What Are You Reading Now? - June 2010

I'm reluctantly finishing up Suite Francaise, which vastly surpassed my expectations, and have begun Foucault's Pendulum, which I last read twenty years and half my lifetime ago.

I've just started The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, the new novel by David Mitchell, and I'm still working on Selected Cronicas, a collection of newspaper chronicles by Clarice Lispector.

I am reading Confederates by Thomas Keneally. I'm now 100 pages in and finally interested. It still seems a bit wooden though.

I'm reading The Canterbury Tales, as translated into modern English by Burton Raffel. Which I think I'm probably not going to count for the read-a-tome challenge, since I'm mostly not reading the end notes.

I'm getting through Daniel Deronda at a rate of knots.

Kidzdoc, I look forward to your thoughts on the new David Mitchell.

A chance comment by fellow LTer bonniebooks has inspired me to start a thread to discuss the question, "What book have you bought multiple copies of, intentionally, with the purpose of giving them to friends and loved ones, and what might it say about you?"

Come and play!

I've reviewed Aloha, Candy Hearts, a Russell Quant mystery, in my thread...post #250.

Since June is Gay Pride Month, I'm suggesting to those who haven't read a book with a gay main character that they try these charming, unchallenging mysteries. There is no discernable sex in them, so they're not likely to challenge the sensibilities of those not so inclined, and the world they create has a lot of charm.

Who Fears Death for an upcoming issue of Belletrista and something non-fiction as a palate cleanser... possibly The Anatomy of Fascism, which I've wanted to read for a while.

I think I'm reading Moby Dick. I've begun it, anyway.

Finished Daniel Deronda, and indeed I do love George Eliot.

I really liked Daniel Deronda - it was a group read on a Victorian Literature email discussion group a few years ago. Soon after we read it, it was dramatised on the BBC as well. I've only read The Mill on the Floss by her otherwise, and only once all the way through I think. I'd like to reread that one and read Middlemarch.

Tonight I started The Year of the Flood. The synopsis on the cover was very odd to me and I was worried that it would be too weird for me to like it and I would struggle. Happily though I am now less than 20 pages in and totally hooked.

I've finished two nonfiction books, Stepping-Stones: A Journey through the Ice Age Caves of the Dordogne by Christine Desdemaines-Hugon and The Hidden Life of Deer by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (both reviewed on my thread and on the work pages), am still plugging away with the mammoth Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes, which I started for the May Reading Globally theme read on Mexico, and which I am finally beginning to grasp, and have started The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, long on the TBR, for the June Reading Globally theme read on dictators.

>9 ChocolateMuse: 'Muse, I'm also reading Moby Dick. Hopping over to your thread to see how you're doing...

I'm reading The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French, which is very good so far. I'm also still reading (and enjoying) The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

I'm delving into the world of "wrongology" with two books: one is about our own experiences of Being Wrong and the other is why others are Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us.

I've just finished and reviewed Date With a Sheesha, the seventh and latest Russell Quant mystery...what a wonderful, wonderful surprise and delight it was! The review is in my thread...post #11.

Anyone who's hesitating to delve into the series, take note: The rewards are getting greater!

>1 RidgewayGirl:, RidgewayGirl: We read Suite Francaise last year for the book group I'm in - I knew nothing about it, had no expectations at all, and loved it. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who hasn't tried it!

So far this month, I've finished Consider Phlebas, by Iain M. Banks, for my book group (yes, the same book group as for Suite Francaise - we range widely!). It's competent space opera, but suffered by comparison with C J Cherryh's Chanur series, also space opera, which I have been finding much more emotionally involving.

I am still reading Ephraim's Eyes, the short story collection I took on for the, erm, May short-story reading challenge. These are good stories, but I've been diverted by my enjoyment of Lavinia, by Ursula Le Guin, which I've now nearly finished. I think this might be the best book I've read in 2010.

I haven't read any poetry collections lately, but I have been getting a weekly dose of poetry through the expanding, and increasingly international, roster of Tuesday Poets, as linked from

http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com

Proust began this month, but he can only be read when I'm wide awake, alert, undistracted, etc. So, something lite has to go with it. I tried and abandoned The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer (which was lite). Now I've started The Princess Bride. Also, still doing a poem a night, which is the right pace of poetry for me. I'm working through Li-Young Lee's Book of My Nights.

