*** What Are You Reading Now? - Part 5

The last quarter of the year is here, Phoenix woke up to rain and decidedly autumn weather (which is unusual - we should be back to normal soon-ish).

How is your reading going? And for the people from the Northern hemisphere - do the shortening days influence what you are reading? If you live down south, do the lengthening days influence you?

Welcome to (probably) the last thread for the year - come and tell us all what you are reading.

Still in the middle of the very pleasant A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles.

I am still reading: Call Them By Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays) by Rebecca Solnit, The Fourth Man by K. O. Dahl, and am a few pages in of The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker. Distractions abound, so it is slow going.

Just started The Invention of Nature which I proposed for my book club, so have to get it finished soon! Luckily it is fascinating.

As we go into Q4, I've just finished another Iris Murdoch, A fairly honourable defeat - a more sinister and less misogynist Così fan tutte for the 1970s. And I'm still plodding through The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806 (I've reached the year 1672, only about 300 pages to go!), about halfway through my next Zola, Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, and just started Robert Walser's delightful Der Spaziergang.

>4 SassyLassy: I enjoyed The invention of nature as well.

I'm reading The Best American Essays 2011. Because that's me. Always years behind on everything.

>6 bragan: Well, the good essays are the ones that retain some kind of timeliness even across the intervening years, right?

I started yesterday Astrophysics for people in a hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. As the title suggests, it's a very quick read, and quite interesting.

I finished The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman and started reading Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia by Chris Stewart and enjoying it. It is a "Under the Tuscan Sun" only set in Spain and with younger home owners.

>7 lisapeet: That's what I figure! Even ones about then-recent events -- one of the ones I've read so far involved the 2010 earthquake in Haiti -- don't exactly "go bad" with time.

>4 SassyLassy: I rejoined audible and picked up this book (The Invention of Nature)...I should get there somewhat soon.

I finished Romans, and Of Love and Other Demons, the last novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which plays on Rapunzel. Recommended to fans of Love in the Time of Cholera. Now I'm reading News of Kidnapping, Marquez's nonfiction account of ten people kidnapped, all for one purpose, by Pablo Escobar around 1990.

>2 avidmom: I'm reading that at the moment too. We'll compare notes! I'm only about 100 pages in. Not sure what I think of it yet.

I am reading Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu. This is a graphic novel and it reads fast and fun!

On Audio - I finished The Triumph of Christianity, which seems to be just another book by Bart D. Ehrman. It was pretty straight forward, but I got a lot out of it. This morning I should begin The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

>4 SassyLassy: One the non-fiction books most enjoyed by my bookclub, I also loved it! As was >9 benitastrnad: The Spirit Catches You.

I've just finished Killers of the Flower Moon and wished it was longer. I'm now reading Their Eyes Were Watching God.

>12 AlisonY: It seems to have picked up the pace near the middle of the book. :)

I'm now reading Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. It's starting out a little slow, perhaps, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I really like this series.

I finished my first book for this month. Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia by Chris Stewart. This was a memoir of the first 5 years Stewart and his wife owned and operated a small sheep farm just south of Granada Spain. Stewart was one of the founding members of the rock band Genius. He left the band and became a certified sheep shearer and then found this small run down farm in Andalusia. He purchased it and spent the first summer starting on its rehabilitation. After the first 6 months his wife moved and they stayed, eventually starting a flock of sheep and a family. The reviews of this one were really good, but I found the book to be mostly average. I did learn much about life in this rural part of Spain. I also learned why the people of this area are moving in droves to the cities of the region. The rustic life can be good, but having reliable electricity, running water, and communications to the outside world are just as important. However, I like reading this kind of travel memoir so all-in-all, it was a good way to end the evenings.

I have been away visiting friend for a few days but managed to sneak in a read of More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Just got back from 10 days in Greece on an archaeological tour. Very intense and busy, no time to read except on the plane. I confess to watching four movies while on the plane there and back, but I guess movies don't count, right? Here they are anyway:
Book Club
The Nanny Diaries
On Chesil Beach
Oceans 8

I am reading The First Love on my Kindle for NetGalley, about 86% done.

>20 LadyoftheLodge:. An archeological tour of Greece sounds amazing

I finished A Gentleman In Moscow which ended exactly as I thought it would - yet didn't - and started The Handmaid's Tale and have plans to read ShirleyJackson's The Haunting of Hill House also.

