What are you reading?

I just finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. So much darkness and so little light...

Starting Little Women tomorrow and reading Iceberg by Clive Cussler for a light read.

I've read the first two Firefly tie-in novels. Shockingly well-written and true to character/world.

Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner

I was listening to the audiobook while having my teeth cleaned. My dentist visit went by in a flash because I was so engrossed in the book.

That said, it's not all that well written (from a writer's perspective), but it is an interesting story.

The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to Real Problems by Chuck Norris.

I read this book 13 years ago (a year and a half before this thread was made, so it's been a while) because I was a big Norris fan but now I am reading it again more for spiritual reasons. Been reading a lot about spirituality, meditation, and self improvement this summer.

Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time by Ian O'Connor.

Ironically Ian also predicted in 2000 that he thought the Patriots would regret hiring Belichick. Eighteen years later Ian was calling Bill the greatest of all time.

Since the last time I posted here I finished Toni Morrison's Paradise, which I found a difficult read. It was the first novel I read by her, and I don't know if it was a good choice to start with. I did appreciate her writing style, but the story was complex and at times hard to follow.

I also read Snow Falling by Jane Gloriana Villanueva. Yes. This was actually a gift for my best friend, who is an avid Jane the Virgin fan, and I just had to read it before gifting it to her because the show is so silly and outrageous. It made me chuckle. It was a nice night in which I definitely got the chance to relax.

Lastly, I read A Nervous Breakdown by Anton Chekhov. A little Penguin book with three of Chekhov's short stories. I loved 'em. Definitely going to read more by him.

Now, I'm reading Oscar Wilde's Complete Works. A 1200+ page collection which I once traded for a pack of stroopwafels (Google that, they're delicious). I absolutely adore Oscar Wilde and therefore obviously enjoy this book. Happy days.

God Save the Child - Robert B. Parker

Avalanche Hotel, by Niko Tackian

Just treated myself and picked up The Institute and The Testaments, been eagerly awaiting these! Will try to read them this weekend if I get time.

Finished my dear Oscar Wilde collection. For those who are interested, here's my Goodreads review:

Let me start by saying that I absolutely adore Oscar Wilde and I adored him ever since I read his famous The Picture of Dorian Gray at age 17. I was most thrilled to stumble upon this beautiful collection of his work, and when the girl I got it from wanted to trade it for a pack of cookies I was beyond excited. This must be faith. Or she must have been very hungry.

The introduction of this collection almost made me tear up. Oscar Wilde was loved beyond words, and even now that light shines through. I also feel I should be referring to Oscar Wilde as Oscar. He feels like a friend I never met in real life.

Re-reading The Picture of Dorian Gray made me appreciate the story even more. For Gray is a troubled soul, and the only way he feels he has any control over his life is to measure good and bad through beauty. Because what else is there, when the only joy you have is a pretty face? When terrible things happen to him, it seems that something inside him changes. When even beautiful things cease to stay in his life, the badness of sin is merely subjective. The tragic, the beauty... This book is my favorite ever for a reason.

Oscar is a marvellous writer. His short stories are almost like a work of poetry, entangled in a beautiful web of humor and wisdom. My ultimate favorite stories by him are Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, The Canterville Ghost, The Nightingale and the Rose (I genuinely cried the first time I read it), The Happy Prince, The Selfish Giant, The Young King and The Fisherman and his Soul. Oscar's short stories are teeny tiny fairy tales and I love them for it. Some of these stories I read before, but I can genuinely say they do not get boring. I am so going to read them to my future children.

I never really read plays before I read Oscar's in this complete collection. I thought plays were boring and I never really understood why people enjoyed reading (or writing) them. Until I started with The Importance of Being Ernest. This was so funny! What I really liked about reading this play was that I couldn't follow their thoughts, as it obviously wasn't written like that, but that I could understand and envision an entire story by reading mostly dialogue! Well done, Oscar.
I must say that, as I read on and finished all of his plays in a couple of days, I felt it became a little repetitive. Nothing too major, and the plots being nice and all (and still funny!), but I did sense a theme and style once I finished them all. An exception to this were Salomé and La Sainte Courtisane. These were surprisingly good ones, refreshing and dramatic.