PS - Can i gently put in a plug for the new poetry appreciation thread in Club Read here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/92500 ?

I am very behind on my thread but recently finished The Blind Side and The Housekeeper and the Professor and have been on a bit of a fantasy binge - Acacia (epic fantasy), Never After (collection of stories focusing on princesses who refuse to marry the betrothed), and Shadowplay (2nd in the Shadowmarch trilogy).

Taking a break from the Restrepo and doing a quick read of Zweig's Chess Story.

Zweig always puts me back in the reading mood. Plus this way I can shamelessly plug the Author Theme Reads group! ;) (For those who aren't already there of course.)

I've been getting quite a bit of reading done this month. It's too hot here to do much of anything else.

Current reading is The Gates by John Connolly. I'm not very far into it, but it's a very fun and amusing YA novel so far.

Anything by Sarah Waters comes to mind - especially since June is Gay Pride Month. Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith - two excellent reads - even The Little Stranger for a good scare!

Finished, Sophie's World. Loved the content. I learned so much about the history of western thought. Loved how it made the complex simple and understandable. Felt that the main character, Sophie, was a pain. I'm glad that the monologues of history were only interrupted sparsely by Sophie's less then helpful comments/questions. Next time I read this book, I'll also be reading a textbook on the history of philosophy alongside to gain even more insight.

Moving onto The Last of the Mohicans by James F. Cooper.

I've read two excellent books this weekend: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. I've written reviews for both books, and posted them on my thread and on the books' home pages.

I'm in the middle of a Victor Hugo binge. Just finished Les Miserables and Ninety-Three, reading The Toilers of the Sea and The Hunchback of Notre Dame next. Hopefully I'll finish them in time for the Read-a-Tome-Challenge with Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

Finished and reviewed The Feast of the Goat, still working my way through Terra Nostra, and debating my next "subway read."

booksontrial -

Victor Hugo binges are great!
My next book by Hugo will be The Toilers as well. Try to find Last day of a condemned man. It's excellent.

My ESL student and I just started Of Mice and Men. My first Steinbeck and the first time in a long time that I go back to some classic American fiction. Enjoying the writing so far and the dialogue. It has been fun having my student reading it aloud.

I'm finishing up Stories from Contemporary China. The last novella is a crime story told from the viewpoint of the criminals.

I'm also reading A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates, my "tome" read. It's set in the late 19th Century outside Philadelphia and focuses on the Zinn family and their 5 marriageable daughters (4 daughters plus one adopted). One cannot help but think of Pride & Prejudice at times, or Little Women (indeed, it is clear Mr. Zinn has been drawn from bits of Bronson Alcott's life). Lots of repressed sexuality in the air and there's a delightfully frustrating narrator who, in telling her story (with a bit of a moral tone), takes us down many side excursions (thus the frustration). We start with a suggestion of an abduction by hot air balloon and it takes 75 pages to get to the actual grabbing and abducting! I say "delightfully frustrating" because this is common behavior for Victorian narrator and because the side excursions are always interesting (lots to tell about all the Zinn daughters, the family, the very wealthy grandparents, the high tea they have just attended...etc.).

I'm reading The House on Mango Street, a wisp of a book, easily read in a sitting but so tender that I'm trying to make it last a little longer. Cisneros's Introduction to the 25th-anniversary edition is lovely.

I've finished and reviewed poet Barbara Hamby's Lester Higata's 20th Century, an ARC from the University of Iowa Press through the Early Reviewers program, in my thread...post #75.

Very, very good collection of short stories!

>31 richardderus:: I think I may have to check that one out! I've really enjoyed some of Hambly's novels, but I don't think I've read any short stories by her, and your review makes it sound very much worth the time.

ETA: And I just realized... I've read Barbara Hambly, not Barbara Hamby. That's a sneaky similarity there! Never mind. It still sounds good!

I myself have just started The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins... which will definitely qualify for the read-a-tome thread.

>32 bragan: bragan, you won't regret the investment in HAMBY. I'd really strongly suggest her poetry collection All-Night Lingo Tango, too. (Touchstone doesn't want to load on that one...here is a link to the LT work page.

I've finished and reviewed the dreary, dull Paddy Clarke, Ha-Ha-Ha in my thread...post #247.

