WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 2

As always at the beginning of the year, we are a chatty bunch :) so time for a new thread.

What is everyone reading? I hope everyone is doing fine - this flu season seems to be extremely bad.

I'm about 100 pages away from finishing volume 1 of Au bord de l'eau (The Water Margin), the Chinese classic by Shi Nai-An. I've slowed down the last 200 pages since I've just been too tired lately. So instead of reading 60-80 pages a day like before I'm down to 20-30, despite really loving the book.

I just finished Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex for TravelKIT "In Translation." I was somewhat disappointed, although other LT readers seem to have liked it. The short essays, stories, and fables show that she was a thoughtful person and writer. Themes of family, doing the right thing, personal characteristics, loneliness, and captivity were present.

Finished a SF book, The Thing Itself, but now will be returning to Pond by Clare-Louise Bennett and my nonfiction of 17th century American family structure.

Just finished The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System and Christmas Mystery of Love (a gift from SantaThing in 2018). Both are for the 2020 Category Challenges.

Tried to push myself to read that last 100 pages of Au bord de l'eau last night but once again was too tired to turn into more pages. But I finished it today so now I can finally start volume 2 and hope that I'm not as sleep as I have been this past week so that I can rush towards the anticipated conclusion.

I finished Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, which was excellent, and am now reading Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist.

I'm a good ways into High School by Tegan Quinn and Sara Quinn. It is slightly making me wonder if I'm the only person in my age group who didn't do drugs in high school...

I'm almost through with Allende's new one A Long Petal of the Sea and for Black History Month am reading So You Want to Talk about Race and Terrance Hayes' latest collection of poetry American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin.

Yesterday finished my audiobook, The Man Who Saw Everything, which was curious, I guess. I’ve been trying to figure out what to make of it, but it was fun to listen to. And this morning I started Night Boat to Tangier, which is imperfect on audio for me. The author reads it (good), but over acts it (not great).

And this morning I finished Inferno. That’s a big deal and I’ll miss hell a lot. For the moment I’ll focus next on Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal

And, other things going on. Monday I finished The Professor’s House by Willa Cather. And I’ve started A Comedy of Errors - reading an act each Sunday.

I am reading Key Lime Crime by Lucy Burdette, which is part of the Key West Food Critic mystery series. I have enjoyed others in this series, and this one is fun so far. My husband and I enjoy Key West, and I am able to envision where the action is taking place in these novels.

I am reading a couple of Science Fiction Books from 1951 both by Robert Heinlein The Green Hills of Earth which are short stories and The Puppet Masters which is a full length novel. Sexist - certainly, racist quite probably. I hope the stories are good.

I'm rereading Wolf Hall in anticipation of The Mirror and the Light coming out in March.

I'm also reading Frankissstein, Jeanette Winterson's newest book.

I've put my nonfiction reading about the East India Company (The Anarchy)on a pause. I just didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up again, but I needed to read a couple books that I could finish quickly.

>13 japaul22:

"The Mirror and the Light": Ha. Finally. I had been keeping the second one on a shelf, waiting for the third one so I do not need to wait for years for the end (not that we all do not know the story of course)

Now that I can breathe (pneumonia is not fun), I am back to tracking and catching up with things.

Finished Misery Bay last night (it is Hamilton in his main series (Alex McKnight #8) - if you liked the previous ones, you cannot not like this one).

Started The Kif Strike Back - the third Chanur novel by Cherryh (and 14th Alliance-Union Universe one). It is a direct continuation of the previous novel so... so far, it goes exactly where one would expect - with some surprises along the way. Cherryh's style has its oddities but I kinda enjoy these novels :)

Updates and reviews over the weekend (one hopes).

So, I flipped back on my audiobooks, per >10 dchaikin: I’m listening to The Man Who Saw Everything a second time. It’s completely different the second time...well, for me since I started to figure things out...well, maybe

I am anxiously awaiting Major League Baseball's Opening Day and therefore reading The Bronx Zoo, famed relief pitcher Sparky Lyle's memoir of the New York Yankees' crazy 1978 season.

I finished Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, which I thought was a structurally troublesome memoir, but still very good. Consider me a full Wiinterson fan now. I have three books targeted for the rest of the month, and I opened the first last night, Body Tourists, a new novel by Jane Rogers reviewed on avaland's thread...and Lois provided the copy too. This is another Winterson spin-off. It covers similar themes to Frankissstein - here people are renting out their bodies for temporary use by minds preserved from the deceased.

Winterson's memoir is full of little wisdom tidbits, including the idea that every thought has an emotion to go along with it - which leads to questions about what happens when the mind is downloadable, disembodied, which leads to Rogers science fiction novel.

I'm almost finished The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. Reading it has been a wonderful, immersive experience and I will be sorry to finish it.

I'm also reading Maurice Carlos Ruffin's satire, We Cast a Shadow and while I'm not a big fan of satire, this one is both enjoyable and thought-provoking.

And I'm reading a collection of inter-linked short stories about a boy growing up in a housing project in the southside of Chicago called Stateway's Garden by Jasmon Drain.

I have just finished The Puppet Masters by Robert A Heinlein and will soon pick up Henry VI part 3 by William Shakespeare.

I finished The Secret Life of Bees yesterday, and have started on Blindness by Jose Saramago.

>18 dchaikin: Dan, Along those lines...since we are talking about heads...I've received the The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory by Dr. Julia Shaw from the UK, which AlisonY put me on to on the previous thread. This is a previous book by the author who wrote the book on evil that I found so thought-provoking last year. I'll pick this up as soon as I'm out of the 17th century.

Otherwise, when I ordered the book above, there was a deal on Peter Robinson's Careless Love so I've started that after swearing I was done with the series because the detective is aging with me, and he was getting too sentimental...

Since I last posted, I've had time to finish 2084 : la fin du monde, an Algerian 1984-sequel by Boualem Sansal; Wilders gewogen, an academic essay collection trying to sum up 15 years of annoying political self-promotion by a man with an improbable hairstyle; one of my Christmas books, A line in the sand by James Barr (should I have saved it for the beach?), and another far-from normal novel, House Mother Normal by B. S. Johnson.

I'm reading Nervous states by William Davies and I've just started Das dunkle Schiff by Sherko Fatah.

