I finished* Pride & Prejudice* last night and I have a higher opinion of it now. Next up would be Mansfield Park, but I need to tackle the currently reading pile and knock it down to a manageable size before I add to it.
Finished The Martian, a first novel by Andy Weir. An astronaut is stranded on Mars. This is a really good book, but almost as good is the story of how it came to be. Weir posted it for free in serial installments on his website. Some readers suggested he make it available on Kindle, where it cost 99 cents and became a bestseller. Then a literary agent approached him about publishing it for real, and it debuted at #12 on The New York Times bestseller list. Weir’s father was a particle physicist, and Weir himself started programming computers for Sandia National Laboratories at the age of 15. (He’s 43 now.) Weir wrote the book to be as scientifically accurate as possible.
A film version starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott opens next week including here in Bangkok, and I’m really looking forward to it. I think Damon is an excellent choice for the lead.
Next up is The Burning Room, by Michael Connelly. The latest in his Detective Harry Bosch series. It came out late last year, but I could find it over here only recently.
I’m up to that one as well, had two library holds materialize so those two and the newest Discworld book jumped queue. 
Finished reading The Grapes of Wrath a couple of weeks ago. Believe it or not, this was my first time, though I’m certainly no stranger to Steinbeck’s works. (I’ve always had an aversion to reading books that are constantly being talked about. Back in my school days, this was even more so.) I can certainly see why it is such a classic. The way he presents the characters in his simple prose is memorable and beautiful and sad. I don’t usually get too emotionally wrapped up in many characters anymore but the troubles of the Joad family and their friends certainly got to me.
Now I’m nearly done reading A Loyal Companion by Barbara Metzger, which I picked out more or less at random from my library’s website. Set around 1800, it’s about a young woman who is sent from her country estate to live with her high-society grandmother in London to find a husband. Naturally, she sets her sights on someone whom her grandmother thoroughly disapproves of, since he’s been thrown out of their circle for allegedly doing another woman wrong. The story is partly told by the main character’s dog, who aids in getting the two together.
I’m not usually into romancy books, and, had I seen the cover they show at Amazon, I would have quickly mentally gagged and passed on checking it out. But it’s written well enough and has enough humorous moments that I haven’t really minded it at all. I guess that’s a case of “Can’t judge a book” and all that.
Next up, I’m rereading Olive Kitteridge. Sis is too. And, Meurglys Arcadia sounds really interesting. So that will probably be right after.
Over the weekend I read The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout. It’s a Western about a dying gunslinger. Decent but very short. Apparently it was made into a movie with John Wayne.
Starting today on the long-awaited Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs, third in the Miss Peregrine series.
I just finished **The Red Tree **by Caitlin Kiernan, and I want more. It is a very multi-layered book, with dreams and reality mixing up, and beautifiully written. One of the passages made the hairs stand up on my entire body; somerthing that has never happened to me by reading a book. Scary? Oh, yeah.
I finished Arcadia and really enjoyed it. The plot is quite complex and, although i liked the ending it left a few questions - I’m now not entirely sure that what I wrote about the book earlier was completely accurate! Still mulling it over.
And now I’ve begun Luna by Ian McDonald. I’ve read him on and off since he started writing and his 2010 The Dervish House was probably the best book I read that year.
October thread is up!! Mind the decor… if your costumes are flammable please stay away from the bonfires.
October Thread: Ghosties and ghoulies abound!