What are we reading in December?

It's the last month of 2012, and for most of us, it's also the last month of our challenges! What are you reading? I'm still in the middle of All Clear by Connie Willis.

I have 17 books to go and am stuck halfway through about five items. I'm reading Undaunted courage and Serve it forth to finish off my nonfiction category, The captive mind to help finish my non-American or British category and I need to finish the last three books of Parade's end

I'm enjoying a month of reading whatever I want, preferably books I already own. That said, I'm finishing The Fencing Master and have started The Best Short Stories of O. Henry.

I finished UnWholly and loved it! Decided to try something classic and started Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison.

I've almost finished The Clock Strikes 12.

I've just finished Just Desserts and am starting A Wedding in December for my TIOLI for Dec.

I'm reading Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte and listening to A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor.

I'm listening to David Mitchell: Back Story read by the author (who isn't the David Mitchell, novelist). :) I've also started the Percy Jackson-series by Rick Riordan and am enjoying it quite a lot.

Having just finished dark eden and feeding orchids to the slugs I've started the eerie silence and find that I've almost finished my challenge, just 2 books left after this one...

I'm reading The Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte and finishing up The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales.

I'll be interested to see what you think of The Queen of the South. I just finished The Fencing Master by him and liked his style and was considering reading other books by him.

Onto my last book for the challenge ascent

I set aside Juneteenth since I don't have the right amount of attention span I guess. I started Code Name Verity and it's looking fabulous!

I just finished Sorcery and Cecelia an epistolary novel, fantasy of manners and an absolute hoot. One of those books called YA/Children's that aren't.

Finished Serve it forth, Hamlet and a Judge Dee mystery, so I'm 3 books closer. I really want to finish this thing.

I'm about to start The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

So, I've started about five different books - The Manual of Detection, The Christmas Train, Savannah Blues, Exiles in the Garden, and Specimen Days. Seriously need to pick one and focus.

I've read Peter F Hamilton's Great North Road and listened to Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for my chunkster category. Now reading Waiting for Robert Capa and Gone Girl. I'm also listening to Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale.

I finished The Once and Future King and have picked up Heartstone from the library so I'll be all caught up in the Matthew Shardlake series.

I'm reading Guantanamo: An American History and listening to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I'm also reading one story a day from Holmes for the Holidays, a collection of Sherlock Holmes pastiches with a Christmas setting.

I'm reading a short story collection called Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop, also a non-fiction work entitled The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, and then a juvenile/YA history that is extremely well done called Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. I'm just kind of taking turns reading because I'm enjoying all three of them.

I'll be waiting to see what you have to say about The Piano Shop on the Left Bank as it waits for me somewhere in the TBR pile.

I am really enjoying The Piano Shop on the Left Bank so far. I'm not quite halfway through it but it is well-written and holding my interest.

I've started Island Madness by Tim Binding, which is set on Guernsey Island during the WW II German occupation. So far it's shaping up to be a pretty good read. And for a light, seasonal read, I am starting The Christmas Mouse by Miss Read.

I'm starting The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green.

Reading Shark out of water by Emma Lathen. Enjoy The leavenworth case, Christina. I liked it when I read it a few years ago.

So far so good, Bjace! Victorian detective novels fascinate me.

I'm reading Silent in the Sanctuary another Victorian detective tale

Reading A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless by Danelle Steel and starting the audiobook of Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith.

I'm starting Aristotle's Poetics, which is blessedly short (although I'm sure it will be very dense)! After that I'll finally get to my ER copy of Speaking from Among the Bones, and then I can have a smattering of "free" reading before 2013 begins.

I finished the audio of A Christmas Secret and I've started listening to The Spy Who Came for Christmas. I'm still working on Guantanamo: An American History and Holmes for the Holidays.

Just finished Cocaine Blues a very different sort of cozy, and just began The Queen of Attolia.

For my challenge, I have three books left If Death Ever Slept, Persuasion and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. However, a slew of library books came in for me all at once: The Black Box, The Buzzard Table,Death Without Company, The Caller and A Killing in the Hills.