>22 avaland: once I finish my Booker run, I’ll get Evil on audio. I’ll wait to see what you think of The Memory Illusion. (Alison found it a bit of hard work)

Today I started The Hamlet, the first book in Willilam Faulkner's "Snopes" trilogy. This is in fact a reread. I first read this eight years ago, loved it, and thought I was going to quickly move on the the other two books in the series. Now here it is those eight years further on and I never got back to the trilogy. So I've decided to read them all in relatively short order, starting with a refresher read of The Hamlet.

I'm rereading The Friend for my book club.

I'm nearly done with Evil and the Mask by Fuminori Nakamura which I'm finding very odd and not great, but will finish.

>27 mabith: I liked his The Thief much better than that one.

Today I read Please Bury Me in the Library by Patrick Lewis for the "Library or thing in the title" BingoDog square. This was a series of short and silly poems about books and libraries, sort of a picture book really with colored illustrations. I actually know of a couple whose cremains were buried in a room at the Lilly Library at Indiana University. I saw their memorial tablets on the wall there when I was in library school.

I am participating in the Unread Shelf Project again this year, and for February the assignment/prompt is to read a book that was gifted to you. And ARCs count for gifted books, so I pulled The Black Count off my stack of...incredibly overdue LTER titles. It is a fascinating read that I am trying not to kick myself too much over not reading sooner, and it ties in nicely with The Three Musketeers, which I am reading for a stitching book club I am participating in. (I am enjoying The Three Musketeers, but it is in no way a fast read for me. I have to read with a dictionary at hand, and I'm taking notes.)

I've got a few other books that I'm working on as well, and I've taken to bringing nearly a dozen books with me to work because, y'know, I might run out of reading material for my half hour lunch break. Definitely having some focus issues in my reading life, which I find somewhat annoying. It's not that I don't have good things to read, it's that I have too many options....

Finished Das dunkle Schiff, which was every bit as dark as it said on the cover.

Belatedly remembered that I've got rather a lot of Beethoven coming up in the next few days (local chamber music festival), so I'm in crash-briefing mode with Maynard Solomon's Beethoven bio. William Davies has been put aside for the moment...

I've wanted to read The Black Count for years...

Took a break from How to Be an Antiracist to read Laura Van den Berg's newest (upcoming) short story collection, I Hold a Wolf By the Ears for an LJ review that I'd like to actually file on time for once. It was a terrific collection that mines the overlap between loss, grief, and horror... which, when you think about it, is a pretty broad swath. Good stuff. And now back to the Kendi, which is good in a completely different way (one would certainly hope).

I just finished Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym for BingoDog square "published in your birth year." This was another of her humorous and tongue-in-cheek comedy of manners novels. I enjoyed it very much.

I'm half-way through Kamouraska by Anne Hébert.

My current commute book is Good Omens which I'm reading in anticipation of seeing Neil Gaiman on 23 February. My current lunch-when-working-at-home book is The Luminaries. I expect I'll be reading this for a while!

Finished Body Tourists and my brain will have to work out the thought-provoking aspects with my conflicted sense on the nature of this kind of book. I liked it enough, though.

Also, I paused on Night Boat to Tangier and re-listened to The Man Who Saw Everything again - and...thankfully I figured the fundamentals out this time and basically read a completely different but equally good book. Fascinating what Deborah Levy did. It’s a book you _have_to read twice. (It’s really short, just be sure to multiply by 2). So, I’ll go back to Night Boat to Tangier and hopefully be more forgiving or open to the author’s style of narration.

My next book to read (as opposed to listen to) should be Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (original English title is If This is a Man). I’ve never read Levi and it’s about time I tried. Also, he apparently pulls from Dante’s Ulysses (Dante didn’t have access to the Odyssey, so he pulled from other sources and came up with a curious and fascinating conman - Inferno, Canto XXVI)

I've recently finished The Hills Reply by Tarjei Vesaas and a reread of a favorite, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

Now I'm reading Akin by Emma Donaghue and expecting a slew of books to come in at the library that I've been waiting for. I've tried to manage them by suspending holds so that I can get to them all, but it's always hard to get that just right. I'm looking forward to Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last trial of Harper Lee, Island of the Sea Women, and City of Girls.

And I'm still, in theory, reading The Anarchy about the East India Company . . .

I recently finished Paradox Bound by Peter Clines, which was reasonably entertaining, but which I didn't enjoy nearly as much as I felt like I should have. Currently I'm reading an ER book, Pain Studies by Lisa Olstein, which I am going to find a bit difficult to review.

I’ve got under 300 pages of The Eighth Life (for Brilka) left, and I’ve moved on to The Story of a New Name, the second of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. Enjoying them both immensely.

So happy my Library has expanded its books collections to include so many more Japanese authors! I just finished the surreal and somewhat bleak The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada. A very strange and not for everyone type book but I enjoyed it. Now its on to the The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and I Remember You by Yrsa Siguroardottir.

I finished Blindness yesterday, which I really enjoyed (or at least appreciated - it was quite dark, so enjoy feels like the wrong word). Today I put my 10 year old daughter in charge of my next book choice, and she's gone for another Hardy - Under the Greenwood Tree.

Last night I finished The Hamlet by William Faulkner. The Hamlet is the first book in Faulkner's "Snopes" trilogy. The novel tells a series of interweaving stories with a core set of characters moving throughout and an interchanging series of part-time players revolving around them. This is life in small town deep South in the late 19th/early 20th centuries: grim, ruthless and hard, with a few hesitant glimmers of grace woven in. The writing hurtles headlong with dense, flowing language, memorable characters and beautiful, lush descriptions of nature and location that serve as much to set the tone of the characters' actions and frames of mind as it does to offer an acute sense of place and time. Powerful and absorbing. This was a reread. I first read the book 8 years ago, meaning to get to the rest of the series quickly but then, somehow, never doing so. Now I have books 2 and 3 firmly pinned to my short-term reading list.

But first some "between books" and then to Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson. I bought the book on Darryl's (kidzdoc) recommendation. My wife has already read it and found it very useful and thought provoking.

I'm reading Grass, a graphic novel about the experiences of the comfort women. The drawings are amazing.

>40 stretch:
Two very good Japanese books!

Since last posting, I've finished Beethoven (and been to six Beethoven concerts in five days...), also read John Lanchester's The Wall (which must be one of the best ten books called "The wall"), had a touch of Sicilian crime with La paura di Montalbano, re-read David Lodge's Ginger, you're Barmy, and discovered an interesting new-to-me German writer in Husch Josten's Hier sind Drachen.

Now reading Juli Zeh's village-epic Unterleuten.