I finished the graphic novel nonfiction biography book Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu. This collective biography had a very different selection of heroines and that made it very interesting to read. There were some GREAT women in this book.

The library lent me Barracoon, so I'm listening and fascinated. (Robin Miles reads it)

I'm thrilled to finally be reading The Infinite Highway by Sara Gran! It's been too long since Claire DeWitt's last adventure.

#25
Got hit with a Book Bullett! I had to go to Amazon to see who or what was Claire DeWitt, and so added the first book in this series to my ever growing TBR list.

>26 benitastrnad: LOL!!! The first book was GREAT!!! 2nd was a little less so, but still a keeper. :)

I'm now reading Lori by Robert Bloch. Figured it was time for a little horror fiction for October.

>21 dchaikin: It was amazing! We visited Athens, Thessaloniki, Kambala, Corinth, Patmos, Santorini, Mykonos, and Ephesus. Lots of walking, but fascinating history.

I just finished The First Love for NetGalley, and am currently reading Teacher, Teacher by Jack Sheffield.

Just finished Teacher, Teacher by Jack Sheffield. Currently reading Malice at the Palace by Rhys Bowen.

I finished one of the books I have had on my shelves since 2009. In the Land of Long Fingernails: A Gravedigger in the Age of Aquarius by Canadian author Charles WIlkins. This book is memoir and won an award for humor writing. It is funny but the graveyard humor got old after 50 pages.

I started reading A Fine Line by Gianrico Carofiglio for the Two Guidos mystery challenge over on the 75’ers group.

Finished reading Subcidadania brasileira: Para entender o país além do jeitinho brasileiro, by Jessé Souza (portuguese edition). The author presents a new way to understand brazilian society. Review in my thread.

Just finished Malice at the Palace by Rhys Bowen and on to something else from NetGalley.

I finished A Gentleman in Moscow which has befuddled me a little. It ticks all of my usual must have boxes in a novel - fabulous writing, wonderful characters, great sense of place and time - yet somehow I was glad to finish it.

Work is going through a very stressful patch, so I feel the need for some light relief in my next read - I'm going with the comedian Romesh Ranganathan's new memoir that I picked up at a recent book signing at Cheltenham Literary Festival.

I've recently finished The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock a debut novel by Imogen Hermes Gowar that I really liked. I also read Invisible by Paul Auster from the 1001 books to read before you die list - meh.

Right now I'm half way through Aristocrats by Stella Tillyard, nonfiction based on the letters of 4 wealthy British sisters of the 18th century. Very good.

And doing a group read of Wild Harbour, a fairly obscure Scottish book written in 1936 that predicts the second world war and a pacifist couple's reaction to it.

This week I finished Macbeth, which I had never read before. And I'm nearly done with News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez. But, I'm not sure what's next, other than more of the NT, where, yesterday I finally started First Corinthians.

#37
Ouch! You got me with a book bulletin. The Stella Tillyard book sounded interesting so a visit to Amazon later and I have added it to my growing wishlist.

I am reading The Anatomie of Abuses by Philip Stubbes. A best seller in Tudor Times. If you want to get rid of all that sin and depravity you have got to read about it first.

I recently finished Elective Affinities and am now struggling with Absolute Beginners.

I just finished an ER book, the graphic non-fiction Mandela and the General by John Carlin, which was interesting, but mostly just left me wanting to read something more substantial about these particular historical events. And I've now started The Annie Year by Stephanie Wilber Ash, a novel set in a small midwestern town. I fear this one may be trying just a little too hard to be quirky, but I'm not far into it yet, so we'll see.

Just finished reading Estado de Exceção: A Forma Jurídica do Neoliberalismo, by Rafael Valim, portuguese edition. An appreciation of brazilian legal developments. Review in my thread.

Just finished An Amish Wife for Christmas from the NetGalley downloads. I am starting Christmas in Evergreen now. It is a little early for Christmas books, but I wanted to post my reviews for NetGalley.

I finished A Fine Line by Gianrico Carofiglio. This is a novel translated from the Italian. It is a legal procedural and I liked it. This is the last of the Guido Guerrieri books that has been translated so not only have I finished this book - I have finished the series.

I started my 14th book in the National Geographic Directions series this last week. It is I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai’i by Susanna Moore. This is a travel series and the books are short - so it will be a pleasant interlude.

