janet McNeill which was on a list I came across of forgotten / over-looked novels of importance by Northern Irish writers (strictly speaking McNeill was Irish as she was born in Dublin, but I think she lived in NI long enough for us to claim her as one of our own).

>26 AlisonY: I've loved every single one of Jon McGregor's books and I've got this one on the Christmas wish list.

>25 Nickelini: Loved Victoria, would love to go again. Aside from all you describe, it was my first time to discover nude bicycling was a thing. We caught the first bicyclists and laughed all through the parade. Found out later that it is an actually organization around the world.

Ive read a few of Miriam Towes, but have not read all my puny sorrows. Based on the reviews here, looks like I need to check it out

Just finished a cute and easy read Katherine's Story (The Girls of Lighthouse Lane) and still unpacking my library into my new home!

>27 RidgewayGirl: Oh I think you'll enjoy it.

Now reading The house in the cerulean sea for a book group. Ive read so many of these types of books,, I was hesitant to try. So far tho, I am enjoying it.

Finished Petrarch and His World, and pick up John Steinbeck's first novel from 1929, Cup of Gold, today.

Loved my new (old) author find of Janet McNeill with The Maiden Dinosaur - splendid stuff.

Up next is The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar.

I finished Shiloh, Shelby Foote's novel about the important Civil War battle, as seen through the eyes of several participants, Union and Confederate, officers and enlisted men. Foote a very well known Civil War historian, of course, did a voluminous amount of research for this book. I found it well written and a good, if horrific, picture of what Civil War soldiers experienced in battle.

Next up for me will be Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments by Israeli author Oz Shelach. This is a short novel published in 2003 by City Lights Books, made up of short vignettes about the history and tragedy of Jerusalem since the founding of Israel. My wife picked this book up the last time we visited City Lights Books in San Francisco, for my money one of the most soulful spots on Earth.

Finished the excellent Matrix and am starting The Women of Troy.

>35 BLBera: loved her WWI books, I should look at that. Glad you enjoyed Matrix, thinking I might want to read it again

The house in the cerulean sea is excellent. The ending is a foregone conclusion but still enjoying the ride. Has anyone read any of his other books?

I finished Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments by Oz Shelach. Picnic Grounds is an understated but very powerful collection of short vignettes (the fragments of the title), anywhere from a half page to a page and a half long, about life in Israel, mostly in and around Jerusalem. More specifically, they are about denial and absurdity. The "absurdity" aspect could mostly be about government deception and double-talk anywhere. But the "denial" dimension, much more prevalent overall, are about a very specific Israeli phenomenon, the historic denial of the destruction of Palestinian villages and the uprooting and banishment, sometimes the murder, of their inhabitants around the time of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

If interested you can find my longer review about the book and author on my own CR thread.

Next up for me will be Indian Summer a history/memoir about Anderson Valley, the location in Mendocino County, California, where my wife and I have lived since 2008. The work was published locally.

I still haven’t finished either of the books from >19 thorold:, but I did take an excursion back to the scene of my holiday with the Stephen Mitchell translation of The Odyssey and Alberto Manguel’s Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey: a biography — a lovely little book with a silly title.

Going to the library to find the Manguel book has somehow left me reading an IEEE doorstop called Dawn of the Electronic Age: Electrical Technologies in the Shaping of the Modern World, 1914 to 1945 by Frederik Nebeker, which so far comes across as a slightly pedestrian book on a fascinating topic. But I’m only a few chapters in.

I have a chain of currently reading. I was reading Measure for Measure for weekend Litsy discussions (I have to get back to it), but I also started In the Heart of the Country partly due to its slimness, as subway reading. However, it is rather ponderous and requires focus so I picked up Contact for evening reading. Then when I realized it was Hispanic Heritage Month and I have only read one book by a Latinx author all year, I found My Time Among the Whites. And now my bookclub discussion is looming so I had to put Contact on hold to read The Slynx.

>39 ELiz_M: I LOVED My Time Among the Whites. I'll watch for your comments.

I finished The Sweetness of Water on audio. Strange is the wrong word for this, but I thought it had some oddities, and it was kind of endearing that way. I've picked up Light Perpetual and will start soon. Both of these are on the Booker longlist.

(ps: Nabokov's Ada is so far an oddly captivating book despite not really having a plot. I don't know what I expected, but this is better than that.)

I am currently reading The Amish Quiltmaker's Unruly In-Law which is quite a mouthful for the title. It is certainly hilarious.

I finished The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between which is making me think beyond Libya and a lot about how much my knowledge on the Arab mindset is based on what is portrayed by Western media.

On next to something completely different - The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey, and a fictionalised Cape Cod with Jo and Edward Hopper.

Agatha of Little Neon, very good novel about a year in the life of four nuns who are sent to run a halfway house in Woonsocket. Funny, sad, touching, with touches of outrage and doubt.

So House in the Ceralane Sea, was disappointing, but I did love the characters. More later on my thread

AndI skimmed through Mrs March after about 50 pages of her living in my head. Enough, egads

A lovely cool rainy weekend, decided for some light short stories Picked Life Studies which has been sitting on my TBR shelves forever. I have read most of Vreelands novels, and pleasantly surprised by how much I like her short stories.