>40 stretch: Hmmm — islands, volcanoes, seafood, inward-looking culture, low murder-rate: Japan is pretty much interchangeable with Iceland, isn't it? :-)

>44 lilisin: Yoko Ogawa is an amazing writer, she is one of my favorites for Contempary Japanese Fiction, right up there with the wonderfully twisted Ryu Murakami.

>45 thorold: Both complete with names I routinely butcher. I feel bad but Icelandic names are impossible.

I am reading Simon the Fiddler.

Just finished the thought-provoking We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. Will be thinking about parts of this one for some time.

I'm now reading Oval by Elvia Wilk, which is set in a near future Berlin where the weather is entirely unpredictable. I'm hoping it picks up soon.

I'm also reading The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The storytelling is very well done.

And I'm reading my way through a collection of short stories called Stateway's Garden by Jasmon Drain, all about a boy growing up with his mother and brother in a housing project in Chicago.

I am still reading, and enjoying, Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl a week at a time. I've finished 1919 and paused Irretrievable to read the lighter The Pursuit of Love while fighting a cold.

I have a bad(?) habit of randomly picking up books to read, when I am already reading some.

Still inching my way through the Mary Beth Norton history about gendered power in very early colonial America, and still reading Pond when the mood strikes (a very different kind of novel...not sure all rules apply) but...

I started DCI Banks #26, Many Rivers to Cross and now I have to finish it, don't I? Then, this afternoon I happened to take a peek at The Memory Illusion(it was whispering to me) and well, an hour later....

Just Finished The Making of jazz: A comprehensive History by James Lincoln Collier which is going to be a very expensive book, because of all the cd's that I have now got to listen to.

Next up is La Colmena by Camilo José Cela which is from my 1951 pile

I just finished two fantastic SF books - one urban fantasy and one science fiction. The first was The Black Wolves of Boston by Wen Spencer - a pell-mell hurtling of werewolves and vampires and witches (and none of them are the standard types...), with great, complicated, interesting characters. I really hope she decides to write more in this world.

The second was Heartskein, by M.C.A. Hogarth. This is not the book to start with, if you're new to her, but if you've read (at least the summaries of) the Princes' Game series and the Jubilee Year duology, this is fantastic. Characters we know well, suddenly (or not so suddenly - it's the culmination of years and books-worth of events and thinking) expand their horizons, find new abilities and new dedication...Also there are baby Glaseah, furry centauroids with little wings. The language, the relationships, the funny bits, the... I've been warbling Hogarth for a while now, and this one is yet another amazing book. I read it in one day because I couldn't (didn't want to) put the book down. And now I can never read it for the first time again (sniffle).

I read Curious Toys, which had enormous promise thanks to the setting and the fact that it featured Henry Darger as a character—but the plot itself was devoid of tension, which is kind of a detriment to a murder mystery, yes? And spread out over too many characters without enough depth into any of them. Still, it was fun in spite of that, and had great period (1915 Chicago amusement park) detail.

Now onto The King at the Edge of the World, which checks off a bunch of other historical fiction boxes for me.

I finished Hardy's first Wessex novel (Under the Greenwood Tree), and next up am looking forward to a non-fiction travel book by William Fiennes - The Snow Geese.

Still experiencing aftershocks from a Beethoven week, I've been reading Kreutzer sonatas by Tolstoy and Margriet de Moor, and I'm currently busy with another string-quartet-novel, Kwartet by Anna Enquist.

>51 baswood: I've been meaning to read La colmena ever since it landed on the TBR pile in March 2014. I think you might have beaten me to it! But I have got another bee-related novel on my library pile...

I finished Survival in Auschwitz (and ordered the sequel this morning). And I’m starting my next Nabokov, King, Queen, Knave. However, instead of getting the 1928 version published by a ~29-yr-old Nabokov, I’ve learned he rewrote a lot when he worked with his son to translate it in 1968...

On audio, I finished Night Boat to Tangier, read by the author. I hated the reader, and it wasn’t until well through the book I realized he was speaking in his natural voice, and not over-acting it. Still, it was tough to listen to. I was so annoyed on how it impacted the book that this morning I bought the remaining two Booker longlist books in paper form (they’re both short). No more narrator worries for that list. But... I need to figure out what it listen to next.

I am reading The Key Lime Crime which is about Key West. I really enjoy this series, and I have visited Key West, so I can identify with the scenes and characters.

For audio, I've decided to try Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side by Julia Shaw.

I'm slowly appreciating my way through The Deerslayer while reading mysteries, fantasy, romance, etc.

I'm reading a classic play, for once: Bérénice by Jean Racine.

I finished The Black Count (excellent read, and I want to get a proper copy, as the ARC does not include an index, nor do any of the end notes have actual page references), and I am still working on The Three Musketeers. I picked up an audio copy in addition to the print one I have (different English translation), and I have reached the point I need to be at, storywise, for the group's first book discussion (we're reading the book over the course of four months).

Beyond that, I continue to feel somewhat fragmented and unfocused in terms of my reading. I have nine books on my "active" reading list (meaning I have had at least one reading session with them since the beginning of the year), and a list of at least a dozen books I want to read sooner rather than later (which keeps growing). So it feels like even though I am reading as much as ever, I am not making a whole lot of progress on anything....

>58 dchaikin: Wondering how that will work on audio. Hmm. I skipped at least one chapter but after finishing the rest of the book, felt brave enough to go back and read it.

I finished Pond, what a delightfully odd book....

Yesterday I picked up Olaf Olafsson's The Sacrament (nuns in Iceland!) and finished it this morning. I didn't expect this book to take me prisoner as it did.

>62 avaland: mixed, so far. Author has a tone, and a leaning, but reader reads like it’s flat, impartial. A small contradiction. But it’s still working.

I finished (and enjoyed) The Snow Geese by William Fiennes, which was a travelogue more than a book about bird migration (although I did learn a few interesting bird facts along the way). I need something short this week to get me ready for the Duck challenge, so I think I'll start (again) The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. I can't remember why I abandoned it a few years ago - I think I just wasn't in the mood for that type of read at the time.

>62 avaland: I loved Pond.

I just started Abigail, after finishing the very good Simon the Fiddler.

I am about half way through The Binder of Lost Stories for NetGalley.

I picked up a couple of kids' books that deal with New Orleans, since I just got back from there. I read The King Cake Baby for the mythology and folklore square on BingoDog. This story is a spin-off from the Runaway Gingerbread Man tale. I have collected quite a few of the spin-offs from that story, and it is fun to see how they are set in different locations and cultures.