Just finished listening to The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall (absolutely delightful), and I started listening to Wildwood by Colin Meloy, but I am having to abandon that one, at least in audio form. I cannot stand the narrator. So I am back to deciding what I want to listen to next.

On the print and ebook front, I am reading Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine and Greywalker by Kat Richardson.

Reading In the Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill. It somehow called out to me today in the secondhand book shop.

Just finished Resgatar o Brasil, by Jessé Souza and Rafael Valim, portuguese edition. An analysis of Brazil current challenges. Review in my thread.

Just finished Christmas in Evergreen for NetGalley, and now I am reading The Great Lakes Lighthouse Brides Collection also from NetGalley.

I'm reading The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and it's very satisfying so far. I've also started Vox by Christina Dalcher, which is terrifying.

And I have picked up copies of both The Witch Elm by Tana French and Transcription by Kate Atkinson and I'm looking forward to both of these.

>51 RidgewayGirl: Oh, I’m jealous, Kay. I’m 5th in line for The Witch Elm and 2nd for Transcription. With my luck, they’ll come in at the same time.

>52 NanaCC: Ha! Mine did. I've discovered that if I have more than two books on hold, no matter that one is available at a different branch and the others have long holds, they will still all show up on the same day.

finished News of a Kidnapping, and started, as a second try, Accident: A Day's News by Christa Wolf, and German perspective on Chernobyl. And, I picked up, The Hate U Give. It's YA, but it got my attention fast.

Audio, The Invention of Nature is only ok, for me. The info is good, but, well, the reader is somehow wrong, and the text isn't flawless. Anyway, for the moment I've switched to On Grand Strategy, and haven't decided if I'm enjoying it or not. Again, the historical info is good (this reader is decent)

I finished I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai'i and enjoyed this short book about the history of Hawaii. The best part of the book was the last third where the author talked about growing up in Hawaii in the late 50's and the 60's.

I started listening to book six in the Septimus Heap series. This one is titled Darke and is my commute book. It has a great narrator so this will be fun.

I also started reading the YA novel Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas. This one will be a quick read.

>55 benitastrnad: Hawaiian history is pretty crazy, no. Moore's books sounds interesting.

I'm reading The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker at bedtime. I'm hoping to finish Rebecca Solnit's latest collection soon (I set it down for about a month and have just picked it up again. I have to be in the right frame of mind) and am casting around for my next novel.

Finished The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and am now reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Don't need a scary Halloween read; the Atwood book was creepy enough.

Finished O Ódio como Política, by Esther Solano Gallego, portuguese edition. The challenges faced by brazilian political system. Review in my thread.

If you count all the short story collections I read halfway through for LJ end-of-year Best Books, plus the books I had to stop so I could do that, I'm reading about 20 books at the moment. And I actually intend to finish all of them.

What I have finished recently: Friday Black, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, which I thought was terrific.

Also Fierce: Essays By and About Dauntless Women, an anthology that a friend of mine who runs a small press put together. These are interesting—a really mixed bag, but a great idea to highlight some of history's unsung game-changing women, and I enjoyed it.

Now reading The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction for review, since apparently short stories aren't done with me just yet.

I am reading Invisible, Paul Auster by Paul Auster

I just finished The Great Lakes Lighthouse Brides Collection for NetGalley, and posted my review. I am reading The Queene's Cure by Karen Harper for November Category Challenge, and also The Victorian Christmas Brides Collection for NetGalley. I like reading the short stories in these collections, as I have not read short stories for a long time. Fast and fun reads!

I am just about to start Nightfall Two By Isaac Asimov. I don't know what happened to Nightfall One.

>63 baswood: Everybody was asleep. ;)

Just finished reading O Que é Liberdade?, by Caio da Silva Prado Jr, portuguese edition. An essay that presents the idea (concept) of liberty. The book is part of a series that introduces key concepts in different fields. Review in my thread.

I've just started and not gotten far into Sabrina Jeffries' The Truth About Lord Stoneville. It was recommended by a friend, so eager to give it a go. I've not gotten far, though, because work has been hectic. Hoping to make more headway this weekend!

I've just started Histoire naturelle et morale de la nourriture (A History of Food) by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat. I've finished the chapter on honey. Food gathering is next.