I've posted my review of Montana 1948 at long last, if anyone's interested, in my Homeless Reviews second thread...post #2.

It holds up so well to re-reading that I feel like I've come back to an old friend's hearth on a cold winter of the heart.

>17 timjones:,

Tim,

I read Lavinia last year. It was one of my top reads for 2009.

I have just finished reading A Dark Stranger by Julien Gracq, who is my opinion one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. I just received the Pléiade edition of his Œuvres complètes. He was the only author whose work, was issued in the Pléiade edition in his lifetime. He refused the Prix Goncourt in 1951. Gracq led me to François Mauriac (Nobel Prize for Literature 1952), so I received and read in one sitting Mauriac's The Woman of the Pharisees. I loved it. I intend to read more Mauriac as well.

Right now I am floundering about for something good to read, but nothing has captured my attention. Inability to settle on a good book usually occurs after reading several really good books in a row. So . . . I have been reading in a desultory fashion Margaret Drabble's memoir Pattern in the Carpet and Ben Hect's Fantazius Mallare. Thus far both have left me underwhelmed. I was devastated to read in Drabble's memoir that she believes The Sea Lady (2006) will be her last novel. Oh no. Oh dear. Perhaps she will change her mind.

In the meantime, I need to find a really good book to read. Any suggestions?

Independent People

Robert

Independent People is a wonderful novel. I have read it twice.

Ooh, urania1, Mauriac is wonderful. Have you read Therese Desqueyroux?

I'm working my way through two long books, Foucault's Pendulum, which both urges me to read faster to find out what happens next and to slow down and ferret out meanings and ties, and to enjoy the language. The Children's Book is also excellent, but unsuited for my current life, being both large and good-looking; I am unwilling to drag it to park or pool or even outside where dogs are affectionate and the kids are usually dripping (sprinkler or popsicles).

I've finished and reviewed the bitter, beautiful collection of stories American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell in my thread...post #167.

I'm off to find more books by this terrific, fearless author!

err..the courts of Babylon snippy tales of the pro tennis circuit.
Tobacco Road Duke, Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest ..local college bball
Black Hole and Clapton's Guitar.
And a couple of days ago Generosity Ricard Power's latest and most humane book.

Exit wounds - the defn of bittersweet if one enjoys graphic format books.

I keep hoping our library will get Matterhorn.

>39 RidgewayGirl:

Thérèse Desqueyroux is on my wishlist. The big question - will I be able to control ordering it for a month or two. I just started translating A Dark Stranger from French into English. I have run across a number of nouns that are not in my extremely large edition of Hachette's French/English dictionary. Any recommendations for a better dictionary? I used to own a Cassell's back in the day. I think my ex ended up with custody of it and I ended up with custody of the German Cassell's. Strange, since he studied German and I studied French.

42 - What are these nouns you need help with?

>40 richardderus: if you find any, let me know. I was also very impressed with American Salvage.

40, 44 Me too! And thanks, Lois, for recommending it to me originally.

>44 avaland:, 45 I just got back from the library, where I read the first 30pp of Q Road, Campbell's only novel to date; I am completely hooked, this narrative voice is very involving and interesting. I'll post a review in July, but so far, so good!

Just went to Amazon and ordered it (and another short story collection). Thanks, Richard! (But I guess I could have looked Campbell up myself . . . if I had been thinking.)

>47 rebeccanyc: Glad to help, rebecca, but I figured you were after a little sherpa-ing instead of a mere list of her other titles.

I'm really enjoying the book as I'm reading along now!

>47 rebeccanyc: Sometimes we need reminding to do something! Thanks for the reminder, richard.

Just started Stefan Zweig's La confusion des sentiments. I like having novella's to read during my work lunch hour white sitting on the outside patio and soak up the sun.

Good books about libraries are too rare. Think about reading This Book is Overdue!, which I just reviewed in my thread...post #31.

I'm juggling four.