I'm about to finish The Wonder Engine, having just read Clockwork Boys, both by T Kingfisher. Semi-standard quest story, with some extremely deep characterization and neat twists. Do not start the series without having the second one in hand, it's one book in two volumes.

>65 BLBera: I hope you enjoy Abigail. I loved it!

I'm reading Their Eyes Were Watching God.

I just finished A Spanish Lover by Joanna Trollope, a descendant of Anthony Trollope's, and I am reading Isaac Asimov's The Stars Like Dust. Still working on The Deerslayer, a chapter at a time, usually one per day, but sometimes two in a day. There are a lot of chapters, XXXII (32), I think.

I should have been finished with Au Bord de L'eau by now. I love this book when I'm reading it but I think I have now spent too much time reading it and thus it's getting harder and harder to pick it up. I only have 250 pages left now (out of 2000) and I really need to just push through the end because there is no reason to put down a book you are loving.

(But this certainly wouldn't be the first time I've done something similar. I still have 60 pages left of a 1000 page book that I put down about 8 years ago. It was such a good book too.)

I just finished The Binder of Lost Stories for NetGalley. I liked the information about books, bookbinding, how books affect our lives, and how the lives of people become intertwined. It was a bit slow going at the end, but I liked the alternating chapters between the 1800s and present day.

I am reading Playgoing in Shakespeare's London by Andrew Gurr

After the musical interlude, I finished a couple of books that have been hanging around on my e-reader for a while, Distancia de rescate (Fever Dream) and Nervous states.

Then yet another of those Tunisian beekeeping novels that seem to keep cropping up, L'amas ardent. Interesting, but more for the entomology than for the politics as it turned out.

I've just finished Amos Oz's wonderful Judas, which I've been reading slowly to make it last. Now on to a Venezuelan novel rather alarmingly called Patria o muerte...

I finished Furious Hours by Casey Cep, a nonfiction book about a book that Harper Lee never wrote. It was ok.

I'm now reading Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. I've never read any of her books and I'm enjoying this. Next up is giving Ducks, Newburyport a try with the group read. And a reread of Bring up the Bodies to get ready for Hilary Mantel's new book, The Mirror and the Light.

I finished Hope Deferred by Linda Byler for NetGalley. It was an Amish "romance" but the ending really fell flat for me and offered no real resolution of the main theme of the novel. Anna and Dave are the main characters, in love and in harmony from childhood, later separated by Dave's need for adventure and danger. I got tired of the endless descriptions of the Prodigal Son bad boy and skimmed them. The title made no sense to me at all. 3 stars

I am now reading Discernment by Henri Nouwen, a biography of James Martin, and another mystery novel for NetGalley.

I finished Abigail and am starting Still Waters. I'm also finishing a collection of short stories by Zora Neale Hurston.

I've finished The Memory Police (which will likely haunt me for a while) and I've started Gish Jen's the Resisters, a dystopian novel. Although, I'm really trying to give more attention to my Mary Beth Norton 17th century colonial history because yesterday I happened to notice she has a new history that has just come out (!)

>77 avaland: I’ve never read any of Mary Beth Norton’s works and a quick search has me very intrigued. Do you have a favorite I should start with?

I finished the enjoyable The Good Soldier, and am flexing my biceps in readiness for Ducks next.

I finally finished Au bord de l'eau on February 29th. Finally done! Very good but happy to be done with it as well! Next book lined up is fortunately only 200 pages.

>78 japaul22: I have not read them all but of those read my fave would be her book on the Salem Witchcraft trials. I have read many other histories on this particular subject and she has the most credible explanations for what went on (I haven't read the Schiff Salem book yet, which was so popular. I have it, but not sure I feel the need to read any more on the subject. Norton is one of her listed sources).

Good luck with the "Ducks" read!

>81 avaland: Thank you- that was the one I was most interested in. I didn't read the Stacy Shiff book about Salem witch trials because I read her Cleopatra and did not like it that much. There was something about her writing style that put me off. Interesting information, though, and lots of people liked it.

I was having an extremely difficult time finding a book that appealed to me. Did another round of browsing on my library site and found Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Marie Arana, which is precisely the kind of book I always want more of.

>73 thorold: encouraging about Judas. I need to read more Amos Oz

>79 AlisonY:, ah, good prep.

>81 avaland:, >82 japaul22: I tried to listen so Schiff's Salem book, but it was so boring... (I loved A Great Improvisation. It was also really really slow, but Franklin works that way. He was just an interesting critter.) Noting your comments on Mary Beth Norton's book (In the Devil's Snare)

I finished King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov yesterday, after kind of rushing through it so I would be ready for Ducks, Newburyport tomorrow. (It's conducive to fast reading...because there's not really much to most of the text.) Yesterday, I started My Mortal Enemy, for the Willa Cather group on Litsy. And, tomorrow, I will begin Ducks, Newburyport by American born, Scotland based Lucy Ellmann.

>84 dchaikin: Boring? Interesting. Now I'll have to pick it up soon and read a little just to see if I agree with that. I assumed by the way it sold and the talk that it was more storied and readable (the cover suggests those things also).

It's festival season here and I have been seeing all the things which cuts both into my reading time and my online time. So two months into the new year and I'm already five reviews behind. I've started When We Were Orphans which replaces Rosewater as my commute book. I also started and finished Golden in Death on the flight home from a work trip last week.

>85 avaland: either it was just me, or Schiff has a special skill, but yeah, I think her aspect of laying every detail out, carefully, painstakingly, quoting extensively, but without much commentary, just doesn’t work here - or just not for me, anyway.

I completed James Martin, SJ: In the Company of Jesus by Jon Sweeney. This is a current biography of James Martin, SJ, who is a Roman Catholic priest. He has written many best seller books and has appeared on TV, in movies, and on YouTube. Although the first chapter describes his childhood, most of the book addresses his career as a priest and a writer. A few chapters seemed to bog down, but mostly this was a good read. 4 stars

I finished Still Waters, which was OK. Next is a reread of Tracks, my co-favorite Erdrich. Her new book comes out this week, so I get to read two of her books this month.

>87 dchaikin: There are others to choose from: Marilynne K. Roach's The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege is also very good—the day-by-day thing is an interesting approach. Curses! I see she has put out something new since the day-by-day one has come out.... btw, Mary Beth Norton has some older clips on YouTube.