I just finished reading the YA fantasy novel Tower of Dawn. It was great relaxing reading. Love it!

Finished listening Law in American History, Volume I, by G Edward White. Great book! Waiting for the second volume in audio format. Review in my thread.

I am reading two books at the moment: Sir Philip Sidney courtier Poet and Philip Sidney: a double life
As both books are biographies of Sr Philip Sidney and they follow his life in a linear progression (as most biographies do) I am reading a chapter from each book alternately.

I just finished The Queene's Cure by Karen Harper, and also The Table Where Rich People Sit by Byrd Baylor. Working on NetGalley books and a cozy mystery.

I picked up Pat Barker’s Eye in the Door and have a good start on it. This is the second in her World War I trilogy. I thought it would be appropriate to read this series in November 2018.

I read In The Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill, Beloved by Toni Morisson and The Conversations at Curlow Creek by David Malouf last week. I've started The Child in Time by McEwan, but I can't decide if I'm entirely in the mood for it.

Finished reading O Que é Direito?, by Roberto Lyra Filho, portuguese edition. An introductory text about law and its meaning. Review in my thread.

LOL, I came in to post what I was reading and it seems I reading the same things I was reading 7 days ago. Been distracted.

My reading theme for the year is over, so it's "free reading" time. Am re-reading John Dos Passos's American trilogy with a friend who just turned 70 and is going through some sort of spiritual malaise. Now that I am old and retired, I can unashamedly read and prescribe books for "therapy."

In memory of the 100th anniversary of the Armistace that ended World War I - November 11,2018 - I am reading the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker. I just finished book 2 Eye in the Door and will start the Booker Prize winner Ghost Road this evening.

I just finished reviewing several books for NetGalley, so will move on now to the Category Challenges for November! Here are my latest:

The Victorian Christmas Brides Collection
A Christmas Revelation
Creating Sanctuary: Sacred Garden Spaces
Science Comics: Wild Weather
The Craft of University Teaching

The next on the list is True Tales of American life edited and introduced by Paul Auster. I do not know what I am going to make of this, but it was the next unread book on my shelf.

I'm reading The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge, a history of food in the American South. It's fascinating and I'm learning so much. This is an off-beat pick for my Southern Lit book club and I'm looking forward to the discussion.

I'm also reading Ohio by Stephen Markley, which is turning out to be a much better and more nuanced story than I'd thought after the first fifty pages. It's about various people from New Canaan, Ohio, who went to high school together and are all in town for a variety of reasons (from "never left" to "driving through as quickly as possible") eight years later.

I'm also reading There, There by Tommy Orange.

Sort of done with (or at least bored with) Death a L'Orange by Nancy Fairbanks. Starting Hot Flash Holidays with its bright red cover, and also another book for NetGalley.

Just finished reading O Que é Ideologia, by Marilena Chauí, portuguese edition. An marxist analysis about the concept of ideology. Review in my thread.

I'm reading Winter by Ali Smith and Titus Groan, the first book in the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake.

I'm reading I Married You For Happiness by Lily Tuck.

I’m having another go at Así empieza lo malo, which I put aside more than a year ago and forgot about. As usual with Javier Marías, a mixture of pleasure and frustration. How many chapters will it take the narrator to get from the taxi to the front door...?

I finished the Regeneration Trilogy. Ghost Road by Pat Barker was not the strongest novel in this series. In my opinion, but still a very good book.

I started book 6 in the Guido Brunetti mystery series. Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon.

I just finished Hot Flash Holidays which was just what I needed--some humor, the ability to laugh at ourselves and deal with the changes that come with aging. I finished it in two evenings.Very humorous and so true, best understood by "women of a certain age." Now I need to read the others in the series. 5 stars

I've been a reading mess for a week or so now, maybe blame some traveling. Updates

in text:
Accident: A Day's News by Christa Wolf - finished Nov 1 and reviewed, although it seems like a long time ago
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - finished Nov 6 (generally recommended)
Galatians - finished yesterday am
Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel García Márquez - this is what I'm reading when I can read

Audio:
On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis - also finished Nov 2
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf - Finished Nov 9
Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior by Bart D. Ehrman - listened mostly during a drive from Houston to New Orleans and back. Finished Wednesday.
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan - the so far really interesting book I'm listening to.