As for Oscar's poems, I must say I'm not the biggest fan. And it saddens me. I mean, the poems aren't bad at all, but they just didn't make me laugh, cry, sit in anger... I really did like a few of them, and definitely don't regret reading the rest of 'em, but I feel Oscar's poetic side just shows way better in his stories (I mean, The Nightingale and the Rose is, for example, such a poetic and deep story in itself) and his plays (Salomé!) that the poems he did write didn't feel as special as they might have... The poems I did like best were Requiescat, La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente, The Little Ship, Bittersweet Love, Le Jardin
Des Tuileries, Fantaisies Décoratives, Under the Balcony, Remorse and The Disciple (poem in prose). I felt like Oscar's poems in prose were very sad and they might have been written while Oscar was contemplating his faith. I sometimes had the idea that he approached his faith positively, and sometimes negatively, a little depressed even, maybe. It made me sad, which I guess is also a good thing for it means his work sparks emotion, and that's obviously what it's meant to do...

Then, last but not least, the tastiest leftovers a child leaves on its plate for last, as Merlin Holland lovingly stated in the introduction to Oscars essays, selected journalism, lectures and letters. And when I began with reading The House Beautiful I immediately felt that was true. What a funny, amazing and smart piece that was! I scribbled more notes and comments and highlighted pieces in that first piece than I did in the upcoming ones. As good as the first one was, as little did the following ones did for me. I understand that a review of a 19th century book on marriage, or a play is historically important and it sure does show Oscars well-developed, kind and clever nature. But it just didn't hold my interest as much as it would if I read it a whole lot of decades ago. Same goes for the numerous lectures on Greek history. It's just not where my interest lays, although I can surely see that it's intelligent and well-written. And you know, that makes me a little sad. Because I see that it's good and I want to like it, but here's where that whole different-century gap comes into place. Bummer (I must say that the essay on Socialism, however, was very interesting. It felt relevant to this day and age, which made me really like it).
And I saved the best, if that's what we're going to call it, for last. De Profundis. I don't think I have ever felt more sympathy and grief for a writer before reading this letter. An 80-page cry for help, it almost felt like. I related to Oscar on some parts which made me even sadder. And where I didn't relate to him (I mean, no, I wasn't thrown into prison by my blood sucking terrible friend) I felt I wanted to shake him up, and give him a strong hug for everything he had to endure. When Oscar, at the end of his letter, writes he wishes to hear from his "friend" again my heart almost sank right into my shoes. Poor Oscar. This cycle will not end as long as you let him take advantage of your heart so pure...


I can't believe I finished the whole Collected Works in only this short a period of time. I loved a lot of it, didn't feel much at some of it, but appreciate and respect every tiny word of it. I miss Oscar already.

Lakey, funny you should mention Mary McCarthy's The Group. On my recent travels I finished Lorna Landvik's Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, the cover of which quotes the Seattle Times as saying it's "almost as hard to put down" as the book you mentioned.

Angry Housewives follows five Minneapolis housewives over the course of 30 years of their lives, loves, ups and downs, hopes and dreams from the founding of their book club "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons." The book is at turns funny and heart-wrenching, and always pretty true to life as far as what the characters experience and how they react to it. Really good slice of life stuff here. I normally don't mind head hopping, but it really bothered me here. I recall about half a dozen instances of "Wait, who's POV is this chapter in?" and having to go back and recap to re-orient. This was complicated by the fact that a certain character's chapter (whoever is hosting the club that month) is not always in the same first or third POV, and several chapters end with letters one of the character writes to her deceased mother, which sometimes come at the end of a chapter told from a different character's POV, is often several pages of italics that are hard to read, and include narrative that wouldn't fit in a letter. All the characters pretty much end up resembling one another toward the end, which might not be by accident. I was also hopeful the chapters would track the books they read a little more, but in most cases they don't seem to.