>44 nohrt4me2: That one is high-ish up on my pile. I do love a good nun story.

I'm still reading Braiding Sweetgrass—it's big and I've had other stuff grabbing my attention—but enjoying it. Also just barely started Stephanie Gangi's upcoming novel Carry the Dog, which I may end up writing about or excerpting for Bloom, and also a couple of pages into Sarah Stein Greenberg's Creative Acts for Curious People, because I'm interested in designy innovationy stuff these days.

I read Sanctuary by Edith Wharton today. Took less than 3 hours. Enjoyed it.

>44 nohrt4me2: That one does sound good. I've been hoping my library orders a copy.

I finished Seio Nagao's Meurtres à la cour du prince Genji last night which was kind of fun reading but I didn't actually enjoy it, if that makes any sense. It was like reading a good bad fanfiction of The Tale of Genji. So, fun to have gone back to that world but best to pretend it's not the same characters at all.

There is a chapter in LIfe Studies about an artist I never heard about. Amedo Modigilani, an artist from italy but lived in france. The story is told through his daughter who was a baby when he, and later her mother died, and she goes out trying to discover who they were and who she is. Really a lovely and tragic story, and found out most of it was true. The daughter, Giovanna, was an Italian-French historian of Jewish art mostly known for her biographical research on her father. In 1958 she wrote the book Modigliani: Man and Myth, later translated into English from the Italian by Esther Rowland Clifford. She died in 1984.

Currently reading Death in Castle Dark and enjoying it so far. Just finished The Amish Quiltmakers Unruly In-law and Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight.

I just started The Performance by a new-to-me author.

I am actively in the midst of reading A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer; The Once and Future King by T. H. White; and The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. I finished Mary Stewart's Thornyhold on Saturday. And I have a stack of a half dozen or so different books that I want to start right now, mostly more buddy reads of one sort or another.

once and future king has been one of my favorite reads since HS. Make sure you check out Book of Merlin the book that White planned to add to the book, but ended up publishing it separately. Just before the battle, arthur is taken back to the hill with all the animals and Merlyn. The spend the night in a philosophical discussion on the nature of man.

I apparently did another one of my vanishing acts...

I seem to be in the mood for short stories: finished Songs for the Flames: Stories by Juan Gabriel Vásquez last night (which was excellent and took me on a trip to Colombia, France and Spain) and then started Born Into This by Adam Thompson - a debut collection by a Aboriginal author from Tasmania which is unsurprisingly good as well (and very different from the previous collection I just finished).

I'm currently reading Intimacies by Katie Kitamura, about a woman working as an interpreter at the International Court in The Hague, as well as A Passage North by Anuk Arudpagasam, which was shortlisted for the Booker.

>54 cindydavid4: The audio version I have includes The Book of Merlyn, though the print version I have does not. Actually, it gets a bit more convoluted than that; the audio version uses the text of the standalone edition of The Sword in the Stone, which is not the same as the version contained in my print copy. The title of the second book is also different between the two versions: The Queen of Air and Darkness in the print, and The Witch in the Wood in the audio.

I am reading Et Toujours les Forêts by Sandrine Colette

>58 baswood:

I really liked her Rien que de la poussiere (Nothing but Dust) and have Juste après la vague on my TBR pile that I'm really looking forward to.

I've been on a reading frenzy and finished two books in quick succession. I squeezed The Standing Chandelier by Lionel Shriver in this morning after finishing The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey (both very enjoyable).

On to something more sombre now - Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That.

I finished Indian Summer by Effie McAbee Hulbert. This memoir, written as a fictional narrative, describes the author's girlhood growing up during the late 19th century and into the early 20th century in the Yorkville and Anderson Valley region of Mendocino County, California, and about her constant, loving interactions with the native tribes of the area.

The book begins with a brief history of the local native tribe and an imagining of their experience of the first coming of Europeans to the valley. The valley is surrounded by what were then relatively inaccessible mountains and is located generally in a remote part of northern California, so white settlers were relatively late arriving and few in number. That didn't last long, however. At any rate, Hulbert grew up in a prominent early land-owning family in the region, raised by her parents and grandparents. Her grandfather, particularly, had a strong empathy for and friendships with their Indian neighbors. Hulbert herself was back and forth constantly between the family ranch and the Indian villages and made life-long friendships there. Hulbert depicts well the interdependence between the whites and indigenous peoples of the region, and her descriptions of the lives, culture and philosophy of the Indians are vividly rendered. But also unwittingly shows a strong sense of paternalism and the Indian culture's inexorable destruction in the region.

If interested, you can find my somewhat more in-depth comments on my CR thread.

I've now started Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby.

>60 AlisonY: I found Goodbye to All That quite an eye opener. Helped explain why my Uncle Martin would never talk about what he had seen in the trenches. He was shot in his leg two months in and sent behind lines to recover and then home. He said he owed a debt to whoever shot him because he saved his life.