Have been (slowly) working through And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke. I've never read Guhrke, but it's the BOTM in one of my book clubs, so I've been excited to try her (she has some raving reviews from club members). While the book hasn't been a slow read, time has gotten away from me, so I've only been able to do a chapter a day. So far I'm enjoying it. We'll see where it goes from here! Not quite halfway.

I'm reading The Labyrinth of the Sprits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which is like reading the perfect film noir, all mid-century Barcelona and perfectly dressed spies, policemen and informers, all smoking in doorways. I like it.

I've just started Foe by Canadian author Iain Reid, which is just as mind-bending and eerie as I'm Thinking of Ending Things.

And the Tournament of Books long list has been announced, so I'm reading R. O. Kwon's The Incendiaries and Peng Shepherd's The Book of M.

I am currently reading Malevolent Magic, A Cozy Corgi Mystery by Mildred Abbott and Amid the Winter's Snow by Tasha Alexander.

Over the last few days I’ve finished Así empieza lo malo (excellent, but also annoying...) and Pantagruel, which I also found lingering on my TBR shelf and turned out to be almost exactly what I expected. The new novel Vie de David Hockney by Catherine Cusset also turned out to be exactly what it said it was, but I couldn’t really work out why it needed to be.
Now reading Boswell on the Grand Tour, which is just as delightfully (unintentionally) funny as you would hope.

Oh dear, I've read a bunch of stuff since I last checked in here, some of it really good, but it'd probably be a bit too much to mention now. At the moment, I'm reading Unwind by Neal Shusterman, a YA novel I'm having slightly mixed feelings about.

I hate to say it, but I didn't enjoy McEwan's The Child in Time much. On now to When Light is Like Water by Molly McCloskey.

I just finished listening to Scythe by Neal Shusterman and have to say that I am not happy with the subject matter and yet the darn book sucked me in and now I have to read the second in the series.

I also read the nonfiction book Golden Spruce by John Vaillant and really like it. I learned a lot about environmental terrorism and the old growth coastal temperate rainforests in the Northwest. This was a very good book.

I'm reading Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale with a Litsy group. And continuing through the Pauline letters. Read Ephesians today, next is Philippians. Still have Living to Tell the Tale going, but it's kind of waiting for me to get into the right mood. I haven't read very much of it.

Followed Boswell with a recent French crime novel, Arab Jazz (more upbeat than I was expecting), and threw in another German typesetting-themed novella, Die Letzten : Aufzeichnungen aus Udo Posbichs Druckerei by the splendidly contrary Katja Lange-Müller, who deserves more attention than she gets.
I’m now about halfway through Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, another of those classics we’ve all been meaning to read forever...

I'm reading two very different books: November Road, a fun noir potboiler set around the assassination of JFK, and The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, a true life naturalist/museum heist tale.

I finished When Light is Like Water by Molly McCloskey - an interesting novel set in Ireland amidst the aftermath of the narrator's extra-marital affair.

I think I'll pick up Anita Brookner's The Bay of Angels next.

I finished reading Accidental Billionaires and am now inspired to read more about Silicon Valley companies. A trip to the library is in order. In the meantime, I have picked up South Riding and am determined to read it. It has been on my bedside table for several years and it is time to get it off.

Finished listening Fundamental Cases: The Twentieth-Century Courtroom Battles that Changed our Nation, by Alan M Dershowitz. Review in my thread.

Glad to be finished In Between the Sheets by McEwan which I've been labouring with on my commute on and off for ages now. I'm on a bad run of McEwan's - what's happening?

I've just finished Sorry Please Thank You by Charles Yu, a collection of weird little stories that were interesting, but mostly not really satisfying. And I'm now reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and, wow. Despite all the good things I'd heard about it, I wasn't sure it would be my kind of thing, but so far it's actually even better than all the hype suggested.

>104 bragan: I've heard so many good things about Madeline Miller, I should really investigate...
I am reading Flights by Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.

>103 AlisonY: "A bad run of McEwan's" - an oxymoron!

After Simplicissimus I went on to Kate Atkinson’s latest, Transcription, which everyone here seems to be reading, and then a quasi-random pick from the TBR pile, Kader Abdolah’s version of Panchatantra, Kélilé en Demné. From typewriter ribbons to talking jackals...

Now having a go at Anthony Kenny’s An illustrated history of Western philosophy (no, the pictures don’t really make it any easier to follow...) and switching to Uwe Timm’s Der Mann auf dem Hochrad when my brain starts overheating. Because who can resist a taxidermist on a penny-farthing?