I can't believe how long I am taking on Belichick. Sometimes I just want to enjoy a book and let it drag out, not wanting it to end. I don't read many sports books anymore because I think most of them seem basically the same but this one has a lot of great detail. Hopefully will get it done in a few nights.

Right now I'm reading Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Days by Salman Rushdie. It's a lot of fun, and the writing sometimes takes my breath away. It's about the invasion of the jinn (genies) into the modern world and the mischief and malice they bring. Sort of a retelling of A Thousand Nights and a Night. Really enjoying it.

I just now finished The Testaments. I loved it. I wrote a review on it, but I'm not going to post it here because it's filled with spoilers and there's nothing worse than ruining a good story for someone else. If you're interested, head over to my Goodreads page to read it

Running North by Ann Mariha Cook. This is the story of a New England couple who were amateur dog-sled racers. The pull up stakes and go to live in Fairbanks, Alaska so George can run the Yukon Quest, which is the world's toughest dog-sled race. (Supposedly harder than the Iditarod.) The changes that overcome their lives and the training he goes through make for a fascinating story.

Desert Author said:

Running North by Ann Mariha Cook. This is the story of a New England couple who were amateur dog-sled racers. The pull up stakes and go to live in Fairbanks, Alaska so George can run the Yukon Quest, which is the world's toughest dog-sled race. (Supposedly harder than the Iditarod.) The changes that overcome their lives and the training he goes through make for a fascinating story.

Click to expand...

Books like that can be very inspirational. Even life changing.

The Big Nowhere- James Ellroy

I'm working through the L.A Quartet! The Black Dahlia was good, The Big Nowhere is even better.

I finished Old Baggage by Lissa Evans. My aunt passed it on to me and I must say it was a nice, ligt read I finished fairly quickly. Not something I would necessarily recommend to everyone, but it was cute nonetheless.

Now I'm reading Dervishes by Beth Helms, for no reason other than this book has been on my shelves for years and I am cleaning up my book shelf. Will probably give this one away when I finish it, it's average so far and now I get why I was able to buy it for 2 euros.

Been a bit since I updated...

Recently Read:
Run Program (Scott Meyer, humor/SF, Kindle): In the near future, a company's prototype AI, "Al", still has the mentality of a child when it finds its way onto the internet and wreaks havoc with an interconnected world... and, like any child caught making mischief, its first instinct isn't to own up but to run even further, pursued by its programmers, the NSA, the Pentagon, and one determined conspiracy theorist who calls himself "Voice of Reason."

I enjoyed other books by Meyer (I loved his Basic Instructions comics, and enjoyed what I've read of his Magic 2.0 series), but this one felt flabby and overlong, with characters who never really learned or grew or generally got what they had coming to them. It starts with some promise and humor, then settles into an overlong holding pattern as Meyer deliberately obscures Al's motives. Eventually, after far too long, things move forward again... then there's another lull with lots of talky meetings and banter that I'd long tired of before the telegraphed finale, a finale that almost feels like Meyer thinks there's more story here when I saw too little to fill the book already. Bland and a little disappointing, but nonoffensive and lightweight. A little too lightweight...

The Imaginary Corpse (Tyler Hayes, fantasy, paperback): After being imagined to life, the yellow stuffed Triceratops Detective Tippy was flung out of his young creator's life by a terrible trauma. Like other similarly abandoned imaginary Friends, he found himself in the Stillreal, a place composed of various Idea-realms, where imaginary Friends who were too real to fade away end up. He carries on as a detective, drowning his sorrows at the Playtime Town Rootbeerium and occasional rides in the tumble dryer, but when people start disappearing he finds himself up against something new and terrible: a serial killer, a being capable of permanently killing imaginary Friends.