>62 nohrt4me2: I'm slightly apprehensive about starting it.

>62 nohrt4me2: If you haven't already, check out Pat Barker about WWI start with Regeneration covers much of the same area as Graves did but I found his book as a memoir that was more specfic to him (btw Barker also wrote women of troy. I haven't read it since Ive already read several books on the topic, but shes a great writer, and might be enlightening

So just finished life studies and just loved it. Ill talk more about it in my thread, but if you are interested in art history or just like to read good stories about it, I can't recommend this book enough.

>64 cindydavid4: Thanks! I will check it out.

I've finished Beyond the blue horizon by Brian Fagan, a very interesting look at early seafaring around the world by someone who obviously knows what he's talking about (archaeologist and sailor).

And a curious little book by José Rentes de Carvalho, a Portuguese writer who's been living in the Netherlands since the 1950s, Gods toorn over Nederland. Everything you ever wanted to know about what it feels like to be a long-term expat.

Now to see if I can finish Dona Flor before the end of Q3 (I haven't even got to the second husband, and Q3 ends in four hours here, so I'm pretty sure what the answer to that one will be!).

Now reading how long till black futured month by NK Jemisin, I had started this back in January and kept finding new shiny covers. Back to this now, and really amazed at her range of characters and ability to weave between hi fantasy, magical realism and sci fi, sometimes in the same story. I know she has a new book coming out, and one of the stories is based on that.

Also started a book by someone named Peter Cashwell (reading buddy from several intinerations of the original book group we were part of, called along the lines: the boundaries that create our world talking to someone around here about birding, and thought of his first book and remembered there was a second but never read it. Fun so far (but of course!)

Liked Lauren Groff's writing in the enigmatic and somewhat unsatisfying Matrix and on to her earlier novel, The Monsters of Templeton. Good so far.

I just finished the surprising and very good The Performance, one of the more original novels I've read recently and am starting Joy Harjo's memoir Poet Warrior. I'm listening to Anton Treuer's new book The Language Warrior's Manifesto. I'm going to hear Treuer speak next week (fingers crossed) if it isn't canceled.

Also reading Joan, Lady of Wales. I was hooked onto the history of Wales through the fine writing of Sharon Kay Penman who wrote here be dragons along with many other books. Sent me on a few trips to Wales to discover more. Joan was the illegitimate daughter of King John of England. He later marries her off to Llewellen the Great, Prince of Wales. This is non fiction, yet because there is so little we know of the women of that time, there are some guesses and possibilities and just idk, but Im enjoying the writing of this Welsh historian.

I finished all the various books I had going at the same time, so now I can start again. Going with Mexican Gothic at home, and my read at work book is Six Stories. Except it's the weekend, and Six Stories was really good, so I brought it home. Off to Whistler for the weekend, so I hope I get some lazing around the hotel time to read.

Short story in NK Jemisin Valedictorian is an unsettling look at a dystopic world that reminds me of never let me go There is so much to this short story, and I need someone to read it to talk to about it. Any takers?

>73 cindydavid4: Sure, I'll read anything dystopian. Is the story available as a single somewhere/

here it is you might enjoy the whole book; when I read her stories I feel like I am listening to the worlds greatest storyteller, with her fairy tales, myths, legends and some sci fi as well. Anyway, I await your comments (if youd prefer so we don't take up a lot of space here, meet me in my thread)

Started reading Romeo and Juliet today. It's fun to revisit after some 30 plus years.

I am working on the new Lavie Tidhar novel The Escapement. So far it is as crazy as anything else he has written (by ways of Alice of Wonderland, Spagetti westerns and scary clowns - an unlikely combination that actually seems to work).

>64 cindydavid4: Um. I can't find your thread. I might have x'd it at some point, so they didn't show up in my feed, but made it easier to catch up on and concentrate on a thread. But apparently x'ing threads now just kills them. I read the story.

>78 nohrt4me2: https://www.librarything.com/topic/334550 :)

PS: you still can find them under the Ignored threads under More when you are in talk. They used to be at the bottom of their respective groups but now they are only in the Ignored list.

>78 nohrt4me2: Ok here is my thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/334550#n7617393
cindy's cats cradle books and antiques Not sure what you mean by x'd, do you mean starred? So come on over and lets talk story!

edit - thanks Annie!

>80 cindydavid4: Cindy, x-ing is the opposite of starring - it basically hides the thread from the person doing it. Before the big changes in Talk these just went to the bottom of the group they belonged to - so for small group like ours it was a way to hide temporarily some threads until you are ready to them.

Now with the changes, they are not shown in the group at all - they all went in their own menu, not filterable by group. Which changes how they can be used. :) And makes it so much harder to realize you pressed it on a thread you did not mean to. Which reminds me to do my monthly check for threads I ignored by mistake :)

Currently reading Crime and Poetry in the Magical Bookshop series by Amanda Flower.

I've finished Dona Flor (at last! I got really fed up with that iron-jawed paperback biting me every time I let my guard down) and indulged in another little blast of Thomas Bernhard with Ja. The first novel I can remember reading where the title on the front cover was so short it disappeared completely under the library's barcode sticker.