>104 bragan: >105 Dilara86: I’m beginning to think there must be something wrong with me because I didn’t enjoy The song of Achilles...

>106 VivienneR: you would think, huh? He and I have definitely had a little tiff these past few titles.

Finishes:
Assaulted Caramel by Amanda Flower, while on a Caribbean cruise. This was a gift from my Santa last year.
Malevolent Magic by Mildred Abbott--in the Corgis mystery series, with some holiday magic and weirdness thrown in for good measure.
A Christmas Courting for NetGalley, which was a series of short novellas.

Currently reading Murder Past Due for NetGalley

I have recently finished The Sound of Virtue: Philip Sidney's Arcadia and Elizabethan Politics by Blair Worden and now I am reading the real thing The Old Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney.

>103 AlisonY: I find McEwan uneven, too.

>111 RidgewayGirl: Uneven is a good way to describe McEwan, although I've enjoyed all of his books that I've read so far. I like the variation in style and topics.

I finished Fyre by Angie Sage the last in the Septimus Heap books. It was sad and happy event. I liked the books so was sad to see them end, but happy that I finished the entire series. I listened to all of them and the narrator (Gerard Doyle) was outstanding.

I started listening to Pleasantville by Attica Locke and so far am enjoying it.

Still reading the Lily Tuck but blew through The Hazards of Time Travel, the latest Joyce Carol Oates over the weekend. As a fan of both Oates and dystopians, I will just say that my expectations were high and I was disappointed. If anyone else reads it, I'd like to hear what you think.

NOTE ON MESSAGE BOARD RE THE 2019 CLUB READ. PLEASE READ.

I'm now reading Ring Around the Sun by Clifford Simak, an old SF novel from the 1950s. I'm afraid it's really not Simak's best.

Next up: The Daughters by Adrienne Celt .

I'm deep into the long list for the Tournament of Books. I'm reading Sugar Land by Tammy Lynne Stoner, which is published by a small press, Red Hen Books, and begins with a young woman in 1920s Texas realizing that she's a lesbian and then going to work as a cook in a prison. The circumstances are bleak, but the main character is so pragmatic and upbeat that the tone of the novel is not at all grim.

I'm also reading America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo, also from the ToB list and also excellent, this time concerning a Filipino family in California. And I'm reading Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro, which is about a woman in a marriage she's committed to, who nonetheless embarks on an affair. It's an intense and very internal novel.

Finished reading Pedagogia da Autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa, by Paulo Freire, portuguese edition. Review in my thread.

Today I finished How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan, an eye-opening book...brain-opening? Has me thinking about how the over-structure of our brains can lead to things like depression, anxiety, OCD, and addiction, and the nature of our default thought patterns and how our brain forces us to go down these well-trod paths and tries to prevent us from taking other mental paths...and where psychedelics drugs could fit in this.

Next audiobook is Becoming, I'll start tomorrow morning.

I finished Anita Brookner's The Bay of Angels which was bleak yet powerfully honest. On now to The History of Bees by Maja Lunde.

I'm clearly on a natural history nonfiction kick (or at least my library holds are)—finished The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson on a long flight from coast to coast, and this morning on my commute will be starting Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution by Menno Schilthuizen.

After finishing with philosophy and penny-farthings, I moved on to an Angela Thirkell, Private enterprise - the usual love-hate thing I have for Thirkell - and a late-Victorian sailing book, The cruise of the Widgeon, which was fun in the way such things often are.

I seem to have quite a lot of things on the go, and I’m not sure which are going come to anything before Christmas (probably something else altogether...): I’ve read a few chapters of the next Zola in the pile, L’assommoir, I’m enjoying Charles Martin’s blank-verse translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and I’ve gone off on a complete tangent into Old English linguistics.

I am nearly finished with The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle. This is the first book I read in the series, and intend to read the others. This was a lot of fun! I have been busy getting my reading selections in order for 2019, probably driving my husband nuts.

>123 thorold: haven't gone for the linguistics, but have Old English on the brain. Just bought Heaney's Beowulf and will try to get to it and other Old English stuff next year....working on my 2019 plan.

In other news, just finished Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, which I had never read before.