Still in the getting-into phase of three:
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (fascinating and philosophical)
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia (quirky and intriguing; maybe Fannie Flagg-ish?)
Machine by Peter Adolphson (fiction and science revolving around the lifespan of a drop of crude oil; first book I've ever tried via the Kindle app on my iPod Touch; I don't own a Kindle but the app is free)

And one has captured me immediately:
Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So -- my latest Early Reviewer by Mark Vonnegut: Harvard-educated practicing pediatrician, son of Kurt, and four-time psychotic

Almost finished w/ the windup girl..enough so (and i liked it enough that i think i gave it my longest LT review on my sparse thread on my 2010 page. A very different post apocalypse SF novel. Deals seriously with "ideas" but not at the expense of the characters at all. I realized Bacigalupi also wrote the excellent YA SF novel Ship breakerwhich i'd started a couple weeks back, immediately after starting this one.

I've been away from here for a little while - reading, but busy. I've enjoyed the last three books I've read:

Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin - here's my brief review:

This is an outstanding novel. Ursula Le Guin takes a minor character in Virgil's Aeneid and gives her and her marriage to the Trojan hero Aeneas life. Ursula Le Guin's superb, and superbly unobtrusive, prose style is the perfect vehicle to tell this story, which I recommend to ... well, to everybody. (5/5)

Magnetic South by Sue Wootton, a New Zealand poet - an excellent collection, which Joanne Preston does a fine job of reviewing here:

http://jopre.wordpress.com/reviews/magnetic-south/

Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford - due to the aforementioned busy-ness, I was looking for something light & lively, and succumbed to this rather charming contribution to the Austen craze. In this novel, Jane, having been sired as a vampire by another well-known literary figure, is now a bookseller in upstate New York - and having a lot of trouble getting her 200-year-old novel published.

The book both contributes to and satirises the current Austen industry. It's not quite a vampire novel, not quite a literary thriller, not quite a satire - but it's still a lot of fun.

I should add that I have a few days' holiday coming up, when I'll feel more like tackling books that require more concentration than I have had to spare over the past few weeks.

I will be looking to make significant progress on Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, which I've started but not got far into yet; Ephraim's Eyes by Bryan Walpert, my endlessly-delayed May short story challenge book; and I might have a crack at the anthology Lost In Translation: New Zealand Stories as well. I have a story in it, and would like to get round to reading everyone else's stories as well!

Lest anyone think that Ephraim's Eyes is a poor book because it's taking me so long to get through it, NZ writer Mary McCallum has given it a very positive review on her blog:

http://mary-mccallum.blogspot.com/2010/06/extraordinary-storytelling-of-ephraims...

Right now, I'm reading poetry collection "Spark" by Emma Neale - it's focused on motherhood, and I am enjoying it very much so far.

I'm reading The Kill by Emile Zola, the second book in the Rougon-Macquart series, Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, and Sodom and Gomorrah by Proust.

I'm reading The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis - my first by him. So far the main character is delightfully shallow.

Finished the last novella in Stories from Contemporary China, finished The Country Where No One Ever Dies by Albanian author Ornela Vorpsi. I thought I might review it for Belle as a backup but my brain won't cooperate.

And thus I continue with JCO's bloody brilliant tome, A Bloodsmoor Romance!

Finally, I've finished Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes, as well as the charming Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas by Alberto Gerchunoff, both LT recommendations and both reviewed on my thread and on the book pages.

Racing through the excellent Three Dog Night by Peter Goldsworthy.

Message moved to new thread.

I'm finishing up Foucault's Pendulum and have begun Benjamin Black's newest; Elegy for April.

fyi - I just set up a July thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/94126

as i've mislaid my copy of the windup girl - been reading:

Ship breaker same author, same world, very different locale as "the Windup Girl" (the former Louisiana..w/ New Orleans long submerged). v. good YA SF.

Kraken
the magician of Hoad
paper cities: an anthology of Urban Fantasy

I am reading "A Gentle Madness", Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes and the Eternal Passion for Books, by Nicolas A. Basbanes.

I am a true Bibliophile and this is one of the best books I've read. The author traces book collections from their inception. It is also about the book collectors and their journey's to acquire this rare books. There is a tremendous amount of research that went into this book. This book gave me so much insight to many rare books that I have an even "greater" appreciation for them and craving to collect them. I was also able to get many suggestions of books I might want to add to my collections.

This book is so well written, true Bibliophiles will not put it down, it is not boring or dry by all means. Nicolas Basbanes is the expert on "book collectors and their collections." This is one of the many books he authored about books and collectors, and bibliophiles.