Lots of airplane time last week. I read Arthur Phillips's The King at the Edge of the World, very nicely done historical fiction, which I really enjoyed, and Heather Cristle's The Crying Book—a book-length braided essay about tears, depression, despair, poetry—but also hope, so it wasn't a downer, and the footnotes referenced some great poetry I wasn't familiar with.

Now reading Maria Gainza's Optic Nerve, which has gotten a lot of good comments here and around.

I just finished A Novel Way to Die by Tamra Baumann for NetGalley. This is a cozy mystery that includes quirky characters and plot twists, leading to a surprising ending. Sawyer tries to manage her inherited bookshop and Victorian home and live a quiet life in her small town. Her attempts to do this are thwarted when the spouse of a best-selling author turns up dead after a book-signing that took place at her store. Sawyer’s best friend Renee is implicated, involving Sawyer in actions intended to clear Renee of the deed. Throw in Sawyer’s adopted teen-aged sister Brittany, who has a knack for technology, along with Madge, a friend who works at the police station. Don’t forget Sawyer’s father, the professional magician who pops in from time to time! Add in Sawyer’s on-again and off-again love relationship with Sheriff Dylan, who once left Sawyer at the altar, and you have a humorous mix of mystery and mayhem. The plot bogs down occasionally with dialogue, but most readers will find something to like about this cozy. The interesting and well-drawn characters are what really make this a fun read. While this is part of a series, it can be read successfully read as a stand alone novel.

Completed the beautifully written but I'm not sure how to define The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. Now back to I will Remember You, and all the other books I've started but left to the wayside. Also started The History of Bees and The Crash Detectives. My stupid little disincentive project has had some unintended but happy consequences: I'm finding so many books I want to read by women authors I can't actually focus on one or two but I'm trying to read as many at one time as possible. Still it's working.

>93 stretch: I haven't reviewed the Ogawa yet for similar reasons. Still sitting on it.

Another finish! His Unexpected Amish Twins begins with tragedy and ends with triumph. The author confronts several different issues in this novel, most notably fear, addiction, and grief. Hope, an Amish woman, arrives at the scene of a buggy and automobile collision, and helps with the injured children. That act of kindness will send her life in a new direction, as Hope encounters Micah, the uncle of the children and their new caretaker. Hope also deals with uncertainty about finances due to her dad’s gambling addiction and to starting up her new business of equine therapy.

While this book is advertised as a romance novel, serious issues are discussed and result in some tense moments for the characters and for the reader. This is not a fluffy romance about the Plain people, where everything is cozy hearts and flowers. I liked the way the author wrote about real people with real problems and described ways that they addressed the problems. The Christian message is overt but not preachy, forming an integral part of the story.

Although the book started off slowly, the plot gained momentum and drew me into the story. I learned a lot about how horses are used for therapy. The characters are likeable and each one deals with his or her own fears with courage. This is a clean story, with no violence, intimacy, or strong language. Readers who enjoy clean Christian romances will find this story to their liking.

I've started a long awaited re-read of Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and I'm greatly enjoying it. I haven't touched it since I was a very small child and it was read a loud to me and my siblings before bed. I can see why my parents loved it so much.

I read the entirety of Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup on the 1st and on the 4th I finished another book, William Golding's The Spire. This book has been on my TBR pile since 2009 and has traveled with me from Texas to Colorado to Texas to Japan so I'm happy to have finally cleared that one. Plus I really enjoyed it!

The next book I'm reading is 700 pages long and more dense so I won't be finishing that one anytime soon. I didn't think I'd be getting into another long book so soon but I guess after reading 2000 pages, 700 doesn't seem that bad.

>97 lilisin:

I was looking at one of my old reviews earlier today and had to laugh at my own note at the end of it that the author had decided to write a short novel so stopped at around 800 pages. :) Numbers in context sometimes do look weird. :)

Since this time last week, I've finished Patria o muerte (The last days of El Commandante), which was quite interesting, taken an unplanned diversion into physics with Feynman's QED - The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, a book given to me about thirty years ago that I've been successfully avoiding ever since (why???), and had another enjoyable dip into the strange world of B S Johnson with Christie Malry's own double-entry — accountancy meets terrorism in a Hammersmith confectionery factory. On audio, I've just finished Fascism: a very short introduction.

>96 mabith: I remember the film of Cheaper by the dozen being one that kept coming up on TV when I was a child — Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy! Don't think I ever read the book.

>96 mabith:, >99 thorold: - I read and enjoyed Cheaper by the Dozen as a kid, but reread it a few years ago and found it less interesting (there's a lot more about the time-and-motion studies and less about the the people than I remembered). The other story I keep getting mixed up with that is The Family Nobody Wanted - a couple gradually adopt a large number (a dozen? Maybe) children, most of mixed race or with birth defects (thus "nobody wanted"). I haven't read that one in years, I'd like to - to see if it's as good as I remember.

I'm reading a bunch of children's books that I've owned for over a year (in some cases, over 10 years) without reading - trying to clear out my BOMBs (Books Off My Bookshelf). None of the most recent lot have been worth keeping, or remembering - OK to read once, but I don't need them around any more (yay!). Gypsy from Nowhere, Gypsy and the Moonstone Stallion, Anton and Cecil : Cats on Track.

Finished (finally!) Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (lordy! it will be a tough review to write!)

Meanwhile, besides Gish Jen's The Resisters, I've picked up Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts as the 'before bed' book.

>96 mabith: >100 jjmcgaffey: I have copies of both books, which I acquired when I was in junior high school! It has been years since I read them.

I just finished The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. This book has been on my TBR list for ages. It relates the story of one summer spent at a hotel in France by a family of English kids while their mom in hospitalized and their dad is working overseas. There were several plot twists that I did not see coming, which made for a delightful ending to the story. I am not sure what I expected, but it was different than what I envisioned. The preface by the author also showed that at least some of the story is based on actual events. There seems to be a movie version of the book, but I was not aware of that. My biggest complaint is that some of the French language in the book is not translated and I could not figure it out from context clues. I read this one for AlphaKit, BingoDog, and RandomCAT, making it a triple header. 3.5 stars

>96 mabith: I also mix that up in my head with All-of-a-Kind Family. I loved both of those, largely because I was pretty much an only child (much older half siblings) and yearned for siblings.