>125 dchaikin: I've often thought that it would be great to have a go at Beowulf in the original, but I'm not making any rash commitments :-)

Winter's Tale - Exit Dan, pursued by a bear...

I finished Pleasantville by Attica Locke and thought it was a very good book. It won the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction in 2016 and it totally deserved that award.

I started reading Noble Radiance by Donna Leon. It is book 7 in the Guido Brunetti series.

>125 dchaikin: Have you read The Wake? It's set post-1066 and written in some kind of Old English correlate language, and sounds like it could either be really fascinating or just awful:

Written in what the author describes as "a shadow tongue"—a version of Old English updated so as to be understandable to the modern reader—The Wake renders the inner life of an Anglo-Saxon man with an accuracy and immediacy rare in historical fiction. To enter Buccmaster's world is to feel powerfully the sheer strangeness of the past. A tale of lost gods and haunted visions, The Wake is both a sensational, gripping story and a major literary achievement.

>126 thorold: 🐻

>128 lisapeet: I hadn’t heard of it, Lisa. Sounds entertaining.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/09/paul-kingsnor...

Just finished A Classe Média no Espelho, by Jessé Souza, portuguese edition. Reflections about brazilian political history and contemporary facts. Review in my thread.

Finished Ovid’s Metamorphoses - almost too much of a good thing - and a little collection of prose poems by Ilse Aichinger, Schlechte Wörter.

Still dipping a toe into the magical world of Old English word-order, but I don’t think I’ll get much further before Christmas. Taking note of The Wake (I approve of Charles Kingsley’s Hereward the Wake, of course, because it has a minor character called “Thorold” in it - I don’t know if he is in this new one as well...).

And I’ve gone off on another complete tangent and started Welcome to Lagos, which looks like fun.

>131 thorold: almost too much? I’ll check out your Ovid review soon.

LOVED The History of Bees - a really enjoyable page turner. On now to Beyond Black - I'm trying to get over the fact that Hilary Mantel has always scared me slightly when I've seen her interviewed.

>133 AlisonY: Beyond Black may actually be a book to be afraid of... : ) It was quite an experience for me earlier this year, hope you enjoy it.

I'm reading The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, which is just superbly written.

I've recently finished Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown, which was okay but not quite as engaging as I hoped, and The Unfinished World and Other Stories by Amber Sparks, which was strange and interesting and generally quite worth reading.

And I'm now reading But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman. I've only just started it, but I was very annoyed at having to put it down to go to work this morning, so that seems very promising, indeed.

>134 dchaikin: I'll read it behind a cushion...

I finished Noble Radiance and am took four of the Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Bradley with me while driving home for the holidays. I have finished 1 of them and will finish the second in the next 100 miles or so. They are very entertaining. I am actively trying to finish up some series so that I cans start some new ones next year.

>137 AlisonY: LOL

Desperately trying to finish up some books and review them before the end of the year. So many distractions!

Hoping to finish Lily Tuck's I Married You for Happiness and Nicola Barker's The Cauliflower, but there are some promising Nordic crime novels blowing kisses to me ....

I’ve just finished Mary Beard’s Women and Power which is brief and excellent and I’m reading The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald.

>141 japaul22: Poor old Novalis doesn't stand a chance if you come at him from that direction :-)

>142 thorold: Ha! i'm seeing what you mean . . .

I’ve put Old English aside until after Christmas. Expecting to finish Welcome to Lagos on the plane tomorrow, and I’ve also started Susan McClary’s Feminine endings, a book I completely forgot I meant to read about 20 years ago, but was reminded of in the most ridiculous way possible - there was a quiz question about it in yesterday’s episode of University Challenge. Who said television is killing reading?

>143 japaul22: Well, even without Mary Beard to put him in context, he would have a hard time standing up to 21st century scrutiny. But I did enjoy The blue flower.

Finished The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle for NetGalley. Also finished Batter off Dead for Netgalley.

>141 japaul22: I loved the Mary Beard!

Reading The Little Book Cafe Book Three--Amy's Story for NetGalley review.
Finished These for NetGalley reviews:
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
Nature Play at Home
Book Love
Past Due for Murder

>146 avaland: I loved it too! I actually bought her SPQR and am reading that now.

Also reading Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels

Finished reading John Dewey: Uma Filosofia para Educadores em Sala de Aula, by Marcus Vinicius da Cunha. An exposition of Dewey’s ideas about education (portuguese edition). Review in my thread.