I just finished A Home for Christmas by Deborah Grace Staley. Most of you will want to skip that one. I'm going to try the first in Jeanne M. Dams' Hilda Johansson series next, Death in Lacquer Red. I've loved her Dorothy Martin series, so I want to see if I like this one. I have one or two print books from my stash lined up, but most of the rest of the month will be Kindle reads including an e-galley from NetGalley. I will probably download an audio book to listen to on my drive to see the family at Christmas.

Finally able to start Speaking from Among the Bones -- looking forward to relaxing with Flavia!

Finished A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve and am moving on to Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle

Finished A shark out of water and have started Brewing up a storm, which will complete the John Putnam Thatcher series for me.

I'm enjoying The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

I'm reading The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, a book that fails the Bechdel test in a most spectacular fashion. I guess in the final third of the book, a female character might talk to another female character about something other than the main (male) character, but I'm not holding my breath! (this explains the Bechdel test if you haven't yet encountered it. Warning! It will change the way you read a book. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Bechdel_test )

I've also just begun The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. The first chapter was intriguing.

I just finished Life Of Pi which totally blew me away, and I am now about to start a historical fiction, The Leopard Unleashed by Elizabeth Chadwick.

@ 38 -- I love The Guernsey Literary...! Hope you enjoy it, Victoria!

I just finished Heartstone by C.J. Sansome bringing this series up to date and Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys, my November ER. I have put my comments on my thread in the 2013 Challenge.

I'm in the middle of Real Time, which is about a bus-bombing in Israel and is turning out to be quite a great read. I'm also trying to finish the Percy Jackson-series - three more books to go!

41 Thanks Christina. I liked it, but didn't love it. I hope to do a writeup soon. Trying to focus on finishing the last few books.

I'm reading Captured by Indians: 15 Firsthand Accounts by Frederick Drimmer.

I'm about halfway through When God Was a Woman. Interesting ideas but dated and the author may be stretching the facts a little too much.

I've started The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss.

I'm kicking back with Ellis Peters' St. Peter's Fair, the fourth Cadfael mystery.

>46 VictoriaPL: - Ooh, I just got that book but am trying to wait to read it until closer to The Count of Monte Cristo group read in 2013. Not sure I can wait that long!

I'm just starting my Member Giveaway book, Trust: A New Beginning by Cristiane Serruya. After that? To many to choose from!

I just finished Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle and am going to start A Hamptons Christmas by James Brady.

>48 LittleTaiko: Stacy, I am enjoying it more than I thought I would. I'm not big on biographies but I do love Dumas. At the beginning there's a lot of interesting background to put Thomas-Alexandre in his historical setting.

Last night this passage struck me:

In late-eighteenth-century France, the term "American" was usually used synonymously with "man of color." He was from the American sugar islands, and was thus a former slave or the son of a slave... A handful of white British colonists living in Paris were also "Americans" though going strictly by the French definition they were Creoles.

I'm reading Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas and A Rumpole Christmas, and I'm listening to another Anne Perry Christmas mystery, A Christmas Beginning.

I'm not reading at all due to family arriving. I may get through Mrs. Lirriper's lodgings by the end of the year.

I finished Immoveable Feast and A Rumpole Christmas yesterday. Next up is another Anne Perry Christmas mystery, A Christmas Garland, and Moon Over Water by Debbie Macomber. It was another impulse ebook checkout from the public library. It's set near where I'm visiting in Mexico.

I'm finishing up Doors Open by Ian Rankin and will then have to decide between dutifully finishing up a few books i did plan to read this year or going with the hedonism of the season and reading whatever I please. With homemade maple shortbread, some drizzled with dark chocolate and some frosted with a maple frosting.

Your maple shortbread sounds delicious, Kay. I am reading The Day of the Triffids and treating myself to the final D.I. Frost book, A Killing Frost by R. D. Wingfield, I am going to miss him!

I've just finished A Hamptons Christmas and am about to start The Girl Who Chased the Moon .

Ditto on the shortbread. Sounds yummy!

Ooooohhh..... Maple shortbread..... *Drools.*
Guess I will have to make due with packaged chocolates under the tree. *sighs*

On the reading front I am currently reading The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore and What Dress Makes of Us by Dorothy Quigley, a project Gutenberg download.

I'm having a great time with The Alto Wore Tweed, a very funny mystery that ends during the Christmas season. I should finish it this afternoon and will move on to Last Night at the Lobster.