I think EEG by Daša Drndić is up next. Moving up from two-letter titles to three letter abbreviations...

I've started All That She Carried by Tiya Miles which is nonfiction about a cotton sack that was packed by her for a young girl who escaped slavery. The sack was kept for several generations and embroidered by Ashley's granddaughter with a description of what was packed in the sack. The author uses this keepsake to explore many aspects of slavery and Black womanhood. It's very good so far.

Also started The Seed Keeper, fiction written by Diane Wilson about the Dahkóta people, past and present. It is also off to a great start.

>84 japaul22: I loved The Seed Keeper! I'll watch for your comments.

oooo just got Lincoln Highway!!

>85 BLBera: I'm sure I added this book to my library list after your review!

I'm reading The Parson's Widow by Finnish author Marja-Liisa Vartio at bedtime. It's interesting....

I'm reading a novel about Grace Kelly for my book club and it's terrible. Just widely known facts presented in a decorous manner and obvious mistakes that make me dislike every page. I am enjoying finding the stupid, careless errors, but it's a limited fun. Beginning to see that my need to complete every assignment is not necessarily a good thing.

But the other books I'm reading are all wonderful, especially A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam that manages to create a mood so effectively while hopping around through the protagonist's life while he's simultaneously just walking around or staring out of a train window. And In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, a memoir about the author's relationship with an abusive girlfriend, is another fantastic book. Machado uses different tropes and genres to illuminate her relationship. It's both a gut-punch and an intellectual exercise. Lastly, I've just started The Comfort of Monsters by Willa C. Richards, which has begun well and already has more substance in the first chapter than in all of the book about Grace Kelly.

Just back from the library with the following books:

Le cas Malaussène by Daniel Pennac
La Classe de neige by Emmanuel Carrère
"OH...", Philippe Djian
Couleur du temps by Françoise Chandernagor

The challenge of course is to read them all before the due back date.

>90 baswood: No renewals? :)

>91 AnnieMod: That would be cheating

>89 RidgewayGirl: That Machado book is something else! I loved the "Choose Your Own Adventure" chapter so much I diagrammed all the possible paths to make sure I didn't miss any.

Jose Saramago All the Names. The bureaucracy of a department of vital statistics in an unnamed town is described in loving detail. Only a few pages in, but he sure knows how to pull you in.

>90 baswood:

I remember enjoying La classe de neige; an author I haven't seen the name of on LT since I posted about him about 10 years ago. Look forward to seeing your thoughts.

>95 lilisin: I started reading Emmanuel Carrère when one of the people on the NYT Book Review podcast began raving about him and I certainly wish it was easier to find his books where I am.

I finished Goodbye to All That, the Graves' memoir, and next up will be starting The Island by Ana Maria Matute.

I finished a short novel/novella last night. It somehow closed a circle of 4 unrelated books (Silent Winds, Dry Seas by Vinod Busjeet, Born Into This by Adam Thompson, Island by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen and Kaya Days by Carl de Souza) which deal with islands and home and belonging and so I just posted a 4-in-one review for all of them on my thread (direct link: https://www.librarything.com/topic/333822#7622157). One of those serendipity moments I guess.

And now I am reading Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - with the trial in the news, I figured it is time to read the book. Very good so far.

Hi everyone. I went to the library to get a horror book and I got one that was part of a game, so I got very confused about it and wanted to return it back but remembered today the library is closed. I'm trying to find new horror books. (However, I have some bought books I haven't read yet and I feel guilty but I love going to the library.)

Started Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah, motivated a bit by his Nobel Prize yesterday.

Just finished how long till black future month and really sorry it ended. Ill say more in my thread, but for anyone interested in her work and hasn't read the novels, this is really a place to start. 5*

Unable to decide what to read next, I picked up Creations The quest for origins in story and science Edited by Asimov. Ive had it forever and am not sure I read it. Thought it would be interesting.

Finished Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower and Prayers and Promises (Home to Heather Creek) by Robert Elmer. Not sure what to read next from my pile of books on my desk.

Yesterday I started reading Pedro Páramo, a classic and influential work of magical realism that was written by the Mexican author Juan Rulfo in 1955, in which a man makes a wish to his dying mother to return to her home town to look for his father, who she left when their son was a young child.

Today I picked up a library book for the first time since Covid. It's a 1986 translation of Boccaccio's epic poem Il Filostrato (the source of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde). I have read part 1.

I'm at the halfway point of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby. It's an interesting book about a fascinating and essential figure in American history and the Civil Rights movement in particular, though the writing, while mostly fine, is a bit dense, making this a slow reading experience for me. I've had to set the book aside temporarily, though, in order to take up the next selection for my book, which meets a week from today. It's my selection this month and I've chosen The Human Stain by Philip Roth. It's great to revisit this novel, which I haven't read since it was first published in 2000.

I just read a kid's book Read All About It! by Laura Bush. I am sure this one has been languishing on my shelves since I was in Library school.