I'm reading My Real Children by Jo Walton. When I'm done with that, I'm going to read Twice Upon a Time by Paul Cornell. It's the novelization of last year's Doctor Who Christmas special. Because I have to have something to get myself through this year's lack of Doctor Who on Christmas. :)

Finished NetGalley books (for now) and I am reading Nancy Thayer's Nantucket Christmas.

Finished Welcome to Lagos (fun, but a bit flimsy), and Feminine endings (occasionally tough going, but worth it), as well as L'Assommoir, which I’ve been nibbling away at for weeks, but really enjoyed. At this rate, I’ll get to La débacle by the end of 2020...!

Now reading the second part of Richard Dawkins’s memoirs, Brief candle in the dark, which is a bit easier to read in between the excitements of a family Christmas than a high intensity French novel.

Finished Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution and The Boatbuilder in rapid succession. Now that I've got a temporary break from reading one-handed standing up on my daily commute, I'm reading one of my hardcovers: Madeline Miller's Circe, which I've heard such good things about.

Finished O Impeachment de Dilma Rousseff: entre o Congresso e o Supremo, portuguese edition. Short reflections about brazilian political scene and the Supreme Court. Review in my thread.

I'm reading Madeline Miller's Circe and it is totally all that.

Reading Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey by Alice Robb. It's been tough to grab some time quiet enough to do nonfiction, but what I have read of it, is very good thus far.

I finished Living to Tell the Tale about Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s childhood and early adulthood, writing his novel at night in the newsroom and surviving on practically no income. I hadn’t relized it had taken me seven weeks. I’m finishing the year reading my first Terry Pratchett in many years - Wyrd Sisters, his play on Macbeth.

Finished reading the short story The Garden Party, by Katherine Mansfield. Review in my thread.

Having started the year with an early Thomas Hardy novel, I’m finishing it with another, A pair of blue eyes, the book that’s alleged to have led to the invention of the word “cliffhanger” and contains one of the silliest chapter epigraphs in all Victorian fiction: “He heard her musical pants”. Sadly, it’s not attributed and no-one seems to know where Hardy got it from.

I am reading Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney. It is a collection of 108 sonnets and a few songs. I am enchanted.

I'm reading Transcription by Kate Atkinson and SPQR by Mary Beard. Enjoying both very much.

>155 lisapeet: It really is! I'm glad you're enjoying Circe. I absolutely loved it.

I'm almost finished The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai and it fully deserves every accolade and award it's been given.

I'm also reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, and a crime novel called What You Don't Know by JoAnn Chaney.

Finished reading another short story, The Three-Day Blow, by Ernest Hemingway. Review in my thread.

Finished listening John Dewey and The High Tide of American Liberalism, by Alan Ryan. Excellent overview and criticism of Dewey’s thoughts. Review in my thread.

Really enjoyed Beyond Black by Mantel. Next up is We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. It's a bit of a whopper - fairly sure that will be carrying me into 2019.

Just finished reading the short story The Standard of Living, by Dorothy Parker. Review in my thread.

I just finished an ER book, The Re-Origin of Species: A Second Chance for Extinct Animals by Torill Kornfeldt. I'm now about to start Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke, the final book in the Inkheart trilogy, which I think is going to take me into the new year.

Christmas at my brother's in NH was mostly stay-at-home. Add airport and flight time, and I got in a lot of reading. I read Lost Nation, my third Jeffrey Lent novel, and loved it. He has moved into my top five writers. Beautiful writing, unique characters, great plots and interesting settings. I hated for this one to end.

I also finished Kudos, the last book in Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy. I enjoyed it, but I think the first two were better.

And I'm about halfway through Melmoth which I have been eagerly awaiting (thanks, SantaThing)!

Finished Wyrd Sisters, and started my last Marquez book - Memories of My Melancholy Whores. There's a chance I'll finish it today.

Finished what are almost certainly my last two for the year, Doris Lessing’s Going home and an early Nina Bawden novel, In honour bound.

Happy New Year!

I'm pretty sure Circe is going to be my final book of the year, and what a good note to go out on. Right now I'm reading Ways to Hide in Winter, but I won't finish before bidding goodbye (and good riddance) to 2018. I'd honestly be surprised if I stay awake until midnight...

But Happy New Year to those who do!