I’m just getting into *The Alienist *by Caleb Carr. So far, so good. Set in New York City in 1896 the narrator and others, including police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt begin the investigation of a series of serial murders.
The Night Circus finally defeated me. It was a sweet, cozy kind of tale full of pretty imagery, but it just seemed to go on and on without much progress in the plot until it wore me out.
Last week I read Joe R. Lansdale’s Edge of Dark Water, about some runaways rafting down a river. Funny, sad, and gory. If it had any shred of plausibility, it would have been his best book yet. As it is, I just liked the writing and characters so much that I enjoyed the hell out of it anyway.
Next I read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. I admit, I’ve been pushing this further down in the TBR pile because the title irritates me. It sounds like another Harry Potter/Lemony Snicket ripoff, but actually turned out to be a decent fantasy/time travel yarn. It’s illustrated with photos, which I could have done without, but the afterword makes it sound as if the photos inspired the story. There is room here for a sequel (naturally) and I’d be willing to give that a shot too.
I also read The Chickenpox Papers, by Susan Terris, which I last read over thirty years ago, when I was the same age as the main character. An ordinary little kid’s book, but it always stuck with me somehow and it was interesting to read it over again. It seems like it was tailor-made for a ten year old me:
The girl cuts all her hair off (I’ve done that)
She puts on a disguise and sneaks out (I’d like to have done that)
She finds a secret in a hidden compartment (ditto)
She has to look after a baby, and she HATES babies (Yeah!)
She’s a rude little brat (well, who wants to read a book about nice kids?)
And to top it off, mention is made of the neighbor’s Pekingese, complete with illustration. At that age, I had a Pekingese that I loved above all things.
So fun to go back and touch those vaguely remembered books again.
Next up: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror (2010), edited by Paula Guran.
I liked that one a lot - but I gotta admit, I kinda laughed at the fact that
[spoiler]One of the villians was actually a slack-jawed yokel named “Cletus”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgDw7_L82kU&feature=related 
[/spoiler]
For a long time, I had been alternating mysteries with selections from the Modern Lirbrary’s Greatest Novels of the 20th Century list.
I hadn’t gotten around to a mystery in a few months, so I just started Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time.
I managed to finish The Night Circus, but yeah, this.
I just read The Virginian, by Owen Wister, which is an early Western novel, and I’ve never seen the movies or the TV show so I went into it with absolutely no idea of what it is about. It’s about Wyoming, it turns out. I enjoyed this A LOT, obviously some aspects are very dated but it’s a great look at this American romance with The West.
The whole reason I picked it up initially is because I recently read The Art of Fielding, in which there is one random reference to Owen Wister. It’s funny sometimes the weird ways books can lead you to other books.
He does mention that a couple times. If ever I wanted to be a King, I’d want to be him. Dude’s into a lot of cool stuff…motorcycling, skydiving, he’s a trained special ops soldier, travels the world, etc.
I’ve just started Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson who also runs the The Bloggess blog. Never heard of her before but Omnivoracious (Amazon’s blog) was promoting her book and I was looking for something funny to read so I bought it blind.
And I’m glad I did. She is hilarious! I rarely if ever laughed out loud while reading but I did with this book. I’m a fan now.
I finished A Safeway in Arizona- while somewhat interesting regarding the history of the state, and easily readable, it didn’t connect the dots for me with regards to the shootings of Jan 8 and the politics of the state. Although, it did highlight what a narcissistic jackass Joe Arpaio is.
Then in one day, I read* Room*- a fiction book by the author of Slammerkin, which I had enjoyed immensely. Room was written in the voice of a 5 year-old boy that had spent his whole life trapped in an 11 x 11 locked shed with his mother, who’d been kidnapped and locked in there by a bad man. It was good.
Thanks for turning me on to these 3 links: The Bloggess, Omnivoracious, and the Kindle blog which I went to from there. Love them!
I’ve been reading her blogs for years and she is hilarious. The dialogs between her husband and her are priceless. I’m glad her book is finally out.
Finished *Rise of Empire *the 3rd and 4th in the six books of the Riyria Revelations. It was very good, but unlike the first two, does not stand by itself. I am looking forward to the last two published in *Heir of Novron, *but I am currently reading Tricked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Four) which I was also looking forward to and has started out being fun.
I just started Stephen King’s short stories Full Dark, No Stars. So far, I’ve finished the first story- :eek:
After this comes UnGodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
That’s an AWESOME book. Sequel’s not worth it though IMHO.
Diving back into vintage sci-fi, I’m almost finished with The Gods Themsevles by Asimov. It’s ok. The book is 3 parts and the 2nd part was quite a slog. The first part was very good and so far the 3rd part is also pretty good.
Loved that book. And, unlike Doctor Who, I enjoyed the sequel, though it wasn’t quite as good.
I’m about halfway through Nick Harkaway’s Angelmaker which is fantastic so far. I wish I had more time to spend this week reading it.
This week I finished reading Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable. This is the one that just won a Pulitzer Prize, although unfortunately the author died shortly before the book was published. Today I started reading From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate by Nathaniel Mackey. It seems to be a postmodern epistolary novel about the evolution of a jazz band. This might be kind of a challenge.
I read a mystery called Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann - translated from German. It’s a sheep detective story: a flock of sheep in a small Irish village try to find out who murdered their shepherd. It’s a quirky, surreal story (obviously) but it was amusing. I got the feeling that some stuff might have been funnier if I had any experience observing sheep. The human drama in the background wasn’t very interesting in and of itself.
I’m taking a break from my current book because today is a holiday (to me): Stephen King’s newest book is out! I’m just starting on The Wind Through the Keyhole, which is set in the Dark Tower universe (I think he said it was an episode which would fit between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla). So far, so good. Eddie Dean hasn’t made me laugh yet, but it’s early. 
I bailed on Death Comes to Pemberley, which just plain sucked and I’m about to set aside Anathem, which I suspect is very good, but more effort than I’m up for right now.
Instead, I’m reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
I’m rereading ‘Gift of Asher Lev’ by Chaim Potok. I think it’s time to reread all of my Potok in a leisurely fashion.