I'm doing my first reread of the year. Most years I reread 4-5 books. It's hard sometimes to revisit a book when I have so many new books on my TBR pile, but I'm always glad I've reread. I'm surprised I haven't made time for it yet this year. So in between a couple of library holds coming in, I picked up The Age of Innocence. I think it might be my third time reading this, and I've thought about something new each time. I'm enjoying it!

>107 japaul22: Nice! I don't reread as much as I'd like to either. So many unread books on my shelves, and more being added every month. The Age of Innocence is one that I'd love to revisit too. I finished that book on my birthday, in New York City, and I went to see the Frick Collection that day, which seemed completely fitting. Great memories!

I finished the mystery thriller that I was enjoying, Six Stories, and I'm halfway through Mexican Gothic, which I'm also enjoying very much; and I read the first chapter of Unsettled Ground, because it's my book club choice for October. So far it's excellent. Many good books to start off October.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadian ClubReaders out there. My turkey is in the oven.

happy t day!!!

Been reading creations: the quest for origins in story and science
liking the stories more than the science so far, but its early yet. Just finished the creator Fascinating story of two friends who make a time machine, and meets the creator of the universe. Ive read Simak before way station and city Most of his work involves first contact. His science fiction is very different from current - much more compact, less need for 300 + pages.

I finished Braiding Sweetgrass, which I liked a lot—what a great example of how a writer's tone can make or break a book. Still reading the others I was reading but set them aside briefly to read a little ways into a few short story collections for a work thing, and the one that sucked me in is Eat the Mouth That Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza. I'll probably finish that one.

>107 japaul22: Age of Innocence is a book I choose to reread also. I may have read it 5 times.

I'm trying to drag out In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, which is so very good. I've just started Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, and have been immediately sucked into the story and I'm enjoying a lighter read, too, with The Guide by Peter Heller, which is a sequel to the also enjoyable The River, and which feels like Kent Haruf met Jack Reacher and they came up with a book idea together.

I am reading Sofi Oksanen's Dog Park which is better than I expected so far.

>114 RidgewayGirl: glad you’ve picked up Nervous Conditions.

Currently reading Bookshop of Second Chances which is set in Scotland. I like the setting and the characters, just wish the author had skipped the profanity and casual drug use.

I'm reading Ennemonde by the French writer Jean Giono, a novella about an obese and toothless woman in the High Country of France, who was both a respected shepherd and a feared murderer.

I just finished the very poetic Poet Warrior and am reading in Spanish the new novella by Sandra Cisneros Martita, I Remember You (Martita, the recuerdo). I am lazy about reading in Spanish and this shorter piece seemed like good practice.

I've just finished Joe Speedboot (more fun than I expected) and Het Nederlands van Tsjechov, a little book by Hans Boland about translating Chekhov into Dutch.

Next are Saramago's Small memories.

Sofi Oksanen's Dog Park turned out to be really good. Review in my thread. Next on the fiction side is Iron Lake because this is one of the series that had been on my waiting list for a very long time.

Skimmed and skipped to the equally disappointing ending of Bookshop of Second Chances. Now reading The Walnut Creek Wish.

>121 AnnieMod: I'll watch for your comments on Iron Lake. It's not the strongest book in the series.

>123 BLBera: The first books in series rarely are (and when they are, the second ones tend to crash and burn). I'd take a series where almost all the installments are decent any day compared to a one-wonder ones where the quality goes down and down :)

I just finished a reread of The Man in the Queue - I do like Tey, she manages to surprise every time. Nice foreword on this one, about that tendency (by a Robert Barnard, or something like that). I remembered some, but not all of it - very little of the action, and nothing of the solution, but I remembered what the brooch was trying to tell him. And now I need to read more of the Alan Grant mysteries...

I'm reading The Librarian of Auschwitz under duress from my new RLBC. My worst fears about RLBCs are being realised.

I finished Ada this past week, and Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah yesterday. Ada was an experience of interest, frustration, involuntary interest and overall a complicated book that I can appreciate, but not without some mixed feeling. Paradise, meanwhile, was simply wonderful and is maybe my favorite book of the year.

I haven't added any new books. Still reading Il Filostrato, Cup of Gold and Romeo and Juliet. Still listening to Light Perpetual, although I may finish today, and then follow up with Klara and the Sun.

I am reading Bewilderment.

Yesterday I read Leave the World Behind and loved it.

>115 AnnieMod: just read your review, wow it sounds interesting, think I should check it out.

>125 jjmcgaffey: Oh I love her writing, daughter of time is one of my favorite books. I normally dont care for mysteries, but I like her writing enough to try it.

True crime, Forever and Five Days. As if we need more reasons to be terrified of going to a nursing home.

>131 cindydavid4: Daughter of Time is and always will be my favorite of hers (it's the same detective as The Man in the Queue and the rest of the series, though not bed-bound in most of them). But I think I've read all of hers and they are _all_ worth reading and rereading.

I didnt realize it was the same guy Ok even more reason, thx!

