What are you reading?

I can't say I read these, because they're wordless picture books, but today I enjoyed Aaron Becker's Journey and Quest. They're delightfully imaginative, perfect for a kid, and the story is just the sort of thing I would have dreamed of doing when I was eight or nine.

I finished Sanderson's The Final Empire and I was rather pleased with it. I went to the library today and picked up book #2 of the series, then while looking for Marie Brennan's "A Natural History of Dragons" I saw that one of my favorite artists, Brom, has written books.

How did I not know of this.

So I picked up Krampus, a lore I'm rather familiar with. And of course he did all the artwork that's peppered throughout the novel, and his rendition of Krampus is the first image you'll see if you click that link. It's horror, a genre I don't usually read but... hey, it's Brom.

A few days ago I was looking at my bookshelf and realized I'd bought Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman a few months ago, but had never actually gotten around to reading it. So I set out to remedy that. I'm enjoying it immensely so far, which should go probably without saying since it's Neil Gaiman.

Eh, it's been another month...

Last Finished:
When Lightning Strikes (Brenda Novak), on Nook: A PR agent in Los Angels winds up marrying her most difficult, self-destructive client, a top box office star, in a publicity stunt that doesn't go as planned. A quick-reading escape, like most romances. Not especially deep, and the logic's a bit shaky if you look too close, but the characters are decent enough to care about and it delivered what it promised.

Animals Real and Imagined (Terryl Whitlatch), in paperback: A gallery of Whitlatch's art, from horses and lemurs to mammoths and dinosaurs and other, imaginary creatures. A top-notch animal artist, Whitlatch has worked with Disney and the Star Wars franchise, and she teaches workshops and courses on crafting imaginary creatures. Plenty of eye- and mind-candy here, with some notes on her creative process and philosophy. (I got this at a con a short while ago - signed and personalized, too.)

Currently Reading:
The Artist's Way (Julia Cameron), in paperback: A course/plan for "recovering" artists overcoming blocks external and internal. She got off on a shaky foot with name-dropping thick enough to count as carpet bombing, and some of the spiritual stuff gets a little old, but I'm giving it a shot. Couldn't hurt... (My main complaint is that I got it as part of a "kit" with a journal, which has a very stiff spine that makes it difficult to keep flat enough to write in. Spiral binding - would it have killed you?)

Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (Laurie Lamson, editor), in paperback: A collection of essays and exercises on writing in the three mentioned genres, plus a little on thrillers as they're so close to horror. Yes, I'm trying to overcome some issues creating stories... So far, the essays vary greatly in quality. Some are inspiring, some are just bland, and a couple have made me wonder why the author bothered writing them at all. There was also one that was so dated and sexist I wondered if it was dredged up from the 50's... and I was shocked that it was written by a woman.

I'm also just about halfway through Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker (finally) - again, I enjoy it when I'm reading it, and I love some of his ideas and characters, but for some reason I just don't pick it up as often as I should. I'm determined to finish the thing by the end of March, though.

And, on my Kindle, I'm picking at Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. I'm 16% in, and I'm still not sure if I can commit to finishing it. So far, it's about an oversensitive boy being tormented by caricatured people who seem to exist solely to torment him. I like some of the descriptions, but the plot is dragging something fierce. I'm still not entirely sure there is a plot proper, but rather a series of unfortunate incidents in the life of the hapless Pip, proving again and again that he's miserable. Yeah, got it - everyone hates him except his sister's husband, who is too wimpy to really stand up for him. Can we move along? If it doesn't pick up soon, I may end up scrapping it as a lost cause. (And I'm aware that this probably makes me a hopeless ignoramus, but there's only so much aimless meandering and whining I can take...)

Finished Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni a few days ago--it's contemporary coming-of-age with mystery thrown in, set in modern-day Kolkata.

Right now, I'm about 7% into Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Currently reading A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor. Thoroughly enjoying it.

40 Chances by Howard W Buffet, the philanthropist son of Warren Buffet. The idea is that a farmer has 40 chances, or 40 growing seasons to be successful at farming. The book details his work in the US and overseas to help struggling farmers.

The Brothers Karamazov. Undoubtedly one of the great novels of Russia and the world, but a bit more difficult to get into than I was expecting. I think I wasn't prepared for how philosophical Dostoevsky can be at times, but now that I understand his angle a bit more I'm enjoying the book a great deal.

Brightdreamer said:

There was also one that was so dated and sexist I wondered if it was dredged up from the 50's... and I was shocked that it was written by a woman.

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Oh, now I want to read this. If only to rant about it.

Marian Perera said:

Oh, now I want to read this. If only to rant about it.

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It's on Page 29 in the paperback edition of Now Write!... it's about creating heroes, and the default, unquestioned stance of the (female) author is that all heroes are heterosexual men saving damsels in distress.

Reading "Pride and Prejudice," but it seems like there's so much telling instead of showing so far...

Tailcoat said:

Reading "Pride and Prejudice," but it seems like there's so much telling instead of showing so far...

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Some of those classics really seem to bend the rules! Probably because the rules were so different back then though, ha?

I'm reading The Portrait of a Young Lady and running into similar things.

Lawrence Kraus. A Universe from Nothing. Cosmology is WEIRD. Do they just make that stuff up?

Donna Andrews. The Good, the Bad, and the Emus. One in a growing, successful series of cozies.

Recently read P.D. James, A Certain Justice. Not really right for my cozy mystery tastes, but read on a friend's recommendation. Good, but intense.

--Ken

Just started Jane Eyre, which was a book I couldn't get through as a teenager. In fact, I threw it on the floor. So far, I actually like it.

Tailcoat said:

Reading "Pride and Prejudice," but it seems like there's so much telling instead of showing so far...

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I had a hard time in the early stages of P&P as well, but I ended up enjoying it a lot more toward the end.

I'm reading Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, or at least the Bill Johnston translation of it.

It's a great book, and a far better translation than the old one, but some of the magic gets lost in the translation process. It's like how you can't translate a joke. Some integral part of what makes it work in one language just never carries over to another. Some of the poetry, I guess.

In light of the recent news, I think I'll be going back to re-read my Terry Pratchett collection soon. The man shaped so much of my sense of humour and my writing style, that it's going to be hard to move on.

I've recently read Golden son by Pierce Brown. I'm currently fuming that I can't read the next installment until next year

I just finished a crime novel set in Paris in the 1920s, The Bones of Paris (by Laurie R. King), and am now reading The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett).

Warriors - Dawn of the Clans book 4: The Blazing Star

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn.

Just finished reading A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony. Someone in The Last Bookstore in LA had written a recommendation for it on the bookcase (that sentence makes more sense if you've visited The Last Bookstore), so I tried it out. I'm glad I followed it, I was pleasantly surprised!

Anyone have any Terry Pratchett recommendations? I was going to start Mort, but I've heard that some of his non-Discworld books are great as well.

jennifer75 said:

I can't believe I can't find this thread, is there really no "what are you reading" thread???

I just picked up Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I'm 10 pages in and captivated.

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I heard the author of Water for Elephants started that story at National Novel Writing Month in November. It's pretty cool she got published.

I just finished The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It was really funny, but also heartbreaking. Finished it in one sitting it was so good. Now I'm starting another book by him called Reservation Blues.

The Ascendant by Drew Chapman.

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

I know she wants the reader to understand the main character, but it's getting boring being inside the boy's head. The book should be a novella. (I doubt I'll rent the movie.)