I am reading La Petite Bijou by Patrick Modiano and The Massacre at Paris by Christopher Marlowe

Just finished The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare - it's a quite good story, but my main thought on finishing it was "this is how it's supposed to be written". Indians (it does use that term - written in 1983, though) who are neither Noble Savages or savages to be civilized - just people. Two people learning together, and learning to respect one another. It does point out racism - because the book they're reading is Robinson Crusoe, and the Indian boy (reasonably) objects to Friday's portrayal. It's just very well done.

>100 jjmcgaffey: I kind of enjoyed all the time and motion study bits, in part because it reminded me of how my dad talked to us. It's always dangerous going back to childhood favorites. Have you read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm? It seems more forgotten than some of the classics, but I loved it (reading as an adult).
>103 lisapeet: I liked that one too, and need to read the sequel. Maybe that's why I never re-read those as a kid though, I have four older siblings, two of whom made my life fairly difficult until I was 10.

I just finished Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space, an ER book, which I really enjoyed. Now starting A Bookshop in Berlin.

Although I'm mostly concentrating on Ducks, Newburyport, I'm also reading One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America by Gene Weingarten. So far I'm really enjoying it.

Sidetracked again, I realised after finishing Fascism: a very short introduction that I had another unfinished audiobook on the go on Scribd, Ben Goldacre's collection of miscellaneous columns I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that, so I finished that off too. Fun to come back to columns I remembered from ten years ago, as well as some other stuff I hadn't seen before. And for some reason I then started listening to Cosmos, which came up in the recommendations, and which I never got around to forty years ago when it was rather more current than it is now...

Then re-sidetracked by spotting whilst passing a local bookshop that it was Dutch book promotion week, and ended up reading the 2020 gift, Leon & Juliette, this afternoon. (They are always 100 pages long, so you might as well read them right away, but I have still got two from previous years on the TBR shelf...)

Meanwhile, I'm about 2/3 of the way through another Montalbano story, La rete di protezione.

Mainly reading Ducks, Newburyport with our group read here in CR

This week I finished Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side by Julia Shaw and My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather... not sure what those titles say about me. Evil was less than I had hoped, but was still good. My Mortal Enemy left me with a wow sense. Loved it, much to think about.

So, also, I stated one new book, on audio: The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom, which is lovely look at New Orleans East, destroyed by post-Katrina flooding and basically a forgotten corner of New Orleans.

I'm reading Weather - I love Offill's writing.

I travelled for work last week and instead of watching TV shows I'm not actually interested in I decided to read which meant I started and finished A Symphony of Echoes and The Gameshouse. I'm going away again this week so as well as The Tropic of Serpents (which I started yesterday) I am taking The Memory Police for a second attempt.

I am reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Memories of a Lost Egypt.

Like the questions thread, I've gotten way behind on this one. But since I last checked in, I've read the following:

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, which I found extremely readable, but entirely unsatisfying.

Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West edited by John Joseph Adams, which had some good stuff in it, but entirely too many inexcusably dull stories as well.

One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon by Charles Fishman, which I wouldn't recommend as an introduction to the subject, but adds a lot of interesting detail and perspective.

The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer, book two of the Land of Stories series of kids' books, which was fun.

The Orville Season 1.5: New Beginnings by David A. Goodman et al, a comic that is a good if not exactly essential read for fans of the TV show.

I'm currently reading The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, which I initially felt frustrated by, but which has now kind of gripped hold of my brain.

March of the Big Books: I've been keeping up with my weekly reading of Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, am reading The Big Money, the final volume of the USA trilogy, as my subway book, and have been ambushed by Ducks, Newburyport.

Today I finished The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. That completes my BingoDog card for the "1920" square and also for the MysteryKit Golden Age selection for March. I am usually pretty good at spotting the murderer, but this one threw me for a loop. I did not guess the perps or how it was done. Excellent! 5 stars

I finished The Town by William Faulkner. This is the second novel in Faulkner's "Snopes Family" trilogy. The action has moved from the hamlet of Frenchman's Bend to the town of Jefferson, still, of course, in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. In the first novel in the trilogy, The Hamlet, Frenchman's Bend and to a lesser extent Jefferson have become overrun with Snopes sibling and cousins following the beachhead established by Flem Snopes. The Snopes slowly begin usurping the money and, especially, the power in the community from Varners, the longtime ruling family of the area. The word Faulkner uses for this new clan, over and over, in both novels, is "rapacious."

In The Town, Flem has begun to acquire more power, and to aspire to actual respectability. While The Hamlet features several interlocking narratives, a series of stories that together paint the picture of the area and its inhabitants (and their varying reactions to the Snopes invasion), the narrative in The Town coalesces around Flem Snopes and his drive for money and influence in the town, as complicated by the open secret of his wife's 16-year infidelity with another important town citizen. Faulkner's breathtaking ability to peel back human motivations, for good or evil, make these novels extremely rewarding reading experiences.

Anyone interested can find a slightly more in-depth review on my personal CR thread.

Next up will be a volume of medieval history, Soldiers of the Faith: Crusaders and Moslems at War by Ronald C. Finucane. Right after that I'll be reading the third Snopes novel, The Mansion.

Finished the Gish Jen baseball-themed dystopia. It was very good....

Continuing with Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts, but also have started Verge: Stories by Lydia Yuknavich (author of The Book of Joan. I used to read many more short story collection or anthologies, not sure why I moved away from them.

As for nonfiction, I will likely take up Dr. Julia Davis's book on memory, unless the book on brain laterality/left-handness that arrives tomorrow (I forget the author's name at the moment) gets in the way. Either way my nonfiction is likely to be brain-related.

Isn't it amazing to read this thread and read about all the different books everyone is reading?!

Finished the short but excellent Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli, an exploration of the immigrations crisis at the southern border and what it means to be an immigrant through the 40 questions used to asked unoccupied minors seeking asylum. It was great to get prospective of immigrant working as translator in the overwhelmed system that is the immigration courts. Fascinating and heartbreaking read.

I finished La rete di protezione — fun, but not really Camilleri at his best. And have been reading a recent Dutch travel book about England, Te hooi en te gras, plus Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman! from my long list of science books I should have read decades ago.

About to start Herkunft, if I don't get distracted in the next half hour or so...

>118 avaland: Yes, when you follow someone's individual thread it almost looks sane, but when we put everything together here, our true, wonderful, craziness is revealed :-)

>118 avaland: Yes—I really enjoy that about this place. And I see so many books that I wouldn't catch either, even with my pretty wide exposure through work.

>115 LadyoftheLodge: Case in point. I'm not the biggest mystery reader but I love a good one now and then, and that's strong praise. Nothing worse than when they're predictable. So: noted.