This is one of the weirdest genre mash-ups I've read in ages, a detective noir set in a world of imagination... yet it works brilliantly. Tippy's a determined little detective bursting with personality, a little jaded around the edges... but, then, everyone in the Stillreal is a little jaded. You don't end up there if you fade like normal imaginary friends, but only if something terrible forces a human to abandon their dream: the girl forced to grow up in a heartbeat by a trauma, the teen boy whose beloved comic book idea is brutally rejected, the abused spouse whose dream is cruelly crushed. (Tippy's roommate is Spiderhand, a disembodied and speechless human hand, literally willed to life by a puppeteer trying to cheer up an abusive partner.) It's a great, fast-moving story brimming with imagination and fear, resolving in a satisfactory manner. I really hope Hayes has more stories in the works for Tippy and the Stillreal.

The Murders of Molly Southbourne (Tade Thompson, horror/SF, Kindle): Molly was a young girl when she first met a doppelganger. It seemed nice - until her father had to kill it before it killed her. Thus started a life of isolation and terror, as Molly finds herself killing her own mirror images - born whenever she sheds blood - again and again and again.

Thompson successfully creates an atmosphere of terror, but I really didn't care for Molly and found her emotionally cold and cruel, plus it felt overlong even as a novella. Still, the explanation and wrap-up are decent for the world, and there are some nicely creepy ideas and imagery, even if it's not my cup of cocoa.


Currently Reading:
The Ruin of Kings (Book 1 of A Chorus of Dragons, Jenn Lyons, fantasy, paperback): Imprisoned and awaiting sentence, the young man Khirin and his mysterious jailor Talon relate the story of his life, starting from boyhood thievery in the slums, wending through slavery, and ending where he sits today.

I just started this last night, but already I'm intrigued by the interesting storytelling device and what I'm seeing of the world. I've heard good things about it, and hope to not be disappointed.

Recently read Booked to Die (John Dunning) for bookclub. It's the first of five mysteries in which the gumshoe is a bookseller. There was a lot to like in the story, and several women in the book club started the second mystery on their own b/c they liked it so well. I probably won't pick up the second one, but did learn a new nifty trick from the author.

Now reading Wuthering Heights. The language is so very different. I'm in awe, and trying to encourage the words to expand my vocabulary through osmosis. Some really great words that need to be put back into circulation. I've also always been impressed, too, by the way in which the classics can dive deep into some aspect of scene and spend pages there and it's just lovely.

I'm reading a novel called Two Across by Jeff Bartsch. Not sure if it's intended to be a YA novel or not. I'm about a quarter of the way through it, but it's been hard to find any enthusiasm for the characters or their predicaments so far.

I just finished White Jazz by James Ellroy and am working through Goethe's Theory of Colours. Soon comes Jules Verne!

I just finished Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife.

I got sucked in to this book from the very start. Obreht has a way with words that makes you feel you're there, you're seeing the tiger, the elephant, and that the grandfather is so familiar as if he was your own.

The story begins with a secret, one we will not easily learn the answer to. By unraveling this secret we get taken by the hand in a land full of beautiful stories. The story of the deadless man made me turn pages so quickly I nearly ripped the paper.

Throughout the book, I sometimes got a little lost from the main story by all the flashbacks and side stories. That doesn't mean I didn't like those, because I did! It was just a little distracting and made me care less for the plot (which almost became a side story in itself).

Obreht writes beautifully. She brought me back to the Balkans with the way she described the scenery and the little traditions her family used, and that made me happy because there's little books that take place in my motherland.

All in all, I must say I liked the theme/story of the deadless man best and that's what kept me reading to the end. I'm a little disappointed that she kept SO many loose ends and open endings. A little closure would be nice, y'know. And because of that, I dare say that if she would have made the story of the deadless man a short story instead of writing a novel around it, it would even be better.