I’m sweating my way through a 600 page doorstop, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires , by Selwyn Raab. It’s a non-fiction treatise on the rise and fall of Organized Crime in the U.S.
Just finished a YA novel, How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff. I really liked it. It’s about a girl who is sent to stay with relatives in an old farmhouse in England (I love books that start out that way). England is then invaded by terrorists and… really interesting stuff happens. I had completely forgotten why I picked up the book to begin with and the book jacket didn’t give anything away, so I was totally blindsided by the events of the story. Nice!
Also, the protagonist is anorexic. It isn’t the main thrust of the story, but it added some interest for me. I will be looking for more by this author.
update
Finished Mary Gordon’s Spending last night, and am sorry to report that it totally fell apart in the last third – the wish fulfillment thing got totally out of hand and it was one ridiculous triumph for the protagonist after another.
Hmph.
I just finished The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies . The book is about (duh!) a Welsh girl during WWII, a German POW and a German Jew. Their lives intersect briefly when a POW camp is built in North Wales. I really enjoyed the characters, especially the German POW. At the end though, without giving anything away, several important events are described in the epilogoue that sounded like they could have carried the novel for at least another 150 interesting pages. It was the author’s first novel, but I think he should write a second one about those few sentences.
I’ll have to check these out, thanks.
Just finished **Water for Elephants ** by Sara Gruen. And I just loved it.
Almost done with Caesar’s Women, by Colleen McCullough.
I just read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Very spare, lean, raw and brutally sad story, but with a glimmer of hope.
I am curious as to why they removed the apostrophes from words like can’t, won’t, haven’t, and others.
I hoped Oprah would ask him about this in her interview, but she didn’t. Maybe it was just an affectation. He had apostrophes in some words, if I remember right.
Since you liked The Road (I did too), you might also like Pest House by Jim Crace. It’s like The Road, only more stuff happens, it’s more expansive, it has a happier ending, there are more characters . . . actually, it’s a good post-apocalypse novel. The similarities end there. 
I just read Stardust by Neil Gaiman, to be ready for the movie. I loved it.
Will probably start a new horror novel tonight, The Midnight Road by Tom Picirrilli. It’s in its second printing, which is good news for horror writers these days. I’ve encountered Tom on message boards, and he’s a nice guy. It’s time for him to break away from the pack.
Now I’m on La Reine Margot, by the father of historical fiction, Alexandre Dumas.
I should finish that this week and then will start on the new Harry Potter. (The wife has already read it.)
I just finished Armistead Maupin’s “Michael Tolliver Lives” - a continuation of The Tales of the City series… Boy I missed it! Started out slowly, but had me by the end…
I’m rereading two SF novels The Divide by William Overgard and The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. And I’m reading a WWII history Fateful Decisions by Ian Kershaw.
I just finished “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”
Very moving and in some areas, brutal.
It’s about two girls growing up in a small cluster of prosperous yet remote villages in China in the early 1800’s.
They become “old sames”, which is a term used to describe a prearranged friendship between young girls, as a means of enhancing social standing.
Even thought he friendship is arranged, they become good friends.
They go through the whole horrible process of foot-binding that respectable young girls were expected to do.
I’ll stop here so as not to spoil the story; it’s really a great page-turner.
I just “finished” Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Actually, I gave it up about ten pages from the end. I know it’s some glorious classic of writing, but I just. Didn’t. Care. I then read a few pages of Rabbit Run by John Updike, and had to put that down too. I’m really trying to bring up my standards where reading is concerned…on the other hand, I read for enjoyment and I don’t have a whole lot of time. If something’s not working for me, it probably won’t help if I just slog on through. sigh
I’m now reading a non-fiction book, Mutants: on genetic variety and the human body, by Armand Marie Leroi. I’m still over my head, but at least the pictures are good.
I’ve recently been hearing a lot about this book. All good things! I’ve added it to my list of must reads.
Right now I’m reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I just got it and can’t put it down.
A 163X Sci Fi novel, an more seriously Spellbound, which is about the origins of English spellings.
I really loved Water for Elephants too. (And I thought I’d already posted that in this thread. Hmmm.
Hi Everyone!
At present, I’m reading Kites by Wyatt Brummitt.
The book is a classic, (its been long out of print) and is part of the old Golden Guides series of books.
This is one book that I truly LOVE, (after all, I am a “kite person”) and I still have a copy of this book when I brought it brand new in 1971.
I remember about two years ago at the Fort Worden Kitemakers Conference, they gave away (at a raffle—or is it raffel) a mint-condition copy of Kites.
Old or new, its a GREAT book!
kitemaker_chuck
(Chuck Anderson)
I just picked up Water for Elephants last night at WalMart. Started reading it in the checkout line and it grabbed me from the first page. I’m barely into it yet (it was 10:00 before I got home, so I didn’t have a lot of ‘reading time’ left in the day), but I’m really enjoying it.
Just before this, I finished Sharyn McCrumb’s latest (can’t think of the name, and I left it over at my mom’s so she can read it – it’s the second Nascar novel, though). Very good. I love Sharyn McCrumb. And the start of a new mystery series by Rhys Bowen, Her Royal Spyness. It’s set in 1930s England and features an impoverished minor royal making her way in the world. Interesting and fun.
Nobody’s read The Harlequin (the latest Anita Blake)? I can’t bring myself to buy it, based on the last few in the series sucking so hideously bad. But I’m thinking of getting on the list for it at the library, if anybody has read it and can recommend it (however minimally).
I read it. (I’ll have to admit that I have enjoyed this whole series, even the last few books.) The Harlequin is not terrible, but it is probably my least favorite of them all. It’s getting better Amazon ratings, because she’s toned back the porn a little and gives Anita slightly more to do than have sex. But to me, it doesn’t have enough of what I liked about the early books, yet doesn’t have enough of what I liked about the newer ones, either. It seems like a bad compromise.
I’m currently re-reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. I’m up to The Fiery Cross. I’m looking forward to the new Lord John book coming at the end of the month.