>117 avaland: Also,
Gish Jen baseball-themed dystopia

But these all sound really fun.

I finished María Gainza's Optic Nerve, which I thought was just terrific—particularly if you like art criticism or just looking at and then talking/thinking about art. It pulls out the whole concept of literary ekphrasis in a really appealing, accessible way. (Plus I just like using the word ekphrasis.)

Now reading bell hooks's All About Love for my book club. It's feeling a bit dated to me, and only written in 2000... maybe I'll warm up to it more as I go.

I finished two more yesterday: An Unlikely Amish Match for NetGalley and Memories of a Lost Egypt for GeoCAT March. I see that the title was changed for the Egypt novel, and I like the original title better (I have the hardcover version from 1999). Does anyone have an insight into why the title would be changed? The cover looks exactly the same with the exception of the title, as can be seen on the work page for this book.

>122 LadyoftheLodge: At a guess, the title change is most likely due to some marketing influence. It's possible the original title didn't perform well, sales-wise. Or there could have been a publishing house change, or different titles for different demographic regions. But I don't have any particular insight for this specific book, only the general sort.

>122 LadyoftheLodge: >123 shadrach_anki: Looks like a case of “all of the above” — The original US publisher used “Memories”, as did the French, then the UK publisher went with “Apricots” and a different US publisher followed their lead. The Dutch title is “Apricots” as well. Maybe the original US publisher being a cookbook specialist didn’t need to use a title that flagged it as a foody book?

>124 thorold: Could be, although the subtitle is the same for both editions and indicates the recipes included.

Ducks, Newburyport is taking some energy and I haven't been keeping up here in the group since I started almost two weeks ago. Sorry everyone. I'm really enjoying The Yellow House on audio - slow paced family history, with a touch of elegance to the telling. And I'm starting Julius Caesar...and also leading a discussion about it on Litsy.

As feared in #117 the other nonfiction book, Laterality: Exploring the Enigma of Left-Handedness arrived and, er, well, the book on memory will have to wait a little longer.

I am reading The Devil in velvet by John Dickson Carr, one of the books on my 1951 book list.

I'm working on Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande and Bosnia in Limbo by Borja Lasheras.

I finished Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade, which includes some engaging characters and twists in plot that will leave readers guessing. Who is lying and who is the real killer? Ghote investigates the murder of a high-profile American philanthropist in this slow-moving tale. It combines a cozy mystery read with aspects of police procedurals. Ghote reminded me of other bumbling detectives such as Columbo, as he ultimately gets to the root of the problem. The novel is emblematic of the time in which it was written. While I did not really feel engaged with the characters or story line, it was a humorous and atmospheric read.

I am currently reading The Innkeeper's Bride for NetGalley.

I just finished Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams, the second in the Bromance Book Club series. I am now reading the third novel about Flavia de Luce, by the name of The Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. This quotation is about life and play-going in London, circa 1592, from a work published in that year by Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene. The title of the work is A Looking Glasse, for London and Englande.

. . . a glass of ale without a wench, why, alas, 'tis like an egg without salt or a red herring without mustard

.

The quotations at the beginnings of the books are, obviously, a part of the fun in this series.

I've been slowly reading A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel, which is rather uneven in the first 100 pages. And yesterday I started The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, just because it seemed super timely. I've owned it since 2004 and it's the moment to finally read it.

Recently finished Golden State by Ben H. Winters, and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it, but it was definitely engaging.

Now reading The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith.

I finished Herkunft, which was excellent (queue up for the translation when it comes out!).

Now struggling to get my mind round the pseudoscience of economics with Jonathan Aldred’s Licence to be bad.

>130 LadyoftheLodge: I’d forgotten Inspector Ghote! I used to read those back in the old days, there were stacks of them in the library. I think I may even still have one or two on my shelves. No idea how they would stand up.

I'm reading Ducks, Newburyport with the group read. I'm also reading City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert which is a good balance as it's a great story and moves along quickly.

I'm not super feeling All About Love, and my book club meeting yesterday was canceled, so I'm taking a break from it and rereading Wolf Hall, which is still just marvelous. Mantel's a freaking genius in my opinion... I'll read this and Bring Up the Bodies to get prepped for The Mirror and the Light. Though also my hold on Cantoras just came in, so I may ping around a bit.

I finally finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, also for my book club, which was canceled. I just started Indelicacy.

>134 thorold: The Inspector Ghote books must be up for re-release. This was on NetGalley. I read a lot of mysteries, and this one was just slow.

I enjoyed Licence to be bad, highly recommended to people looking for reasons to distrust economists...
Finally got around to The Story of an African farm yesterday, a book I vaguely thought I must have read years ago and obviously hadn’t!
I saw in Darryl’s thread that there is a translation of an Afrikaans novel on the current Booker International longlist, Willem Anker’s Buys: ‘n Grensroman (Red dog), and in a mad moment decided to attempt to read it in the original (without knowing any Afrikaans). A slightly bumpy start, but I’m through the first chapter and seem to be getting the hang of it. It’s a sort of South African True history of the Kelly gang, by the look of it.

I finished the interesting Soldiers of the Faith: Crusaders and Moslems at War by Ronald C. Finucane, as per my personal CR thread, and have now started the third novel in William Faulkner's "Snopes Family" trilogy, The Mansion.

I finished three books for NetGalley:
Awesome Dog 5000 vs Mayor Bossypants
Frida in America
Take it Away, Tommy!

I'm nearing the end of Melmoth the Wanderer and have been greatly enjoying it. I love these descriptively dramatic gothic tales! Hope it holds up until the end.

I have just started The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

The first sentence grabbed me immediately:

“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriuosly wrong somewhere"

>143 baswood: Hmm. I should stay out of the greenhouse, if I were you!

I'm still busy with my crash-course in Afrikaans, but took a bit of time out yesterday to read The shepherd's life, a very interesting farming memoir.

I just wanted to show you all how wonderfully colorful my reading is at the moment:



I have had a bit more difficult to settle into reading in the last week or so.

I just started House of Trelawney. I loved The Improbability of Love, so I was anxious to pick up this one.

>145 avaland: Psychedelic! I like it!

I've recently finished Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man by William Shatner. (I sometimes only half-jokingly like to refer to myself as a lapsed Trekkie, but sometimes I un-lapse. :)) Now reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers.

Currently reading two for NetGalley: The Amish Teacher's Dilemma and Amish Country Undercover.