I finished my reread of Philip Roth's The Human Stain in time for this afternoon's book group discussion. I've now returned to Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby.

Anyone interested in my review of The Human Stain can find it on my CR thread.

After the pain of my Auschwitz on a few levels, I'm heading to the safe arms of Barbara Pym and Quartet in Autumn.

Thanks to jury duty this week, I've finished the excellent Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga and am eager to read the sequel.

I'm also reading Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge and the coincidentally contemporaneous Zorrie by Laird Hunt.

I finished Bewilderment and am starting The President and the Frog.

>137 RidgewayGirl: Glad you enjoyed Nervous Conditions, one of my favorites this year. And nice job taking advantage of jury duty.

>137 RidgewayGirl: Will be interested in your thoughts on Mrs Bridge. I loved it.

Reading through Tey's Inspector Grant series - I just finished The Franchise Affair (in which Grant appears but is not the/a protagonist). One of my favorites (these are all rereads, some multiples).

Also just read (devoured in one day) Marda Quincesinger, Postulant...which isn't on LT yet, apparently. Not surprising, it was just released and the author (M.C.A. Hogarth, writing as Maggie Hogarth) doesn't have a lot of exposure yet. This is, I think, her first YA - and like everything else she's written, it's _excellent_. Some very new twists on the "magic school" idea; rich and complex and _interesting_ characters; and possibly the weirdest setting I've ever encountered. Fascinating, I'm looking forward to the next.

Finished Iron Lake which I liked overall although some things really annoyed me. Need to think a bit before writing a review.

Started A Passage North - first impression: can someone introduce the author to the full stop as punctuation? Some of those early long sentences seem long just for the sake of being long. Not bad enough to chase me away from the book but noticeable.

>144 jjmcgaffey: I really need to get back to Tey.

>141 dchaikin: Daniel, it astonished me how few people had brought reading material. Once out of the main holding room, we had to turn our cell phones off and put them away and the majority of the other jurors then spent hours sitting quietly doing nothing. And Nervous Conditions was good company. I've ordered the next book.

>143 AlisonY: Alison, I loved Mrs. Bridge. A lot of feelings were raised about a family of not necessarily sympathetic characters and I hooted at the story of the hold up.

>147 dchaikin: i really liked The Book of Not, also a favorite for this year for me, but it gets a lot less flattering feedback than NC. Hope you get to it and enjoy it. As for jury duty and bored people - I understand. I’m usually the only one with a book during jury duty (and probably the only one bummed to be called to a case).

I finished The Walnut Creek Wish and I am currently reading A Spoonful of Murder by Robin Stevens, a Wells and Wong mystery.

>145 AnnieMod: I am in a weird mood and A Passage North is really rubbing me the wrong way (contemporary prose and I are not easy friends although I can see that this one might work for me if I am in a different head space so it will wait a bit) so I am going to set it aside a bit and go read something else.

Patternmaster (the first Octavia Butler novel) had been waiting for me for awhile so I think that will be it.

I am starting Harlem Shuffle.

I'm reading Once There Were Wolves, my second Charlotte McConaghy book of the year, and it has drawn me right in.

Also reading Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert. This is good environmental writing, but so far I'm not as impressed with it as I was with her other book that I've read, The Sixth Extinction.

Just finished The Wizard's Butler by Nathan Lowell - _why_ did I wait so long to read this? I've had the (e)book for ages... Great story (if you like fantasy/urban fantasy). You know that story (it's been told a million times) about the person who discovers, in the middle of ordinary life, that magic exists? And then usually they turn out to be a mage/wizard/etc him/herself? Yeah. This starts out that way, but totally avoids the cliches. I _love_ Mulligan, hope there will be more stories (Lowell is apparently working on one). And now I need to go read more Lowell books - I have easily half a dozen, sitting in my "these should be good, when I get around to them" group...

I finished two books today - a translation of Il Filostrato by Boccaccio (a source of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde), and Cup of Gold, which is John Steinbeck oddly constructed first novel. Next, I plan to pick up The Fortune Men from this year's Booker long list.

Just finished A Spoonful of Murder by Robin Stevens, which was a Wells and Wong mystery set in Hong Kong. I liked the location and the story. The ending was a real twist, I did not see that one coming!

Starting The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch once I ditch the illness I woke up with this morning.

I finished Lotharingia, which was a lot of fun, and Henry Petroski’s The road taken, which turned out to be something of a curate’s egg.

The only book the library had on Neutral Moresnet was out, so I’m now enjoying Margaret Drabble’s The pattern in the carpet instead.

My next book is The Goshawk by T H White.

I finished Nightwings. Didn’t like it at all. 2 stars

After reading some strong books (All My Puny Sorrows, Mexican Gothic, and Unsettled Ground), I'm hanging out in a bit of a mediocrityville.

Haunted, by Barbara Haworth-Attard, which is fine, but not very haunted
Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, by Jan Morris. I'm finding it quite lovely, but not exactly compelling and it meanders all over the author's brain more than the city itself
Eight Ghosts, various authors - set at English Heritage properties. Short story collection, and these are always all over the place
The Chrysalids, John Wyndham - I have a bunch of unread Wyndham, so tend to slot them in for Spooktober each year. Weird, but not spooky. It's pretty interesting but I'm not loving it
The Devil's Cloth: a History of Stripes, Michel Pastoureau - this would make a fascinating documentary, but as a book it's pretty terrible. Still, it's super short so I will finish it because I like obscure history

>157 baswood: Did you readH is for Hawk? Well done look at hawking and grief, and lots about whites life, only knew him through once and future king ( one of my all time fav read since HS) and was really shocked by his real life. Based on this I tried to read goshawk. Will be curious what you think of it.

>160 cindydavid4: ( >157 baswood: ) that came to my mind too. I almost feel like i’ve read Goshawk after reading H is for Hawk.

I have had three books languishing this month even though I'm only about 20 pages from the end on each. I've been enjoying the books but my focus is elsewhere at the moment so I've only been reading 10 to 15 pages a day, down from the 70 pages a day I was reading in August. But I finally finished the last 20 pages of one of those books last night: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. A book that ended up much simpler than I imagined it but I still enjoyed it.

Finishing up Jeffrey Ford's Out of Body, don't know where I will go next, something slim and easy to follow (we have contractors in the house demolishing/renovationing the bathrooms...not terribly conducive to reading). I tried to start the latest Val McDermid, but it didn't catch me immediately so I set it aside to let my high expectations dissipate a little before restarting.

I finished Klara and the Sun, which was terrific on audio, although I'm not sure what to make of novel yet. I've picked up my next audiobook - A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam.

I have three books going, Bewilderment by Richard Powers from this year's Booker Prize longlist; The End of Memory: A Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer's by Jay Ingram; and Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Dr Paul Farmer.

I finished Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert which was good but not as good as her first book, The Sixth Extinction.

I've now started The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson and I can tell it's going to be absolutely fascinating.

I'm also reading Once There Were Wolves as slowly as I can to make it last. I'm loving it.

Wow, it's been aaaaaages since I stopped by this thread. Oops.

Well, currently I'm reading Pariah by Bob Fingerman. I thought something featuring zombies might make for a nice lead-up to Halloween. This one turns out to be less about zombies and more about lots and lots of tedious male horniness, though, and I'm kind of losing patience with it.

I am currently reading An Unexpected Amish Christmas which features a main character (our hero) who has a disability. I am finding the story intriguing as the characters discuss ways to adapt the market stall so he can work there. The story also describes his frustrations with rehab and physical therapy. This is a different twist on the usual Amish novels I read. The novel is part of a series, so characters from past books make their reappearance in this one. I like that continuity.

I'm (finally) reading Braiding Sweetgrass. I expected it to be interesting; I wasn't expecting how just plain enjoyable it is. I love her voice (in writing), her stories, the way she mixes up traditional tales and modern life and different ways of viewing the world. Loving it.

>169 jjmcgaffey: I read it a few weeks ago, after a bunch of folks who know me and my tastes recommended it, and I really liked it.

I also read Eat the Mouth That Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza, a very good debut short story collection, Stephanie Gangi's upcoming Carry the Dog, which I loved—I'm basically her target rock'n'roll, dog-loving, aging-hipster demographic. I'm also reading her The Next (I'm interviewing her for Bloom this week), which is a weird one about revenge from the afterlife.

Last night I started Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth….getting deeply into Lily Bart’s world.

My next book is Couleur du temps by Françoise Chandernagor

I just started Palmares.

Just started Castle Shade by Laurie King.

Almost finished with Killing Moon. What a perfect book to read in October! The short story I read made this religion seem like it was helping people who were dying. Um no, helping people to die more like. Anyway enjoying it

I am reading cloud cuckoo land for the November reader choice theme. Loved his other book, looking forward to this one!

After finishing The pattern in the carpet and fighting the urge to spread jigsaw pieces all over the dinner table, I’ve moved on to a recent biography of the 19th century Dutch writer and public figure Jacob Van Lennep, which is almost more interesting for what it says about the times than about him. I realise that I’d always somehow assumed that the Netherlands went from 1700 to 1900 without passing “Go”, there seems to be so little physical trace of the 19th century here.

I just finished Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo for Halloween it was a good fit with all the leaves changing and the tempters dropping.

Loved Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince. So much fun.

On to a chunky one next - Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. I doubt I'll get even halfway through before Wednesday's Booker ceremony, but looking forward to this one.

I'm reading Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life, a biography of Martha Gellhorn, by Caroline Moorehead and finding it fascinating. I'm also reading Elizabeth Strout's newest, Oh William! and At the Edge of the Haight by Katherine Seligman.

Still reading The Next, but a friend just sent me the NYRB reissue of Edith Wharton's Ghosts, so I thought that would be fun to dip into this weekend.

A few weeks back I realized I had not read a single book by a Latinx author and since it was Hispanic Heritage month, I searched I few out. American Like Me is a collection of inspirational short non-fiction, memoirs/essays written by various people of color, mostly from the entertainment industry given the individual who created the collection. Knitting the Fog beautifully intersperses poetry and memoir, depicting the author's childhood in Guatemala, journey to the US, and coming of age.