>143 baswood:

I really enjoyed that one last year. I don't typically read sci-fi but with that premise it's hard not to like it. So much to say about society!

I just finished City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was nothing special, but was an entertaining story and was easy to read while my brain is having trouble focusing.

I'm taking the plunge and starting The Mirror and the Light, the final in Hilary Mantel's Cromwell series. I'm very excited and hope it lives up to my expectations.

And I am still reading Ducks, Newburyport with varying levels of interest. It was exciting that I finally got to a section that seems to explain the title!

I finally finished Discernment by Henri Nouwen, which was part of my Lenten reading for this year. It was a bit deep and rough going in places, but the appendices were really helpful and the best part of the book for me. It is probably better read in a discussion group, since there were questions at the end of each chapter. They could also be used for individual journal writing too. I originally started this book two other times in past Lenten seasons, but did not get very far, so I am pleased that I finished it this time around.

I finished Amish Country Undercover and I am now reading The Amish Teacher's Dilemma.

I just finished House of Trelawney, which was very enjoyable, and have started How We Disappeared.

I've finished The Big Money and News from Nowhere and am continuing on with Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl and Ducks, Newburyport.

I’ve finished the excellent audiobook No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life, by Robert C. Solomon. Review in my thread.

I've finished De Shanghai à Paris: Mon regard sur la nouvelle Chine by Chinese diplomat Xu Bo, and started 1947: when now begins by Elisabeth Åsbrink.

Finished reading The Postmodern Bible, portuguese edition. Book organized by Elizabeth A. Castelli, Gary A. Phillips, Regina M. Schwartz and Stephen D. Moore. Review in my thread.

I'm now reading The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty, the second book in the series that started with The City of Brass. I wish I were less distracted by reality disintegrating around me and able to focus on it more, but so far it seems good.

I just started Louise Erdrich's new one, The Night Watchman.

I finished Buys: ‘n Grensroman (Red dog) at the weekend — a great historical novel, very enjoyable. Fun to discover what it was like in the original Afrikaans, but I should think it will be good in translation too (the translation is on the Booker International list).

Also finished a couple from my TBR list, The Moor’s last stand and the short Jean Giono novel Regain, as well as a posthumous collection of early unpublished short stories by Hella S Haasse, Maanlicht.

I finished two for NetGalley: A Year at Brandywine Cottage which is a lovely garden book, and Bright Dreams:the Brilliant Ideas of Nikola Tesla.

I finished The Mansion, the third novel in Williams Faulkner's exhilarating "Snopes Family" trilogy. This set was actually my very first foray into Faulkner's work. I will be returning to his novels soon. You'll find much more in-depth comments about this book and the trilogy as a whole on my personal CR thread.

halfway through Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel
by Balli Kaur Jaswal

I am about to start two books The Chrysalids by John Wyndham and En attendant Bojangles by Olivier Bourdeaut

I just finished Why You Should Read Children's Books by Katherine Rundell, which was a BB for me from another thread. I found it somewhat disappointing, just not what I expected. It seemed more academic than I was looking for, I guess. I also did not like the political remarks that were included. There is enough of that from other sources.

I'm terribly slow this month, between Ducks, Newburyport and Coronavirus distractions, but I finally finished One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America.

I'm a good ways into Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World, which I'm enjoying.

More science fiction for me: The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke

I'm _finally_ starting The Westing Game. I'm not even sure what it's about, and it's a YA - but it's been bugging me for years.

>169 jjmcgaffey: Oh, I loved The Westing Game as a kid! In fact, I think I'll order it for my son's Easter basket.

I've just finished Ducks, Newburyport which I ended up really liking, despite some flaws. I'm about half way through The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel's conclusion to her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, which is just as brilliant as I hoped.

I've also started a library kindle book that just came in, The Five. It's a nonfiction account of the five women killed by Jack the Ripper in Victorian England. The author's intent is to give these women some power back by writing a book focused on the victims instead of Jack the Ripper. I think it's going to be good!

I finished The Night Watchman and have mixed feelings about it. I started Hamnet, which is brilliant so far.

In between Duck reads I've started on On This Day in History by Dan Snow, which is a story for each day of the year about something momentous in history which happened on that day.

I finished Pilgrimage 2 last week, and I’m now in the middle of A history of South Africa, by Frank Welsh, and have picked up on my Zolathon again after a longish gap by starting La terre. There’s something about the end of the quarter that makes you focus on projects, isn’t there...?

Eighteen days since my last post and nothing has changed in my reading. Still reading Ducks, Newburyport, although I’m now behind our pace, roughly 3/4 through. Still reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Act IV is this upcoming weekend. The Yellow House stalled because I’m not commuting and haven’t figured out how to get audiobook time in - need to find a way to get in a daily walk alone...without even the dog.

I finished a couple of my "between books" (anthologies and collections I read a chapter/story/entry at a time between the novels, histories and biographies that I read straight through):

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs (edited by Greil Marcus), a collections of columns and reviews, both previously published and unpublished, by one of the seminal rock/culture writers of the 1960s and 70s, and

Laugh with Leacock by Stephen Leacock, a collection of most beloved pieces by one of the most popular humorists of the early 20th century. Both are reviewed at greater length in my person CR thread.

I then moved on to Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History by Steven J. Zipperstein, a very well put together history that I've already almost finished.

I just finished Light Shines on Promise Lodge and I am now reading The Sunday Potluck Club which started off slowly. I think I know how it will end up, but I will keep reading for now. I am anxious to start my April challenges.

I have finished a 2nd Olaf Olafsson novel, but have picked up a collection of dark stories by Margo Lanagan (and still have other three books-in-progress....)

I just finished the amazing Hamnet and am starting The Most Fun We Ever Had.

For any paying attention, I was reading The Deerslayer slowly, and then I misplaced the book! I have now finally found it way under my bed (how did it get there?) and have begun reading it a little more fluently than before. I'll be finishing that soon. I just finished the wonderful The Good Guys by Stephen Brust, and as usual for a Brust novel, I loved it, and was really impressed by how it was put together. I guess that was fantasy, about two groups of magic-wielders, and how hard it was to tell which of them were the good guys. Well put together, as all his stuff is. I tell so many people how good his stuff is.

Today I started People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, about a book conservator working on an old Jewish book that was saved by a Muslim librarian during Sarajevo's troubled war-time.

Next, when I finish The Deerslayer I plan to read an earlier Trollope book that starts his Barchester novels. It is called The Warden.