I finally got back to finish the compelling (even though not wonderfully written) Contact and followed it with the excellent wit of Memento Mori.

I just finished the wonderful Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy. I absolutely loved it, but would warn that part of the story centers around domestic abuse and there is one violent scene that was hard to read. I don't particularly like reading that sort of thing, but it was an integral part of the story set up so it didn't stop me from giving 5 stars.

And now I'm starting Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, a fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe.

My brother, cousin and friend are big Sci-Fi fans. Me, not so much. But I'm always open to new experiences. After their recommendation and urging, I am reading Dune. The funny thing is, I'd never even heard of Frank Herbert and Dune until recently. What can I say, I've been traveling in a parallel existence.
So far, I'm loving the world of Frank Herbert's Dune :)

>181 ELiz_M: that description of knitting the fog appeals

>183 laughingsky: what a great discovery. My daughter and I read Dune together last year (a reread from a long time ago for me), and we saw the finally released movie last weekend, which is terrific. We were both a little surprised that it ends half way through the book.

I sat down and made myself finally read the last 10 pages of the fascinating The Gossamer Years, a diary-autobiography written by an anonymous noblewoman in between 954 and 974 in Japan. I had to force myself only due to my mindset being elsewhere other than reading.

I will be back with what I had been reading but for now - started Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, the new Wole Soyinka novel last night. So far it is a very very thinly veiled satire of contemporary Nigeria (and it made me laugh a few times to the absolutely deadpan delivery of some of the narrative).

Moving slowly through The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. Debut novel by Anissa Gray about three sisters in southwest Michigan, one of whom goes to prison for fraud.

I think I have read this crisis-forces-sisters-to-come-to-terms-with-their-dysfunctional-past story one too many times. It's engaging enough, nicely written. Got nothing against it other than that I'm just not that interested in books about people working through their sh*t.

I have Searching for Mercy Street and a couple others racked up to read next.

Finished the most excellent Killing Moon (realized how much it felt like a vampire story, in Egypt) Ill write a review on my thread. meant to start the book for this month but decided I wanted to remain in this world awhile so I picked up the sequel the shadowed sun 20 pages into it there is no other place Id rather be. And its set in a place I know well, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Canyon de shea) located near Chinle Arizona within the Navajo Nation. Also home to the ancient Anasazi tribe that she studied while here. Used to hike in this area, gorgeous place. I am glad the weather outside is cool,and I am retired, so am spending quite about there reading. Life is good

I was going to start our book group selection for today A burning but as I was scanning it, I realized I just could not deal with such a depressing story that is so similar to so many other places in the world. I know its an important story to tell, about a 16 year old Indian girl who made a post on FB and was arrested and sent to prison. My heart just cant take this right now

I'm currently reading Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto, which was honored as one of the best African novels of the 20th century and is set in war torn Mozambique as a boy and an unrelated older man seek shelter in a burnt out bus and discover the diaries of a passenger who was killed in the vehicle. I'll also start The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Dr Jason Karlawish, the director of the Penn Memory Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, where one of the author's partners diagnosed my mother with Alzheimer's disease last month.

I've just gone down a total side-alley with two books about Neutral Moresnet, and I now know more about zinc than I'm ever likely to need...

I'm now reading Laurent Binet's alternative-history novel Civilizations and dipping into De gedichten van den Schoolmeester as a follow-up to the Van Lennep biography I finished a few days ago.

I am currently reading Cat Me If You Can which is dragging along. I will probably skip to the end. I started A Christmas Legacy by Anne Perry. I enjoy reading her annual Christmas offering.

I read the kindle sample of In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott. I assumed it was fiction but found out when I read about it that it’s a memoir by a woman who was raised in long-time religious cult.

Finished A Christmas Legacy in one sitting (actually reading in bed, so I stayed up beyond the usual bedtime to finish it.) Also finished Cat Me If You Can and deciding on my next read.

I read/skimmed two for NetGalley:
Castle Shade
Maiden Voyages

I very much enjoyed Great Circle. On next to my first Claire Fuller - Bitter Orange.

I finished A Passage North on audio, and picked up the Booker Prize winner, The Promise, which I will listen to next.

Back to Le Père Goriot Honoré de Balzac, which has remained unfinished for too long

My local library system had only one book by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Gravel Heart, so that's what I'm reading now. It's so interesting to be let into a world and life so very different from my own.

I'm also reading The Apartment by Greg Baxter, a short novel about an American in an unnamed northeastern European city looking for an apartment to rent.

And I've just started The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, about a woman who leaves her baby home alone for a few hours.

Finished The Wedding Quilt Bride and A Christmas Legacy Currently reading Daybreak by Shelley Shephard Gray.

I finished The Fortune Men last night. I was resistant to read this for a while, but ended up really taken in. I now have four books to review...

Finished Daybreak by Shelley Shepard Gray. Just started Christmas at the Amish Bakeshop which is a series of stories.